Quality management systems selection using FAHP and mixed integer programming

In current paper, an organized and quantitative approach is proposed for selection of quality management systems. The proposed model of this paper first uses fuzzy analytic hierarchical process to rank different quality management systems. Since there are normally various constraints associated with the selection of quality management, we propose a 0-1 programming for selecting an optimal mix of quality management systems. We also use the proposed model of this paper for a real-world case study of research center in aerial industries and the results are discussed

Performance of Full-Scale Reinforced Concrete Columns Subjected to Extreme Earthquake Loading

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. December 2015. Major: Civil Engineering. Advisor: Arturo Schultz. 1 computer file (PDF); xvii, 217 pages.Seven full-scale reinforced concrete (RC) columns were tested at the Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing (MAST) Laboratory of the University of Minnesota to investigate their performance under extreme seismic events that would produce near-collapse conditions. One of the goals of the tests was to investigate any potential differences in performance with column size, thus, the test specimens were larger than nearly all of the columns tested previously. In order to investigate the adequacy of current provisions, the specimens were designed according to seismic provisions of ACI 318-11 and featured two different cross sections (36×28 in. and 28×28 in.). Another goal of the program was to investigate the influence of loading history, thus the column specimens were subjected to several large displacement loading protocols, including monotonic and uniaxial and biaxial cyclic loading protocols. The last overall goal of the program was to investigate the post-peak behavior of the specimens at near-collapse conditions, hence loading on the specimens continued beyond the stopping criteria in previous tests until the specimens exhibited severe strength loss and stiffness degradation. Results from these tests were combined with the available dataset of RC column tests to study the effects of cross-sectional size on parameters representing seismic performance of columns including moment capacity, effective stiffness, drift capacity, displacement ductility, and reinforcing bar buckling. It was revealed that unlike the other parameters, specimens featuring larger cross-sectional depths are more prone to in-plane bar buckling, a failure mechanism that has never been reported during previous tests of RC columns. Unlike outward buckling of bars, in-plane bar buckling is not generally controlled by confining reinforcement; rather it is the concrete surrounding the bars that restrain them from in-plane buckling. To better understand this phenomenon, finite element (FE) models of isolated bars as well as a three-dimensional (3D) FE model of the lower portion of the tested specimens were analyzed. A parametric study indicates that concrete compressive strength, bar size and overall cross-sectional size of the columns can affect bar buckling while the effects of longitudinal bar and tie spacing are minor. The evolution of damage during application of the various loading protocols was quantified using several cumulative and noncumulative damage index models. In addition, observed visual damage to the specimens was used to assess calculated damage indices based on different models. Calculated and measured damage quantities were considered in combination with the lateral force-deformation cyclic envelope, strength loss, stiffness reduction, and hysteretic energy dissipation of the specimens to study the effects of applied loading protocols on the performance of tested column specimens

Causes and risk factors of urinary incontinence: Avicenna's point of view vs. contemporary findings

Purpose: To extract the causes and risk factors of urinary incontinence from an old medical text by Avicenna entitled "Canon of Medicine" and comparing it with contemporary studies. Materials and Methods: In this study, etiology and risk factors of urinary incontinence were extracted from Avicenna's "Canon of Medicine". Commentaries written on this book and other old reliable medical texts about bladder and its diseases were also studied. Then the achieved information was compared with contemporary findings of published articles. Results: Urinary incontinence results from bladder dysfunction in reservoir phase. Bladder's involuntary muscles and voluntary external sphincter are two main components which are involved in this process. Urinary incontinence can exist without obvious structural and neuronal etiologies. According to Avicenna, distemperment of muscular tissue of bladder and external sphincter is the cause for urinary incontinence in such cases. Distemperment is the result of bothering qualities in tissue, i.e.: "wet" and "cold". They are the two bothering qualities which are caused by extracorporeal and intracorporeal factors. Interestingly, the positive associations of some of these factors with urinary incontinence have been shown in recent researches. Conclusion: "Cold" and "wet" distemperment of bladder and external sphincter can be independent etiologies of urinary incontinence which should be investigated

Variables predictivas de riesgo de conducta suicida en pacientes a seguimiento en el Programa de Intervención Intensiva

El suicidio representa un problema destacado en la actualidad. Una línea de prevención e intervención es la detección de los factores de riesgo. En este estudio se pretende identificar variables predictoras de repetición de intento de suicidio en pacientes con seguimiento en un Programa de Intervención Intensiva (PII). Se llevó a cabo un estudio observacional de carácter retrospectivo. La muestra la forman los pacientes incluidos en el PII por intento de suicidio. De la muestra de 319 pacientes, 29 (9%) realizaron una repetición del intento autolítico, 22 (76%) durante los primeros 6 meses del programa

