This study considers an integrated inventory planning and distribution problem based on an applied case at the Turkish Red Crescent’s Central Anatolian Regional Blood Center. We define two echelons, the first echelon being the regional blood center and the second echelon being the districts. The blood products are perishable so that the outdated products are disposed of at the end of their lives. We aim to minimize the cost of inventory keeping at both echelons, the shortage, and disposal amounts at the second echelon. We consider two distribution strategies: all deliveries are realized by the regional blood center (current implementation), and the deliveries are directly from the regional blood center or the other districts. We develop a mixed-integer linear programming model for each strategy. Our experimental results show that the decentralized strategy brings significant cost reductions over the centralized strategy. The mathematical model for the centralized distribution strategy can handle large-sized instances. On the other hand, the model for the decentralized distribution strategy is more complex and could not handle large-sized instances in our pre-specified termination limit of two hours. For large-sized instances of the decentralized distribution strategy, we design a decomposition-based heuristic algorithm that benefits from the optimal solutions of the original model and finds near-optimal solutions very quickly.

Quality standards must be fulfilled to satisfy a base level of quality. Despite using this idea as a foundation, evaluations of academic programs still rely on the evaluators' experiences and may differ from one evaluator to the next. As a result, more precise evaluation approaches must be created to ensure quality is accurately reflected. The main goal of this research paper is to propose and evaluate an approach to assessing higher educational programs using the Self-Evaluation Scale (SES) developed by the Saudi National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Evaluation (NCAAA). The proposed approach is a breakdown of the original performance criteria and standards into sub-criteria and elements to ensure the required data quality. The second goal is to compare the NCAAA's original performance criteria and the proposed evaluation sub-criteria. A comparison framework that uses the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is developed. Data from eight programs offered in a Middle Eastern University was used for the application and comparison between the two evaluation approaches. Results show that both approaches provide different quality performance rankings. The proposed approach demonstrated more conservative and accurate overall quality performance ratings, indicating that application decisions for accreditation are affected.

Forest fires are a potential threat to life, as they contribute to reducing forest areas, impact on the services we expect from ecosystems, the health of the inhabitants is affected by smoke and the economic costs for the recovery of affected areas is high. The objective of the study is to apply fuzzy logic to model the risk of forest fires in the Cajamarca-Peru region, incorporating variables that represent biological, topographic, socioeconomic, and meteorological factors. The analysis was based on the acquisition, editing and rasterization of the database, application of fuzzy membership functions and image fuzzification, fuzzy superposition and spatial reclassification of forest fire risk. The results obtained show that 71.68% of the area is under very low or medium forest fire risk. However, 28.32% of the study area has a high to very high fire risk, which makes the occurrence of fires susceptible to the lack of rain and water in the soil. It was found that biological, topographic, and socioeconomic factors with their respective variables are directly influenced by meteorological factor variables such as temperature, rainfall and water availability. Fuzzy logic offered flexibility in modeling wildfire risk in the region, proving to be a useful tool for predicting and mapping wildfire risk.

This article briefly explains the simultaneous spatial durbin panel (SSDP) model. The study of the SSDP model is substantial because it can explain the interaction between geographic units, is more informative, diverse, efficient, exhaustive, and accurate in reaching conclusions that influence the policy determination. This article’s intention is to derive a parameter estimation method from the SSDP model using a modified generalized estimating equation approach, which is then used to model economic growth in ASEAN nations. This article compares the SSDP model with rook contiguity, 2-nearest neighbors, and a customized spatial weighted matrix in relation to an independent, first-order autoregressive, exchangeable working correlation structure. To model economic growth in ASEAN countries, a customized weighted matrix with first-order autoregressive and exchangeable working correlations is chosen based on the CIC value. The parameter analysis outcomes indicate: 1) it is a significant spatial dependence among ASEAN countries; 2) it is a significant simultaneous interaction among the gross domestic product (GDP) and foreign direct investment (FDI); 3) GDP has a greater influence on FDI than FDI does on GDP; 4) The economic growth is directly affected by the labor force total; and 5) trade openness has a direct effect on FDI.

Traditionally, endemic diseases such as dengue, diarrhea, and tuberculosis are modeled separately, which leads to a limited understanding of current disease dynamics and an inaccurate evaluation of the parameters of the different models. In this study, we propose a joint spatiotemporal model to predict the risks of multiple endemic diseases and identify hotspots. The model includes spatial shared component random effects and a covariate for healthy behavior. The model was applied to the joint modeling of dengue, diarrhea, and tuberculosis in thirty districts in Bandung, Indonesia over a five-year period. Our findings show that the joint model was effective in understanding the characteristics of the diseases. One potential advantage of using shared component models is that they can identify diseases with spatial or temporal distribution patterns and consider shared risk factors that may be spatially correlated, such as climate. It is recommended to conduct exploratory analyses to determine the correlation between the risks of the diseases being studied and the reference disease before using this type of model.

