A NEW HYBRID MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION APPROACH FOR EVALUATING AND BENCHMARKING VACCINES

The outbreak of coronavirus has posed a significant threat to all sectors of life. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged a concerted effort to develop an effective vaccine to limit the spread of this virus among the population. Many vaccines have been produced in several countries in accordance with specified criteria. This study evaluated these vaccines using a variety of criteria. However, conflicting criteria provided a significant obstacle during the appraisal process. This article aims to evaluate and compare the COVID-19 vaccines currently licensed for emergency use worldwide. This study applied a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision approach by integrating the entropy method and MOORA technique to select the optimum vaccine. The methodology is down into two steps: 1) calculating weights for seven criteria, and 2) calculating the rank of eight COVID-19 vaccines. The findings showed that Johnson and Johnson vaccine is the best alternative, while the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the worst. The study's implications helped countries to select the best vaccines for immunizing people and preventing the virus spread among them. © 2023, International Organization on 'Technical and Physical Problems of Engineering'. All rights reserved.

Investing information and communication technology to develop e-learning in Iraq: A survey

Despite the rapid development and spread of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) during the past four decades, which has become a prominent feature of the era, Iraq is still at the bottom of the list of developing countries, especially in the field of technology and communication by all standards. In fact, Iraq lies outside the scope of education quality alongside other six Arab countries. This, however, is attributed to the constant mis-management and lack of knowledge about issues relevant to the modes of technology development. What makes things worse is the outbreak and rapid spread of Covid-19. This, so to speak, has imposed a number of restrictions on education to the extent that the government has resorted to E-Learning. The researchers, however, briefly address the concept of (ICT) as well as the global technological diffusion indicator for the Arab group in which Iraq's position is analysed according to the main and sub-indicators. Moreover, the E-Learning, its advantages and disadvantages, is being brought into focus. To amend all the obstacles, solutions have been proposed in accordance with the general technological indicator. Besides, the research-paper concludes with recommendations and suggestions which will definitely contribute to the attainment of the goal aspired for. © 2023 Author(s).