An increase in investment is required to support the growth and expansion of the industrial sector in a given country. But the planning and ranking of investments must consider financial resource constraints, high investment risk, the frequency of needs and goals, as well as an unfavorable pattern of investments in the production sectors and industries. To ascertain ranking and economic viability for the investment sectors, this study used optimization techniques called TOPSIS, VIKOR, and COPRAS. From 2020 to 2022, this study was conducted for the Debre Berhan City Administration. The study's findings include investment criteria and outline the importance of certain investment areas. The final findings of this study show that, according to TOPSIS, VIKOR, and COPRAS, the current industrial investment pattern is not ideal investment priorities need to be changed. As a result of the above three optimization techniques; spinning, weaving, and finishing of textile fabric’s sector have been ranked first.

The blade shape parameters have a remarkable effect on the centrifugal pump performance. In order to reveal the relationship between these parameters and pump performance, a single channel was regarded as the research object to calculate its performance by numerical simulation, and the performance was measured on an experimental rig. The optimized ANN is proposed, and it is proved to be highly accurate. The ANN correlation coefficient of the total response could be above 0.997 after thousands of retaining. The sorts and degrees affecting performance parameters were found out by gray relation analysis. It was found that the blade angles at the leading edge were more influential for reaction force, head and minimum pressure, while the wrap angles had greater impact for efficiency. Furthermore, a multiple linear regression model was established to quantify the weight and trend of the influence of blade shape parameters on performance. The results provide a reference guide for the optimized design of centrifugal impeller to improve pump performance.

The COVID-19 outbreak is a black swan event that has uncovered the delicateness of global supply chains and business architecture. Underpinned by the agency theory and institutional theory, a proposition for business continuity in the highly regulated pharma industry is presented in this paper. A cross-sectional quantitative study was carried out on a sample of 102 pharma supply chain executives in Malaysia. The primary data were gathered by administering a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The result reveals that supply chain orientation directly influences supply chain resilience. Also, introducing collaborative regulation as a mediator in this relationship shows partial mediation. The notion of collaborative regulation as a behavioral governance mechanism is relatively new, thus, presenting interesting opportunities for further exploration of the subject matter.

Bidding strategy is an important part of a negotiation strategy in automated multi-issue negotiations. In order to present good offers, which help maximize the agent’s utility, we need to search the outcome space and find appropriate bids. Bid search can become challenging in large outcome spaces with more than ten thousands of possible bids. The traditional search methods such as exhaustive or binary search are not efficient enough to find the right bids in a large space. This is mostly due to the high number of issues, high number of possible values for each issue, and increased time complexity of usual search methods. In this paper, we investigate the potential of using meta-heuristic methods for optimizing bid search in large outcome spaces. We apply some of the most popular meta-heuristic algorithms for bid search in bidding strategy of baseline negotiating agents and evaluate their impacts on negotiation performance in different negotiation domains. The evaluation results obtained through comprehensive experiments show how meta-heuristic algorithms can help improve bid search capability and consequently negotiation performance of the agents on different performance criteria. In addition, we show which search algorithm is most suitable for improving any particular performance criterion.

Indole is a hazardous substance existing in the curl oil, which released to the environment by various industrial activities; thus, decreasing its ratio from nature seems to be essential. In this study, a facial pathway for loading Cu(II) particles on MCM-41 mesoporous material was introduced as an efficient catalyst for indole oxidation. The obtained catalyst was characterized by XRD, FESEM, EDS, TEM and BET/BJH techniques. Based on Taguchi method, indole oxidation via prepared catalyst at mild condition was evaluated. By applying this method, the operating factors including Indole initial concentration (mg/L), pH value and the mass of catalyst (g) were optimized. It was found that pH plays the most crucial role in indole oxidation, on the other word, in alkaline environment; indole oxidation was happened with higher yield.

