Dosage planning for type 2 diabetes mellitus patients using Indexing HDMR

Diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2DM), is also named as non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) or adult-onset diabetes, is a metabolic disease characterized by high blood glucose. Deficient insulin production or insulin resistance of the body are the causes of T2DM. Drug treatment has a very important role as well as exercise and diet. To keep the body sugar level stable within the accepted range values, drug dosage planning is a part of combinational treatment. In this study, Indexing HDMR method which is a multivariate data partitioning method is used to produce a polynomial based rule structure to manage the drug dosage planning process. For this purpose, 142 diabetic assays, 96 of which as training data and 46 of which as testing data, were used in this study. The Indexing HDMR method worked well in modeling drug dosages and it is obvious that the method is reliable for the purpose.     

A direct touch table-top display as a multi-user information kiosk: Comparing the usability of a single display groupware either by a single user or people cooperating as a group

This study aimed to investigate the usability of a direct touch table-top display (D3TD) application that was designed to be used as a multi-user information kiosk (MUIK). We examined its use by either a single person or multiple user groups to determine the effect of people cooperating as a group on its usability. We compared both groups’ user performance and usability survey results. A one-way MANOVA of overall usability metrics emphasised a significant difference between the groups. Given the significance of the overall test, examining the univariate main effects revealed that the difference between the groups arose in the earlier system use stages due to differences in the success rate. There was no difference in the task completion time between the groups. Participants in the multiple user group achieved a higher task completion rate in the first phase and lower error rates in the following steps. However, the usability survey results did not reveal a significant difference between the groups. We observed that users working on the same individual task tended to help each other when working in a multi-user environment. These mutual aids occurred mostly in the earlier stages, influencing the users’ performance. The results show that a D3TD has a potential to enhance usability in terms of effectiveness when deployed as a MUIK.     

An early warning system approach for the identification of currency crises with data mining techniques

It is a well-known fact that currency crises can be extremely costly to the countries, institutions and businesses with its damaging long-term effects. If the history of currency crises is investigated, it would be seen that crises cause many hazarding effects on economies, business policies and assets. It would generally have short-term and long-term effects and often spill over, via a variety of channels to other countries and companies. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the dominant factors that lead to currency crises. Discovering the nature and characteristics of currency crises and predicting possible currency crises in an early phase would save managers some time in better crisis management policies and corrective actions. We employed data mining techniques to construct an early warning system for the knowledge discovery and early prediction purposes of currency crises with the aim of providing an in-depth understanding of the topic for the researchers and managers.     

Novel methodologies and a comparative study for manufacturing systems performance evaluations

The purpose of this work is to establish complex fuzzy methodologies in the evaluation of a manufacturing system’s performance. Many empirical studies have been presented about the evaluation of manufacturing system’s performance. However, the performance evaluation is quite subjective, since it relies on the individual judgment of the managers who have different, various and multi-factor assessment methods of a system’s performance. In this study, two fuzzy modeling designs were developed and in the construction of the models, a hierarchy process was used. In the first method, the performance factors and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) were fuzzified and the use of fuzzy numbers and a fuzzy AHP for this problem was recommended. Also, the relative importance of these factors with respect to each other and their contribution to the overall performance was quantified with fuzzy linguistic terms. In the other method, we proposed Approximate Reasoning (AR) based on experts’ knowledge which is represented with the collection of the rules. These fuzzy rule bases are “if-then” linguistic rules that are formed with linguistic variables such as poor, below average, average, above average and superior. Additionally, the problem was structured with the normal AHP and System-With-Feedback (SWF), Finally, these methods were compared. The results showed that fuzzy AHP leads to the best result. It is expected that the recommended models would have an advantage in the competitive manufacturing including cost, flexibility, quality, speed and dependability.     

