The aims of this study were to evaluate the energy consumption and its modeling in industrial milk production units using data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach and sensitivity analysis. Data were collected from 44 industrial milk production units in Guilan province of Iran with face to face questionnaire method during 2012-2013. Inputs included animal feed, fossil fuels, electricity, machine...

In production theory, it is necessary to be capable of predicting the production func- tion’s long-run behaviors. Hereof, returns to scale is a helpful concept. Returns to scale describes the reaction of a production function to the proportionally scaling all its input variables. In this regard, Data envelopment analysis (DEA) provides a com- prehensive framework for returns to scale evaluation...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE VRSs are the perivascular spaces surrounding the deep perforating arteries in the brain. Although VRS variations with age and disease pathologies have been reported previously, the radiologic characteristics of the VRS in relation to AD are poorly understood. This study investigated the prevalence, spatial distribution, and severity of the VRS in AD, MCI, and older adults...

The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), Verbal Rating Scale (VRS), and the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R) are among the most commonly used measures of pain intensity in clinical and research settings. Although evidence supports their validity as measures of pain intensity, few studies have compared them with respect to the critical validity criteria of responsivity, and...

Applications of data envelopment analysis often incorporate inputs and outputs stated as proportions or percentages, which are typically used to represent socio-economic quality characteristics the production process. As is well known, use such ratio measures inconsistent with assumption convexity required by conventional variable constant returns-to-scale (VRS CRS) technologies, additional sca...

BACKGROUND Rating scales like the visual analogue scale, VAS, and the verbal rating scale, VRS, are often used for pain assessments both in clinical work and in research, despite the lack of a gold standard. Interchangeability of recorded pain intensity captured in the two scales has been discussed earlier, but not in conjunction with taking the influence of pain etiology into consideration. ...

Determining the type of returns to scale (RTS) and identifying stability region for RTS of evaluating unit are appropriate abilities for forecasting the future the unit when its size is changed. This paper aims to introduce RTS sustainability of frontier decision making units (DMUs) in data envelopment analysis (DEA). Based on the importance of RTS in relation to decisions of managers, differen...

The most commonly used tool for self-report of pruritus intensity is the visual analogue scale (VAS). Similar tools are the numerical rating scale (NRS) and verbal rating scale (VRS). In the present study, initiated by the International Forum for the Study of Itch assessing reliability of these tools, 471 randomly selected patients with chronic itch (200 males, 271 females, mean age 58.44 years...

The data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is extensively used to estimate efficiency, but no study has determined the DEA that delivers most precise estimates. To address this issue, we advance Monte Carlo simulation-based generation process proposed by Kohl and Brunner (2020). developed generates an artificial dataset using Translog production function (instead of commonly Cobb Douglas) constr...