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...

The GOMOS Steering Front Assembly (SFA) is essentially a two axis pointing system. It comprises of a mirror (SMU), a Mechanism Drive Electronics unit (MDE) and a Steering Front Mechanism (SFM). Unlike many other pointing systems the SFA must maintain a line of sight stability of better than 3 microrads, while subjected to considerable microvibration disturbances from the host spacecraft. This p...

Environmental performance of the U.S. States is investigated for the period of 1990 – 2007 using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The SFA accounts for both efficiency measure and stochastic noise affecting a frontier. The frontier is formed using indicators of GDP, energy consumption, population, and CO2 emissions. For comparability, all indicators are expressed as ratios to total. Statistic...

Declaration I, Nikolaos Polatidis, confirm that this work submitted for assessment is my own and is expressed in my own words. Any uses made within it of the works of other form (e.g., ideas, equations, figures, text, tables, programs) are properly acknowledged at any point of their use. A list of references employed is included. Abstract For many sports, the allocation of officials to matches ...

Slow feature analysis (SFA) is a method for extracting slowly varying driving forces from quickly varying nonstationary time series. We show here that it is possible for SFA to detect a component which is even slower than the driving force itself (e.g. the envelope of a modulated sine wave). It is shown that it depends on circumstances like the embedding dimension, the time series predictabilit...

In this study, the authors propose a theory that incorporates the mediating effects of three important organizational sales-related psychological climate perceptions (e.g., the organization’s customer orientation, sales innovativeness, and sales supportiveness) to explain how sales force controls affect sales-related outcomes. Based on a survey of 293 salespeople and using path analysis, the au...

This paper examines relative performance of electricity distribution systems in the UK and Japan between 1985 and 1998 using costbased benchmarking with data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. The results suggest that the productivity gain in the UK electricity distribution has been larger than in the Japanese sector. In particular, productivity growth ac...

Employing the one-step stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach, this paper examines bank efficiency in China, paying special attention to the ownership, selection effect and dynamic effects of governance changes on bank performance. Bank efficiency has improved over the data period 1995-2008. The estimated average cost and profit efficiencies are 74% and 63% respectively. Joint Stock Commer...