Herbert F. Lewis

Bio: Herbert F. Lewis is an academic researcher from Stony Brook University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Data envelopment analysis & Inefficiency. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 23 publications receiving 1118 citations. Previous affiliations of Herbert F. Lewis include State University of New York System.

Innovative Design for Courses with Group Projects

Abstract: In this paper, we describe an innovative design for courses with group projects that we have implemented in the graduate Decision Support Systems DSS course offered at the Harriman School for Management and Policy, College of Business, at Stony Brook University. Each group is associated with two projects. For one project, the group acts as the client that is interested in purchasing the DSS under development by a second group. For the other project, the group acts as the developer of a DSS that a third group is interested in purchasing. This design enables students to experience the technical and managerial aspects of software development from the perspectives of both the buyer and the seller. In addition, the design increases each student's in-depth experience with two projects rather than one, thereby providing the student with a broader understanding of the course material. We perform an assessment of the design and present results from a questionnaire about student perceptions.

A Statistical Model for Energy Intensity

Abstract: A promising approach to improve scientific literacy in regards to global warming and climate change is using a simulation as part of a science education course. The simulation needs to employ scientific analysis of actual data from internationally accepted and reputable databases to demonstrate the reality of the current climate change situation. One of the most important criteria for using a simulation in a science education course is the fidelity of the model. The realism of the events and consequences modeled in the simulation is significant as well. Therefore, all underlying equations and algorithms used in the simulation must have real- world scientific basis. The "Energy Choices" simulation is one such simulation. The focus of this paper is the development of a mathematical model for "Energy Intensity" as a part of the overall system dynamics in "Energy Choices" simulation. This model will define the "Energy Intensity" as a function of other independent variables that can be manipulated by users of the simulation. The relationship discovered by this research will be applied to an algorithm in the "Energy Choices" simulation.

Performance Measurement Outcomes: An Analysis of Health Care-Associated Infections in New York State.

Abstract: BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Comparing outcome measures in health care is a relatively common practice. Reports are designed to compare hospital infection rates in an accurate and fair manner. The current methodology used by New York State (NYS) has some limitations and flaws. This research provides a methodology that overcomes these limitations and flaws. METHODS The methodology is a replication study using data from NYS and includes the use of the binomial and Poisson distribution to calculate upper tail (UTP) and lower tail probabilities (LTP). The UTP is used to screen for poor performers, and the LTP is used to screen for good performers. RESULTS The results we obtained using the tail probability method compared with NYS's confidence interval approach are similar across all health care-associated infection (HAI) categories but have the benefit of allowing for the analysis of any hospital regardless of the number of procedures, number of central line-days, or number of patient-days. In addition, we provide an evaluation of a hospital's performance over time where we identified hospitals that were consistently performing poorly and others consistently performing well. CONCLUSION Identifying hospitals that are consistently performing poorly and hospitals consistently performing well will allow administrators and clinicians to focus their efforts including budgetary to where improvements are needed. Patient care and the reduction of HAIs are a priority for health care institutions. While the results are similar to those reported by NYS, this approach can be used more comprehensively and can be interpreted more easily by administrators and practitioners. Health care administrators and clinicians may find the information useful to address infection rates. Hospitals consistently performing well may be used as a benchmark.

Using Data Envelopment Analysis to Measure and Improve Organizational Performance

Abstract: Organizations are complex and have many goals while almost all analytical tools measure performance using only one goal. Thus, analysts often rely on multiple analytical tools to produce a bewildering array of performance measures that often lack internal consistency and a clear focus. In this article, we show how Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) builds a performance frontier (analogous to a production frontier) that measures organizational performance in the presence of multiple organizational measures. The DEA frontier produces target values for each organizational measure based on the observed performance of organizations in the comparison set. In addition, DEA provides factor performance levels for each performance measure for each organization and can detect circumstances in which an organization has a strong overall performance measure but still has weaknesses in one or more measures. We will illustrate this approach with applications to several examples using real data. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

经验与教育 = Experience and education

Abstract: Experience and Educationis the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education(Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received. Analysing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.

The theory of externalities, public goods, and club goods: Homogeneous clubs and local public goods

Abstract: A club is a voluntary group of individuals who derive mutual benefit from sharing one or more of the following: production costs, the members' characteristics, or a good characterized by excludable benefits. When production costs are shared and the good is purely private, a private good club is being analyzed (McGuire 1972; Wiseman 1957). If membership characteristics differ and motivate sharing, then membership fees will differ among members (DeSerpa 1977; Scotchmer 1994b; Scotchmer and Wooders 1987). Such fees are nonanonymous , inasmuch as a fee structure is related to the identity and attributes of a member. The focus of our analysis is the sharing of an excludable (rivalrous) public good, which we term a club good . Unless otherwise specified, crowding is assumed to be independent of the individual and hence anonymous. A number of aspects of the club definition deserve highlighting. Privately owned and operated clubs must be voluntary; members choose to belong because they anticipate a net benefit from membership. Thus, the utility jointly derived from membership and from the consumption of other goods must exceed the utility associated with nonmembership status. Furthermore, the net gain in utility from membership must exceed or equal membership fees or toll payments. This voluntarism serves as the first characteristic by which to distinguish between pure public goods and club goods. In the case of a pure public good, voluntarism may be absent, since the good might harm some recipients (e.g., defense to a pacifist, fluoridation to someone who opposes its use).

Data envelopment analysis 1978-2010: A citation-based literature survey

Abstract: This study surveys the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature by applying a citation-based approach. The main goals are to find a set of papers playing the central role in DEA development and to discover the latest active DEA subareas. A directional network is constructed based on citation relationships among academic papers. After assigning an importance index to each link in the citation network, main DEA development paths emerge. We examine various types of main paths, including local main path, global main path, and multiple main paths. The analysis result suggests, as expected, that Charnes et al. (1978) [Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E. Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978; 2(6): 429–444] is the most influential DEA paper. The five most active DEA subareas in recent years are identified; among them the “two-stage contextual factor evaluation framework” is relatively more active. Aside from the main path analysis, we summarize basic statistics on DEA journals and researchers. A growth curve analysis hints that the DEA literature’s size will eventually grow to at least double the size of the existing literature.