In recent years, many studies on the multi-agent scheduling problems in which agents compete for using the shared resources, have been performed. However, relatively few studies have been undertaken in the field of the multi-agent scheduling in a flowshop environment. To bridge the gap, this paper aims at addressing the two-agent scheduling problem in a two-machine flowshop. Because of the importance of delay penalties and efficient resource utilization in many manufacturing environments, the objective is to find an optimal schedule which has the minimum total tardiness for the first agent’s jobs, under the makespan limitation for the second agent. Since this problem is strongly NP-hard, several theorems and properties of the problem are proposed to apply in exact and meta-heuristic methods. Also, for some instances of the problem for which exact methods cannot achieve optimal solutions in a reasonable amount of time, a tabu search algorithm is developed to achieve near-optimal solutions. Computational results of the tabu search algorithm show that the average absolute error value is lower than 0.18 percent for instances with 20 to 60 jobs in size.

Nowadays, special attention has been paid to the environmental and social issues in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, research on the sustainable supply chain is greatly expanded dramatically over the years. In some industries like food industry, these issues are more significantly emphasized because of the particular characteristics the food products. In this paper, we considered a multi-objective model for designing the sustainable supply chain in the processed food industry with fixed shelf-life products. Model objectives include economic with profit maximization as an economic index, environmental with the index of carbon dioxide emissions and wastewater treatment in manufacturing sector and social objectives with maximizing the amount of jobs created as a social index. For the proposed model, in addition to determining the optimal location of the facility and the flow rate between facility, the type of delivery of products is determined either directly from plant or indirectly from distribution centers with mechanized transportation system. Finally, the model is implemented in a processed food industry as a case study in Iran and is solved via the augmented ε-constraint method.

A single machine batch processing problem with release dates to minimize the total completion time (1|rj,batch|Σ Cj ) is investigated in this research. An original mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to optimally solve the problem. Since the research problem at hand is shown to be NP-hard, several different meta-heuristic algorithms based on tabu search (TS) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are used to solve the problem. To find the most performing heuristic optimization technique, a set of test cases ranging in size (small, medium, and large) are randomly generated and solved by the proposed meta-heuristic algorithms. An extended comparison analysis is carried out and the outperformance of a hybrid meta-heuristic technique properly combining PSO and genetic algorithm (PSO-GA) is statistically demonstrated.

Nowadays, there is a growing attention on export activities and they are considered as a good strategy for companies to grow from supportive domestic sales to foreign developing markets, while offering greater flexibility, cost, and lowering different risks compared to other external development methods. With the internationalization of the global economy, the focus has been on improving export performance, which reflects the company's success in the economic field. An important point about Iran's exports, which should not be overlooked, is the decline on the reliance of the national economy on revenues from oil exports and the achievement of economic independence. Therefore, support for the export industries, especially non-oil exports, is one of Iranian priorities for increasing economic growth and creating foreign exchange earnings. In the meantime, the economic performance of pharmaceutical companies is very important because the growth and development of this sector and the export of these products bring significant foreign exchange earnings. This paper focuses on the data gathered from the managers and exporters of the pharmaceutical companies and using some statistical tests to determine the effective components on export promotion. The study considers 18 factors and extracts five important factors including profitability and economic growth, developmental quality, encouragement and financial performance. The study also uses analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and DEMATEL techniques to rank these factors and their sub-components. Quality is considered as the most important factor according to the implementation of AHP and profitability and economic growth are determined to be the most influencing factors according to DEMATEL.

Increased demand for transportation is inevitable along with the growth of social welfare and economic development. Furthermore, providing cheap transportation services has brought about a bulk of benefits in the ever-expanding development of countries. Therefore, the optimization of fuel consumption in the transportation sector is essential for the continued low cost of transportation and reduced amount of pollution caused by the traffic. A major strategy for optimizing fuel consumption and transportation costs in the transportation of goods and passengers is the proper design of transportation networks. Accordingly, in this study, hub covering location problem is modeled taking into account the queuing system in order to minimize the cost of the whole network as well as to minimize emissions of greenhouse gases. The model presented in this study includes uncertain parameters of demand and transportation costs. To control the parameters, a robust-box optimization method is used. As the hub covering network model is multi-objective and NP-hard, three meta-heuristic algorithms; namely MOPSO, NSGA II and MOALO are presented. Computational results show the high efficiency of the MOALO algorithm for obtaining efficient problem-solving in large sizes.

