Due to the high uncertainty in humanitarian supply chains, utilizing pre-positioning strategies in warehouses to manage crises entails significant risks, including excess inventory and shortages. One approach to managing these risks is to use options contracts. In this study, a dual-option contract, which combines the benefits of both call and put options, is employed to manage risks in a humanitarian supply chain. In this network, in addition to the main supplier, the humanitarian organizations (HO) can also access secondary and tertiary supply sources, namely, in-kind donations and spot markets. Considering these supply sources and the HO's logistics costs including procurement, inventory and transportation, this study models the HO's procurement problem and identifies the optimal initial order, call option, and put option. After forming the centralized problem, the reservation and exercise prices of the dual-option contract are calculated to achieve coordination among supply chain members and a win-win solution. This modeling effort presents a novel application of dual option contracts within humanitarian supply chain, where the contract parameters are endogenously derived to serve as coordination mechanism, an approach not extensively explored in prior literature. Finally, sensitivity analyses are performed on key parameters using numerical examples, and several managerial insights are reported.

The Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) remains a critical area of study in project management, focusing on optimizing project schedules under constraints such as limited resources and task interdependencies. This review synthesizes advancements from 2016 to 2024, encompassing problem variants, optimization techniques, objectives, and real-world applications. Key developments include the evolution of hybrid metaheuristics, multi-objective optimization approaches, and the integration of stochastic models to enhance robustness against uncertainties. Furthermore, the application of machine learning and sustainability-driven models has expanded the practical scope of RCPSP in dynamic and complex environments. Challenges such as scalability, uncertainty management, and the need for practical implementations are addressed, with future directions emphasizing AI integration, decentralized scheduling, and real-time adaptive solutions. This study provides a comprehensive perspective on RCPSP, bridging theoretical research with practical implications for diverse industries.

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.

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.

The factors affecting the success of knowledge management (KM) tools play an important role in knowledge processes. This research investigates the factors affecting the success of KM tools in the research projects of a corporate university. The research method is descriptive and the statistical population of the study consisted of all professors and knowledge workers of a university. 147 of them were selected through a targeted sampling method. Data collection was conducted through a questionnaire. To determine the validity of the questionnaire, content and formal validity were used and its reliability was calculated by using Cronbach's alpha with the value calculated of 0.83. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, t-test and Friedman test. In this study, the factors of culture, information technology, strategy and goal, organizational infrastructure, employee motivation, leadership and management support, human resources management, education, financial resources, measurement, processes and activities, structure and communications in the knowledge management cycle of research projects of the university studied were identified as the effective factors in the KM cycle.

The project scheduling problem is both practically and theoretically of paramount importance. From the practical perspective, improvement of project scheduling as a critical part of project management process can lead to successful project completion and significantly decrease of the relevant costs. From the theoretical perspective, project scheduling is regarded as one of the in-teresting optimization issues, which has attracted the attention of many researchers in the area of operations research. Therefore, the project scheduling issue has been significantly evaluated over time and has been developed from various aspects. In this research, the topics related to Re-source-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) are reviewed, recent developments in this field are evaluated, and the results are presented for future studies. In this regard, first, the standard problem of RCPSP is expressed and related developments are presented from four as-pects of resources, characteristics of activities, type of objective functions, and availability level of information. Following that, details about 216 articles conducted on RCPSP during 1980-2017 are expressed. At the end, in line with the statistics obtained from the evaluation of previ-ous articles, suggestions are made for the future studies in order to help the development of new issues in this area.

During the past few decades, many organizations have attempted to increase their productivity through outsourcing parts of their responsibilities. Outsourcing helps firms reduce their low value added activities and focus on their high value added activities. It also helps organization save their time and energy which leads to more efficient units. The idea of outsourcing is more important for project based organizations where the nature of works is different from a particular project to another one. This paper presents an integrated balanced score card system with an adaptation of ELECTRE III method to select suitable resources for outsourcing. The proposed model of the paper is implemented for a case study of subway system in Iran and the results are discussed.