Benchmarking with quality-adjusted DEA (Q-DEA) to seek lower-cost high-quality service: Evidence from a U.S.bank application

Benchmarking is a widely cited method to identify and adopt best-practices as a means to improve performance. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been demonstrated to be a powerful benchmarking methodology for situations where multiple inputs and outputs need to be assessed to identify best-practices and improve productivity in organizations. Most DEA benchmarking studies have excluded quality, even in service-sector applications such as health care where quality is a key element of performance. This limits the practical value of DEA in organizations where maintaining and improving service quality is critical to achieving performance objectives. In this paper, alternative methods incorporating quality in DEA benchmarking are demonstrated and evaluated. It is shown that simply treating the quality measures as DEA outputs does not help in discriminating the performance. Thus, the current study presents a new, more sensitive, quality-adjusted DEA (Q-DEA), which effectively deals with quality measures in benchmarking. We report the results of applying Q-DEA to a U.S. bank's 200-branch network that required a method for benchmarking to help manage operating costs and service quality. Q-DEA findings helped the bank achieve cost savings and improved operations while preserving service quality, a dimension critical to its mission. New insights about ways to improve branch operations based on the best-practice (high-quality low-cost) benchmarks identified with Q-DEA are also described in the paper. This demonstrates the practical need and potential benefits of Q-DEA and its efficacy in one application, and also suggests the need for further research on measuring and incorporating quality into DEA benchmarking. The review process of this paper was handled by the Edit-in-Chief Peter Hammer.     

A unified theory for coherent systems in reliability I. A generalization for some classic theory: Monotone binary coherent systems

Binary coherent system theory has played an important part in reliability. Its extension to (‘degradable’ or ‘multistate’ or) multinary systems has recently been considered in various papers, through various definitions. This paper lays the foundations of a unified theory for coherent systems by first giving unified arguments to apply and to investigate further binary and multinary systems. Monotone binary systems are introduced and examined by generalizing classic deterministic and probabilistic results. Applications of monotone coherence to the multinary case are proposed in a companion paper with a unified viewpoint on multinary coherent systems. As an indication, monotone constraints are defined with a partition of the component set and some total orderings imposed on the elements of the concerned partition. The discrete partition retrieves the classic theory of (free) binary coherent systems; some constraints defined from component levels lead to multinary coherent systems; some other constraints apply to systems submitted to some ‘common stresses’, e.g. the organizing system of a monotone coherent decomposition.     

Large-scale failure modes of dielectric elastomer actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) show promise for robotic and mechatronic applications. However, to date, these actuators have experienced high rates of failure that have prevented their practical application. Here, large scale modes of failure of DEAs and their performance limits are studied. The objective is to provide design guidelines and bound the performance of DEAs that avoid failure. An idealized DEA is modeled and its failure is predicted as a function of film pre-stretch used during actuator fabrication, actuation voltage, and stretch rate. Three failure modes are considered: pull-in, dielectric strength, and material strength. Each failure mode is shown to dominate for different combinations of pre-stretch and stretch rate. High stretch rates lead to dielectric strength failure while low stretch rates lead to pull-in failure. Material strength failure is less important for most cases. Model predictions are validated experimentally using practical DEAs operating under load. This study suggests that DEAs cannot be operated reliably under load for long periods of time or low stretch rates due to pull-in failure limitations. To be reliable, DEAs must be used for short periods of time with high stretch rates.     

静电纺丝法制备PLLA/g-HNTs复合纳米纤维膜及其性能研究

以辛酸亚锡为催化剂,利用HNTs表面的羟基引发L-LA开环聚合,合成了表面接枝聚(L-乳酸)(PLLA)链段的埃洛石纳米管(g-HNTs),通过红外、热失重和透射电镜对改性前后HNTs的组成与形貌进行了观察;然后采用静电纺丝技术制备了PLLA纳米纤维膜以及不同组成的PLLA/HNTs和PLLA/g-HNTs复合纳米纤维膜,探讨了纺丝条件对纳米纤维膜形貌的影响,并对复合膜的组成、形貌、力学性能和细胞相容性进行了研究.结果表明,当HNTs与L-LA的摩尔投料比为1∶10时,g-HNTs表面PLLA链段的接枝率为14.22％,HNTs纳米管的形态在接枝后变化不大,易于在无水乙醇中分散.电压强度和进样速率对纤维膜的形貌有一定影响,当电压强度为15 kV、进样速率为1 mL/h时,电纺纤维的直径较为均匀.复合纤维膜中g-HNTs在基体PLLA中的分散性以及与基体的界面相容性要优于相应的HNTs,当g-HNTs含量高达40％时,复合纳米纤维膜中的纤维形态仍然保持较好,可以得到连续、粗细较均匀的纤维;随着HNTs和g-HNTs含量增加,复合纳米纤维膜的拉伸强度和模量先增大后下降,当HNTs和g-HNTs的含量为5％时,两种复合纳米纤维膜的拉伸强度和模量均达到最大值,但PLLA/g-HNTs组复合纳米纤维膜的拉伸强度始终大于相应的PLLA/HNTs组.体外3T3细胞培养结果显示,PLLA/g-HNTs复合纳米纤维膜具有良好的细胞相容性,且优于相应的PLLA和PLLA/HNTs纳米纤维膜.     