Cyber victim and bullying scale: A study of validity and reliability

The purpose of this study is to develop a reliable and valid scale, which determines cyber victimization and bullying behaviors of high school students. Research group consisted of 404 students (250 male, 154 male) in Sakarya, in 2009–2010 academic years. In the study sample, mean age is 16.68. Content validity and face validity of the scale was provided via field specialists’ judgment. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were performed for investigation of the factor structure of the scale. As a result of principal component analysis of cyber victim subscale three factors emerged which accounted for the 46.38% of the total variance. Also for cyber bullying subscale, same three factors emerged accounting for the 49.18% of the total variance. Scales with 22 items under 3 factors were tested with confirmatory factor analysis for each victim and bullying variables. Three factors were named as cyber verbal bullying, hiding identity and cyber forgery. Three factors model of scales were found theoretically and statistically fitted after confirmatory factor analysis. For criterion related validity the correlation between cyber victim and bullying scale and Aggression Scale was calculated as .27 and .36, respectively. The internal consistency coefficients calculated for reliability. Cyber victim and bullying scales’ internal consistency coefficients were .89 and split-half coefficients were .79. for both scales. Test-retest reliability for cyber victim .85, for cyber bullying respectively .90 was found. These results demonstrate that the Cyber Victim and Bullying Scale’ is a valid and reliable instrument.     

Note on transport equation and fractional Sumudu transform

In this paper, the Chebyshev polynomials to solve analytically the fractional neutron transport equation in one-dimensional plane geometry are used. The procedure is based on the expansion of the angular flux in terms of the Chebyshev polynomials. The obtained system of fractional linear differential equation is solved analytically by using fractional Sumudu transform.     

Neutronic analysis of a high power density hybrid reactor using innovative coolants

In this study, neutronic investigation of a deuterium-tritium (DT) driven hybrid reactor using ceramic uranium fuels, namely UC, UO₂ or UN under a high neutron wall load (NWL) of 10MW/m² at the first wall is conducted over a period of 24 months for fissile fuel breeding for light water reactors (LWRs). New substances, namely, Flinabe or Li₂₀Sn₈₀ are used as coolants in the fuel zone to facilitate heat transfer out of the blanket. Natural lithium is also utilized for comparison to these two innovative coolants. Neutron transport calculations are performed on a simple experimental hybrid blanket with cylindrical geometry with the help of the SCALE 4.3 System by solving the Boltzmann transport equation with the XSDRNPM code in 238 neutron groups and an S₈-P₃ approximation. The investigated blanket using Flinabe or Li₂₀Sn₈₀ shows better fissile fuel breeding and fuel enrichment characteristics compared to that with natural lithium which shows that these two innovative coolants can be used in hybrid reactors for higher fissile fuel breeding performance. Furthermore, using a high NWL of 10MW/m² at the first wall of the investigated blanket can decrease the time for fuel rods to reach the level for charging in LWRs.     

A new MILP model proposal in feed formulation and using a hybrid-linear binary PSO (H-LBP) approach for alternative solutions

Large-scale feed factories may have multiple production and storage facilities. Any production facility uses its own available raw materials while performing feed formulation. However, ensuring a reasonable cost is achieved, and the desired quality criteria are met, may require obtaining a certain amount of raw material from other facilities. Selecting a specific amount of raw materials among many raw materials in different facilities requires many combinations to be tried out. Providing solutions, especially when there is a large amount of the raw material, may be costly and take more time. A new mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that specifies the type of material and the amount of the material to be selected from external facilities has been proposed in this study. When deterministic methods like MILP are used, only one solution result is obtained. However, when the decision-maker would like to see alternative results, solution constraints can be mitigated and a solution provided within the same or similar time. A new method named hybrid-linear binary PSO (H-LBP) has been proposed in this study for the problems that the decision-maker had limited time for and for which the solution results were required in a shorter time. Continuous particle swarm optimization, which works as a hybrid with linear programming, has been used in this method. The new model proposed in this study was tested on the mixed feeds for sheep, cattle and rabbit species by using both MILP and the proposed H-LBP methods. Raw materials determined by the model were added to the mixture, and the cost in each of the three species was observed to go down. In addition, different alternative solutions at reasonable cost and similar quality were presented to the producer/decision-maker in a shorter time.