In order to compete in the global environment, a manufacturing company has to keep developing new technologies. Selection of a right technology is a critical stage in a successful technology transfer process. However, technology selection is a complex multi-dimensional problem including both qualitative and quantitative factors, such as human resources, operational and financial dimensions, whi...

s: Decision making problems always puzzled managers and decision makers in enterprises or organizations. There are many useful soft operation research methods could solve the complicated problem. The paper raises two classic approaches ANP (Analytical network process) and FCM (Fuzzy cognitive map). Those two methods have some similarities and differences. In thus, according to different decisio...

With the constant development of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), the problem of these networks has become gradually serious. People are beginning to study the performance analysis of WSNs. It is very important to correctly understanding and analyzing these networks. In this paper, we seek to use the Fuzzy Analytical Network Process (FANP) for analysis of the WSNs performance and selecting the b...

The ANP knockout mouse is reported to exhibit pregnancy-associated hypertension, proteinuria and impaired placental trophoblast invasion and spiral artery remodeling, key features of pre-eclampsia (PE). We hypothesized that these mice may provide a relevant model of human PE with associated fetal growth restriction (FGR). Here, we investigated pregnancies of ANP wild type (ANP(+/+)), heterozygo...

Left ventricular hypertrophy is characterized by stimulation of ventricular synthesis of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP). This study was designed to test the hypothesis that the increased ventricular ANP levels participate in the release of ANP into the circulation. Swimming was used as a physiologic model to induce ANP release from the heart, and atrial and ventricular levels of immunoreactiv...

Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) mediates a variety of physiological effects through its interaction with ANP-A, ANP-B or ANP-C receptors. However, controversies exist regarding the involvement of ANP-C receptor and adenylyl cyclase/cAMP signal-transduction systems to which these receptors are coupled in mediating these responses. In the present studies, we have employed an antisense approach t...

The role of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and potential defects of ANP in liver disease are reviewed. Patients with cirrhosis of the liver show no decrease of ANP plasma concentrations nor changes in the pattern of ANP immunoreactivity nor changes of splanchnic ANP clearance. The renal effects of exogenously administered as well as endogenously released ANP are blunted in cirrhosis, in parti...

Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) is a method to formulate the strategy. Although the SWOT analysis successfully provides the key factors of the problem, it has some drawbacks in selecting appropriate strategy for the evaluation and final decision steps. During recent years, some multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques such as analytic hierarchy pro...