Planning for electricity generation systems is a very important task and should take environmental and economic factors into account. This paper reviews the existing metrics and methods in evaluating energy sustainability, and we propose a sustainability assessment index system. The input indexes include generation capacity, generation cost, and land use. The output indexes include desirable an...

Directional distance function (DDF) is a recognized technique for measuring efficiency while incorporating undesirable outputs. This approach allows for desirable outputs to be expanded while undesirable outputs are contracted simultaneously. A drawback of the DDF approach is that the direction vector to the production boundary is fixed arbitrarily, which may not provide the best efficiency mea...

Introduction:Myocardial 18F-FDG uptake is highly variable in oncologic whole body 18F-FDG PET/CT studies, ranging from quite intense to minimal distribution. Intense or heterogeneous myocardial 18F-FDG uptake is undesirable as it may interfere with the visual or quantitative evaluation of tumoral invasion and metastases in pericardium, myocardiu...

Obesity with an increasing prevalence rate worldwide is correlated with multiple comorbidities. Unfortunately, the currently available therapies such as the pharmacotherapy, bariatric surgery or gene-transfer technology are associated with a number of disadvantages including undesirable side effects, poor compliance or transient effectiveness. Therefore, modifications of the lifestyle factors m...

Recent reports have described that learning Bayesian networks are highly sensitive to the chosen equivalent sample size (ESS) in the Bayesian Dirichlet equivalence uniform (BDeu). This sensitivity often engenders some unstable or undesirable results. This paper describes some asymptotic analyses of BDeu to explain the reasons for the sensitivity and its effects. Furthermore, this paper presents...

Balint recognised that 'the doctor is a drug'; that 'no guidance whatever is contained in any textbook as to the dosage in which the doctor should prescribe himself'; and that there may be 'hazards' and 'undesirable sideeffects' of this type of medication. Recognition of doctor dependency is important. [1] It can be useful to look at the doctor-patient relations as 'transactions' involving both...

Deontic conflicts are situations where you are “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” – where each of the available options will lead to an undesirable outcome or violation. How do people reason about deontic conflicts? In this paper we use the experimental technique of conjoint analysis to uncover the relevant decision factors that people use in such situations. Applications are to program...

Many factors are concerned in obtaining a comparatively painless progress through convalescence after removal of the tonsils. It is impossible, and, in fact, undesirable, to keep the operation area immobile as in other operations, and so it is important to consider what can be done best for the patient's comfort. I propose to survey the pre-operative treatment, the operation, and the post-opera...

BACKGROUND Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is becoming a serious health problem; the number of people with impaired renal function is rapidly rising. Progression of CKD is associated with having a number of complications, including thyroid dysfunction, dyslipidemia and cardiovascular diseases. This study was conducted to investigate thyroid function and lipid profile in CKD patients. METHODS A c...