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This study aims to formulate exploratory scenarios of the textile industry in Iran based on MICMAC and soft operational research methods.

In this study, to formulate plausible scenarios, literature reviews and external experts’ opinions of this field have been gathered through the Delphi approach and uncertainty questionnaires. After the utilization of the most important uncertainties, the textile industry’s plausible scenarios have been mapped with the help of experts through co-thinking workshops. Results show that two factors, including the business atmosphere and membership in World Trade Organization (WTO), play a more important role than the other factors. These two factors were considered for the formulation of the scenario. To formulate plausible scenarios, soft systems methodology, which is a kind of soft operational research methods, is applied.

Based on the results, four scenarios are presented. These scenarios include the Elysium scenario, Hades scenario, Tatarus scenario and Sisyphus scenario. In the Elysium scenario, the business atmosphere has improved and Iran has been granted membership of the WTO. In Hades scenario, Iran has joined the WTO, but due to the government’s weakness and inactivity and key decision-makers, the required preparations have not been made. In the Tatarus scenario, Iran is not a WTO member and the business atmosphere is disastrous. In the Sisyphus scenario, the government takes reasonable actions toward a better business environment.

Formulating plausible scenarios of the textile industry is an excellent contribution to the key beneficiaries and actors of this industry so they can present flexible preparation-based programs in the face of circumstances. Future study of the textile industry familiarizes the actors and beneficiaries of this industry with the procedures and the driving forces that influence this industry’s future and it will ascertain various scenarios for the actors of this field.

The purpose of this study is to formulate exploratory scenarios of Operations Research through the critical uncertainty approach and Soft Systems Methodology.

In this study, to formulate plausible scenarios, the discipline of operation research internal and external experts’ opinions of this field have been gathered through Delphi approach and uncertainty questionnaires. After use of the most important uncertainties, plausible scenarios of operations research have been mapped with the help of experts through co-thinking workshops.

Four scenarios are presented in this study. These scenarios include Solar System, Esfandiar's Eye, Rival’s Setraps and Legendary Simurgh. Naturally, the imagination of such a unitary future for all academic communities is an expectation far from reality, and given the conditions of each of these futures or any integration of them is imaginable.

Operations Research models have been faced with variously multiple changes since its emergence until now. Investigation into the future of operations research on the necessity for his planning has not received a reasonable notice in the literature. Sporadic activities that have been carried out are also lacking in the necessary methodology. Also, there has been no research about future study using the soft Operation Research tools (Soft Systems Methodology).

The purpose of this study is to evaluate maintenance strategies based on fuzzy decision-making trial evaluation and laboratory (DEMATEL) and fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) in the petrochemical industry.

This study proposes a hybrid-structured multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method based on fuzzy Delphi, fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy ANP as a structured methodology to assist decision makers in strategic maintenance. The fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) is applied to refine the effective criteria, fuzzy DEMATEL is applied for defining the direction and relationships between criteria and Fuzzy ANP is used for the selection of optimized maintenance strategy.

The results identify “strategic management complexity” as the top criterion. The predictive maintenance (PdM) with the highest priority is the best strategy. It is followed by reliability-centered (RCM), condition-based (CBM), total productive (TPM), predictive (PM) and corrective maintenance (CM).

Today, companies act in an atmosphere that is known with the features of uncertainty. In this atmosphere, only those companies can survive that have a strategy based on presenting the quality services and products to their customers. Similarly, maintenance as a system plays a vital role in availability and the quality of products, which creates value for customers. The selection of maintenance strategy is a kind of MCDM problem, which includes consideration of different factors. This article considers a broad category of alternates, including CM, PM, TPM, CBM, RCM and PdM.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between getting quality awards by companies and their financial performance in Iran's business.

In the first step, the relationship between awards scores and financial performance by canonical correlation analysis was examined. Then, binary and multinomial logistic regression was used to determine the degree of impact of each financial performance measure on getting quality awards. Finally, two forecasting functions were explored: the probability of achieving quality awards and the probability of achieving different levels of these awards.

Based on the analyzed data of 112 companies through canonical correlation analysis, there was a weak relationship between financial performance and getting quality awards. Also, by using logistic regression, no result was found to prove the impact of financial performance measures on getting Iran's national quality awards. It can be concluded that conceptually, deployment of excellence organizational models will not result in favorable outcomes, especially in the financial scope. Also, practically, excellence models have not been well deployed in Iranian companies, or these models do not fit to Iran's business environment. Organizational culture may not be consistent with quality.

Quality awards are given to qualified companies following the establishment of models of excellence such as the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The main novelty of this research is to clarify the relationship between getting quality awards by companies and their financial performance in Iran's business.

The main purpose of this paper is to predicate financial distress using the worst-practice-frontier data envelopment analysis (WPF-DEA) model and artificial neural network.

In this study, a neural network technique was used to forecast inputs and outputs in the future time-period. Using a WPF-DEA model, financially distressed companies were identified based on the worst performance, and an improvement solution was provided for those decision-making units.

