Conceptual design evaluation using interval type-2 fuzzy information axiom

Concept selection is the most critical part of the design process as it determines the direction of subsequent design stages. In addition, it is a difficult task because available information for decision-making at this stage is imprecise and subjective. This necessitates the need for fuzzy decision models for selecting the best conceptual design among a set of alternatives. Although ordinary fuzzy sets cover uncertainties of linguistic words to some extent, it is recommended to use interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FS) to capture potential uncertainties of words. This paper presents a new concept selection methodology that extends the fuzzy information axiom (FIA) approach to incorporate IT2FSs. The proposed methodology is called interval-type-2 fuzzy information axiom (IT2-FIA). IT2-FIA method is also enriched by using ordered weighted geometric aggregation operator to include the decision maker's attitude during the aggregation process. A case study is given to demonstrate the potential of the methodology.     

Grey prediction with rolling mechanism for electricity demand forecasting of Turkey

The need for energy supply, especially for electricity, has been increasing in the last two decades in Turkey. In addition, owing to the uncertain economic structure of the country, electricity consumption has a chaotic and nonlinear trend. Hence, electricity configuration planning and estimation has been the most critical issue of active concern for Turkey. The Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR) has officially carried out energy planning studies using the Model of Analysis of the Energy Demand (MAED). In this paper, Grey prediction with rolling mechanism (GPRM) approach is proposed to predict the Turkey's total and industrial electricity consumption. GPRM approach is used because of high prediction accuracy, applicability in the case of limited data situations and requirement of little computational effort. Results show that proposed approach estimates more accurate results than the results of MAED, and have explicit advantages over extant studies. Future projections have also been done for total and industrial sector, respectively.     

Ant colony optimization approach for classification of occupational low back disorder risks

Manual material handling (MMH) tasks, the leading cause of low back disorders (LBDs), are still extensively used in industry in spite of the advanced technology. Classification of industrial jobs related to LBD risks has great significance in preventing injuries and designing workplaces. In this article, industrial jobs have been classified into two categories, low risk and high risk, using ant colony optimization (ACO). ACO classification (ACOCLASS) has obtained better results than studies that used the same experimental data. Ergonomic interventions can be done by means of obtained classification schema for future reductions in low back injuries. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Some picture fuzzy Bonferroni mean operators with their application to multicriteria decision making

In this paper, we extend the Bonferroni mean (BM) operator with the picture fuzzy numbers (PFNs) to propose novel picture fuzzy aggregation operators and demonstrate their application to multicriteria decision making (MCDM). On the basis of the algebraic operational rules of PFNs and BM, we introduce some aggregation operators: the picture fuzzy Bonferroni mean, the picture fuzzy normalized weighted Bonferroni mean, and the picture fuzzy ordered weighted Bonferroni mean. Then, a new picture fuzzy MCDM method is proposed with the help of the proposed operators. Lastly, a practical application of proposed model is given to verify the developed model and related results of the proposed model is compared with the results of the existing models to indicate its applicability.     

Decreased Platelet Specific Receptor Expression of P-Selectin and GPIIb/IIIa Predict Future Non-Surgical Bleeding in Patients after Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation

Non-surgical bleeding (NSB) is one of the major clinical complications in patients under continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (LVAD) support. The increased shear stress leads to an altered platelet receptor composition. Whether these changes increase the risk for NSB is unclear. Thus, we compared the platelet receptor composition of patients with (bleeder group, n = 18) and without NSB (non-bleeder group, n = 18) prior to LVAD implantation. Blood samples were obtained prior to LVAD implantation and after bleeding complications in the post-implant period. Platelet receptor expression of GPIbα, GPIIb/IIIa, P-selectin and CD63 as well as intra-platelet oxidative stress levels were quantified by flow cytometry. Bleeders and non-bleeders were comparable regarding clinical characteristics, von Willebrand factor diagnostics and the aggregation capacity before and after LVAD implantation (p > 0.05). LVAD patients in the bleeder group suffered from gastrointestinal bleeding (33%; n = 6), epistaxis (22%; n = 4), hematuria or hematoma (17%; n = 3, respectively) and cerebral bleeding (11%; n = 2). Prior to LVAD implantation, a restricted surface expression of the platelet receptors P-selectin and GPIIb/IIIa was observed in the bleeder group (P-selectin: 7.2 ± 2.6%; GPIIb/IIIa: 26,900 ± 13,608 U) compared to non-bleeders (P-selectin: 12.4 ± 8.1%, p = 0.02; GPIIb/IIIa: 36,259 ± 9914 U; p = 0.02). We hypothesized that the reduced platelet receptor expression of P-selectin and GPIIb/IIIa prior to LVAD implantation may be linked to LVAD-related NSB.     