The development of Islamic tourism such as Umrah does not get much attention in the literature though there are 6 million people all around the world performing Umrah every year. Nowadays, social media has been recognized as an important tool in building and maintaining the image of tourist destination especially in the Umrah context. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of social media experiences (interactions and sharing of contents) on attitudes and behavioral intentions towards Umrah package (booking decisions and electronic Word of Mouth) among generation X and Y. Sums of three hundred eighty-four respondents were engaged as the respondents. The population of this study was among Malaysian Muslim citizens who had social media experiences in seeking online information and knowledge about Umrah and already performed Umrah. The data then was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Partial Least Squares (PLS) software. The findings of this study confirmed that sharing of contents of social media experiences has significant and positive relationship on behavioral intentions (booking decisions and electronic Word of Mouth).

The competition manufacturing companies face has driven the development of novel and efficient methods that enhance the decision making process. In this work, a specific flow shop scheduling problem of practical interest in the industry is presented and formalized using a mathematical programming model. The problem considers a manufacturing system arranged as a work cell that takes into account the transport operations of raw material and final products between the manufacturing cell and warehouses. For solving this problem, we present a multiobjective metaheuristic strategy based on simulated annealing, the Pareto Archived Simulated Annealing (PASA). We tested this strategy on two kinds of benchmark problem sets proposed by the authors. The first group is composed by small-sized problems. On these tests, PASA was able to obtain optimal or near-optimal solutions in significantly short computing times. In order to complete the analysis, we compared these results to the exact Pareto front of the instances obtained with augmented ε-constraint method. Then, we also tested the algorithm in a set of larger problems to evaluate its performance in more extensive search spaces. We performed this assessment through an analysis of the hypervolume metric. Both sets of tests showed the competitiveness of the Pareto Archived Simulated Annealing to efficiently solve this problem and obtain good quality solutions while using reasonable computational resources.

The regioselectivity of the [3+2] cycloaddition reactions between benzonitrile N-oxide as three-atom component and two series of para-substituted β-nitrostyrene analogues was analysed in the framework of
a Molecular Electron Density Theory. All of the considered processes were found to be initiated by the attack of the most nucleophilic oxygen atom in the benzonitrile N-oxide on the most electrophilic carbon atom (C_α) in the nitroalkenes. This type of interaction favours the formation of 4-nitro-substituted
Δ²-isoxazolines.

This research was undertaken to examine the effect of low corporation tax rate on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Investors and multinational firms are very rational and therefore prefer to invest in countries where the cost of taxation will be at the barest minimum to maximize their profit. The study aimed to critically analyze the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) rates of the randomly selected countries of the world, and their respective impacts on FDI and GDP. The study is descriptive in nature, based on quantitative data, sourced from various reports of Statutory Corporate Income Tax Rates of Tax Foundation, World Bank and UNCTAD World Investment Report of 2022. Ex-post Facto research design was deployed; while data were analyzed with a General Linear Model of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) with the aid of SPSS version 25. The study found that low rate of corporation tax has a positive and significant effect on FDI as well as on GDP. That is, CIT rate is a dominant determinant for FDI and GDP of countries.

The application of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is restricted due to limited information about the mechanical properties of printed parts. Therefore, it is required to determine the mechanical properties of the FDM properties to avail the full benefit of the FDM process. In the present study, Classic Laminate Theory (CLT) has been employed at the different configurations of layer thickness and raster width. The required elastic constant of material for CLT has been experimentally obtained through FDM printed Polylactic Acid (PLA) unidirectional specimens at 0°, 45° and 90° for different combinations of layer height and raster width. For these different combinations of layer height and raster width, constitutive models were developed to predict the tensile properties of the PLA parts. Tensile strength of the FDM printed bi-directional specimens has been experimentally obtained to validate the proposed CLT model results. The experimental tensile strength data is in good agreement with the data predicted by the proposed CLT model. Higher tensile strength and modulus were achieved with 0° raster angle compared to 90° raster angle. In the case of a bi-directional printed specimen, higher tensile strength was obtained with 45°/-45° raster angle followed by 30°/-60° and 0°/90° raster angle.