In a powerful industry, supplier selection is one of the complex processes that can increase productivity and competitive advantages. Supplier selection includes different quantitative, qualitative, and also interactive criteria. In addition, the selection process has always faced with inadequate and incomplete data. Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) is a useful approach that can be applied, for addressing the opting problems of a supplier considering mentioned issues. In this approach, the interaction between criteria can be considered with several methods, such as Choquet integral, which is a practical method for decision ranking. Also, incomplete data can be covered with incomplete analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Therefore, in this study, an application of Choquet integral along with incomplete AHP method is provided for supplier selection problem at the petroleum industry. After achieving the ranking rate of suppliers, requested orders are assigned to preferred suppliers by using multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) model and ɛ-constraint method to generate the Pareto optimal points. As a result, supplier 3 with weight 0.8274 was the most preferred supplier in which 50% of total orders was assigned to this supplier as the best selection.
Decision-making is one of the significant and inevitable issues in the most real-world problems. Decision criteria interact in many of these problems, and traditional aggregation techniques, which are usually linear methods, cannot be exploited to consider these interactions and exert correlations between criteria. In such cases, nonadditive aggregation methods have attracted the attention of many researchers. This study presents a novel model based on the best-worst method (BWM) and the multi-criteria fuzzy Choquet integral technique to apply the interaction between the criteria. In the proposed model, we have reduced the effect of the inconsistency rate detected on the fuzzy measure (or Choquet capacity) by taking into account the positive or negative interaction between the criteria.
Uncommon neurological diseases make for roughly half of all rare diseases. As one of the key players in the diagnostic process, neurologists require guidelines on the types of screening tests that can be done. In this sense, biomarker research has been very active. By minimizing the chance of misdiagnosis and improper therapy, diagnostic biomarkers may help reduce the risk of disease progression. Also, Neurological complications and associated radiological findings have been reported in an increasing number of patients with COVID-19 infection. Despite improved methods, diagnosing CNS inflammatory diseases is still difficult and time-consuming. Although MRI is essential in this procedure, it might be confusing in some circumstances due to overlapping radiological results. Considering the above facts, the necessity for specialized biomarkers seems to be paramount. Serological markers appear to merit special consideration. Peripheral blood samples, unlike CSF, are easily obtained in routine ambulatory care for many periods, allowing noninvasive monitoring of therapy response. A complete combination of clinical examination, radiographic assessment, laboratory tests, and often a multidisciplinary approach is required to make an accurate diagnosis.
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating, non-traumatic, neurological disorder in young adults and can reduce quality of life (QoL) by interfering with the ability to work, leisure activities, and routine living tasks. Various studies have shown the dissatisfaction of people with MS in different areas of care services. Regarding the patients' weakness with care and services, we sought to identify the challenges for patients with MS in receiving care and services in Iran.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016-2018 using a researcher-made questionnaire (designed by MS Specialists in an MS research center). The questionnaire examined the care challenges in four areas: 1) costs of medication, hospitalization, and rehabilitation services, 2) family support, insurance system, and job protection, 3) access to transportation system and treatment team, 4) quality of the provided care and services.
Results: Completed questionnaires were received from 945 respondents. The mean age of responders was 35.92 years. In total, 731 (77.8) participants were women and 208 (22.2) were men. Academic education was reported among 615 (65.3) participants and 367 (40.2) were employed during the study, while 99 (10.5) of the subjects were not able to walk a minimum of 20 meters. The prioritization of care services challenges was as follows: the cost of pharmaceutical services (49.1), lack of telephone counseling (47.4), uninsured home rehabilitation (44.7), lack of qualified care centers (41.2), and rehabilitation costs (40.2).
Conclusion: We found that patients who could not walk at least 20 meters and unemployed individuals had more problems and lower QoL. The patients who had non-academic education had more challenges with the cost of medication, transportation, and lack of familial support.
This study shows the challenges of MS patients in receiving health care in Iran that vary in age, education, employment, and ability to walk. As the abovementioned challenges are of great importance in determining the QoL of people with MS, an appropriate solution is provided in this study to overcome these challenges.
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