Life insurance is designed to reduce the risk of financial loss due to unforeseen consequences related to the insured's death. In life insurance, the insurer provides death benefits as a claim when the insured suffers death. The claim is the compensation for a risk loss. Individual claim in one-period insurance is called aggregation claim, while aggregation claim is a collective risk. Collective risk is usually measured using a variance. However, the variance risk measure cannot often accommodate any event risk because there is a risk of claims beyond the amount of variance. Using the proposed method CVaR and confidence level are taken from α = 0.25% until 4%. This study found that the proposed method CVaR scored more fairly than Collective Risk. In conclusion, this study indicated that the collective risk model is just included using mean and variance without any confidence level. Therefore, only one result for the Collective Risk model, which automatically shows the model using mean, variance and standard deviation, could not accommodate all risk events.

It is not a secret that road accidents cause significant suffering. Those accidents can last from wounded to dead people, negatively impacting a country. A bunch of recent investigations tried to tie road accidents with the quality of roads. Therefore, in a country with a significant infrastructure gap, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between the different kinds of roads and the severity of car accidents. The current research examined such a relationship by employing the Multi logit regression. It was found that the significance of different car accidents will vary among the road types. Moreover, with the help of probability analysis, it was discovered that speeding, emergency services availability, and road security seemed to have a crucial impact on road accidents.

The dynamics of the conflict in the South China Sea (SCS) have begun to enter a new chapter. Currently, the South China Sea (SCS) is a flashpoint in the Asia Pacific region. This study aims to provide an analysis of the concept of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) strategy by the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) toward Competitive Advantage in the South China Sea region. This study employed an analytical approach with a qualitative sequence exploratory method supported by some quantitative data. PEST (Political, Economy, Socio-cultural, Technology) analysis and SWOT analysis methods were used to support the study. Furthermore, this study also utilized an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method approach to provide strategic value and sensitivity analysis as a strategy scenario analysis toward competitive advantage. Based on the results of the research analysis, a strategy under the development of Indonesian Armed Forces capabilities towards a competitive advantage in the South China Sea was obtained, namely the WO strategy which consists of 6 substrate aspects with eight subfactors, namely the combination of all components and strengths in handling security disturbances in the South China Sea (0.162), increased competence of human resources (0.159); development of integrated defense forces and capabilities (0.147), protection of information systems and state secrets (0.145), development of defense facilities and infrastructure (0.109), increasing the capacity and capability of modernizing intelligence technology (0.093), utilization and capacity building of the national defense industry (0.089), deployment of Indonesian Armed Forces troops in the South China Sea (0.075). This study is expected to contribute to the strategy for handling conflicts in the South China Sea and provide strategic steps in increasing capabilities on competitive advantage.

The objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of public debt sustainability on economic growth in the period 2000-2021 and establish a new optimal debt level that does not affect Peru's economic growth. The general method used to determine this effect was the hypothetical deductive method with a non-experimental and longitudinal trend design, because the data to be analyzed are variations that have occurred over time; the VAR (vector autoregressive) model was used as a specific method, because the evidence was insufficient to consider the simultaneity between the reactions of the variables to propose an SVAR model. Data were collected from economic portals such as the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), as well as the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP). The estimated sample size was 88 observations representing all quarters from 2000 to 2021. As a result of the econometric regression, the impact of the level of public debt on economic growth is positive, since a one-unit increase in the percentage of public debt will increase the variation of GDP by almost 1.1%. Regarding the debt level forecast and according to the projection made, it was determined that the new debt level that does not affect the sustainability of public finances or the long-term economic growth of the Peruvian economy should be 38% of GDP.

Vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a classic problem studied in logistic. One of the most important variations within this problem is called Green Vehicle Routing Problem (GVRP), in which environmental aspects are considered when designing product delivery routes. This variant arises due to the high levels of pollution produced by transport vehicles, so it is a variation whose study represents a vital impact nowadays. This project will consider a GVRP and will be developed considering the characteristics of multi-depot (MDVRP) and multi-product (MPVRP) to minimize the costs of assignation of vehicles and CO2 emissions. To solve the problem, this project proposes a hybridization between the classic tabu search (TS) metaheuristic and the PAES algorithm (TS+PAES) to generate the Pareto frontier of both objectives. An integer mixed linear programming model is formulated and developed for each objective function separately to have an optimal point of comparison for the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. Also, the TS+PAES algorithm is compared to the nearest neighbor algorithm for large instances. Two computational experiments were carried out, one for small and the other one for large instances. The experiment for small instances showed that the GAP of each extreme of the frontier compared to the MILP model is on average 0.73%. For large instances, the metaheuristic improves in 0.1% the results presented by the MILP model showing that the metaheuristic provides closer near-optimal solutions in less computational time. Besides, the metaheuristic, in comparison with the nearest neighborhood heuristic, improves in 44.21% the results of emissions and in 3.88% the costs. All these results demonstrate the effectiveness of the metaheuristic.