One of the crucial pillars of each state’s development strategy relates to service provision in rural areas. An adequate scope of these services is a prerequisite for uniform regional progress. Postal operators play a key role in supporting these development policies, by providing postal, financial and transportation services to each citizen in a state, regardless of place of residence. The postal network represents one of the biggest logistics networks worldwide. However, since it is not financially justified to provide services to all citizens, even to those that live in the most remote areas, the question of how to optimize the postal network is always topical. This problem is very complex because the postal units’ existence in rural areas cannot be considered just from an economic standpoint; many other criteria should be considered. The model proposed in this paper can be considered a decision-making tool designed to support policymakers in planning the postal network. First, we identify the criteria that should be considered in decision-making by an extensive literature review. We then apply the FUCOM method to determine the importance of individual criteria. Finally, we propose an Interval Type-2 Fuzzy AROMAN approach to determine which postal unit should be reorganized.
Global climate change has a detrimental effect on plant growth and health, causing serious losses in agriculture. Investigation of the molecular mechanisms of plant responses to various environmental pressures and the generation of plants tolerant to abiotic stress are imperative to modern plant science. In this paper, we focus on the application of the well-established technology CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to better understand the functioning of the intrinsically disordered protein DSS1 in plant response to oxidative stress. The Arabidopsis genome contains two highly homologous DSS1 genes, AtDSS1(I) and AtDSS1(V). This study was designed to identify the functional differences between AtDSS1s, focusing on their potential roles in oxidative stress. We generated single dss1(I) and dss1(V) mutant lines of both Arabidopsis DSS1 genes using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The homozygous mutant lines with large indels (dss1(I)del25 and dss1(V)ins18) were phenotypically characterized during plant development and their sensitivity to oxidative stress was analyzed. The characterization of mutant lines revealed differences in root and stem lengths, and rosette area size. Plants with a disrupted AtDSS1(V) gene exhibited lower survival rates and increased levels of oxidized proteins in comparison to WT plants exposed to oxidative stress induced by hydrogen peroxide. In this work, the dss1 double mutant was not obtained due to embryonic lethality. These results suggest that the DSS1(V) protein could be an important molecular component in plant abiotic stress response.
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