Search

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The accurate and scientific assessment of the risk to issue an insurance policy is one of the most critical and important stages of risk assessment frameworks. This leads companies to identify high-risk customers and determine the policy rates in accordance with their risks, and as a result, the claims will be covered appropriately through the insurance premiums. In this paper, a new method is presented to define the concept of risk factor in more practical, flexible and accurate way. In this method, which is based on an unsupervised clustering algorithm, initially, every single factor is examined based on different ranges and their corresponding impact on customer loss levels. Then, considering their connection with the ranges of other factors in terms of creating similar levels of customer loss, they are combined to form a package. Thus, different packages are created, each of which is considered a risk factor and comprise the ranges of factors affecting different levels of loss. METHODS: The k-means clustering method was used to divide insurers into clusters with similar risks, which correspond to the risk packages associated with the customers’ risk level. The number of desired clusters should be determined in advance, which is the main challenge of using this algorithm. Two main approaches for validation, namely the silhouette score and the elbow method, were presented. FINDINGS: Based on the elbow plot and silhouette coefficient, as well as considering the practical and realistic evaluation needed by insurance companies, four clusters were obtained. Cluster 2 and 3 are similar and can be merged to form a cluster of medium risk level. Therefore, three clusters were considered the best outcome for categorizing insurance policyholders. CONCLUSION: The risk packages can be introduced from the examination of the 3 clusters including People with high, medium and low age (confidence interval) with low price car whose gender is male can be introduced as the highest level of risk; People with medium and high ages (confidence interval) with medium and high car prices can be considered as medium risks, and Middle-aged and older people (confidence interval) with expensive cars were considered the lowest level of risk. From the results of these risk packages, it can be concluded that although a significant population of older policyholders falls into the first package (first cluster), they have the highest level of risk. On the other hand, the older people in the third package (even though their average age is the highest among the clusters) have the lowest level of risk. Another important point is that the risk level decreases as income increases simultaneously with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-increasing of renewable distributed generation sources in distribution networks, as well as increasing network size, have faced agent-based protection schemes with a heavy communicational load. Accordingly, despite the fast and reliable nature of multi-agent systems, they have the possibility of improper performance, especially in centralized protection systems. This paper presents an intelligent self-healing method that has the ability to replace common multi-agent systems during fault conditions. Therefore, protection tasks are performed in a single control level, without dependence on higher communicational levels, to clear the fault. Decentralized operation of this structure is provided by using intelligent electronic devices and distributed communications. In this way, the proposed scheme is described with high-speed peer-to-peer communication capability using the IEC-61850 GOOSE protocol. Then, a penetration-free algorithm, without the help of a central controller, is provided by using GOOSE message capabilities, to prevent any electricity interruption due to insufficient protection settings. Finally, by planning different scenarios and simulating a practical distribution network via ETAP software, the accuracy of the proposed algorithm has been proven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the problem of real-time scheduling of multi-factury production network in the smart manufacturing system with job shop environment is studied. In this smart manufacturing system, a number of independently owned factories are joined together to form a multi-agent production network, which is also called a virtual production network. In such a network, each factory focuses on its interests and communicates with each other by sharing information such as machine breakdowns and job transfers. Therefore, it can be stated that studying the problem of distributed scheduling in the environment of smart factories is important and will have a significant effect on obtaining desirable and ideal results. At first, a biobjective mixed integer linear programming model is presented; then an approach to solve the dynamic real-time scheduling problem is proposed . Considering the successful applications of the Lagrangian relaxation algorithm in solving scheduling problems, in this research, the improved Lagrangian relaxation algorithm is used to solve the problem. To examine the performance of the proposed algorithm, its results were compared with solving the original model that was solved by the augmented epsilon constraint method. The obtained results showed that the proposed Lagrangian relaxation algorithm has a better performance than the augmented epsilon constraint method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the