Use of virtual index for measuring efficiency of innovation systems : a cross-country study

In this study we propose a virtual index for measuring the relative innovativeness of countries. Using a multistage virtual benchmarking process, the best and rational benchmark is extracted for inefficient ISs. Furthermore, Tobit and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models are used to investigate the likelihood of changes in inefficiencies by investigating country-specific factors. The empirical results relating to the virtual benchmarking process suggest that the OLS regression model would better explain changes in the performance of innovation- inefficient countries.

The Relative Efficiency of International, Domestic, and Budget Airlines : Nonparametric Evidence

This study determines whether the inclusion of low-cost airlines in a dataset of international and domestic airlines has an impact on the efficiency scores of so-called ‘prestigious’ purportedly ‘efficient’ airlines. This is because while many airline studies concern efficiency, none has truly included a combination of international, domestic and budget airlines. The present study employs the nonparametric technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the technical efficiency of 53 airlines in 2006. The findings reveal that the majority of budget airlines are efficient relative to their more prestigious counterparts. Moreover, most airlines identified as inefficient are so largely because of the overutilization of non-flight assets.

A note on the ‘Linsanity’ of measuring the relative efficiency of National Basketball Association (NBA) guards

This note examines the productive efficiency of 62 starting guards during the 2011/12 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. This period coincides with the phenomenal and largely unanticipated performance of New York Knicks’ starting point guard Jeremy Lin and the attendant public and media hype known as Linsanity. We employ a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach that includes allowance for an undesirable output, here turnovers per game, with the desirable outputs of points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks per game and an input of minutes per game. The results indicate that depending upon the specification, between 29 and 42 percent of NBA guards are fully efficient, including Jeremy Lin, with a mean inefficiency of 3.7 and 19.2 percent. However, while Jeremy Lin is technically efficient, he seldom serves as a benchmark for inefficient players, at least when compared with established players such as Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade. This suggests the uniqueness of Jeremy Lin’s productive solution and may explain why his unique style of play, encompassing individual brilliance, unselfish play, and team leadership, is of such broad public appeal.

Assessing efficiency of a transit oriented development (TOD) by comparative analysis

Transit oriented developments (TODs) are master planned communities constructed to reduce the dependence on the private car and promote the modes of transport such as public transport, walking and cycling, which are presumed by many transport professionals to be more sustainable. This paper tests this assumption that TOD is a more sustainable form of development than traditional development, with respect to travel demand, by conducting travel surveys for a case study TOD and comparing the travel characteristics of TOD residents with the travel characteristics of residents of Brisbane, Australia who live in non TOD suburbs. The results of a household comparison showed that the Kelvin Grove Urban Village (KGUV) households had slightly smaller household size, lower vehicle and bicycle ownership compared to Brisbane Statistical Division (BSD), Brisbane’s inner north and inner south suburbs. The comparison of average trip characteristics showed that on an average KGUV residents undertook fewer trips on the given travel day (2.6 trips/person) compared to BSD (3.1 trips/person), Brisbane Inner North Suburbs (BINS) (3.6 trips/person) and Brisbane Inner South Suburbs (BISS) (3.5 trips/person) residents. The mode share comparison indicated that KGUV residents used more public transport and made more walk-only trips in comparison to BSD, BINS and BISS residents. Overall, 72.4 percent of KGUV residents used a sustainable mode of transport for their travel on a typical weekday. On the other hand, only 17.4 percent, 22.2 percent and 24.4 percent residents of BSD, BINS and BISS used sustainable modes of transport for this travel. The results of trip length comparison showed that overall KGUV residents have smaller average trip lengths as compared to its counterparts. KGUV & BINS residents used car for travelling farther and used public transport for accessing destinations located closer to their homes. On the contrary, BSD and BISS residents exhibited an opposite trend. These results support the transportation claims of many transport professionals that TODs are more transport efficient and therefore more sustainable in this respect.

Assessing efficiency of a transit oriented development by comparative analysis

TOD: - A fully planned, mixed use development equipped with good quality transit service and infrastructure for walking and cycling Hypothesis: -TOD will help to reduce urban transport congestion Method: -Comparison of a TOD with non TOD urban environments -Residents’ trip characteristics

Factors affecting technical efficiency of rice farmers in village reservoir irrigation systems of Sri Lanka

Given the importance of water for rice production, this study examines the factors affecting the technical efficiency (TE) of irrigated rice farmers in village irrigation systems (VIS) in Sri Lanka. Primary data were collected from 460 rice farmers in the Kurunagala District, Sri Lanka, to estimate a stochastic translog production frontier for rice production. The mean TE of rice farming in village irrigation was found to be 0.72, although 63% of rice farmers exceeded this average. The most influential factors of TE are membership of Farmer Organisations (FOs) and the participatory rate in collective actions organised by FOs. The results suggest that enhancement of co-operative arrangements of farmers by strengthening the membership of FOs is considered important for increasing TE in rice farming in VIS.

Improving the efficiency of RFID authentication with pre-computation

Security of RFID authentication protocols has received considerable interest recently. However, an important aspect of such protocols that has not received as much attention is the efficiency of their communication. In this paper we investigate the efficiency benefits of pre-computation for time-constrained applications in small to medium RFID networks. We also outline a protocol utilizing this mechanism in order to demonstrate the benefits and drawbacks of using thisapproach. The proposed protocol shows promising results as it is able to offer the security of untraceableprotocols whilst only requiring the time comparable to that of more efficient but traceable protocols.

