This paper introduces and compares different benchmark parameters for the performance of electromagnetic energy harvesters, including the bottom-up (power according to the harvester model) as well as the top-down view (maximum power that can be generated within a volume) and considering the dependency and scaling of geometrical and physical parameters, such as the mechanical damping. The compar...

Dynamic network data envelopment analysis (DNDEA) has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. On one hand the available models in DNDEA evaluating the performance of a DMU with interrelated processes during specified multiple periods but on the other hand they can only measure the efficiency of dynamic network structure when a supply chain structure present. For example, in the banking in...

The medical practice today is relentlessly challenged by medical progress, by rising costs, and by the mounting pressures of the managed care environment. It should be the approach of every medical practice manager and practitioner to seek out and measure up to the best standards so as to optimize patient care and business outcomes. This requires the resolute pursuit of good models, brought abo...

In 2004 the Australian Flexible Learning Framework developed a suite of quantitative and qualitative indicators on the uptake, use and impact of e-learning in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. These indicators were used to design items for a survey to gather quantitative data for benchmarking. A series of four surveys gathered data from VET providers, teachers, students and th...

Calibrating the dose per monitor unit (DMU) for individual patients is important to deliver the prescribed dose in radiation therapy. We have developed a DMU calculation method combining measurement data and calculation with a simplified Monte Carlo method for the double scattering system in proton beam therapy at the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Japan. The DMU calculation method det...

In this paper, we extend the domains of affirmation and negation operators, and more important, of triangular (semi)norms and (semi)conorms from the unit interval to bounded partially ordered sets. The fundamental properties of the original operators are proven to be conserved under this extension. This clearly shows that they are essentially based upon order-theoretic notions. Consequently, a ...

This paper is a reply to Laviolette and Seaman’s critical discussion of fuzzy set theory. Rather than questioning the interest of the Bayesian approach to uncertainty, some reasons why Bayesian find the idea of a fuzzy set not palatable are laid bare. Some links between fuzzy sets and probability that Laviolette and Seaman seem not to be aware of are pointed out. These links suggest that, contr...

This paper presents two main groups of results in the field of process modeling; first, highlighting complexity-related properties shared by several, if not all, levels of production; second, a family of methods set up to handle the aforementioned problems. The presented algorithms lead up to a submodel decomposition method combining generalized feature selection and artificial neural networks ...

The aim of this paper is to present a fusion approach of multi-granularity linguistic information for managing information assessed in di erent linguistic term sets (multi-granularity linguistic term sets) together with its application in a decision making problem with multiple information sources, assuming that the linguistic performance values given to the alternatives by the di erent sources...