Selecting a genuine Objective function in the fuel management optimization (FMO) of newly developed reactors is fundamentally important. The FMO problem becomes harder when a multi-Objective fitness (cost) function (MOCF) is in use. Usually, when undertaking a MOCF fuel management optimization problem, it is transformed into the summation of Objective functions, which are related to weighting factors. Different parameters can be chosen as the main fitness function in an optimization problem. In the case of a nuclear reactor, the cycle length, the multiplication factor and power peaking factor are the most significant. The value of the weighting factors and/or the method with which the cost function has been formulated may affect the final result of optimization. In this paper, the effect of the selection of the cost function has been analyzed in order to reach an optimum in core fuel management of a typical pressurized water reactor, PWR. It is understood from the results that finding a loading pattern that results in a better power peaking factor (lower PPF) is stricter than that of a longer cycle length. Indeed, the obtained loading pattern strongly depends on the selected fitness function. Finally, the flattening function is proposed instead of minimizing the PPF to attain better loading patterns.

This paper presents a novel bi-Objective manpower scheduling problem that minimizes the penalty incurred by the employees’ assignment at lower skill levels than their real skills and maximizes the employees’ utility by assigning them at desired skill levels in some shifts/days. Employees are classified in two specialist groups and three skill levels in each specialization. In addition, the presented model executes some essential work regulations. This paper also proposes a solution procedure based on the utility of Objective values. Applying this procedure, an effective point is obtained for the given problem. This is the point where both Objective functions have the highest utility simultaneously.

This work proposes an Objective function to optimize an ultra wideband antenna for adjusting the bandwidth and coupling with other elements, based on the performance comparison of several Objective functions from the literature. The optimal dimensions of a printed rectangular monopole antenna were obtained with the Particle Swarm Optimization method to compare such functions. In the results of the comparison, the linear functions had a mean value of S11 magnitude near the threshold, but they presented a smaller standard deviation than the rest of the functions. The logarithmic and cubic functions showed a mean value of S11 magnitude higher than the double of the threshold, but they had superior standard deviation values, which did not happen with the quadratic function. Hence, the proposed function is the mean of a logarithmic expression with the quadratic argument. With this function, a bandwidth adjustment of 130%, a mean S11 magnitude of -22.1 dB and a standard deviation equal to 6.7 dB were obtained on the resonant band for the designed antenna. In this way, the proposed function can be used to avoid interference with other wireless systems and to obtain a uniform coupling of the antenna.

Improving participation in voluntary activities in Iran is important because increasing productivity among young people, given the country's young population, contributes to community sustainability. Therefore, a better understanding of volunteer motivation in Iranian youth is needed. The Volunteer functions Inventory (VFI) for assessing volunteer motivations has good psychometric properties and is adapted to several languages, but no validated Iranian translation yet exists. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric Characteristics of voluntary functions inventory in members of Iranian Red Crescent Society. Sample size was 595 members of Youth Organization of Iranian Red Crescent Society from 31 provinces and 175 cities of Iran that were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method and responded to voluntary functions inventory. Data were collected using a demographic sample and voluntary functions inventory (VFI). Confirmatory factor analysis using principal components method was used for data analysis. The results of the present study showed that the voluntary functions inventory had validity and reliability. Also, the factor structure showed that 29 items and 6 factors well assess people's attitudes to volunteering, and the structure of this inventory was well-fitted and confirmed all goodness of fit models. The present study provides the use of the Iranian translation of the Voluntary functions Inventory (6 scales and 29 items) to assess volunteer motivation among young Iranian volunteers.