Bayesian Statistical Analysis in Coastal Eutrophication Models: Challenges and Solutions

<p>Estuaries interfacing with the land, atmosphere and open oceans can be influenced in a variety of ways by anthropogenic activities. Centuries of overexploitation, habitat transformation, and pollution have degraded estuarine ecological health. Key concerns of public and environmental managers of estuaries include water quality, particularly the enrichment of nutrients, increased chlorophyll a concentrations, increased hypoxia/anoxia, and increased Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). One reason for the increased nitrogen loading over the past two decades is the proliferation of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in coastal areas. This dissertation documents a study of estuarine eutrophication modeling, including modeling of major source of nitrogen in the watershed, the use of the Bayesian Networks (BNs) for modeling eutrophication dynamics in an estuary, a documentation of potential problems of using BNs, and a continuous BN model for addressing these problems.</p><p>Environmental models have emerged as great tools to transform data into useful information for managers and policy makers. Environmental models contain uncertainty due to natural ecosystems variability, current knowledge of environmental processes, modeling structure, computational restrictions, and problems with data/observations due to measurement error or missingness. Many methodologies capable of quantifying uncertainty have been developed in the scientic literature. Examples of such methods are BNs, which utilize conditional probability tables to describe the relationships among variables. This doctoral dissertation demonstrates how BNs, as probabilistic models, can be used to model eutrophication in estuarine ecosystems and to explore the effects of plausible future climatic and nutrient pollution management scenarios on water quality indicators. The results show interaction among various predictors and their impact on ecosystem health. The synergistic eftects between nutrient concentrations and climate variability caution future management actions.</p><p>BNs have several distinct strengths such as the ability to update knowledge based on Bayes' theorem, modularity, accommodation of various knowledge sources and data types, suitability to both data-rich and data-poor systems, and incorporation of uncertainty. Further, BNs' graphical representation facilitates communicating models and results with environmental managers and decision-makers. However, BNs have certain drawbacks as well. For example, they can only handle continuous variables under severe restrictions (1- Each continuous variable be assigned a (linear) conditional Normal distribution; 2- No discrete variable have continuous parents). The solution, thus far, to address this constraint has been discretizing variables. I designed an experiment to evaluate and compare the impact of common discretization methods on BNs. The results indicate that the choice of discretization method severely impacts the model results; however, I was unable to provide any criteria to select an optimal discretization method.</p><p>Finally, I propose a continuous variable Bayesian Network methodology and demonstrate its application for water quality modeling in estuarine ecosystems. The proposed method retains advantageous characteristics of BNs, while it avoids the drawbacks of discretization by specifying the relationships among the nodes using statistical and conditional probability models. The Bayesian nature of the proposed model enables prompt investigation of observed patterns, as new conditions unfold. The network structure presents the underlying ecological ecosystem processes and provides a basis for science communication. I demonstrate model development and temporal updating using the New River Estuary, NC data set and spatial updating using the Neuse River Estuary, NC data set.</p>Dissertatio

