In this paper, a fuzzy decision algorithm is proposed to select the most suitable advanced manufacturing system (AMS) alternative from a set of mutually exclusive alternatives. Both economic evaluation criterion and strategic criteria such as #exibility, quality improvement, which are not quantitative in nature, are considered for selection. The economic aspects of the AMS selection process are...

BACKGROUND: Currently, poor-rich inequalities in health in developing countries receive a lot of attention from both researchers and policy makers. Since measuring economic status in developing countries is often problematic, different indicators of wealth are used in different studies. Until now, there is a lack of evidence on the extent to which the use of different measures of economic statu...

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is a nonparametric (distribution-free) rank statistic proposed by Charles Spearman as a measure of the strength of an association between two variables. It is a measure of a monotone association that is used when the distribution of data makes Pearson’s correlation coefficient undesirable or misleading. Spearman’s coefficient is not a measure of the linea...

BACKGROUND This study characterizes the intake of sweetened beverages and establishes whether economic inequalities in their consumption exists. METHODS Ecological study. Mixed methods using food frequency questionnaire and inequality indices. Based on the National Nutrition Survey, Colombia, 2010. The sweetened beverage intake of 17,514 subjects in 33 geodemographic units was estimated with ...

A learning automaton systematically updates a strategy to enhance the performance of a system output. The authors apply, a variable-structure learning automaton to achieve a best compromise solution between the economic operation and stable operation in a power system when the loads vary randomly. Both the generation cost for economic operation and the modal performance measure for stable opera...

17.1 This chapter and the next cover the economic approach to index number theory. This chapter considers the case of a single household, while the following chapter deals with the case of many households. A brief outline of the contents of the present chapter follows. 17.2 In paragraphs 17.9 to 17.17, the theory of the cost of living index for a single consumer or household is presented. This ...

The present study was conducted to obtain estimates of certain biological and economic indices of the trophic structure of the Omani landed fish catch, namely, the mean trophic level (MTL), the fishing-in-balance (FiB) index and the relative price index (RPI). The MTL generally decreased from 1995 to 2010, indicating a fishing-down of the marine trophic web. The FiB index increased, indicating ...

This study empirically assesses the influence of globalization on the institutional root causes of gender equality as measured by the new OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). We capture the multifaceted concept of globalization with the KOF index and its three sub-indices which measure the economic, social and political dimensions of globalization. Observing the progress of globali...

— Neoclassical economic theories of violent conflict have proliferated in recent years and, with their application to contemporary wars, have influenced donors and policy makers. This paper reviews the intellectual foundations and empirical substance of such theories and offers a critique drawing on a political economy perspective. There are strong grounds for arguing that orthodox economic the...

One of the planners and policy-makers’ aims on the one hand is optimum allocating and distributing of credits and facilities among regions and on the other hand is providing and compiling a suitable model aiming at achieving economic and social equity as well as creating reasonable and real economic growth. Paying attention to the balanced regional development, decreasing regional and district ...