We consider a stage life testing model and assume that the information at which levels the failures occurred is not available. In order to find estimates for the lifetime distribution parameters, we propose an EM-algorithm approach which interprets the lack of knowledge about the stages as missing information. Furthermore, we illustrate the implementation difficulties caused by an increasing nu...

In this paper we propose a new technique for incorporating environmental effects and statistical noise into a producer performance evaluation based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). The technique involves a three-stage analysis. In the first stage, DEA is applied to outputs and inputs only, to obtain initial measures of producer performance. In the second stage, stochastic frontier analysis (...

PURPOSE Minocycline is known as a chemical with neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties. In this study, the effects of minocycline on seizures induced by amygdala kindling in rats were studied. METHODS Kindled Wistar rats were injected intraperitoneally with saline and, on the following day, with minocycline (50, 25, and 12.5mg/kg for the three groups (1-3), respectiv...

Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), one information based prognostic score, has been previously shown to be a prognostic factor in varieties cancers mostly in advanced tumors. This study aimed to explore its value in patients with relatively early stage colorectal cancer (CRC). A total of 99 CRC patients with stage II from 2005 to 2010 operated in our hospital were enrolled in this study. C-reactiv...

The non-cooperative two-stage network DEA approach requires the assumption as to whether the first or second stage is the leader or follower. In many real-world situations such as evaluating sustainable design performances, however, information about the leader (dominant) stage is often unavailable as a firm ׳s internal decision process may not be observable for outsiders. In the current study,...

Early design is widely accepted inside the engineering design community as a crucial design phase. This is due to the fact that decisions taken at this stage constrained heavily the final performances of products. This article presents a design framework dedicated to the early design phases of mechatronic products. This framework provides a scientifically coherent methodology for refinement, an...

As demonstrated in recent empirical litterature on firms’export performances, the international market for goods acts as a screen that selects firms access according to both internal and external factors influencing their productivity. This paper focuses particularly on production costs as a key factor that differenciates non exporting from exporting firms. In a first stage, a general framework...

TCP Vegas detects network congestion in its early stage and successfully prevents the periodic packet loss that usually occurs in traditional schemes. It has been demonstrated that TCP Vegas achieves a much higher throughput than TCP Reno. However, TCP Vegas cannot prevent unnecessary throughput degradation when congestion occurs on the backward path. A routerbased congestion avoidance scheme f...

 Abstract Background: Rehabilitation of facial paralysis is one of the greatest challenges faced by reconstructive surgeons today. The traditional method for treatment of patients with facial palsy is the two-stage free gracilis flap which has a long latency period of between the two stages of surgery. Methods: In this paper, we prospectively compared the results of the one-stage gracilis flap ...