An IT2FS-PT 3 based emergency response plan evaluation with MULTIMOORA method in group decision making.

The eruption of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 has sounded the alarm, making experts pay more attention to public health emergency events. A suitable emergency response plan plays a vital role in handling emergency events. Therefore, this paper focuses on the evaluation of emergency response plans among a set of group in the comprehensive prospect, and an emergency decision making method integrated with the interval type-2 fuzzy information based on the third generation prospect theory ( PT 3 ) and the extended MULTIMOORA method is proposed. Individuals express their preferences using some given linguistic terms set. Furthermore, considering the conflicts may occur in the group, a convergent iterative algorithm is designed for group consensus reaching. Then, the stochastic multi-criteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) method and the Borda Count (BC) method are generated to combine the results instead of the dominance theory in MULTIMOORA system. Finally, based on the background of the COVID-19 pandemic from Wuhan, a case study about the selection of emergency response plan and the corresponding sensitivity and comparative analysis are exhibited to explain the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Linguistic Distribution and Priority-Based Approximation to Linguistic Preference Relations With Flexible Linguistic Expressions in Decision Making.

In this article, we propose the concept of flexible linguistic preference relations (FLPRs), in which the flexible linguistic expressions, a more flexible way to form linguistic expressions, are employed. Further, we present a method to rank alternatives based on preference information in FLPRs by exploring the linguistic distribution (LD) and priority-based approximation (PA) of FLPRs. In the LD-based approximation, we first present a two-stage optimization process to approximate FLPRs to distribution linguistic preference relations (DLPRs) following the principles of minimum preference loss and maximum consistency. Then in the PA process, we derive priority vectors from the DLPRs with some desired properties. Finally, a comparative analysis of the priority vectors derived from different kinds of linguistic preference relations is presented to illustrate our proposal.

Polymorphisms of TLR9 gene are associated with a decreased risk of H. pylori infection in a Chinese population.

BACKGROUND: A series of evidence suggests that genetic variation in toll-like receptor (TLR) 9 might influence the outcome of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and play an important role in gastric carcinogenesis. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study to evaluate TLR9 polymorphisms on the risk of H. pylori infection and non-cardia gastric cancer (GC) in a Chinese population. We genotyped a tagging single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), rs164640, and a potentially functional SNP, rs187084, by TaqMan technique among 288 patients with non-cardia GC and 281 controls. Unconditional logistic regression (LR) was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for SNPs in association with H. pylori infection and non-cardia GC risk. RESULTS: Our results indicated that among normal controls, the minor allele homozygotes of both SNPs were significantly associated with a decreased risk of H. pylori infection when compared with their major allele homozygotes (for rs164640: OR =0.41, 95% CI, 0.18-0.93; for 187084: OR =0.38, 95% CI, 0.17-0.85). However, neither of the two SNPs demonstrated a significant association with non-cardia GC risk. CONCLUSIONS: Our results revealed that TLR9 polymorphisms might have effects on the risk of H. pylori infection, but they do not seem to contribute to the risk of non-cardia GC in our studied population.

Flexible Linguistic Expressions and Consensus Reaching With Accurate Constraints in Group Decision-Making.

Various linguistic expressions have been presented to model the flexibility of linguistic preference expressions and to support the consensus reaching in linguistic group decision-making (GDM). In this paper, we propose the concept of flexible linguistic expressions (FLEs) as a general linguistic preference expression format to improve the flexibility of the construction of complex linguistic expressions and the elicitation of linguistic preferences and, then, we develop a new linguistic GDM model with FLEs, referred to as FLE-based GDM (FLEGDM). In the FLEGDM, an FLE aggregation process with accurate constraints is developed to improve the quality (i.e., accuracy) of the collective result as well as guarantee the principle of minimum preference-loss through a mixed 0-1 linear programming model. Meanwhile, the consensus rules with minimum preference-loss are designed to support the consensus reaching process (CRS) in the FLEGDM. Finally, we present the detailed comparative analysis involving different linguistic GDM models to show the advantages of the FLEGDM.

Effect of ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) on NF-κB activation and CYP2E1 content of rats with immunological liver injury.

CONTEXT: Ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) is a potent inhibitor of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB). Recent studies have shown that NF-κB plays an essential role in the regulation of genes whose products are involved in the pathogenesis of immunological liver injury. OBJECTIVE: To study the function of NF-κB in immunological liver injury of rat model and its effect on CYP2E1 content and metabolic activity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study investigated the effect of passivating NF-κB activation on CYP2E1 using Bacillus calmette Guérin (BCG)-induced immunological liver injury in Sprague-Dawley rats measured in terms of enzyme levels. The degree of hepatic injury of rats was measured by using biochemical parameters, hepatic tissue pathological changes, and physiological parameters. Protein localization of liver NF-κB was detected by immunohistochemical assay. Western blot analysis was used to detect the protein expression of NF-κB, IκBα, iNOS, and CYP2E1. The content of CYP2E1 of homogenate in the rat liver was detected by ELISA assay and the enzyme kinetics of CYP2E1 probe drug chlorzoxazone was evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay. RESULTS: The results showed that BCG-pretreatment (125 mg/kg) significantly (p < 0.01) increased the weight of liver and spleen (increased by 70% and 248%, respectively), serum levels of alanine transarninase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (increased by 200% and 75.8%, respectively), the expression of NF-κB and iNOS (increased by 228% and 303%, respectively), and decreased CYP2E1 content and metabolic activity (p < 0.05). Administration of PDTC (50, 100, and 200 mg/kg) reversed above hepatic injury stimulated by BCG in vivo. Moreover, PDTC (ED50: 76 mg/kg) dose dependently inhibited down-regulation of CYP2E1 (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Passivation of NF-κB can inhibit the down-regulation of CYP2E1 and iNOS to induce in rat liver tissue with immunological liver injury; NF-κB may be involved in the CYP2E1 regulation through iNOS.