Efficiency Measurements (efficiency + measurement)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


FRONTIER EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENT IN DEPOSIT-TAKING FINANCIAL MUTUALS: A REVIEW OF TECHNIQUES, APPLICATIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
Andrew C. Worthington
ABSTRACT,:,Despite the global importance of mutuals in financial services, and the universal need to measure and improve organizational efficiency in all deposit-taking institutions, it is only relatively recently that the most advanced econometric and mathematical programming frontier techniques have been applied. This paper provides a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of frontier efficiency measurement in deposit-taking financial mutuals, comprising savings and loans, building societies and credit unions in Australia, the UK, and the USA. Both estimation and measurement techniques and the determinants of efficiency are examined. Particular focus is placed on how the results of these studies may help inform regulatory policy and managerial behaviour. [source]


Accounting for Interference, Scattering, and Electrode Absorption to Make Accurate Internal Quantum Efficiency Measurements in Organic and Other Thin Solar Cells

ADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 30 2010
George F. Burkhard
Accurately measuring internal quantum efficiency requires knowledge of absorption in the active layer of a solar cell. The experimentally accessible total absorption includes significant contributions from the electrodes and other non-active layers. We suggest a straightforward method for calculating the active layer contribution that minimizes error by subtracting optically-modeled electrode absorption from experimentally measured total absorption. [source]


Economic Efficiency and Frontier Techniques

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 1 2004
Luis R. Murillo-Zamorano
Abstract. Most of the literature related to the measurement of economic efficiency has based its analysis either on parametric or on non-parametric frontier methods. The choice of estimation method has been an issue of debate, with some researchers preferring the parametric and others the non-parametric approach. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical and detailed review of both core frontier methods. In our opinion, no approach is strictly preferable to any other. Moreover, a careful consideration of their main advantages and disadvantages, of the data set utilized, and of the intrinsic characteristics of the framework under analysis will help us in the correct implementation of these techniques. Recent developments in frontier techniques and economic efficiency measurement such as Bayesian techniques, bootstrapping, duality theory and the analysis of sampling asymptotic properties are also considered in this paper. [source]


FRONTIER EFFICIENCY MEASUREMENT IN DEPOSIT-TAKING FINANCIAL MUTUALS: A REVIEW OF TECHNIQUES, APPLICATIONS, AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
Andrew C. Worthington
ABSTRACT,:,Despite the global importance of mutuals in financial services, and the universal need to measure and improve organizational efficiency in all deposit-taking institutions, it is only relatively recently that the most advanced econometric and mathematical programming frontier techniques have been applied. This paper provides a synoptic survey of the comparatively few empirical analyses of frontier efficiency measurement in deposit-taking financial mutuals, comprising savings and loans, building societies and credit unions in Australia, the UK, and the USA. Both estimation and measurement techniques and the determinants of efficiency are examined. Particular focus is placed on how the results of these studies may help inform regulatory policy and managerial behaviour. [source]


Estimating the Relative Efficiency of Brazilian Publicly and Privately Owned Water Utilities: A Stochastic Cost Frontier Approach,

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 5 2007
Geraldo Da Silva e Souza
R15; R38 Abstract:, This paper assesses cost efficiencies of Brazilian public and private companies of water supply. To measure the efficiency, we used a stochastic frontier model derived from the translog family , a specification similar to a Cobb-Douglas including a quadratic term in log output. The model parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood using Brazilian data for the year 2002. Statistical inference leads to the conclusion that there is no evidence that private firms and public firms are significantly different in terms of efficiency measurements. [source]


Light soaking effect on photocurrent collection in (Zn,Mg)O/Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells

PHYSICA STATUS SOLIDI (C) - CURRENT TOPICS IN SOLID STATE PHYSICS, Issue 5 2009
Takashi Minemoto
Abstract The metastable behaviour, so-called light soaking (LS) effect, on (Zn,Mg)O (ZMO)/Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) solar cells with controlled conduction band offset (CBO) values of the ZMO/CIGS layers was characterized. When the conduction band of ZMO is higher than that of CIGS, which creates the notch of the ZMO/CIGS interface in the conduction band, metastable current-voltage curves were observed. The metastability becomes prominent with increasing the CBO value. Quantum efficiency measurements before and after the LS revealed that the LS effect was mainly originated by the metastability in the photocurrent collection which influenced by the notch acting as a barrier for photo-generated electrons in the CIGS layer. The model for the LS effect is discussed with simulated energy band diagrams. (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]


High efficiency screen-printed EFG Si solar cells through rapid thermal processing-induced bulk lifetime enhancement

PROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 1 2005
K. Nakayashiki
Abstract This paper shows that one second (1,s) firing of Si solar cells with screen-printed Al on the back and SiNx anti-reflection coating on the front can produce a high quality Al-doped back-surface-field (Al-BSF) and significantly enhance SiNx -induced defect hydrogenation in the bulk Si. Open-circuit voltage, internal quantum efficiency measurements, and cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy pictures on float-zone silicon cells revealed that 1,s firing in rapid thermal processing at 750°C produces just as good a BSF as 60,s firing, indicating that the quality of Al-BSF region is not a strong function of RTP firing time at 750°C. Analysis of edge-defined film-fed grown (EFG) Si cells showed that short-term firing is much more effective in improving the hydrogen passivation of bulk defects in EFG Si. Average minority-carrier lifetime in EFG wafers improved from ,3 to ,33,,s by 60,s firing but reached as high as 95,s with 1,s firing, resulting in 15·6% efficient screen-printed cells on EFG Si. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]