unique biometric features of fingerprints to generate random cryptographic keys. The main aspects of the security of the generated key include the privacy of the fingerprint and the randomness and complexity of the key generation algorithm. In the proposed method, first, the unique fingerprint features, which include Minutiae points, are extracted from the fingerprint image. Then, to increase the statistical properties and complexity of the algorithm, the Euclidean distance and the angle of all the points of Minutiae relative to each other are calculated and stored. In the next step, after normalizing to 8-bit numbers, these data are moved by permutation operations and combined. In the following, the proposed method is used to increase the level of security and the ability to be random from the non-linear operations of 8-bit S-boxes S0 and S1 used in the CLEFIA block cipher. Statistical analyzes performed on the generated keys show the acceptable random nature of the keys. Therefore, the proposed structure for generating a random key can be used in encrypting digital signals with large volumes of data such as image and sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: The substantial changes in the COVID-19 epidemic around the world and its impact have repeatedly changed the management, diagnostic, and even treatment protocols. The meaning of changing the concept of triage is adjusting the process of ordinary hospital triage to a gray and two-layer triage. In this study, the field evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the management and triage of COVID-19 patients and the design of a biological triage model in a selected military hospital has been conducted. Methods: This research was a descriptive study in terms of its purpose and method; it is a qualitative study. The Delphi method was used. The studied community, specialists, and elites related to the treatment of COVID-19 included emergency, infectious, internal medicine, lung, and anesthesia specialists, as well as experts and senior hospital managers in the scientific committee of the university. Sampling was done using a targeted and available method. Focused group discussions, expert panels, and qualitative interviews people used to obtain were optional. Delphi results were analyzed in three rounds with content analysis to identify the main topics and use collective agreement indicators. Results: By holding a panel of experts, the results of research findings in qualitative panels were presented in three categories. First, the weaknesses and strengths of the existing and notified protocols of the Ministry of Health were identified. Then, the experts in the scientific committee of Corona presented the implementation solutions to improve and enhance the treatment protocol in the hospital. Finally, the implementation algorithm agreed upon by most experts was presented. The maximum isolation of patients from the beginning of entering the gray triage unit, the use of the maximum emergency capacity in a pandemic, and the use of home care methods to accelerate the discharge process of recovered patients were among the most important features of the proposed algorithm. Conclusion: Proper and continued training based on the latest findings, complete isolation of the triage area until hospitalization of COVID-19 patients, use of resistant structures, development of support beds in the emergency room, and conducting preparation maneuvers in biological pandemics based on an algorithm are of particular importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new fractional-order fuzzy controller named proportional fuzzy ا integral fuzzy + deferential fuzzy (FP + Fla + FDp) is proposed. The proposed controller is single gain, integrate, derivative and fractional order in its structure. The controller has a structure with two adjustable fractions and is simply designed. This controller performs the stability process in a short time. The response time can also be changed by adjusting the coefficient of time scale a and p, which makes it more flexible and efficient compared to the classic PID controller. On the other hand, in the design of the proposed controller, the optimal adjustment of the controller gain and fuzzy members has turned into an optimization problem, which is done by a hybrid algorithm based on the vcs and the HBC colony (ABC) based on a function in the time domain. In the proposed hybrid algorithm, attempts have been made to take advantage of local and final search as the strengths of these controllers to dramatically reduce the possibility of locating in local points. Investigations of different load variation scenarios, better performance of the proposed controller facing load disturbances from the root mean square, rise and fall time, will show the number of oscillations, and the fall time of the frequency changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Cervical cancer begins in superficial cells and over time can invade deeper tissues and surrounding tissues. This paper presents a creative idea of using an ensemble classification algorithm that improves the predictive performance of an artificial intelligence system based on cervical cancer screening. This study aimed to classify Pap-smear images by different machine learning methods to achieve high accuracy detection. Methods. This study was performed on 917 Pap-smear images from the Herlev public database. In the feature extraction stage, 20 geometric features and 76 texture features were extracted. After that, using ensemble classification method, the images were classified into two categories (i.e., normal and abnormal) and then into seven categories (i.e., superficial epithelial, intermediate epithelial, columnar epithelial, mild dysplasia, moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia and carcinoma) and the accuracy of the proposed method was evaluated. Results. The algorithm in the ensemble classification was able to achieve accuracy of 99.9% with a processing time of 0.028 second in the two-class classification and accuracy of 76.5% with a processing time of 0.033 second in the seven-class classification. Conclusion. Based on the results, the designed algorithm can be used as a computer aided diagnostic tool to increase the accuracy and speed of predicting the risk of cervical cancer. Practical Implications. Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers among women. Early diagnosis of the disease can save various costs and prevent the patients’ frequent visits to medical centers. This research proposed an artificial intelligence method for automatic classification of cervical cells and improving the accuracy of diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social networks grow, they become more and more complex, and analyzing them becomes complicated. One way to reduce this complexity is to divide the network into subnets, which are also called communities. Dividing social networks into desirable communities can help analysts and experts to understand the behavior and function of the networks. Community detection in networks is a challenging topic in network science and various methods have been proposed for that. Modularity maximization is one of the state-of-the-art methods suggested for community detection. Modularity maximization is an NP-hard problem meaning that no polynomial-time algorithm exists that could solve the problem optimally unless P=NP. A group of approaches that could solve such problems is approximate algorithms. Identifying the influential nodes has many important applications in social networks. This technique could also be used in community detection. To maximize modularity, in this paper, we propose approximate algorithms based on identifying the influential nodes and their influence domain. We used the concept of scale-free networks to prove the approximate factor. Experiments on real-world networks show that the proposed algorithm can compete with the state-of-the-art methods of community detection algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Aims: Cancer is one of the great human challenges in all countries, both advanced and developing. Cancer treatment management can include surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy (1). Radiation therapy is done in two ways: Teletherapy and Brachytherapy. Brachytherapy involves the use of radiation sources to treat cancer by irradiating cancerous tissue from within the patient’s body (2). But the dose and how to use this method has always been questionable for researchers. Therefore, this study creates a new fuzzy approach to high-dose brachytherapy by optimizing the distribution of double roughness based on dosimetric criteria. The use of fuzzy logic itself has increased the accuracy of the mathematical model of the problem. This fuzzy model is a new study and innovation used in this paper. Due to the fuzzy nature of this method and its limitations, it is considered fuzzy. This makes the method more accurate and includes parameters such as the patient’s physical ability and age in the problem, which in itself increases the accuracy of the method for each patient. As a result, the obtained answer is improved and the executive program of brachytherapy method is more accurate. Methods: In the present study, the dose prescribed for an organ was evaluated by dosimetric indices listed in Table 1 (18). For the present study, data from 20 patients in the age range of 50 to 74 and mean age 62 years with a wide range of prostate volume between 23 and 103 cubic centimeters, and for the treatment of prostate cancer by brachytherapy from the Academic Medical Center (AMC, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) had participated. To compare brachytherapy programs with high interstitial dose, the dose rate was calculated with 192Ir beam with a radiation dose of 13 Gy, according to the standard protocol TG-43. To begin with, computed tomography (CT) scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were taken from the patients pelvis, and entered into the treatment planning software for use in treatment planning sessions. BT treatment planners and specialists then determined the input catheters, target volumes, and OARs obtained from the medical images. Depending on the size and exact location of the target volumes, between 14 and 20 catheters entered the patient’s body, reaching the target volumes. After designing and approving an acceptable treatment plan, the catheters inserted into the patient’s body were connected to a retractor 4 that controls the movement of the radiation source. After the treatment program, the source was returned to the retractor (8, 14). Then, an integer program model with fuzzy constraints was proposed for programming on high-dose brachytherapy. The description of infrastructures, parameters and variables in this model are in Table 2 (15 ). Finally, the dosimeter index is equal to the sum of all the index variables, as it turned out: The proposed model is a correct programming model called IP. In general, three evolutionary algorithms (EP), (GA) and (ES) were used in this research. The algorithms stopped after creating 20 generations of desirable answers and the best answer of each generation was determined on the chart as a point. The resulting set of answers were connected in the form of graphs, which are used to analyze the results. Each point on the graph identifies the best answer from each of the generations generated by the respective algorithms. These three algorithms were performed independently for each patient and the obtained answers were identified as dots on the chart. The graph obtained for each patient indicates the capability of each of these algorithms. Results: According to this study, each of the three algorithms (EP), (GA) and (ES) are each run independently for each of the patients with prostate cancer. At first, the genetic algorithm showed the ability to get closer to the desired answer sooner, but as the optimization process continues, the rate of convergence to the desired answer decreases, so if the time parameter is very important, the genetic algorithm can be useful. Especially for patients whose prostate volume was larger than other patients. In patients 15, 12, 8 and 9, due to their younger age than other patients and better physical condition, as well as prostate volume less than 80 ml, they had much more promising results than other patients. In contrast, for patients 4 and 19 with an age of over 70, the results were not as favorable as for other patients. The * sign in the table indicates that there is no answer through that patient-specific algorithm that covers 95 or even more of the tumor volume. Therefore, according to Table 2, it can be concluded that the best algorithm that can be considered for the case where the shortest time to reach the target coverage above 95% is the genetic algorithm. According to Table 2, it can be concluded that the best algorithm that can be considered for the case where the shortest time to reach the target coverage above 95% is the genetic algorithm. Therefore, according to Table 3, the ES algorithm has better answers than the other two algorithms for the case in which the largest volume of the tumor is covered. According to the results, the ES algorithm has obtained the best results for patients under 60 years of age and normal prostate volume. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it can be stated that whether the main goal is the maximum coverage or the goal is the shortest possible time to reach the coverage above 95%, the best algorithm that can get a good answer for each patient is the evolutionary strategy algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives Corona is caused by a viral infection called acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 which spreads rapidly, causing irreparable damage and death. In order to predict and develop treatment algorithms, the study of biomarkers is important in determining the severity of the disease. Therefore, we investigated the correlation of Interleukin 6 IL-6, Lactate dehydrogenase LDH, C reactive protein CRP and disease severity in COVID-19 patients. Materials and Methods In this descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study, the information of 365 coronavirus hospitalized patients randomly selected in Sina Hamadan hospital during 2019 was entered into SPSS 26. The severity of the disease was also measured according to the defined reference and clinical symptoms and classified into two levels. The data were analyzed with gamma correlation instability test, Somers' D at significance level of p value <0.05. Results It was found that IL-6 with a correlation coefficient of 0.506, LDH with a correlation coefficient of 0.291 and CRP with a correlation coefficient of 0.23, all at the level of 0.01 (p value = 0.01), have a positive effect on the severity of Corona disease and the amount of this positive effect is based on Somers' effect coefficient d 0.839, 0.458 and 0.358, respectively. Conclusions Patients with severe COVID-19 have significantly higher serum levels of CRP, LDH and IL-6. Baseline levels of IL-6, CRP, and LDH were closely related to the severity of COVID-19 disease. These laboratory markers can be used as clinical indicators of disease exacerbation and prognosis of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an asymmetric breakup of non-Newtonian droplet (with power law behavior) in a new geometry (network junction) has been investigated. The geometry can break an initial droplet into six unequal size droplets. The research method is numerical simulation with Volume of Fluid (VOF) algorithm. The numerical results are compared with the results of a benchmark problem and a very good agreement is seen. The results showed that in areas close to the wall, mixing of materials of inside droplet is performed better, which is important in industrial applications of droplet based flows, especially in pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The results showed that the maximum vorticity magnitude in the K1 branch (the lowest output branch in the system) is 26, 44 and 28 % more than the maximum vorticity magnitude of the branches of K2, K3 and K4 (K4 is the highest output branch is in system). Also, maximum effective viscosity in the K1 branch is 27, 29 and 24 % less than the maximum effective viscosity in the K2, K3 and K4 branches, respectively. Therefore, K1 branch has the best performance in mixing of the material of inside droplet among the output branches. It was also revealed that the pressure of inside of droplet (both before and after breakup) is constant along the channel width [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important parts of infrared search and tracking systems is image processing, which detects the targets in infrared images. In this paper, a new infrared small target detection algorithm is proposed. The proposed method uses heuristic optimization algorithms to find small targets in infrared images. In this way, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is used as one of the best heuristic optimization algorithms. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using real and simulated infrared images. These images include a variety of false response sources like high-intensity edges, cloudy background, complex sea-sky background, and a target close to high-intensity background clutter. The experimental results are compared with the four common methods of infrared small target detection. The experimental results show the effectiveness and performance of the proposed algorithm. Also, the runtime of the proposed method is comparable to other commonly used methods, and this makes it usable in real-time programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic vulnerability, is a country's structural feature, making it exposed by out-of-control economic exogenous variables. On the other hand, resilience stems from how macroeconomic policies are adopted. The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationship between sustainable development, vulnerability and resilience in the Iran's economy in the time period of 1391-1398.1 this way, sustainable development consists of 5 Dimensions: Economic, Social, Environmental, Governance, Peripheral and also includes 44 variables as a sub-indicator of each development's dimension. It uses graph theory and Tarjan Algorithm for study the network structure of relationships between variables. The Algorithm identifies34 variables as the fundamental variables affecting economic resilience and vulnerability and introduces economic and governance Dimensions as control (major) Dimensions; Social, Environmental and Peripheral Dimensions as Contingent (minor) Dimensions. The results show that weakness of Iran's economy in this period was due to vulnerability and resilience in governance and economy Dimensions. Among the contingent Dimensions, the Peripheral dimension has the worst situation in terms of vulnerability and resilience. The innovation of this research is in studying the Dimensions of sustainable development and its effect on vulnerability and resilience, moreover graph theory has been used in order to study the influential variables for the first time in Iran. In this algorithm, without limiting the number of input variables, the phenomenon can be analyzed comprehensively. furthermore, a holistic table has been prepared, by focusing on the variables affecting the state of vulnerability and resilience in the theoretical foundations of the subject, that has not been shown in any other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accurate awareness of the users as the most vital need for media has always been a concern for communication researchers. Given the emergence of new media, traditional techniques no longer have the ability to meet this need, and the use of modern methods is essential in understanding users' behavior. The present study used the Social Network Analysis (SNA) technique to investigate the user's behavior of VOD platforms. In this research, the site of CinemaMarket selected as the sample, and a dataset of its user’s purchases formed. Using Gephi software, the dataset was visualized and the members were clustered based on logical algorithms. By analyzing three detected communities, two different strategies were founded for the development of the users of this platform. Based on these strategies, platform managers can adapt their media policies to load new content on the platform and offer targeted content; as a result, they can meet their user's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) provides a workable mechanism, namely “interclausal relations hierarchy”, for the analysis of complex constructions. It is used as a general rule for interlinguistic studies. This hierarchy consists of "semantic continuum" and "syntactic continuum" and is based on iconicity, which means that constructions with high semantic correlations are expressed in the form of stronger syntactic relations and vice versa. In this hierarchy, causative constructions are also included, which were the focus of the present study. In this research, causative constructions were divided into 3 types: causative [type 1] or direct causatives, causative [type 2] or indirect causatives, and jussives. We first examined their syntactic semantic forms and interactions in causative constructions. The juncture-nexus relations and semantic hierarchy were discussed in the syntactic and semantic dimensions, respectively. The findings indicated that the direct causatives were in nuclear co-subordination relations, while the indirect causatives and jussives were in core co-subordination relations. We also proposed a constructional scheme for direct causation in Persian. The interaction of the two levels of syntax and semantics in causative constructions was also explained in the form of linking algorithms. Finally, it was found that Persian language acts in a way that it confirms the "interclausal relation hierarchy" and thus, its explanatory adequacy could be corroborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]