Electricity distribution network is a prime example of a natural local monopoly. In many countries, electricity distribution firms are regulated by the government. In Finland, the regulator estimates the efficient cost frontier using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. This paper reports the main results of the research project commissioned by the...

Environmental performance of the U.S. States is investigated for the period of 1990 – 2007 using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The SFA accounts for both efficiency measure and stochastic noise affecting a frontier. The frontier is formed using indicators of GDP, energy consumption, population, and CO2 emissions. For comparability, all indicators are expressed as ratios to total. Statistic...

Declaration I, Nikolaos Polatidis, confirm that this work submitted for assessment is my own and is expressed in my own words. Any uses made within it of the works of other form (e.g., ideas, equations, figures, text, tables, programs) are properly acknowledged at any point of their use. A list of references employed is included. Abstract For many sports, the allocation of officials to matches ...

Slow feature analysis (SFA) is a method for extracting slowly varying driving forces from quickly varying nonstationary time series. We show here that it is possible for SFA to detect a component which is even slower than the driving force itself (e.g. the envelope of a modulated sine wave). It is shown that it depends on circumstances like the embedding dimension, the time series predictabilit...

We consider a sales effort management problem under an all-or-nothing constraint. The seller will receive no bonus/revenue if the volume fails to reach predetermined target at end of horizon. Throughout horizon, process can be moderated by through costly effort. show that optimal rate is nonmonotonic with respect remaining time or outstanding required target. Generally, it has watershed structu...

Selling has long been considered as an “art” driven by personal intuition and native sales talent. However, significant changes have occurred over the past 30 years, as a result of technological advances and changing customer expectations. As one answer to these changes, practitioners and scholars have promoted the idea of “sales as a science”, relying on documented, repeatable ways of selling ...

Nowadays, increasing competition among companies and the huge cost of attracting new customers has led to companies seeking to retain existing customers rather than looking to attract new customers. These factors together have led to the emergence of customer relationship management. Thanks to the development of information and communication technology, especially the Internet, the use of custo...

This paper examines relative performance of electricity distribution systems in the UK and Japan between 1985 and 1998 using costbased benchmarking with data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. The results suggest that the productivity gain in the UK electricity distribution has been larger than in the Japanese sector. In particular, productivity growth ac...

User perceptions of new technologies may ultimately affect their acceptance of that technology. Recent research has identified a clear connection between user perceptions of Sales Force Automation and their acceptance of Sales Force Automation technologies. Anecdotal evidence suggests that relative to less experienced salespeople, more experienced salespeople tend to have more negative percepti...