Disruption Management Optimization for Military Logistics

Part 3: Financial and Management Applications of AIInternational audienceTo ensure long-term competitiveness, companies try to maintain a high level of agility, flexibility and responsiveness. In many domains, hierarchical SCs are considered as dynamic systems that deal with many perturbations. In this paper, we handle a specific type of supply chain: a Crisis Management Supply Chain (CMSC). Supply during peacetime can be managed by proactive logistics plans and classic supply chain management techniques to guaranty the availability of required needs. However, in case of perturbations (time of war, natural disasters...) the need for support increases dramatically and logistics plans need to be adjusted rapidly. Subjective variables like risk, uncertainty and vulnerability will be used in conjunction with objective variables such as inventory levels, delivery times and financial loss to determine preferred courses of action

Demand Forecast, Supply and Equilibrium Price on the Deposit Market: Methodology and Experience of Ukraine

The purpose of the article is to conduct forecasting of demand, supply and equilibrium prices on the deposit market of Ukraine, which provides for a refinement of the criteria base for the selection of forecasting methods (taking into account world experience, the reporting system and the course of financial sector reform in Ukraine) and indicators for estimating the quality of the forecast taking into account the complexity of the sample and time lag. This has made it possible to study the peculiar features of the periods of functioning of the deposit market of Ukraine in equilibrium and formalize the functional dependencies for forecasting demand, supply and equilibrium interest rates in this market, taking into account the detected time lags

A novel 4 dimensional hyperchaotic system with its control, Synchronization and Implementation

This paper presents a new hyperchaotic system which shows some interesting features, the system is 4-dimensional with 4 nonlinearities. An extensive numerical analysis has showed that the system has some interesting features and strange behaviors. The numerical analysis includes studying the effect of system parameters and initial conditions. Some of the important properties of the system with parameter set, in which the system is hyperchaotic, such as Lyapunov exponents and Lyapunov dimension, dissipation and symmetry are found and discussed. In the next part of our work, a tracking controller for the proposed system is designed and then a synchronization control system for two identical systems is designed. The design procedure uses combination of a simple synergetic control with adaptive updating laws to identify the unknown parameters derived basing on Lyapunov theorem. Hardware implementation based on microcontroller unit (MCU) board is proposed and tested and used to experimentally validate the designed control and synchronization systems. As an application, the designed synchronization system is used as a secure analogue communication system. Using MATLAB, Simulation study for the control and synchronization systems is presented. The simulation and experimental study have been showed excellent results

Rejection of human intestinal allografts: Alone or in combination with the liver

The current results of the present series demonstrate that intestinal allografts are more vulnerable to rejection and continue to be at a significantly higher risk long after transplantation compared with isolated liver allograft recipients. Unexpectedly, a combined liver allograft does not protect small bowel from rejection. The necessarily continuous heavy immunosuppression for these unique recipients is potentially self-defeating. This is clearly demonstrated by their high susceptibility to early and late infectious complications after transplantation as reported in this issue. With the minimal graft-versus-host disease threat in this clinical trial, our revised protocol for future intestinal transplantation is to maximize the passenger leukocyte traffic with supplementary bone marrow from the same intestinal donor in an attempt to augment the development of systemic chimerism and the gradual induction of donor-specific nonreactivity

Differences in educational attainment between obese and non-obese Kuwaiti female university students

Individuals with obesity tend to perform less well than their non-obese peers in tertiary education, but there is little evidence from non-Western countries and recent studies. The present study aimed to test whether academic attainment differed between female undergraduates with obesity (defined by body mass index (BMI)), and those who were non-obese in Kuwait, a country with very high obesity prevalence. In 400 female Kuwaiti first- and second-year Social Science students (mean age 18⋅0, sd 0⋅6 years), educational attainment was defined as the Grade Point Average (GPA) across all subjects (from 1⋅00 to 4⋅00). The mean GPA (2⋅51, sd 0⋅53) among students defined as obese by the BMI (n 163) was significantly lower than among the students defined as non-obese by the BMI (n 237; 2⋅80, sd 0⋅63; P < 0⋅001), and those defined as obese were more likely to be in the lowest quartile for the GPA (OR 3⋅03; 95% CI 1⋅90, 4⋅85), independent of socio-economic status. Similar differences were observed between students defined as having high versus normal body fatness. Female undergraduates in Kuwait with obesity have lower academic attainment than their non-obese peers, and universities should consider measures to mitigate reduced attainment among their female undergraduates

Coverage and Energy Analysis of Mobile Sensor Nodes in Obstructed Noisy Indoor Environment: A Voronoi Approach

The rapid deployment of wireless sensor network (WSN) poses the challenge of finding optimal locations for the network nodes, especially so in (i) unknown and (ii) obstacle-rich environments. This paper addresses this challenge with BISON (Bio-Inspired Self-Organizing Network), a variant of the Voronoi algorithm. In line with the scenario challenges, BISON nodes are restricted to (i) locally sensed as well as (ii) noisy information on the basis of which they move, avoid obstacles and connect with neighboring nodes. Performance is measured as (i) the percentage of area covered, (ii) the total distance traveled by the nodes, (iii) the cumulative energy consumption and (iv) the uniformity of nodes distribution. Obstacle constellations and noise levels are studied systematically and a collision-free recovery strategy for failing nodes is proposed. Results obtained from extensive simulations show the algorithm outperforming previously reported approaches in both, convergence speed, as well as deployment cost.Comment: 17 pages, 24 figures, 1 tabl

