Knowledge Discovery Process and Methods to Enhance Organizational Performance

220 ◾ Sergey Samoilenko and Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson

NNs and DEA

NN modeling aims to develop a black box model (i.e., an articial NN) of the

unknown complex relationships in the data. is data mining method is particu-

larly appropriate when there is no known mathematical formula that relates the

input and output variables, and prediction is more important than explanation.

It has been extensively used by researchers (Bu et al. 2003; Choi and Yoo 2001;

Crestani and van Rijsbergen 1997; Harb and Chen 2005; Lu et al. 1996; Pao and

Sobajic 1991; Vai and Xu 1995).

Using NN in conjunction with DEA is also not novel to this investigation.

Combination of DEA and NN in one study started with the work of Athanasso-

poulos and Curram (1996), who extended ...