In performance evaluations, data without explicit inputs (such as index data, pure output data) are widely used. To directly use such data, this paper presents a study on building DEA models without explicit inputs,DEA-WEI models, in which convexity assumption is considered to be satisfied while the ratio data are constructed. Finally, an example of the modified DEA-WEI model is presented and c...

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...