Search results for "Benchmarking"
showing 10 items of 112 documents
Benchmarking open data efforts through indices and rankings: Assessing development and contexts of use
2022
Abstract This paper aims to provide a broad perspective on the development of benchmarking open data efforts through indices and rankings over the years, both at the level of countries and allowing for a cross-country comparison. The methodology follows a systematic search for the relevant resources, their classification and identification of six open data benchmarks to be further analyzed, the identification of their key components through decomposition, their description, and identifying the similarities and differences. Three major groups of indices and four periods that characterize the efforts to benchmark and measure the development of open data are identified, where the first measure…
Benchmarking Wilms’ tumor in multisequence MRI data: why does current clinical practice fail? Which popular segmentation algorithms perform well?
2019
Wilms' tumor is one of the most frequent malignant solid tumors in childhood. Accurate segmentation of tumor tissue is a key step during therapy and treatment planning. Since it is difficult to obtain a comprehensive set of tumor data of children, there is no benchmark so far allowing evaluation of the quality of human or computer-based segmentations. The contributions in our paper are threefold: (i) we present the first heterogeneous Wilms' tumor benchmark data set. It contains multisequence MRI data sets before and after chemotherapy, along with ground truth annotation, approximated based on the consensus of five human experts. (ii) We analyze human expert annotations and interrater varia…
The impact of privatization approaches on the productivity growth of the water industry: A case study of Chile
2015
Abstract The water industry faces the challenge of implementing privatization reforms. This process mainly adopts the following two approaches: the privatization of public water and sewerage services (WSS) and the privatization of water companies’ ownership. This paper investigates the impact of both privatization approaches on changes in productivity in the water industry. In doing so, the Luenberger productivity indicator (LPI) was computed for a sample of Chilean water and sewerage companies (WaSCs) for the period 1997–2013. Unlike the most commonly applied index (Malmquist productivity index), the LPI simultaneously takes into account output expansion and input contraction. The results …
Barriers in organizing the Romanian firms in responsibility centers
2017
In the current turbulent business environment, the big and medium enterprises must organize their activity in order to face new challenges. One of the organizational forms that can stimulate the performances of the firms is the one in responsibility centers. This paper addresses the issue of the responsibility centers starting from the possibility of using benchmarking before and after the implementation of this organizational form. After highlighting the advantages of the responsibility centers, we presented a study made in Romanian big and medium organizations, regarding the barriers in the design and implementation of this organizational form. The main causes that determine Romanian mana…
Physical environment as a source for innovation: investigating the attributes of innovative space
2013
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how physical spaces intersect with innovation and innovativeness, and what the most relevant attributes of physical space are for innovation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects the changing nature of innovation, from technological advancements to services and meaning changes, and argues that the development of innovative spaces similarly embodies a diverse set of values such as collaboration, openness, and sustainability. Using a literature review, interviews, and benchmarking data, the paper examines the relationship between physical environment and innovation. Findings – The findings from both the literature review and t…
Youth Unemployment in Romania: Post-crisis Challenges
2014
Abstract This article reviews the dynamics of the Romanian youth labour market between 2007 and 2013. Using total unemployment rate as benchmarking we describe the dynamics of youth unemployment during these years. We argue that the short time effects of the crisis on youth unemployment are just one side of the problem. The long term effects related to education and migration trends are the main challenges that labour market policies should address in the near future.
A critical review of life cycle assessment benchmarking methodologies for construction materials
2022
As it stands, the construction sector accounts for a significant proportion of global emissions. The majority of these emissions can be associated with material production. As a result, the importance of quantifying these environmental impacts is continually increasing. However, there is a current lack of guidance and methodologies regarding how to benchmark the impacts of construction products, and thus achieve more transparent environmental reporting and decision-making. Therefore, the aim of this study was to review engineering life-cycle assessment (LCA) literature and applicable standards to identify the key methodological variables required and the key steps for a sector-wide methodol…
Deep Learning Estimation of 10-2 and 24-2 Visual Field Metrics Based on Thickness Maps from Macula OCT.
2021
Purpose To develop deep learning (DL) systems estimating visual function from macula-centered spectral-domain (SD) OCT images. Design Evaluation of a diagnostic technology. Participants A total of 2408 10-2 visual field (VF) SD OCT pairs and 2999 24-2 VF SD OCT pairs collected from 645 healthy and glaucoma subjects (1222 eyes). Methods Deep learning models were trained on thickness maps from Spectralis macula SD OCT to estimate 10-2 and 24-2 VF mean deviation (MD) and pattern standard deviation (PSD). Individual and combined DL models were trained using thickness data from 6 layers (retinal nerve fiber layer [RNFL], ganglion cell layer [GCL], inner plexiform layer [IPL], ganglion cell-IPL […
A Model‐Based Workflow to Benchmark the Clinical Cholestasis Risk of Drugs
2021
We present a generic workflow combining physiology-based computational modeling and in vitro data to assess the clinical cholestatic risk of different drugs systematically. Changes in expression levels of genes involved in the enterohepatic circulation of bile acids were obtained from an in vitro assay mimicking 14 days of repeated drug administration for 10 marketed drugs. These changes in gene expression over time were contextualized in a physiology-based bile acid model of glycochenodeoxycholic acid. The simulated drug-induced response in bile acid concentrations was then scaled with the applied drug doses to calculate the cholestatic potential for each compound. A ranking of the cholest…
Trends in multiple recurrent health complaints in 15-year-olds in 35 countries in Europe, North America and Israel from 1994 to 2010
2015
Background: Health complaints are a good indicator of an individual’s psychosocial health and well-being. Studies have shown that children and adolescents report health complaints which can cause significant individual burden. Methods: Using data from the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, this article describes trends in multiple recurrent health complaints (MHC) in 35 countries among N = 237 136 fifteen-year-olds from 1994 to 2010. MHC was defined as the presence of two or more health complaints at least once a week. Logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate trends across the five survey cycles for each country. Results: Lowest prevalence thro…