INTRODUCTION The anti-fibrotic hormone, relaxin, has been inferred to disrupt transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1/Smad2 phosphorylation (pSmad2) signal transduction and promote collagen-degrading gelatinase activity via a nitric oxide (NO)-dependent pathway. Here, we determined the extent to which NO, soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) were directly involv...

OBJECTIVES This study examined how ethanolamines (EAs) with the same functional alcohol group (HOCH(2)CH(2)), such as mono-EA (MEA), di-EA (DEA), and tri-EA (TEA), in water-based metalworking fluids (wbMWFs) are vaporized, condensed, and transformed by heat generated during metalworking. METHODS Two types of experimental apparatus were manufactured to achieve these objectives. RESULTS Vapor...

DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, C22:6,n-3) has been shown to promote neurite growth and synaptogenesis in embryonic hippocampal neurons, supporting the importance of DHA known for hippocampus-related learning and memory function. In the present study, we demonstrate that DHA metabolism to DEA (N-docosahexaenoylethanolamide) is a significant mechanism for hippocampal neuronal development, contributin...

The conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) assumes that the inputs and outputs are real values. However, in many real world instances, some inputs and outputs must be in integer values. While integer-valued DEA models have been proposed, the current paper develops an integer-valued DEA super-efficiency model. Super-efficiency DEA models are known to have the problem of infeasibility. Rece...

This paper presents a simplified version of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) a conventional approach to evaluating the performance and ranking of competitive objects characterized by two groups of factors acting in opposite directions: inputs and outputs. DEA with a Perfect Object (DEA PO) augments the group of actual objects with a virtual Perfect Object the one having greatest outputs and smal...

This paper addresses comprehensive ranking systems determining an ordering of entities by aggregating quantitative data for multiple attributes. We propose a DEA-CP (Data Envelopment Analysis Compromise Programming) model for the comprehensive ranking, including preference voting (ranked voting) to rank candidates in terms of aggregate vote by rank for each candidate. Although the DEA-CP model ...

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is an axiomatic, mathematical programming approach to productive efficiency analysis and performance measurement. This paper shows that DEA can be interpreted as a nonparametric least squares regression subject to shape constraints on production frontier and sign constraints on residuals. Thus, DEA can be seen as a nonparametric counter-part of the corrected ordi...

The purpose of this paper is to study proposals to use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a tool for Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). We ®rst recall, using a simple model, the equivalence between the concept of `ef®ciency' in DEA and that of `convex ef®ciency' in MCDM. Examples are then used to show that various techniques that have been proposed in the DEA literature to deal with MCDM...

This article integrates fuzzy set theory in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) framework to compute technical efficiency scores when input and output data are imprecise. In conventional DEA inputs and outputs data are precise. However, traffic and transportation take place in an uncertain environment and input and output data might be imprecise. This article proposes a possibility approach for sol...

The Effect of Diethanolamine on Hepatic and Renal Phospholipid Metabolism in the Rat. BARBEE, S. J., AND HARTUNG, R. (1979). Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 47,421430. DEA inhibited the in vitro synthesis of both phosphatidyl choline and phosphatidyl ethanolamine in liver tissue. In each caSe the K, was approximately 3 mu DEA. DEA inhibited the formation of phosphatidyl choline competitively, and pro...