Supply chain network design using an enhanced hybrid swarm-based optimization algorithm

This is the final version. Available from IGI Global via the DOI in this record. Supply chain network design is one of the most important strategic issues in operations management. The main objective in designing a supply chain is to keep the cost as low as possible. However, the modelling of a supply chain requires more than single-objective such as lead-time minimization, service level maximization, and environmental impact maximization among others. Usually these objectives may cause conflicts such as increasing the service level usually causes a growth in costs. Therefore, the aim should be to find trade-off solutions to satisfy the conflicting objectives. The aim of this chapter is to propose a new method based on a hybrid version of the Bees Algorithm with Slope Angle Computation and Hill Climbing Algorithm to solve a multi-objective supply chain network design problem. A real case from the literature has been selected and solved in order to show the potentiality of the proposed method in solving a large scale combinatorial problem

AMYLOIDOSIS AND INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE: FACT OR MITH?

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which includes both Crohn's Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), is a chronic idiopathic inflammatory disorder affecting the gastrointestinal tract. Extraintestinal manifestations (EIM) are common in patients with IBD, and occur in 6-47% of patients with CD or UC. EIM can involve organs other than the gastrointestinal tract such as skin, eyes, joints, biliary tract and kidneis. Renal and urinary involvement particularly occurs in 4-23% of patients with IBD. Among the renal complications of IBD, seconfary amyloidosis (AA-type, AAA) is a rare but serious complication. renal amyloidosis has been proven to be the most common lethal manifestation of IBD-associated amyloidosis, since renal involvement rapidly leads to end-stage renal failure. A few studies suggest that AAA is more prevalent in CD than in UC, mainly occurring in male patients with an extensive long-lasting and penetrating ddisease pattern. The therapeutic approaches of IBD-associated AAA are based both on control of the chronic inflammatory process that causes the production and storage of serum amyloid A (SAA), which is a precursor of the amyloid, as well as on destabilizing amyloid fibrils so that they can no longer maintain their pleated sheet configuration; however, in patients with end-stage renal disease, the only therapeutic options still available are hemodyalisis and renal transplantation. Whether effective treatment exists for AAA remain controversial

POUCHITIS: A TRIDIMENSIONAL VIEW

The preferred surgical treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) and familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is represented by proctocolectomy with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA). However, patients with UYC who have undergone IPAA are prone to develop several complications, which include surgery related/mecchanical complications; inflammatory or infectious disoreders; dysplasia or neoplasia; and systemic or metabolic disorders. Pouchitis, which is defined as the acute and/or chronic inflammation of the ileal reservoir, represent the most common long-term adverese sequela after IPAA. Gut microbiota play a pivotal role in the initiation and disease progression of pouchitis. Pouchitis can be classified according to the activity of the disease, the duration of the symptoms, the pattern of the disease or response to antibiotic therapy. Patients with IPAA for UC tend to experience a variety of symptoms that may eventually lead to pouch excision thereby necessitating the construction of a permanent ileostomy. To date, the ethiology, the diagnosis and the medical management of pouchitis represent a clinical challenge. In fact pouchitis range from a disease with an acute antibiotic-responsive presentation to a chronic antibiotic-refractory form, with subsequent different disease mechanism and clinical course. A tridimensional and multidisciplinar approach, including endoscopy, histology, and laboratory testing is widely helpful to identify the diferent phenotypes of the disease and to manage correctly its treatment

Hybrid Genetic Bees Algorithm applied to Single Machine Scheduling with Earliness and Tardiness Penalties

This paper presents a hybrid Genetic-Bees Algorithm based optimised solution for the single machine scheduling problem. The enhancement of the Bees Algorithm (BA) is conducted using the Genetic Algorithm's (GA's) operators during the global search stage. The proposed enhancement aims to increase the global search capability of the BA gradually with new additions. Although the BA has very successful implementations on various type of optimisation problems, it has found that the algorithm suffers from weak global search ability which increases the computational complexities on NP-hard type optimisation problems e.g. combinatorial/permutational type optimisation problems. This weakness occurs due to using a simple global random search operation during the search process. To reinforce the global search process in the BA, the proposed enhancement is utilised to increase exploration capability by expanding the number of fittest solutions through the genetical variations of promising solutions. The hybridisation process is realised by including two strategies into the basic BA, named as â\u80\u9creinforced global searchâ\u80\u9d and â\u80\u9cjumping functionâ\u80\u9d strategies. The reinforced global search strategy is the first stage of the hybridisation process and contains the mutation operator of the GA. The second strategy, jumping function strategy, consists of four GA operators as single point crossover, multipoint crossover, mutation and randomisation. To demonstrate the strength of the proposed solution, several experiments were carried out on 280 well-known single machine benchmark instances, and the results are presented by comparing to other well-known heuristic algorithms. According to the experiments, the proposed enhancements provides better capability to basic BA to jump from local minima, and GBA performed better compared to BA in terms of convergence and the quality of results. The convergence time reduced about 60% with about 30% better results for highly constrained jobs

Catestatin, vasostatin, cortisol, temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, scores of the short form of the Glasgow composite measure pain scale and visual analog scale for stress and pain behavior in dogs before and after ovariohysterectomy

Background: The stress reaction induced by surgery and associated pain may be detrimental for patient recovery and should be minimized. The neuropeptide chromogranin A (CGA) has shown promise as a sensitive biomarker for stress in humans. Little is known about CGA and its derived peptides, catestatin (CST) and vasostatin (VS), in dogs undergoing surgery. The objectives of this study were to investigate and compare concentrations of CGA epitopes CST and VS, cortisol, body temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, scores of the short form of the Glasgow composite measure pain scale (CMPS-SF) and visual analog scales (VAS) for stress and pain behavior in dogs before and after ovariohysterectomy. Methods: Thirty healthy privately owned female dogs admitted for elective ovariohysterectomy were included. Physical examination, CMPS-SF, pain behavior VAS, and stress behavior VAS were recorded and saliva and blood samples were collected before surgery, 3h after extubation, and once at recall 7–15 days after surgery. Dogs were premedicated with morphine and received carprofen as analgesia for 7 days during the postoperative period. Results: At 3h after extubation, CMPS-SF and pain behavior VAS scores had increased (p<0.0001) and stress behavior VAS scores, temperature, respiratory rate (p<0.0001), plasma CST concentrations (p=0.002) had decreased significantly compared to before surgery. No significant differences were observed in the subjective and physiological parameters between before surgery and at recall, but plasma CST (p=0.04) and serum cortisol (p=0.009) were significantly lower at recall. Plasma VS, saliva CST, and heart rate did not differ significantly at any observed time. Conclusion: Study parameters for evaluating surgery-induced stress and pain changed in dogs subjected to ovariohysterectomy. To further evaluate CST and VS usefulness as pain biomarkers, studies on dogs in acute painful situations are warranted