Truck Selection with the Fuzzy-WSM Method in Transportation Systems of Open Pit Mines

Open pit mines gain width and become more complicated as they are deeper today, and it is inevitable to carry the produced material with a truck transportation system. Therefore, in large-scale businesses, truck selection has great importance for the transportation costs to be sustainable. This study investigates the main factors and corresponding criteria influential in selection of trucks, which are the most frequent used means of transportation in open pit mines. Analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy weighted sum model are employed to solve the selection problem. Six different truck types and 20 selection criteria are considered. As a result of technical analysis, most suitable trucks are found

Structure of the TPR Domain of AIP: Lack of Client Protein Interaction with the C-Terminal alpha-7 Helix of the TPR Domain of AIP Is Sufficient for Pituitary Adenoma Predisposition

PMCID: PMC3534021This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Association of Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels with Markers for Metabolic Syndrome in the Elderly: A Repeated Measure Analysis

The purpose of current study was to investigate associations of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (OHVD) levels with markers for metabolic syndrome in elderly Koreans. We conducted a panel study on 301 individuals over 60 yr old in Seoul, Korea, and repeatedly measured serum OHVD, glucose, insulin, and lipid levels. Mixed effect model and generalized estimating equations were used to investigate relationships between serum OHVD levels with marker levels for metabolic syndrome and each of its categories. Of all subjects, 76.6% were vitamin D deficient (< 50 nM) and 16.9% were insufficient (< 75 nM). Inverse association was demonstrated between serum OHVD levels and insulin (P = 0.004), triglyceride (P = 0.023) and blood pressure (systolic blood pressure: P = 0.002; diastolic blood pressure: P < 0.001). Vitamin D deficiency was found to increase risk of 'hypertriglyceridemia' category of metabolic syndrome (odds ratio: 1.73, 95% confidence interval: 1.13-2.66). In conclusion, we found from our repeated measure analysis that decreasing serum OHVD levels are associated with increasing insulin resistance, increasing serum triglyceride levels and increasing blood pressure in elderly Koreans, and confirmed on the risk of 'hypertriglyceridemia' in vitamin D deficient subjects

Melekli-Kultepe (Igdir) Mound, Urartian Fortress and Columbarium in Minuahinili (Karakoyunlu) on the northern slope of Mt Agri

WOS: 000403014500006In this article the Urartian settlement in Melekli-Igdir is discussed together with the new sites investigated during the Mt Agri survey and the excavations undertaken at the Melekli-Kultepe Columbarium by P. F. Petrov (1913) and K. Balkan (1966). The most remarkable sites of Mt Agri survey are those described as complex settlements, these are Melekli and Karakoyunlu on the north foot and Bozkurt on the south foot. These kinds of settlements spread over a vast area were inhabited for a long period between the Late Chalcolithic Period and the Middle Iron Age (Urartu) or the Late Iron Age (Achaemenid), related to each other. There are mounds, fortresses, lower cities and cemeteries that comprise different periods in the horizontal stratification system at each one of these complex settlements in important locations. Melekli and Karakoyunlu located at the north foothills of Mt Agri and Igdir Plain - Aras Valley posses complexes of the area with the most important archaeological finds. Melekli and Karakoyunlu are important centers also for the Early Iron Age and Middle Iron Age (Urartu). This region was taken within the Urartian borders in the conquest of Eriqua, an Early Iron Age local kingdom, and a new province was established by the Urartian King Minua (810-785/780 BC). Besides its fertile soils, the Igdir Plain - Aras Valley was also important with regards to being a gateway point for southern Transcaucasia-northwestern Iran. According to the inscriptions, King Minua built his new city Minuahinili at Karakoyunlu (Fortress II) as the center of the new province besides another Fortress (Bulakbasi 2). Numerous new Urartian fortresses which were detected in our research indicate that the city of Minuahinili had developed through the new settlement over the course of adjustments conducted at this region and Southern Caucasia-Northwestern Iran by both Minua and the subsequent kings: Melekli-Lanetlitepe and Bozkurt Fortress II were outposts - road stations situated on both sides of the Mt Agri western pass; Omeraga-Golyuzu Fortress was the central fortress located at the southern slope; the Aktas Fortress was a garrison-city on the northern slope. Melekli Urartian settlement contains an outpost - road station (Lanetlitepe Fortress), which was probably established by King Minua. Its inhabitation seems to have persisted without interruption, together with the settlement and columbarium at Kultepe Mound and the fort (?) (Deliktas Mound). Melekli, with its location at the west end of the plain and on the Mt Agri - southern Transcaucasia - northwestern Iran gateway, was the most important point between the city of Minuahinili and Eastern Anatolia

JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT & FUZZY SYSTEMS

In this study a general methodology employing fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy goal programming is developed for selection problems. The proposed methodology has two main sub-phases. In the first phase, fuzzy triangular numbers are used in order to represent the comparisons among decision criteria. Then lower and upper bounds as well as mid-values of priorities belonging to each decision criteria are computed. In the second phase these values and fuzzy triangular numbers are entered into the goal programming model and the model is solved to give the final priorities of decision criteria. Then the weighted sum of ratings for each selection alternative are found where the weights are final priorities from goal programming model. The proposed methodology is presented on a real life roadheader selection problem from mining industry. The results revealed that the methodology is easily applicable and provides satisfactory results

UNCERTAINTY MODELING IN KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING AND DECISION MAKING

Purchasing activities of a company form a very important part in the operation of the company. The quality of production and services mainly rely on the performance of the suppliers. In addition, a large amount of the product's total cost belongs to the purchasing cost of its materials. Therefore, selecting the most suitable suppliers is very important for the firm. Unfortunately, most of the time, suppliers cannot provide the highest quality parts on-time at the lowest costs in the market. In other words, quality, delivery and cost objectives conflict with each other. In this study a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach is employed for the supplier selection problem of a textile company. First the selection criteria according to company's objectives are determined. Then the pair-wise comparisons are made on a fuzzy basis. Similarly, in the next step, the six alternative suppliers are compared by fuzzy means. Finally, the two suppliers which achieved the highest performance are advised to the company

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY

The three-dimensional cutting problem is one of the major problems faced in the marble factories. Huge marble blocks coming from marble quarries are first cut into planes according to their depths. Then these planes are sized according to the length and width of the demanded products. In this study, the cutting problem of a marble processing factory is handled. Two different integer programming (IP) approaches are developed. In the first one, an IP model is built for each of the two cutting problems, which are cutting marble blocks into planes and sizing these planes. In the second approach, these two IP models are integrated together to handle the two different cutting operations together. The objective of both models is to minimize total spoilage of marble while finding the cutting designs of the marble blocks and marble planes. A number of real life problems are solved using both approaches. Computational results are compared statistically. Results showed that both approaches decrease the wasted amount of marble compared to the industry's average

KUWAIT JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

Roadheaders are being used in development roads in underground mines. Especially, as total reserve is enough for large investments and mine roads, roadheaders are important to increase production rate. Roadheaders are classified according to the weight head drive or total power. In this study, the effects of several factors on roadheader performance is examined. The factors examined are power of the machine, weight of the machine, ratio of power to weight, drilling rate index, uniaxial compressive strength and rock mass rating. Instantaneous cutting ratio is used to define the performance of the machine. Response surface methodology and linear regression are used to investigate the relations between these variables. In the results of the study, machine performance is found to be highly correlated with machine power (P), weight (W) and the P/W ratio of the machine

APPLIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This article considers fresh goods distribution of a retail chain store in Turkey. The problem is formulated as a vehicle routing problem with a heterogeneous fleet for which no exact algorithm has ever been designed to solve it. A fast and effective algorithm based on constraint programming is proposed for the solution. The procedure is tested on some of the benchmark problems in literature. The real-life case is first solved assuming that delivery of a customer cannot be split between vehicles. Then it is resolved considering split deliveries. Solutions of both strategies are compared with the current performance of the firm to determine a distribution strategy. Results indicate considerable improvement in the performance of the firm