A B S T R A C T Green city is one of the approaches to sustainable development. “green city” is an environmentally friendly city compatible with the concept of sustainable development and can be used for the welfare and security of its inhabitants. Based on the concept of a “green city,” urban managers try to have the least destructive effect on the ecosystems upon which cities rely. Green city is one of the sustainable development approaches that reduce the environmental footprint of cities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the situation of Mashhad metropolis in terms of the Objective characteristics of the green city. In this study, 14 indicators of electricity consumption per capita, green space per capita, population density, water availability, sewage availability, superior public transportation network, urban mass transportation, traffic reduction, annual production waste per capita, carbon monoxide, concentration nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide concentration, particulate matter concentration, and air quality were exerted. To determine the importance of research indicators, the Shannon entropy method, and the status of Mashhad city areas in terms of green city indicators, the VIKOR multi-criteria decision-making method has been applied. The results showed that most areas of Mashhad are average and below average in terms of green city characteristics, and only District 9 is in very good condition (0.636). Also, based on the results of this part of the research, District 5, with the value of VIKOR index of 0.969, is in the last rank in terms of Objective characteristics of the green city Extended Abstract Introduction Green city is one of the approaches to sustainable development. A “Green city” is an environmentally friendly city compatible with the concept of sustainable development and can be used for the welfare and security of its inhabitants. Based on the concept of a “green city,” urban managers try to have the least destructive effect on the ecosystems upon which cities rely. Green cities constantly try to manage their environmental effects by reducing waste, increasing recycling, reducing air pollution, increasing population density, developing open urban spaces, and encouraging the development of sustainable local businesses. Green cities were first used to evaluate 30 European cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2009 with the financial support of Siemens and the aim of reducing the environmental effects of human activities in cities. In that study, eight indices of carbon dioxide, energy, construction, transportation, water, recycling and land use, air quality, and environmental governance were used. Later, the Economist Intelligence Unit, with the financial support of Siemens, evaluated the status of the green city index in 17 Latin American cities, 15 African cities, 22 major Asian cities, and 27 cities in United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In recent years, even some Western Islamic scholars have, in various publications, shown that Islam is an ecological religion. In Iran, the issue of protecting the environment has not received much attention regardless of its rich cultural and religious background and its confirmation in Article 50 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mashhad is the second metropolis of Iran, located in North-East of Iran, and is one of the counties of Khorasan Razavi Province. According to the 2016 Iranian Population and Housing Census, its population was 3057679 people (The Vice-Presidency of Planning and Development of Mashhad Municipality). In Mashhad, due to several reasons including the presence of Imam Reza Shrine (PBUH) and arrival of millions of pilgrims per year, population growth, increased garbage production (production of 896534 tons of garbage in 2016 (The Vice-Presidency of Planning and Development of Mashhad Municipality), air pollution (increased number of unhealthy days from 46 days per year in 2015 to 88 days in 2016 for sensitive groups and 4 days of unhealthy air for all groups in 2016 (Center for Monitoring Environmental Pollutants of Mashhad Municipality) the 2025 vision of the city has paid attention to the environment in the form of five general Objectives; however, just like the national level, no specific pattern for environmentally-compatible urban development, such as green city, is determined. Analysis of the green city index in Mashhad metropolis can considerably contribute to urban managers and planners in addition to providing a pattern for evaluating the present situation in other cities of Iran and improving the quality of life regardless of the current status of the urban environment in Iranian cities; we can preserve these environments as parts of the natural environment for future generations.   Methodology In terms of its goal, the present study is an applied one; in the study, drawing upon other studies and library sources and considering the conditions of Iran and the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of green city, 14 quantitative indices were exerted. To this end, the required data for the quantitative indices was gathered by library research from the relevant institutions. Next, the weights of quantitative indices were determined using Shannon's entropy. Then, using the VIKOR method of multi-criteria decision-making, the status of various districts of the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of quantitative indices of green city was determined. Finally, the map of the spatial distribution of quantitative indices was drawn using the ARC GIS software package.   Results and discussion In this study, to analyze the status of the metropolis of Mashhad in terms of green city features, 14 quantitative indices were used. Considering the value of the VIKOR index ranges from 0 to 1, various districts of Mashhad can be classified into five categories; very satisfactory, satisfactory, average, unsatisfactory, and very unsatisfactory in terms of quantitative indices of green city. The results of the current situation of Mashhad showed that in terms of Objective indicators of the green city, District 9 of Mashhad metropolis with a value of VIKOR index of 0.056 is in first place, and the seventh region with a value of VIKOR index of 0.433 is in second place. Also, based on the results of this part of the research, District 5, with the value of VIKOR index of 0.969, is in the last rank in terms of Objective characteristics of the green city.   Conclusion Similarly, the results of studies by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017) on Tehran metropolis are indicative of the unsatisfactory situation of Tehran (the biggest metropolis of Iran) in terms of green city features. Comparing the results of the studies by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017) with the present study on Mashhad (the second biggest metropolis of Iran) reveals the necessity for a comprehensive plan toward achieving green cities. It should be mentioned that, due to the specific conditions of Mashhad metropolis and availability or unavailability of the required data, the indices used in the present study are somewhat different from the ones used by Afshar (2011) and Shabani et al. (2017).   Funding There is no funding support.   Authors’ Contribution All of the authors approved the content of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work.     Conflict of Interest Authors declared no conflict of interest.   Acknowledgments We are grateful to all the scientific

In this paper, an alternative approach in operational modal analysis is presented, utilizing image processing technique and transmissibility functions. Imaging sensors do not impose additional mass on the structure due to their non-contact nature, while transmissibility functions, independent of excitation type, can directly extract mode shapes. The innovation of this research lies in combining these two techniques to record dynamic responses and identify modal properties. To capture the temporal response history from video signals, the block-matching method with sub-pixel accuracy was employed. Validation was conducted by recording the response of the tip of a cantilevered steel beam subjected to impact excitation, using a high-speed camera and a laser vibrometer, simultaneously. The RMSE plots in the time domain and the PSD in the frequency domain indicate high accuracy of this method. Using this approach, the displacement time histories of various points on the structure were extracted from the video signals, and the modal properties, including natural frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes, were identified using the transmissibility matrix method. The results obtained from the proposed method were compared with the stochastic subspace identification (SSI) method and analytical solutions. The findings reveal the accuracy of the modal identification approach introduced in this article. The highest relative error in estimating the natural frequencies of the first and second modes, compared to the values from the laser method, are 0.19% and 0.13%, respectively, and in comparison to the analytical values, they are 0.34% and 1.5%, respectively.

