Novel fragrant starch-based films with limonene were successfully prepared. Biodegradable materials of natural origin were used and the process was relatively simple and inexpensive. The effect of limonene on physicochemical properties of starch-based films (moisture absorption, solubility in water, wettability, mechanical properties) were compared to glycerol plasticized system. Taking into consideration that the obtained materials could also exhibit bactericidal and fungicidal properties, the studies with Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger were performed. Such a material could potentially find application in food packaging (e.g. masking unpleasant odors, hydrophilic starch film would prevent food drying), or in agriculture (e.g. for seed encapsulated tapes).

Readily available tetrachloro-2-aza-1,3-butadienes enter into directed cyclocondensation reaction with N-phenyl-1,2-cyclopentanediamine which leads to regioselective cyclopentane annulation by the 1,3,5-triazepine. The formation of the 1,3,5-triazepine derivatives was confirmed proved by 1H- and 13C-NMR spectral study, elemental analysis and, in one case, single-crystal x-ray crystallographic study.

A fast and facile one-pot procedure for the preparation of symmetric 5-Aryloyl-1,9-dimethyl-5,9-dihydro-2H-pyrano[2,3-d:6,5-d']dipyrimidine-2,4,6,8(1H,3H,7H)-tetraone derivatives by two-component reaction of N-methylbarbituric acid and arylglyoxalmonohydrates catalyzed by DABCO in ethanol at 50 ºC is described. This protocol has the advantages of environmental friendless, very simple operation, high regio- and chemoselectivity and moderate to excellent yields.

Crosslinked poly(vinylalcohol) (PVA) hydrogel composites based on algerian hydrophilic natural Na-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) nanoclay named Maghnite-Na (Mag-Na) were prepared in aqueous media, without utilization of chemical crosslinking agents, by repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. The morphology of hydrogel composites and their swelling in water at different amount of Mag-Na were investigated. The characterization of obtained hydrogel composites by X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed a remarkable increase of the basal distance of Mag-Na in PVA hydrogels. Therefore, Intercalated and exfoliated morphology was observed for prepared composites hydrogels of PVA. The infra-red (FTIR) characterization results showed that some interactions have been developed between the hydroxyl groups of PVA chains and Mag-Na in composite hydrogels. Introducing Mag-Na into PVA hydrogel affected their swelling. Increased amount of Mag-Na decreased the equilibrium degree of swelling and equilibrium water content.

The Mg/Fe = 3 hydrotalcite as reusable solid catalyst was found to be an excellent heterogeneous base catalyst for the synthesis of 3,4-dihydropyrimidinones/thiones, a multicomponent reaction using substituted aromatic aldehyde, ethyl acetoacetate and urea/thiourea. The work has been carried out under thermal solvent free conditions. Mg/Fe = 3 hydrotalcite heterogeneous solid catalyst offers simple means of recovery and the isolated catalyst was reused for number of times without significant loss of catalytic activity.

A reverse supply chain is viewed as a process from consumption point to recovery point and the management of domestic waste is considered as a specific and complex reverse supply chain. This important sector represents a high challenging problem for our cities, constrained by financial, social, health and environmental considerations. This paper proposes multicriteria decision aid to help choose an efficient domestic waste management strategy. In fact, Multicriteria decision making techniques are considered as a key option to solve this type of problems, giving a solution that represents a good compromise between different preferences. The adopted approach consists in outranking a set of candidate management plans using a method based on partial aggregation criteria. This model is applied on a real case study of an Algerian city and to validate the obtained results, a deep sensitivity analysis is carried out, giving the most appropriate plans.

In today’s scenario, software has become an essential component in all kinds of systems. The size and the complexity of the software increases with a corresponding increase in its functionality, hence leads to the development of the modular software systems. Software developers emphasize on the concept of component based software engineering (CBSE) for the development of modular software systems. The CBSE concept consists of dividing the software into a number of modules; selecting Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) for each module; and finally integrating the modules to develop the final software system. The selection of COTS for any module plays a vital role in software development. To address the problem of selection of COTS, a framework for ranking and selection of various COTS components for any software system based on expert opinion elicitation and fuzzy-based matrix methodology is proposed in this research paper. The selection problem is modeled as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. The evaluation criteria are identified through extensive literature study and the COTS components are ranked based on these identified and selected evaluation criteria using the proposed methods according to the value of a permanent function of their criteria matrices. The methodology is explained through an example and is validated by comparing with an existing method.

Supplier selection is a complex multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem. There are literally various methods for choosing appropriate supplier but there are several criteria involved in complex decision making process. The classical MCDM methods cannot effectively solve real-world problems however fuzzy MCDM methods facilitate the solution fairly and enable the decision-makers to reach accurate decisions in this selection process. In this study, a supplier selection problem is handled, in a firm in automotive industry of Turkey. Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution) and generalized Choquet integral are used individually in the solution of the problem.

An important issue in maintaining the industrial equipment is to introduce an appropriate maintenance policy to monitor the conditions of the equipment. In this research, an investigation on the concurrent effects of erosion and random shocks during the useful life of the equipment is studied. In this regard a model is introduced to optimize the total cost including logistic, complete repair and incomplete repair costs. The proposed model determines the optimal number of the incomplete repairs, the time duration between inspections and the probability of equipment to be failed. A numerical example is solved by means of computer simulation. The results indicate that the proposed model performs well for minimizing the costs of maintenance and repair.

Assembly lines and cellular manufacturing systems (CMSs) design have been widely used in the literature. However the integration of these manufacturing concepts is neglected in an environment where parts need to be assembled after production in different shops. In this paper, a comprehensive quadratic assignment problem is developed for the assignment of machines of each part manufacturing cell, sub-assembly tasks of each sub-assembly cell as well as the assignment of different cells and final assembly tasks within the shop floor in their relevant predetermined locations. A genetic algorithm (GA) as well as a memetic algorithm (MA) consisting of the proposed GA and Tabu search (TS) algorithm are proposed and implemented on different size numerical examples. The obtained results show the efficiency of both algorithms to reach near optimal solutions compared to the optimal solution of small-sized problems.