In this paper, we presents an inventory problem where initially, a retailer purchases Q(=P+R) units and after fulfilling the backlogged quantities, there is a P unit of the on-hand inventory. It continuously declines to meet the customer’s demand, which depends on the on-hand inventory level up to the time t = t1. After that the inventory level declines by constant demand up to t = t2. Thereafter, shortage occurs and it accumulates at the rate ?(T-t) till t = T when the next batch arrives. This whole cycle repeats itself after the cycle length T. The proposed model of this paper is investigated under various conditions and the implementation of the proposed model is presented through some numerical examples.

In this study, the impact response of glass/epoxy laminates interleaved by Polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers is considered. PCL is a thermoplastic polymer, which is a good choice for toughening epoxy-based composite. The impact tests were conducted on curved laminates and under 24 and 36J. The results showed that the effect of interleaving on impact parameters such as maximum load is negligible, but on the other hand could decrease damaged area significantly. By inserting 30?m of PCL nanofibers between each layer of laminate the damaged area decreased about 27%.

Management teams are always expected to provide transparent financial reports for public. Different characteristics such as honesty, conservatism as well as management capability may play essential role for the success of businesses in supply chain. The proposed study of this paper considers the effects of three factors; namely management capability, management honesty and management conservatism on quality of financial statements. The proposed study collects the information of 92 firms from Tehran Stock Exchange over a nine-year period from 2004 to 2012. Using some statistical tests, the study has concluded that only management honesty could influence on quality of financial reports. In our study, conservatism did not have any impact on the quality of financial reports and it seems that managers have to take more risk in order to reach financial objectives.

The effect of football neck collar on the right external carotid blood flow was investigated for ten healthy subjects using Echo-Doppler technique and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Carotid is in charge of blooding head’s parts including the brain and eyes. Hence, the evaluation of affected carotid flow by using neck collars is crucial for an improved ergonomic design. The testings were divided into three main categories; participants without wearing neck collar (Category 1), wearing neck collar (Category 2), and finally wearing neck collar with an embedded gap adjacent to the carotid artery position (Category 3). The experimental and numerical results revealed that wearing the neck collar (Category 2) reduced the average blood carotid flow by 28% compared to the case with no neck collar (Category 1). This average blood carotid flow reduction was improved by 15% when a gap separates the collar from the carotid artery position (Category 3). The results of this paper suggest a new design for the next generation of the neck collar by devising an appropriate gap near to carotid artery. The numerical results were validated and were in a reasonable agreement with the experimental data.

Activity based costing (ABC) is a new age accounting system developed to overcome the limitations of traditional costing system, which in today’s technologically advanced world has lost its ability to provide accurate and useful cost information often required in taking various managerial decisions, like setting of selling price, ascertaining profitability of products as well as customers, taking a make or buy decision, eliminating the non-beneficial activities, and rewarding the employees. In this paper, an ABC model is developed for a government hospital in the state of Bihar in India to quantify its various public health related services. Although, there are limited published research papers related to application of ABC model in a specific department or method of a healthcare system, none of them has investigated its scope for organization-wide implementation. The results obtained from the developed ABC model in the public hospital would provide more comprehensive and accurate cost information, and radically contribute to the hospital administration in effective planning, controlling and decision making. This paper also elucidates about various obstructions and difficulties encountered during the implementation phase of ABC model in an Indian healthcare setting.

In this paper, a volume criterion based on a simple scalar quantity, the mean value of the strain energy (SED), has been used to assess the static strength of notched components made of Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). The local-strain-energy based approach has been applied to a well-documented set of experimental data recently reported in the literature. Data refer to blunt U-notched cylindrical specimens of commercial PMMA subjected to static loads and characterised by a large variability of notch tip radius (from 0.67 mm to 2.20 mm). Critical loads obtained experimentally have been compared with the theoretical ones, estimated by keeping constant the mean value of the strain energy in a well-defined small size volume. In addition, some new tests dealing with V-notched specimens with end holes have been carried out to investigate the effect of the notch opening angle.

Cutouts are commonly used as access port for mechanical and electrical structures. Most of the structures generally work under severe dynamic loading and different constrained conditions during their service life. This may lead to vibration of the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the vibration responses of laminated composite plates with cutouts precisely with less computational cost and good accuracy of these complex structures. A suitable finite element model is proposed and developed based on first order shear deformation theory using ANSYS parametric design language (APDL) code. The model has been discretized using an appropriate eight nodded element (SHELL 281) from the ANSYS element library. The free vibrations are computed using Block-Lanczos algorithm. The convergence study has been done of the developed model and compared with those available published literature. Effects of different geometric parameters (aspect ratio, thickness ratio, boundary conditions, number of layers, angle of lamina geometry of cutout, cutout side to plate side ratio and distance between cutouts) and material properties on the free vibration responses are discussed in detail. The frequency increases with increase in the number of layers, modulus ratio of plate and angle of lamina. The frequency decreases with increase in aspect ratio, thickness ratio, size of cutout and distance between cutouts. The boundary conditions of the plate play an important role in the free vibrations of the plate with cutouts. The Non-dimensional frequencies are higher for fully clamped boundary condition in comparison to other boundary conditions.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems track and measure marketing campaigns over different networks. There are literally many studies associated with the implementation of CRM in different industries. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine effective factors influencing on the success of CRM implementation. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale on measuring various factors and distributes it among selected employees who work for the biggest software maker firm in city of Tehran, Iran. Using principal component analysis, the study has detected five factors influencing on the succes of CRM including customer relationship technologies, customer oriented, enterprise development strategies, customer services and business plan.

The investigation of dynamic response of intervertebral disc is beneficial for the development of new synthetic and engineered tissues for treating diseased or injured disc. There are limited experimental studies on comparing the effect of loading mode and rate on global response of intervertebral disc. In this study, in-vitro experiments were performed using a total of 24 porcine motion segments. The harvested specimens were assigned to prolong and 2 different cyclic loadings. Both disc deformations and water contents were measured to investigate how the mode and rate of loading affect the response of intervertebral disc. In parallel, a backward FE poroelastic model combined with in-vitro experiments were used to find the material properties of intervertebral discs. The experimental result showed that the final disc height loss under creep loading was significantly greater than cyclic groups. Increasing the frequency of cyclic loading decreased the disc height loss. The water content decreased significantly in cyclic loading from those in prolong loading. The backward FE models showed that, the elastic modulus of anulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus were 2.43 (±0.48) MPa and 1.46 (±0.29) MPa, respectively. The hydraulic permeability was 2.08 (±0.42) ×10-16m4/Ns, and the Poisson’s ratio was 0.21 (±0.03). In conclusion, this study investigated how the loading mode and rate affect porcine intervertebral disc deformation. It is found that dynamic stiffness is greater at higher frequencies which resulted from interactions between the solid phase and fluid flow within the disc.

Procurement risks analysis is a crucial study in supply chain risk management. According to the phenomenon of snow ball effect, if a risk occurs at the primitive node between buyer and supplier, it will be strengthened and extended throughout the entire network. Hence, it can have more disruptive influences comparing with risks that happen in further nodes. In this paper, through a case study, the most important risk factors and its multi-dimensional consequences in procurement risk analysis is derived from the literature review and implementing a Delphi method that takes into account the nine risks factors and 39 preliminary variables as risk consequences. The nine risk factors are limits of global communication, packaging and transportation, procedures and standards, sanction, supply of equipment, price of equipment, Communication, management of technology and delivery mistakes.