Preparation and evaluation of multivalent infectious bronchitis vaccine from commercial vaccine strains

This study was designed to prepare and evaluate multivalent live attenuated (IBV) vaccine (lyophilized seed) from the commercial IBH120, 4\91 and MA5 strains in ALkindy Company for Drug and Vaccines Production, to reduce economic losses and increase the broad protection against infectious bronchitis disease in chickens. The viruses inoculated via chorioallantoic cavity route with 0.1 ml at 9-11 days embryonated eggs obtained from unvaccinated layers against IBV and were passaged for several times, then three equal doses of the strains were mixed, and the embryonated eggs were inoculated with 0.1 ml of the mixed vaccine. After 72 hours the allantoic fluids (Vaccine) were collected. The results of the infective dose of the new vaccine were 103.2 EID50 /Bird. This multivalent live attenuated IB vaccine was tested for (safety, purity, potency, and sterility test) according to the international protocol steps of vaccine production. Efficacy of multivalent vaccine was evaluated (depending on ELISA, HI, and challenge test) by using 160 one day old (Ross 308) chicks divided into four equal groups (40 chicks of each group) reared in well-isolated places. Group (A) was vaccinated with three doses (0.3 ml) of multivalent live attenuated IB vaccine, group (B) was vaccinated with two doses (0.2 ml), group (C) was vaccinated with one dose (0.1 ml) of the multivalent live attenuated IB vaccine via ocular route at the 8th day of age, and group (D) was left without vaccination as a control group. Blood was collected at (1, 8, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42) days for ELISA test. The mean titer of maternal immunity at day one of age was 4849.8±1161.8, decreased to 69.9±35.92 at the 8th day of age before vaccination. The serum of control group was seen avuncular from IB antibodies at the 14th day of age. The experiment showed significant differences (p<0.05) titers resulting from the use of different doses (0.3 ml, 0.2 ml, and 0.1 ml) at age of 14 days, it was 255.30±15.00, 736.60±94.00 and 545.50±17.00 respectively in comparison with zero in control group. The challenge test carried out for different groups with (IB- field isolated Variant 2 strain 105 EID50 / bird which was supplied from Veterinary Directorate) at 28 days old with 0.5 ml through ocular route. Ten birds from each group were taken randomly. According to the clinical signs, morbidity and mortality rate, gross lesion, and the antibody titer, the results carried out that protection rate in group B was higher than others groups, then group C and group A respectively, the test revealed significant differences (p<0.05) between the vaccinated groups, and also between vaccinated groups and the control group. This study has concluded the possibility of production IB multivalent live attenuated vaccine (broad protection vaccine) using different IB Vaccine strains in chickens

Effect of diet supplementation on growth and reproduction in camels under arid range conditions

Eighteen pregnant dromedary females (Camelus dromedarius) were used to determine the effect of concentrate supplement on growth and reproductive performances in peri-partum period. The females were divided into supplemented (n = 9; S) and unsupplemented (n = 9; C) experimental groups. All animals grazed, with one mature male, 7 to 8 hours per day on salty pasture rangelands. During night, they were kept in pen, where each female of group S received 4 kg per day of concentrate supplement during the last 3 months of gestation and 5 kg per day during the first 3 months post-partum. During the last 90 days of gestation daily body weight gain (DBG) was at least tenfold more important in group S than in group C (775 g vs. 72 g respectively). Supplementation affected birth weight of offspring (30.3 kg vs. 23.4 kg) and its DBG (806 g vs. 430 g) in group S and group C respectively. During the post-partum period, females in group S gained in weight (116 g per day) whereas females in group C lost more than 200 g per day. The mean post-partum interval to the first heat and the percentage of females in heat were 29.5 day and 44.4/ vs. 41.2 day and 71.4/ for the C and S groups, respectively. We conclude that under range conditions, dietary supplementation of dromedary during late pregnancy stage and post-partum period improves productive and reproductive parameters

Sequencing mixed-model assembly lines in just-in-time production systems

This thesis proposes a new simulated annealing approach to solve multiple objective sequencing problems in mixed-model assembly lines. Mixed-model assembly lines are a type of production line where a variety of product models similar in product characteristics are assembled. Such an assembly line is increasingly accepted in industry to cope with the recently observed trend of diversification of customer demands. Sequencing problems are important for an efficient use of mixed-model assembly lines. There is a rich of criteria on which to judge sequences of product models in terms of line utilization. We consider three practically important objectives: the goal of minimizing the variation of the actual production from the desired production, which is minimizing usage variation, workload smoothing in order to reduce the chance of production delays and line stoppages and minimizing total set-ups cost. A considerate line manager would like to take into account all these factors. These are important for an efficient operation of mixed-model assembly lines. They work efficiently and find good solution in a very short time, even when the size of the problem is too large. The multiple objective sequencing problems is described and its mathematical formulation is provided. Simulated annealing algorithms are designed for near or optimal solutions and find an efficiency frontier of all efficient design configurations for the problem. This approach combines the SA methodology with a specific neighborhood search, which in the case of this study is a "swapping two sequence". Two annealing methods are proposed based on this approach, which differ only in cooling and freezing schedules. This research used correlation to describe the degree of relationship between results obtained by method B and other heuristics method and also for quality of our algorithm ANOVA's of output is constructed to analyse and evaluate the accuracy of the CPU time taken to determine near or optimal solution.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceMinistry of Culture and Higher Education of the Islamic Republic of IranGBUnited Kingdo