Improving the efficiency of high power piezoelectric transducers for industrial applications

Most high-power ultrasound applications are driven by two-level inverters. However, the broad spectral content of the two-level pulse results in undesired harmonics that can decrease the performance of the system significantly. On the other hand, it is crucial to excite the piezoelectric devices at their main resonant frequency in order to have maximum energy conversion. Therefore a high-quality, low-distorted power signal is needed to excite the high-power piezoelectric transducer at its resonant frequency. This study proposes an efficient approach to develop the performance of high-power ultrasonic applications using multilevel inverters along with a frequency estimation algorithm. In this method, the resonant frequencies are estimated based on relative minimums of the piezoelectric impedance frequency response. The algorithm follows the resonant frequency variation and adapts the multilevel inverter reference frequency to drive an ultrasound transducer at high power. Extensive simulation and experimental results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

A note on the ‘Linsanity’ of measuring the relative efficiency of National Basketball Association guards

This note examines the productive efficiency of 62 starting guards during the 2011/12 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. This period coincides with the phenomenal and largely unanticipated performance of New York Knicks’ starting point guard Jeremy Lin and the attendant public and media hype known as Linsanity. We employ a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach that includes allowance for an undesirable output, here turnovers per game, with the desirable outputs of points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game and an input of minutes per game. The results indicate that depending upon the specification, between 29% and 42% of NBA guards are fully efficient, including Jeremy Lin, with a mean inefficiency of 3.7% and 19.2%. However, while Jeremy Lin is technically efficient, he seldom serves as a benchmark for inefficient players, at least when compared with established players such as Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade. This suggests the uniqueness of Jeremy Lin's productive solution and may explain why his unique style of play, encompassing individual brilliance, unselfish play and team leadership, is of such broad public appeal.

Increasing NH4+ retention efficiency of sandy soils by adding a modified kaolin material: Mesolite

Water and ammonium retention by sandy soils may be low and result in leaching of applied fertiliser. To increase water and nutrient retention, zeolite is sometimes applied as a soil ameliorant for high value land uses including turf and horticulture. We have used a new modified kaolin material (MesoLite) as a soil amendment to test the efficiency of NH4+ retention and compared the results with natural zeolite. MesoLite is made by caustic reaction of kaolin at temperature between 80-95°C; although it has a moderate surface area, its cation exchange capacity is very high;(SA=13m2/g,CEC=500meq/100g). A 13cm tall sand column filled with ~450g of sandy soil homogeneously mixed with 1, 2, 4, and 8g of MesoLite or natural zeolite per 1kg of soil was prepared. After saturation with local bore water, concentrated ammonium sulfate solution was injected at the base. Then, bore water was passed from bottom to top through the column at amounts up to 6 pore volumes and at a constant flow rate of 10ml/min using a peristaltic pump. Concentrations of leached NH4+ were determined using an AutoAnalyser. The concentration of NH4+ leached from the column with 0.4% MesoLite was greatly (90%) reduced relative to unamended soil. Under these conditions NH4+ retention by the soil-MesoLite mixture was 11.5 times more efficient than the equivalent soil-natural zeolite mixture. Glasshouse experiments conducted in a separate study show that NH4+ adsorbed by MesoLite is available to plants.

Efficiency of knowledge integration in enterprise systems implementation

Recent literature has emphasized the pivotal role of knowledge integration in Enterprise Systems (ES) success. This research-in-progress paper, building upon Knowledge Based Theory of the firm (KBT), examines the efficiency of knowledge integration in the context of ES implementation and identifies the factors contributing to its enhancement. The proposed model in this paper suggests that the efficiency of knowledge integration in an ES implementation process depends upon the level of common knowledge and the level of coordination in the ES adopting organization. It further suggests that the level of common knowledge can be enhanced by proper training, improving ES users’intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and business process modeling and the level of coordination can be improved by articulating a clear unified organizational goal for the ES adoption in the organization, forming a competent ES team, enhancing interdepartmental communication and the cross-functionality in the organization structure.

Examining young recreational sportswomen's intentions to engage in sun-protective behavior : the role of group and image norms

Researchers examined the sun-protective intentions and behavior of young, Caucasian, Australian sportswomen aged between 17 and 35 years (N = 100). The study adopted a 2 x 2 experimental design, comparing group norms (supportive vs. non-supportive) and image norms (tanned vs. pale) related to sun protection and taking into account group identification with friends and peers in the sport. While no significant findings emerged involving image norms, regression analyses revealed a significant two-way interaction for group norm x identification on recreational sportswomen's intentions to engage in sun protection in the next fortnight. Participants identifying strongly with their group had stronger intentions to engage in sun protection when exposed to a norm reflecting fellow recreational sportswomen engaging in sun-protective actions in comparison to those exposed to a non-supportive group. In addition, while prior intentions to engage in sun protection were not significantly related to sun-protection behavior, post-manipulation intentions after exposure to the sun-protective information that was provided were significantly related to follow-up behavior. Overall, the findings supported the importance of group-based social influences, rather than tanned media images, on sun-protective decisions among young recreational sportswomen and provided a targeted source for intervention strategies encouraging sun safety among this at-risk group for repeated sun exposure.