Benchmarking of container terminals is an important issue facing port management. Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is a multi-factor productivity measurement tool is generally used in assessing the relative efficiency of homogenous units and setting benchmark for inefficient units. Evaluation of container terminals by DEA produces limited set of efficient units which are reference to inef...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a widely used mathematical programming technique for comparing the inputs and outputs of a set of homogenous Decision Making Units (DMUs) by evaluating their relative efficiency. The conventional DEA methods assume deterministic and precise values for the input and output observations. However, the observed values of the input and output data in real-world pro...

Abstract Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a method for measuring efficiencies of Decision Making Units (DMUs). While it has been widely used in many industrial and economic applications, for large DMUs with many inputs and outputs, DEA would require huge computer resources in terms of memory and CPU time. Several studies have attempted to overcome this problem for large datasets. However, the...

Thermo-responsive polymer "nanogels" (crosslinked hydrogel particles with sub-100 nm diameters) are intriguing for many potential applications in biotechnology and medicine. There have been relatively few reports of electrostatically neutral, thermosensitive nanogels comprising a high fraction of hydrophilic co-monomer. Here we demonstrate the syntheses and characterization of novel, non-ionic ...

There is a growing body of evidence on the role of nitric oxide (NO) in retinal physiology. Recently, interest has developed in the functional role of an alternative redox form of NO, namely nitroxyl (HNO/NO(-)), because it is formed by a number of diverse biochemical reactions. The aim of the present report was to comparatively analyze the effect of HNO and NO on the retinal nitridergic pathwa...

Bladder cancer (BC) is a common malignancy of the urinary tract that has a higher frequency in men than in women. Cytostatic resistance and metastasis formation are significant risk factors in BC therapy; therefore, there is great interest in overcoming drug resistance and in initiating research for novel chemotherapeutic approaches. Here, we suggest that desethylamiodarone (DEA)-a metabolite o...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the molecular mechanisms of the inhibitory effects of amiodarone and its active metabolite, desethylamiodarone (DEA) on thyroid hormone action. MATERIALS AND METHODS The reporter construct ME-TRE-TK-CAT or TSHbeta-TRE-TK-CAT, containing the nucleotide sequence of the thyroid hormone response element (TRE) of either malic enzyme (ME) or TSHbeta genes, thymidine kinase (TK...