Publication bias is a major problem, perhaps the major problem, in meta-analysis (or systematic reviews). Small studies are more likely to be published if their results are 'significant' than if their results are negative or inconclusive, and so the studies available for review are biased in favour of those with positive outcomes. Correcting for this bias is not possible without making untestab...

Techniques enabling decision makers to identify a set of non-mutually exclusive projects (or alternatives) constituting a portfolio, while allowing for imprecise information with respect to projects’ benefits, costs, and overall resource constraints, have emerged as an area of great applicability. To reach applicability, reasonable and computationally meaningful decision evaluation methods are ...

Measuring sensitivity of hydraulic structures is considered as an approach for evaluation of water projects performance, due to lower distribution efficiency in Irrigation and Drainage project schemes. Sensitivity analysis approach for irrigation structures is one of flow analysis methods which are developed in recent years in order to measure the behavior of flow in hydraulic structures in an ...

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau...

This study analyses the concept of cost functions for semi-automated Straddle Carrier (SC), Rubber Tyred Gantry (RTG) and automated Rail Mounted Gantry (RMG) container yard operating cranes. It develops a generic cost based model for a pair-wise comparison, analysis and evaluation of economic efficiency and effectiveness of container yard equipment to be used for decision-making by terminal pla...

Chancroid is a highly infectious and curable sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Haemophilus Ducreyl (also known as H. Ducreyl). A deterministic mathematical model for investigating the role of treatment on controlling chancroid epidemic is formulated and rigorously analyzed. A threshold quantity known as the productive number, which measures the number of secondary infections ...

Breakwaters are the important and the costly ones of the marine structures. Composite breakwater is one of the common types in the world. Because of the sensitivity of composite breakwaters to environmental conditions, also construction costs, difficulty of repair and maintenance and importance of equipments on and behind the breakwater, design of composite breakwater must be very accurate. Goa...

Extensive flood damages all over the world necessitate its control and operation. Hydrologic impacts of land use change appear in many ways such as total runoff, and flood peak flow. This study was performed in 2014 and aimed to investigate the impacts of land use changes on the occurrence of floods in the catchment of Boostan dam in Golestan province, Iran. For this purpose, Watershed Modeling...

The purpose of this study is finding the sensitivity of central bank independence measurements on its impact on inflation in Iran. To this aim different measurements of the central bank independence were calculated using the indices of Grilli et al. (1991), Cukierman et al. (1992), Mathew (2006) and Dumiter (2009) for the period 1961-2012 . Although results of correlation between CBI index and ...