This study’s findings show that dynamic WPF-DEA has high predictability in corporate financial distress, and it can be used with high confidence. Based on the future time-period results, JOUSH & OXYGEN was predicted to be a financially distressed company in the two future time-periods.

In recent decades, globalization, technological changes and a competitive space have increased uncertainty in the economic environment. In such circumstances, economic growth certainly depends on correct decision-making and optimal allocation of resources. It can be done by introducing appropriate tools and models for assessing corporate financial conditions, including financial distress and bankruptcy.

This study examines the importance of English Mobile Learning research as a foundation for lifelong and sustainable education from different points of view, including those of technology innovation experts, psychologists and educators. It aims to explore the current status and relevant research trends through the application of bibliometric mapping and bibliometric analysis.

For this study, all Web of Science records (in total 5,343) from 2000 to 2020 in the field of English Mobile Learning were analyzed using the VOSviewer and CiteSpace software tools. The WoS built-in functions, including “Refine” and “Analyze,” were employed to perform the bibliometric analysis. The study further analyzed a sample of the five most-cited articles to identify the previous studies with the highest quality or impact.

The results showed that research in English Mobile Learning is growing quickly and steadily with a noticeable emphasis on various device-based technologies and applications. The study also discusses the key implications for research institutions, education policymakers and academicians, and identifies the most prominent avenues for future research on English Mobile Learning. Moreover, the results shared in this review highlight the most important and emerging areas of research in the field.

This article is the most recent bibliographic review of literature that particularly addresses the English Mobile Learning research during the past two decades.

This study aims to evaluate the effects of betanin on AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), Sirtuin1 (SIRT1) and Sirtuin6 (SIRT6) gene expression as well as the tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) cytokine release in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and healthy controls.

PBMCs isolated from whole blood of 50 patients with CAD and 48 healthy subjects aged 45 to 60 years were treated with 10 and 20 µM of betanin for 24 h. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was performed to assess gene expression levels of AMPK, SIRT1 and SIRT6. The supernatants of the cultured cells were used to assess the IL-6 and TNF-α protein levels by ELISA.

Treatment with both doses of betanin significantly increased AMPK, SIRT1 and SIRT6 expression in PBMCs of CAD patients compared to control non-treated cells (p < 0.05). In PBMCs of healthy subjects, only treatment with high dose of betanin showed significant increase in AMPK (p = 0.007), SIRT1 (p = 0.013) and SIRT6 (p = 0.024) expression compared to control non-treated cells. Betanin (20 µM) also significantly decreased TNF-α and IL-6 concentrations in the culture supernatants of the CAD patients compared to control non-treated cells (p < 0.001).

Betanin could enhance AMPK, SIRT1 and SIRT6 gene expressions in PBMCs and represent a useful complementary treatment to reduce the proinflammatory status accompanied with CAD.

The purpose of this study is to propose a novel super-efficiency DEA model to appraise the relative efficiency of DMUs with zero data and stochastic data. Our model can work with both variable returns to scale (VRS) and constant returns to scale (CRS).

This study proposes a new stochastic super-efficiency DEA (SSDEA) model to assess the performance of airlines with stochastic and zero inputs and outputs.

This paper proposes a new analysis and contribution to the knowledge of efficiency assessment with stochastic super-efficiency DEA model by (1) using input saving and output surplus index for efficient DMUs to get the optimal solution; (2) obtaining efficiency scores from the proposed model that are equivalent to original stochastic super-efficiency model when feasible solutions exist. A case study is given to illustrate the applicability of our proposed model. Also, poor performance reasons are identified to improve the performance of inefficient airlines.

For the first time, a new SSDEA model for ranking DMUs is proposed. The introduced model produces a feasible solution when dealing with zero input or output. This paper applies the input saving and output surplus concept to rectify the infeasibility problem in the stochastic DEA model.

Proper identification of the key motivating factors (or key drivers) is needed to ensure successful adaption and implementation of the lean concept for construction projects. However, there lacks a study investigating the complex interrelationships existing among the key drivers contributing to Sustainable and Successful Lean Construction (SSLC) implementation for such projects. To address this shortcoming, this study aims to uncover the main critical key drivers towards the implementation of SSLC for the very first time by capturing the complexity of this vexing problem.

In this study, a new hybrid framework is developed through the integration of Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Social Network Analysis (SNA). The novel developed framework is called the DSNA approach.

Considering the case of Malaysian construction projects, the developed DSNA gives the following major outcomes: (1) Most important critical key drivers are seen to be optimization, continuous improvement, and, improve company culture, and (2) For SSLC adoption, the critical drivers impacting other key drivers are seen to be “improve teamwork”, “reduce leadership conflict”, and “improve company culture”, thereby demanding more attention.

The outcomes of this study give insight for decisions and policymakers in the construction industry regarding critical key drivers and their complex interrelationships towards the further adoption of SSLC, promoting the sustainability paradigm within the respective sector.

This paper not only presents a list of critical drivers and the corresponding association among them towards SSLC adoption, but also proposes DSNA as a novel approach for uncovering the complex interrelationship existing in an intricate problem, improving the intricate process of decision-making.