In the present work, three fatty acid eutectics of capric acid (CA)–lauric acid (LA), capric acid–palmitic acid (PA), and capric acid–stearic acid (SA) were prepared through melt-blending followed by ultrasonication and were investigated as model phase change materials (PCMs); for...

The ultrafine composite fibers consisting of lauric acid (LA), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and silica nanoparticles (nano-SiO2) were prepared through the materials processing technique of electrospinning as an innovative type of form-stable phase change materials (PCMs). The effects of...

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has gained much popularity in performance measurement of power industry. This paper presents a slack-based measure approach to investigating the relationship between fossil fuel consumption and the environmental regulation of China's thermal power generation. We...

Production in large organizations with a centralized decision-making environment like supermarket chains or factories with many workshops, usually involves the participation of more than one individual unit, each contributing a part of the total production. This study is motivated by a...

The Malmquist productivity index studies productivity change, that is, the technical progress or regress together with the efficiency changes over time. In a nonparametric framework, the index can be estimated by data envelopment analysis (DEA). In this paper, first all inputs are divided into...

As environment constraints on economic growth are strengthening, Carbon Emissions Abatement (CEA) allocation becomes a significant issue that draws academia׳s attention. In the literature, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique has been applied to obtain CEA allocation with centralized...

The zero sum gains data envelopment analysis models (ZSG-DEA models) are non-linear. In this paper, we first show that the ZSG-DEA models can be transformed to linear or parametric linear models and discuss the feasible domains of the parameters. Second, we show that the linear formulations of...

The primary purpose of our paper is to evaluate environmental performance as well as to model some nonseparable inputs and outputs using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The efficiency analysis takes emission quota into consideration with the objectives of minimizing both total...

In conventional DEA analysis, DMUs are generally treated as a black-box in the sense that internal structures are ignored, and the performance of a DMU is assumed to be a function of a set of chosen inputs and outputs. A significant body of work has been directed at problem settings where the...

Best suppliers help manufacturers to gain and sustain a competitive advantage by improving product quality, reducing cost, shortening lead-time and so on. The crucial role played by suppliers in a supply chain renders the selection of a supplier or suppliers a significant work that attracts the...