Managing water resources is one of the most challenging problems in today’s world. There is an immense change in climate change, population growth, and environment, thereby increasing pressures on water resources. Due to future uncertainty and availability of resources, many priorities should be taken into account in the drinking-water system such as environmental impacts, distribution costs and fixed costs. This paper proposes a deterministic mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for planning and designing a water supply chain network in order to optimize multi-objective problems. The model considers costs which include fixed and variable costs, in addition, it considers sustainability in terms of environmental viewpoint. The applicability of the model is appraised through a case study whose data gathered from related articles and water and waste company reports in Iran, which consists of five candidate reservoir nodes and four dam nodes besides eleven candidate locations for treatment plants. Thereafter, the proposed model has been coded in GAMS® optimization software. The model could be an expedient tool in order to manage urban water supply chains in a cost-effective and sustainable manner to satisfy water demand at every time period.

In this study, a green and practical approach towards Hantzsch dihydropyridine synthesis of acridine-1,8-diones is introduced. Via the mentioned protocol, the one-pot condensation reaction of structurally diverse aromatic aldehydes, dimedone and NH4OAc was promoted by microwave radiation at solvent and catalyst-free conditions. Consequently, acridinedione products were produced in 81‒97% yields within 3‒8 min. The current protocol represents the prominent advantages in terms of the using a simple synthetic procedure, short reaction times, mild reaction conditions, high yield of the products as well as omission of hazardous and cost-effective organic solvents/reagents.

This study aimed to develop a model for developing a shared economy with an economic development approach in the Iranian sports industry. The research method was a two-stage exploratory combination of instrument making. In the qualitative part, the purposeful sampling method and theoretical saturation technique were performed. The tools used were to identify semi-structured interviews (with focus groups) and study documents. To ensure the validity and reliability of the study, the Lincoln and Guba evaluation methods were used. In the quantitative part, the research method was a descriptive survey. The statistical population was the economic activists in sports and sports marketing students. According to Cochran’s sample size determination formula, 384 people were considered as the sample. to collect data from the questionnaire of the framework model of the shared economy model in sports with an economic development approach that includes 43 items that have been extracted according to the theoretical foundations and the qualitative part of the research. Eight professors of sports management were used to evaluate the face validity and the carcass model was used for the content validity of the questionnaire questions. (CVR=0.86) and content validity was confirmed. Cronbach's approved alpha was also used. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data to evaluate the fit of the research model. The results of the research in the qualitative section showed that after examining the Delphi method and performing the first stage, 31 items were identified. In the second stage, 40 items were identified, and in the third stage; Finally, 50 items were identified. The three dimensions of human ecology, fiscal policy, and value-oriented processes emerged as a framework for the model of a shared economy in sports with an economic development approach. And in the quantitative part, the human ecology dimension with a value of 0.71 affects the value-oriented process dimension with a value of 0.65 and the fiscal policy dimension with a value of 0.63 affects the framework for the development of a shared economy in sport. The results also showed that the research model has a good fit. Therefore, it is suggested that the sports organizations' managers pay attention to the factors of this research to implement economic development by emphasizing a shared economy.

Portfolio optimization aims to minimize risk and maximize return on investment by determining the best combination of securities and proportions. The variance in portfolio optimization models is typically used for a measure of risk. Over the last few decades, portfolio optimization utilizing a variety of risk measures has grown significantly, and many studies have been conducted. Therefore, this paper provides a systematic review of risk measures for portfolio optimization using bibliometric analysis and maps to analyze the evolution and trends of 682 articles published between 2000 and 2022. Throughout this analysis, communication networks among articles, authors, sources, countries, and keywords are explored. Furthermore, a classification of risks and risk measures were presented to demonstrate a comprehensive overview of the field, and the top 50 papers were analyzed to determine which risk measures were most often used in recent studies.

This work aims to present an experimentally verified analytical solution to examine damping properties of systems including viscoelastic treatments. Although there are several methods for characterizing the behavior of three-layer damping systems, the RKU method is the most frequently used one. In this paper, this method is modified such a way that to be applied for a five-layer damping system. The achieved analytical relations are then employed to study the effects of a four-layer vibration-absorbing coating on the dynamic behavior of an aluminum sheet with free-free boundary conditions. Since the vibration-damping properties of the coating are unknowns, its loss factor and shear modulus are experimentally extracted based on the ASTM E756-05 standard method. The comparison between the analytical solution and performed modal tests expresses the efficiency of the presented method.