Detection of ROS and translocation of ERP-57 in apoptotic induced human neuroblastoma (SH-SY5Y) cells

Several toxic compounds are known to induce apoptosis in mammalian cell lines. The human neuroblastomacells (SH-SY5Y) were exposed to the phosphatase inhibiting toxin okadaic acid (OA) or hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)to induce apoptosis as well as generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). Mitoxantrone (MXT) was used as a positivecontrol for apoptosis. The SH-SY5Y cells were transfected with eukaryotic expression plasmid pHyPer-dMito encodingmitochondrial-targeted fluorescent or pHyPer-dCito encoding cytoplasmic-targeted fluorescent sensor for hydrogenperoxide (HyPer). The ERp57, also called GRP58 (Glucose-regulated protein 58), is a stress protein induced inconditions like glucose starvation and viral infection. Recently ERp57 was shown to translocate from the endoplasmaticreticulum to the cell surface in anthracycline-induced apoptotic cells. ERp57 co-translocation together with calreticulinhas been suggested to be crucial for recognizing tumor cells to induce immunogenic cell death. ERp57 translocationafter exposure to okadaic acid was studied using immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. These studies indicatedthat okadaic acid has induced the translocation of ERp57 to the cellular membrane.     

Lie group analysis of hyperbolic tangent fluid flow in the presence of thermal radiation

The present study is devoted to the flow and heat transfer analysis of the hyperbolic tangent fluid through a stretching sheet by considering the effect of thermal radiation in addition to an applied transverse magnetic field, as well as thermal and velocity slip conditions. The Lie group analysis technique has been utilized for establishing similarity transformations, which effectively transform the governing equations to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs). These ODEs are numerically solved by utilizing the shooting method. The heat transfer properties and flow features under the influence of various physical parameters are also studied. We noted that by increasing the thermal radiation parameter, the temperature profile increases and also the thermal boundary layer thickens. Furthermore, it is deduced that rising the thermal radiation parameter reduces the local Nusselt number. Moreover, the numerical results obtained are in agreement with the existing results in the literature.     

Classification of Risks of Occupational Low Back Disorders with Support Vector Machines

Though technology has shown a rapid development, manual material handling (MMH) tasks are still usual activities in most industries. According to recent surveys, MMH tasks remain one of the main reasons for the emergence of occupational low back disorders (LBDs). It is critical to be able to discriminate as accurately as possible between MMH jobs that place workers at high versus low risk of LBDs. In this study, the risk of occupational LBDs has been classified by support vector machines (SVMs) considering both trunk motion variables and workplace variables, which have been extensively used to identify risk of LBDs. The LBDs‐SVM model has outperformed the existing models in terms of accuracy, which is equal to 88.5% for correct classification of high risk when 10‐cross validation is applied. In other words, the proposed model has correctly classified an average of 29.2 cases out of 33 high‐risk cases, which is critical to be determined compared to low‐risk cases. The results obtained in this study indicate that SVM is a better classifier than the other existing methods in the literature to classify LBDs risks.     

Fuzzy Quantification and Opinion Mining on Qualitative Data using Feature Reduction

In this paper, we propose a generic recommender system that combines opinion mining and fuzzy quantification methods for qualitative data. The proposed system has two novel aspects. First, it employs a novel semantic orientation (SO) computation method to reduce the number of extracted features and opinion expressions. By using this new SO computation method, the proposed recommender system finds out the most related features and opinion expressions. Second, the proposed system generates short summary sentences from qualitative data using fuzzy quantification. The proposed system is evaluated using a restaurant review dataset. The results present that fuzzy quantified sentences offer brief information about the restaurant features from customers’ feedback. In addition, opinion mining extracts positive, negative, and neutral emotions from reviews.