in most of the multi-criteria decision making problems, it is important to have necessary information about relative importance of each criteria. in this group of problems, weights measure the relative importance of preferences of each criteria in comparison with the other decision making criteria. in this research, the nise method has been used for mapping mean-variance efficient frontier. nis...

In this paper we show the usefulness of recent advanced nonparametric efficiency techniques to model performance universities in presence observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Using directional distances for benchmarking purposes, identify a latent heterogeneity factor related human capital their management, that is independent from size, interpret identified as “quality” universities. After t...

Performance measurement in the presence of fixed-sum outputs in data envelopment analysis (DEA) is an interesting and most frequently studied subject in the field of operations research. Different definitions of relative efficiency in the presence of fixed-sum outputs have been proposed in the literature of data envelopment analysis and in all of the existing definitions a common equilibrium ef...

In this paper an attempt is made to explain the basic concept of efficiency, frontier production function, technical efficiency, deterministic frontier, and stochastic frontier. Efficiency of a firm/industry refers to its performance in the utilization of resources at its disposal and is a relative concept. Technical efficiency of a production function is defined as the maximum quantity of outp...

Background & Aims: Hospitals are the most important centers that provide health services in the country. They have to use scientific and efficient management at all levels for promoting health. Intensive care units (ICU) are one of the most sensitive parts of the hospitals; therefore, paying attention to its efficiency is of particular importance. The purpose of this paper was to estimate the t...

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...

One of the existing DEAmethods’ limitations noted in the literature lies in the process of benchmarking of reference targets for inefficient DMUs. Difficulties arising in this process can be summarized to three aspects. First, the reference target might be a hypothetical DMU that does not actually exist (it is difficult and indeed unrealistic to learn from such a DMU). Second, the reference set...

in this paper, linear data envelopment analysis models are used to estimate markowitz efficient frontier. conventional dea models assume non-negative values for inputs and outputs. however, variance is the only variable in these models that takes non-negative values. therefore, negative data models which the risk of the assets had been used as an input and expected return was the output are uti...