Agricultural food supply chains of different grains such as wheat, rice, and corn include several processes from cropping and harvesting to distribution. Integrating these processes to reduce costs, in addition to providing sufficient supply, are of the major goals of agri-food supply chain management. Rice is an important grain that constitutes an important part of people’s diets throughout the world. FAO predicts that global rice utilization would increase over the next few years. Considering rice's importance, in this paper, a mixed-integer linear mathematical model for designing and planning of rice supply chain is proposed which aims to maximize total profit by integrating different decisions of the rice supply chain including supplier selection, cropping, fertilizing, pest control, harvesting, milling, transportation, and distribution. This model considers different rice varieties and takes into account irrigation water requirements of crops and available water resources. A case study of Iran farmlands in Gilan province is employed to show the applicability and advantages of the proposed model for the rice supply chain. Results indicate that increasing conversion ratio of paddy to rice and reducing labor costs would have a significant impact on the total profit of the supply chain.

Globalization and increasing competition in global markets have forced businesses to provide a high level of service to their customers. Time-sensitive transportation systems which are used in transportation of perishable goods, express mail delivery, and emergency services are playing a very important role in this regard. This paper addresses the problem of uncapacitated multiple allocation p-hub center problem (UMApHCP) which is fundamental in proper functioning of time-sensitive transportation systems. A mixed-integer programming formulation is proposed for the problem and a highly efficient Benders decomposition algorithm is developed for solving it. The proposed algorithm is capable of solving large-scale instances of the problem to optimality in order of seconds.

Capacitated maximal covering location problems (MCLP) have considered capacity constraint of facilities but these models have been studied in only one direction. In this paper, capacitated MCLP and dynamic MCLP are integrated with each other and dynamic capacity constraint is considered for facilities. Since MCLP is NP-hard and commercial software packages are unable to solve such problems in a rational time, Genetic algorithm (GA) and bee algorithm are proposed to solve this problem. In order to achieve better performance, these algorithms are tuned by Taguchi method. Sample problems are generated randomly. Results show that GA provides better solutions than bee algorithm in a shorter amount of time.

In this work, the Fe₃O₄@SiO₂@AMBI/Cu nanocatalyst was synthesized and used as a well-organized magnetic nanocatalyst for the click reaction. This nanocatalyst has effectively catalyzed the cyclization of terminal alkynes and sodium azide with aryl iodide/benzyl halide for the formation of 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazoles under mild reaction conditions with good to high yields in low reaction time.

This study aims to design a new model for selecting most fitting new product development projects in a pool of projects. To catch the best model, we assume new products will be introduced to the competitive markets. Also, we suppose the revenue yielded by completed projects can be reinvested on implementation of other projects. Other sources of financing are borrowing loans from banks and initial capital of the firm. These limited resources determine most evaluated projects to be performed. Several types of interactions among different projects are considered to make the chosen projects more like a portfolio. In addition, some numerical examples from the real world are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model. These examples show how the particular considerations in the suggested model affect the results.

The numerical simulation of fatigue behavior of the Aluminum 7075-T6 cantilever beam with an angular crack has been investigated. Cracks are located separately in three different positions of the investigated beam. To predict the fatigue behavior of the cantilever beam the crack propagation was manually simulated. Compression load is applied in different stress ratios between zero and one; then, the obtained numerical results of this research are compared with the experimental results. It is observed that increasing the stress ratio increases the percentage of the fatigue life of the sample significantly. Ascending growth of fatigue life is slow and more severe by increasing of the stress ratio for the first and the third position, respectively. By increasing the stress ratio, the rate of deviation of the crack decreases and it converges to 0° in parallel to the width of the beam. This result is also observed with an increase in the distance from the support of beam. Furthermore, it is also revealed that by the increase in the initial length of the crack, the fatigue life initially reduces with smaller ratios. However, along the larger cracks, the decreasing ratio of fatigue life increases significantly.

In this paper, economic analysis on the effect of polyester fibers with high strength on the behavior of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is performed. The results indicate that strength is increased by adding fiber to asphalt. Also, unit weight of asphalt mixture was used as a variable parameter in the analyses. The results show that in some certain percentages of fiber, in addition to the enhancement in mechanical properties of HMA mixture the economic benefit value becomes more than the cost and therefore adding polyester fibers with high stability is suggested for the mixture of modified asphalt concrete. Finally, it can be concluded that adding fibers in values of 0.2% to 0.5% has the best result on the asphalt mixture, which because of high resistance and economic aspects makes it more efficient to be used in the highways of warm regions containing traffic.

Optimum design and control of a Combined Cooling, Heating and Power generation (CCHP) system, in addition to the economic benefits, could be profitable in environmental and energy consumption aspects. The aim of this study is to determine the optimal capacity of equipment and define the best control strategy of a CCHP system. Since determination of optimal system control strategy has a huge impact on improving the objective functions, the system’s performance under five different strategies (developed based on well-known Following Electrical Load (FEL) and Following Thermal Load (FTL) strategies) is evaluated. In a real case study, a CCHP system is designed for an educational complex located in Mahmoudabad, Mazandaran, Iran. The objective is to minimize capital and operational costs, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions of the system. Due to the complexities of the model, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm are used to find the optimal values of the decision variables. The results show that using FEL strategy CO2 emissions reduces in compression to FTL strategy. Furthermore, using multiple power generation units under FTL strategy eventuates the least cost but increases CO2 emissions and energy consumption in compression to FEL strategy.

The collaboration between the universities and industries is currently in the focus of attention globally. Governments, universities, and industries are interested in good and effective collaboration, which would be beneficial for all parties. To foster University-Industry Collaboration, and to help transfer the knowledge and technology between these two parties, academics, politicians and companies are paying attention to science and technology policies more than ever. In this study, the factors affecting the improvement of University-Industry Collaboration are identified and prioritized. In the first step, 20 factors are identified and 12 factors are selected using the Fuzzy Delphi method. Then, using the BWM method, prioritizing the extracted factors is determined for industry sponsorship of the university research. Finally, based on the results, the discussion is conducted and six major strategies are presented to improve this relationship.

Human resource productivity is one of the vital notions in the management of modern organizations. Many studies concerned with this notion have tried to identify the factors affecting productivity and its improvement. One of these important factors is organizational spirituality. The present study investigated the impact of organizational spirituality, from an Islamic perspective, on human resources productivity in BELFA Co., Iran, as a manufacturing organization. The study relied on a descriptive survey method and used structural equation modeling to analyze data in Smart-PLS software to fit the measurement model and the structural model. Results revealed that spirituality could predict 26% of the variance of Human resources productivity in the company, proving to be an effective factor.