Dual channel detection–diode array and mass spectroscopy (El or Cl)–in HPLC

Simultaneous recording of UV and mass spectra (electron impact or chemical Ionization) in conventional HPLC is described. The LC eluent is divided into two parts; one is directed into a diode array detector and the other is introduced into the mass spectrometer via a particle beam interface. The analysis of the steroid esters of a pharmaceutical formulation illustrates the possibilities of dual channel (DAD-MS) HPLC detection.     

高效液相色谱法和硫氰酸钾滴定法检测煤中氯的比较研究

比较了测定煤中氯的高效液相色谱(HPLC)法和硫氰酸钾滴定法。以密闭氧弹燃烧或艾氏卡剂熔融分解样品，分别以高效液相色谱法和硫氰酸钾滴定法测定煤中氯，通过对国家标准物质GBW11118、GBW11119、GBW11120分析结果的比较及t检验，表明两方法无显著性差异。     

A unified theory for coherent systems in reliability II. A unified viewpoint on multinary coherent systems through monotone coherence and relevance

Binary coherent system theory has played an important part in reliability. Its extension to (‘degradable’ or ‘multistate’ or) multinary systems has recently been considered in various papers, through various definitions. This paper studies the most general model for multinary systems, proposes a unified viewpoint on multinary coherent systems and gives unified arguments to apply and to investigate further the binary and multinary cases. In a more detailed way, the ‘helpful bridge’ lately proposed by Block and Savits¹ between the binary and multinary cases is completed and multinary systems then can be studied in terms of monotone binary coherent systems, introduced in a companion paper.² Through various results, multinary systems are examined in terms of structure functions and of life functions; fundamental relations for their analysis are obtained with their set characterizations; the main axis that can be retained among the numerous types of coherence is emphasized, in a unified way, through relevance; reliability models are examined through performance processes, life lengths and performance functions; and Birnbaum's factors of importance are thoroughly extended to the multinary case. Fundamental results proposed in previous studies are thus completed with a shorter unified approach.     

Performance analysis of single stage kanban controlled production systems using parametric decomposition

We present a new approach that permits efficient performance analysis of kanban systems with general demand processes, material arrival processes, and service times. The approach is based on parametric characterization of the traffic processes (arrival and departure) in the network and uses two-moment approximations to estimate performance measures at individual stations. We derive traffic flow constraints that are particular to closed queuing networks with synchronization stations and use these to establish relationships between the parameters characterizing arrival and departure processes at the stations in the network. The resultant set of non-linear equations is solved to estimate network performance measures. Numerical studies show that the approach is not only fast but also reasonably accurate when compared to simulation. These studies also provide insights with respect to the impact of different types of variability on the performance of a kanban system. This work also provides a fundamental building block that can be used in the analysis of multi-stage kanban systems. AMS Subject Classifications 68M20, 60K20, 90B05, 90B30     

Combinatorial approximation algorithms: a comparative review

This paper is a comparative review of three related books:Giorgio Ausiello, Pierluigi Crescenzi, Giorgio Gambosi, Viggo Kann, Alberto Marchetti-Spaccamela, Marco Protasi, Complexity and Approximation (Combinatorial Optimization Problems and Their Approximability Properties), second printing, Springer, Berlin, 2003, ISBN 3-540-65431-3, 524 pp., €53.45 (first printing 1999).Juraj Hromkovi?, Algorithmics for Hard Problems (Introduction to Combinatorial Optimization, Randomization, Approximation, and Heuristics), second edition, Springer, Berlin, 2003, ISBN 3-540-44134-4, 544 pp., €53.45 (first printing 2001).Vijay Vazirani, Approximation Algorithms, second printing, Springer, Berlin, 2002, ISBN 3-540-65367-8, 380 pp., €37.40 (first printing 2001).