The two terms "Objective" and "subjective" nowadays mean, respectively, "external" and "mental". But these terms in their primary usage in Middle Ages (from Dunes Scotos) have had exactly the opposite of today"s meaning: "Objective" has meant "mental;""" and "subjective" has meant "external". These old (and nowadays completely strange) meanings have been current in philosophical literature, especially in Descartes and his contemporaries, e. g. Spinoza and Berkley. This paper tends to argument that the word "Objective" must be taken as meaning "mental" in Descartes" philosophy (and other philosophers" up to 19th century), and not to confused with its modern meaning (i. e. "external").

In the last two decades, knowledge of the distribution of the ionospheric electron density considered as a major challenge for geodesy and geophysics researchers. To study the physical properties of the ionosphere, computerized ionosphere tomography (CIT) indicated an efficient and effective manner. Usually the value of total electron content (TEC) used as an input parameter to CIT. Then inversion methods used to compute electron density at any time and space. However, CIT is considered as an inverse ill-posed problem due to the lack of input observations and non-uniform distribution of TEC data. Many algorithms and methods are presented to modeling of CIT. For the first time, 2-dimensional CIT was suggested by Austin et al., (1988). They used algebraic reconstruction techniques (ART) to obtain the electron density. Since, other researchers have also studied and examined the CIT. Although the results of all studies indicates high efficiency of CIT, but two major limitations can be considered to this method: first, due to poor spatial distribution of GPS stations and limitations of signal viewing angle, CIT is an inverse ill-posed problem. Second, in most cases, observations are discontinuous in time and space domain, so it is not possible determining the density profiles at any time and space around the world. In this paper, the method of residual minimization training neural network is proposed as a new method of ionospheric reconstruction. In this method, vertical and horizontal Objective functions are minimized. Due to a poor vertical resolution of ionospheric tomography, empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) are used as vertical Objective function. To optimize the weights and biases in the neural network, a proper training algorithm is used. Training of neural networks can be considered as an optimization problem whose goal is to optimize the weights and biases to achieve a minimum training error. In this paper, back-propagation (BP) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is used as training algorithms.3 new methods have been investigated and analyzed in this research. In residual minimization training neural network (RMTNN), 3 layer perceptron artificial neural networks (ANN) with BP training algorithm is used to modeling of ionospheric electron density. In second method, due to the use of wavelet neural network (WNN) with BP algorithm in RMTNN method, the new method is named modified RMTNN (MRMTNN). In the third method, WNN with a PSO training algorithm is used to solve pixel-based ionospheric tomography. This new method is named ionospheric tomography based on the neural network (ITNN). The GPS measurements of the Iranian permanent GPS network (IPGN) (1 ionosonde and 4 testing stations) have been used for constructing a 3-D image of the electron density. For numerical experimentation in IPGN, observations collected at 36 GPS stations on 3 days in 2007 (2007.01.03, 2007.04.03 and 2007.07.13) are used. Also the results have been compared to that of the spherical cap harmonic (SCH) method as a local ionospheric model and ionosonde data. Relative and absolute errors, root mean square error (RMSE), bias, standard deviations and correlation coefficient computed and analyzed as a statistical indicators in 3 proposed methods. The Analyzes show that the ITNN method has a high convergence speed and high accuracy with respect to the RMTNN and MRMTNN. The obtained results indicate the improvement of 0.5 to 5.65 TECU in IPGN with respect to the other empirical methods. The GPS measurements of the Iranian permanent GPS network (IPGN) (1 ionosonde and 4 testing stations) have been used for constructing a 3-D image of the electron density. For numerical experimentation in IPGN, observations collected at 36 GPS stations on 3 days in 2007 (2007.01.03, 2007.04.03 and 2007.07.13) are used. Also the results have been compared to that of the spherical cap harmonic (SCH) method as a local ionospheric model and ionosonde data. Relative and absolute errors, root mean square error (RMSE), bias, standard deviations and correlation coefficient computed and analyzed as a statistical indicators in 3 proposed methods. The Analyzes show that the ITNN method has a high convergence speed and high accuracy with respect to the RMTNN and MRMTNN. The obtained results indicate the improvement of 0.5 to 5.65 TECU in IPGN with respect to the other empirical methods.