Explain "Weakness" in Traditional Iranian Medicine

زمینه و هدف: مفهوم اولیه‌ای که از واژه ضعف برداشت می‌شود، حالت ناخوشایندی همراه با کاهش یا فقدان توان فیزیکی و ذهنی است که مانع فعالیت‌های معمول و مطلوب می‌گردد. ضعف با این مفهوم، پدیده شایعی است و اثرات جدی روی کیفیت زندگی فردی و اجتماعی دارد. امروزه حوزه سلامت، در زمینه تشخیص و تعیین علل ضعف با چالش‌های بسیاری رو به رو است. بررسی رویکرد طب سنتی با پشتوانه دانشی کهن، باب تازه‌ای را در تدبیر ضعف، به روی ما می‌گشاید. مقدمه این امر بررسی انواع ضعف و علل و اسباب آن در متون کهن طب سنتی می‌باشد. مواد و روش‌ها: مطالعه حاضر به صورت مروری در متون اصلی طب سنتی با استفاده از نرم‌افزار جامع نور با واژه کلیدی ضعف و ضعیف انجام گردید. جهت بررسی نظرات پژوهشگران عصر حاضر، موتورهای جستجو SID، PubMed، Magiran، Up to Date، Google Scholar Scopus و نوپا با واژگان کلیدی Fatigue و Weakness بررسی شدند. نتیجه‌گیری: ضعف در متون طب سنتی دو قسم می‌شود: 1ـ ضعف عمومی بدن؛ 2ـ ضعف عملکردی عضوی واحد. هر کدام از این دو قسم می‌تواند به طریق سرشتی، در فرد ایجاد یا به شکل اکتسابی، کسب شده باشد. انواع اکتسابی ضعف عمومی بدن، دارای اسباب و عللی هستند که در برخی موارد با اسباب ضعف در تک‌تک اعضا هم‌پوشانی دارند. Fatigue از نظر تعریف و علائم با ضعف عمومی بدن و Organ Failure با ضعف عملکردی اعضا در طب سنتی مطابقت دارد. با در نظرگرفتن اسباب و درمان‌های ضعف در طب سنتی می‌توان در مدیریت ضعف عام (عمومی) و خاص (عملکردی اعضا)، راه‌کارهای جدیدی ارائه داد.Background and Aim: The initial concept that is extracted from the term "weakness" is unpleasant condition with a reduction or lack of physical and mental powers that impede the normal and desired outcomes. Weakness in this concept is a common phenomenon and has serious effects on the quality of individual and social life. Today, the field of health is faced with many challenges in identifying and determining the causes of weakness. The study of traditional medicine with the support of ancient knowledge opens new horizons to us for weakness. The aim of this study is to investigate the types of weakness and its causes in the ancient texts of traditional medicine. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in the main texts of traditional medicine using the "Noor" software by weak and weakness keywords. The search engines Up to date, SID, Magiran, PubMed, Scholar and Scopus were reviewed with weakness and fatigue keywords. Conclusion: In terms of definition and symptoms fatigue and organ failure agree with general body weakness and functional weakness of organs. Considering the causes of weakness in traditional medicine, we can present new solutions in general and special (functional) weakness. &nbsp; Please cite this article as: Nojavan F, Pourhosseini M, Ashouri A. Explain "Weakness" in Traditional Iranian Medicine. Med Hist J 2020; 12(43): 99-109

Pacta Sunt Servanda

The necessity of accomplishing the contract has been expressed in the form of the principle of irrevocability, the irrevocability of fulfilling the contract, fulfilling the covenant, holiness and compulsory of contracts, irrevocability and compulsory of contract. The purpose of all these principles is summarized in the contract and becomes a binding force as soon as it is created, to which the parties participating are bound by its provisions. In jurisprudence and Iranian law, the pacta sunt servanda is interpreted as the principle of the irrevocability of contracts. the pacta sunt servanda has been accepted in jurisprudence and Iranian law. The principle of irrevocability is different from that of the pacta sunt servanda. From 219 of the Civil Code, some have inferred the principle of irrevocability in the position of doubt in the revocability and irrevocability of contracts, and others have inferred the pacta sunt servanda of absolute contracts, both revocable and irrevocable. This article tries to identify the pacta sunt servanda in Iranian law, provisions, concepts, and sources and explain its differences with the principle of irrevocability and similar principles in Iranian law, jurisprudence, and foreign la

Co-optimized bidding strategy of an integrated wind-thermal-photovoltaic system in deregulated electricity market under uncertainties

Clean Energy sources, such as wind and solar, have become an inseparable part of today's power grids. However, the intermittent nature of these sources has become the greatest challenge for their owners, which makes the bidding in the restructured electricity market more challenging. Hence, the main goal of this paper is to propose a novel multi-objective bidding strategy framework for a wind-thermal-photovoltaic system in the deregulated electricity market for the first time. Contrary to the existing bidding models, in the proposed model, two objective functions are taken into account that the first one copes with profit maximization while the second objective function concerns with emission minimization of thermal units. The proposed multi-objective optimization problem is solved using the weighted sum approach. The uncertainties associated with electricity market prices and the output power of renewable energy sources are characterized by a set of scenarios. Ultimately, in order to select the best-compromised solution among the obtained Pareto optimal solutions, two diverse approaches are applied. The proposed bidding strategy problem is being formulated and examined in various modes of joint and disjoint operation of dispatchable and non-dispatchable energy sources. Simulation results illustrate that not only the integrated participation of these resources increases the producer's expected profit, but also decreases the amount of the produced pollution by the thermal units.© 2019 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY–NC–ND 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Desmoplastic melanocytic nevi with lymphocytic aggregates

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93698/1/cup1962.pd