For the issue of the lack in plotting analysis method in the research of DEA, this paper introduces a new graphic method—Co-Plot. It can demonstrate DMUs and variables visually in two-dimensional space, and enable the analysis of them at the same time. By applying the ratio relationship among variables, Co-Plot can be combined with DEA in a way to display the results of DEA easily and intuitive...

The Virtual Storyteller is a framework for story creation by co-operating intelligent agents. In this framework, a collection of agents is responsible for the creation of different story levels: plot, narrative, and presentation. In the Virtual Storyteller, plots are automatically created based on the actions of autonomous characters whose plot creation is only constrained by general plot requi...

BACKGROUND Impedance cardiography (ICG) enables continuous, beat-by-beat, non-invasive, operator-independent, and inexpensive cardiac output (CO) monitoring. We compared CO values and variations obtained by ICG (Niccomo™, Medis) and oesophageal Doppler monitoring (ODM) (CardioQ™, Deltex Medical) in surgical patients. METHODS This prospective, observational, single-centre study included 32 sub...

Recently, it has been proposed to analyse the literary works, plays or novels, using graphs to display the social network of their interacting characters. In this approach, the timeline of the literary work is lost, because the storyline is projected on a planar graph. However, timelines can be used to build some time series and analyse the work by means of vectors and matrices. These series ca...

In this study the effects of temperature on anaerobic co-digestion of saw dust with cattle dung is investigated. It also simulates the biogas production from saw dust with cattle dung at various temperatures. Results showed that high temperature could improve the anaerobic digestion and hence increase the biogas production rates. The operating temperatures used in this study were 35°C, 45°C, an...

The Arabidopsis Co-expression Tool, ACT, ranks the genes across a large microarray dataset according to how closely their expression follows the expression of a query gene. A database stores pre-calculated co-expression results for approximately 21,800 genes based on data from over 300 arrays. These results can be corroborated by calculation of co-expression results for user-defined sub-sets of...

BACKGROUND Effects of pacing-induced and coronary occlusion myocardial ischemia on left ventricular (LV) function have been compared only in anesthetized dogs. Diastolic properties of the same LV anterior wall segment were therefore compared in 12 patients with single-vessel proximal left anterior descending coronary artery stenosis at rest, immediately after 7 +/- 1.2 minutes of pacing, and at...

BACKGROUND Intrapulmonary thermodilution technique using a pulmonary artery catheter is widely used for measuring cardiac output (CO) in patients undergoing liver transplantation. However, its invasiveness and associated complications have led to an interest in less invasive modalities. Thus, we aimed to evaluate whether the new calibrated pulse-wave analysis method monitoring (VolumeViewTM/EV1...