1-(2,5-Dichlorophenyl)hydrazine was converted via Fischer synthesis with isopropylmethylketone into 4,7-dichloro-2,3,3-trimethyl-3H-indole. Exposure of the indolenine to the vilsmeier reagent produced amino methylene malondialdehyde which reacted with hydrazine, arylhydrazine, urea, cyanoacetamide and thiourea to give pyrazols, pyrimidones and thiopyrimidone, respectively.

This research presents a new bi-level bi-objective production-routing-inventory model for a medi-cine supply chain. In this case, the production is executed by multi-separated producers in a multi-production line for different kinds of medicines which will be saved in stores for delivering to cus-tomers. The capacitated vehicle routing problem is considered in designing a distribution system from stores to customers. The goal of this model is to make a suitable trade-off between the customer satisfaction and the budget cost. This problem has been formulated in a bi-level form where the first objective function is the minimization of the budget during the scheduled time and the second one is the minimization of the shortage amount associated with the lost sale of medicine demands delivering to drug stores. Uncertainty is considered as a nature of the main parameters of the problem. Then the robust approach was used to handle the associated uncertainty of related parameters and the resulted problem is solved by Benders decomposition algorithm. The results indi-cate that the model make an improvement in medicine supply chain.

Buckling is one of the most complicated concepts in mechanical engineering. Buckling often happens by compressive loads on thin structures. Thermal gradient between two ends of a column may cause a deflection in it. This will add an extra deformation to the one provided by compressive loads on the column. This phenomenon occurs when two ends of the column are at different temperatures, which can be seen at various structures. Because of the considered temperature gradients, the critical load of the column will decrease. In the current paper, various columns are modeled and the effect of thermal gradient and compressive load and other parameters on the Bi-material columns are studied. In other words, influences of compressive load and temperature gradient on critical load of Bi-material columns with interface crack are investigated. Effect of change in each parameter on critical load of column and crack opening was investigated. First, the thermal gradient was only applied to the model and in the next step; only the effect of mechanical loading was studied. Furthermore, artificial neural network (ANN) was used to extend the results to a bigger range of temperature conditions through the columns. Based on the results, ANN and finite element results are in a good agreement and the thermal effects may have a significant role in buckling of the column.

Functionally Graded Steels (FGSs) are possible solutions to improve the properties of steels made by Martensite and Bainite brittle phases. These phases are usually present in the interface between the carbon ferritic steel and the stainless austenitic steel. FGSs materials are widely investigated in the recent literature but only few works have been devoted to investigate the impact energy in the case of crack arresters. To partially fill this gap, the effect of the distance between the notch tip and the position of the median phase on the Charpy impact energy is investigated in the present paper. The results show that when the notch apex is close to the median layer the impact energy reaches its maximum value due to the increment of the absorbed energy by plastic deformation ahead of the notch tip. On the other hand, when the notch apex is far from the median layer, the impact energy strongly decreases. Keeping into account the relationship between the Charpy impact energy and the plastic volume size, a new theoretical model has been developed to link the composite impact energy with the distance from the notch apex to the median phase. The results of the new model show a sound agreement with previous results taken from the literature.

A series of pyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine derivatives were synthesized in good to excellent yields by condensation reactions of arylglyoxals with 2,3-diaminopyridine in dimethylformamide and ethanol at 90 oC.

Employers are looking for reducing execution time and maintaining the quality of the projects that are the main objective of the projects. In this article, we focus on crashing projects by con-sidering different factors such as cost, time, quality and risk. For the proposed integer linear model, cost of conformance and cost of non-conformance are considered as parts of the costs of quality of deliverables in projects. The cost of conformance consists of the costs of training the project team, inspection and test of deliverables. The cost of non-conformance also includes costs of rework and scrap. Project risk management is one of the important aspects of the pro-jects. The present study also considers the impact of risks, which is highly applicable in projects with a high level of uncertainty. Results are presented using integer programming approach with the aim of minimizing the costs of the project.

During the past few years, there have been growing competition among business owners and they mostly have no choice but to decrease their prices in an attempt to survive on the market. In some cases, suppliers offer goods and services for less than the cost of production to gain more market share. In this paper, we study different factors influencing pricing strategy in food industry. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 36 questions, distributes it among 311 Iranian experts in food industry and analyzes it based on principal component analysis. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.86 and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.72 and 3614, respectively. Based on the results of our survey, we have derived seven factors including supply management, environmental factors, product management, distribution structure, standardization strategies, market leadership and market organization.

Nano silica phosphoric acid (nano SPA) was applied as a catalyst for synthesis of 14-aryl/alkyl-14H-dibenzo[a,j]xanthenes and tetrahydrobenzo[a]xanthen-11-ones in microwave oven under solvent free conditions. High efficiency, easy availability and reusability are some advantages of this catalyst.

This paper deals with exact solution for free vibration analysis of simply supported rectangular plates on elastic foundation. The solution is on the basis of three dimensional elasticity theory. The foundation is described by the Pasternak (two-parameter) model. First, the Navier equations of motion are replaced by three decoupled equations in terms of displacement components. Then, these equations are solved in a semi-inverse method. The obtained displacement field satisfies all the boundary conditions of the problem in a point wise manner. The solution is in the form of a double Fourier sine series. Then free-vibration characteristics of rectangular plates resting on elastic foundations for different thickness/span ratios and foundation parameters are studied. The numerical results are compared with the available results in the literature. Important parameters on the accuracy of plate theories and free-vibration characteristics of rectangular plates resting on elastic foundations are discussed.

Decision making problem is the process of finding the best option from all of the feasible alternatives. One of the most important concepts in decision making process is to identify the weights of criteria. In real-world situation, because of incomplete or non-obtainable information, the data (attributes) are often not deterministic and can be treated in forms of fuzzy numbers. This paper investigates a method for deriving the weights of criteria from the pair-wise comparison matrix with fuzzy elements. Finding the weights of criteria has been one of the most important issues in the field of decision-making and the present method uses goal programming to solve the resulted model. In addition, using a ranking function we convert each obtained fuzzy weight to a crisp one, which makes it possible to compare the criteria. The proposed model of this paper is supported by several examples and a case study.