This paper presents a method for interpreting facial expressions based on temporal structures among partial movements in facial image sequences. To extract the structures, we propose a novel facial expression representation, which we call a facial score, similar to a musical score. The facial score enables us to describe facial expressions as spatio-temporal combinations of temporal intervals; ...

Distinction: Selected as one of 13 Highest Value Hospitals by the Leapfrog Group in 2008, based on efficiency scores taking into account the quality of care as well as resource utilization, among nearly 1,300 hospitals reviewed. Received a top efficiency score for three of four procedures examined (coronary artery bypass graft, percutaneous coronary interventions, and treatment of acute myocard...

Introduction: Dietary diversity score (DDS) and Food variety score (FVS) are the appropriate measures used to evaluate the overall quality of dietary patterns. However, their associations with the serum levels of micronutrients remain unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the correlations between DDS/FVS and serum ferritin and magnesium status in the non-athlete femal...

Governments of developing countries typically spend between 15 and 30 percent of GDP. Hence, small changes in the efficiency of public spending could have a major impact on GDP and on the attainment of the government’s objectives. The first challenge that stakeholders face is measuring efficiency. This paper attempts such quantification and has two major parts. The first one estimates efficienc...

introduction: macro-ergonomics is an important factor that affects behavior, favorable performance and personnel’s efficiency that can cause conformity of employees by increasing labor and efficiency and in result decreasing employees’ stress amount. the aim of the present study was to investigate relationship between macro-ergonomics and occupational stress in employees working in one casting ...

We propose a recommendation algorithm for learning materials that enhances learning efficiency. Conventional recommendation methods consider user preferences and/or levels, but they do not directly consider the learning efficiency. With our method, the learning efficiency is quantified by the expected improvement in the test score, and materials are recommended so as to maximize this expected i...

This paper presents a discussion on the causal effect of contractual practices on the technical efficiency of Chinese public transport operators. To test this proposition, an original panel data set covering 47 operators over the period 2008–2013 is used, we firstly estimate the technical efficiency based on the stochastic frontier approach in a time-varying form of the trans-log production fun...

The study shows the areas in which inefficient mutual funds are lagging behind and how they can improve their performance to bring them at par with other efficient mutual funds. Using data envelopment analysis approach, this study compares the relative efficiency of aggressive growth mutual funds. We study the efficiency of mutual funds in terms of risk-adjusted performance, load, 12b-1 plan, a...

Conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) assists decision makers in distinguishing between efficient and inefficient decision making units (DMUs) in a homogeneous group. However, DEA does not provide more information about efficient units. Super-efficiency DEA models can be used in ranking the performance of efficient DMUs. This research proposes a methodology to determine an Euclidean dist...