多Agent系统计算的意愿理论

意愿是规范和描述多Ａｇｅｎｔ系统的一个重要抽象认知概念。本文提出了多Ａｇｅｎｔ系统计算的意愿理论以支持多Ａｇｅｎｔ系统计算的理论研究。基于多Ａｇｅｎｔ系统计算的动作模型理论，我们给出了意愿概念新的语义定义，获取和描述了它的一些重要逻辑属性。     

Retailer's rationale to refuse consumer returns in supply chains

While accepting consumer returns has long been proposed as a solution to resolve the consumer valuation uncertainty problem, there are still a sizable portion of retailers who insist on a “no return” policy. In this article, we offer an economic rationale for these seemingly unreasonable strategies in a supply chain context. We demonstrate when and why the retailer may benefit from refusing consumer returns, even though offering consumer returns allows the supply chain to implement the expostmarket segmentation. Granting the retailer the right to refuse consumer returns may sometimes improve supply chain efficiency: it eliminates the manufacturer's attempt to induce inefficient consumer returns and bring the equilibrium back to that in the vertically integrated benchmark. We also find that the refund and the retail price can move in the opposite directions when product reliability varies, and consumer returns have a nontrivial impact on the quality choice. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 686–701, 2015     

Impact of reseller's and sales agent's forecasting accuracy in a multilayer supply chain

We consider a three‐layer supply chain with a manufacturer, a reseller, and a sales agent. The demand is stochastically determined by the random market condition and the sales agent's private effort level. Although the manufacturer is uninformed about the market condition, the reseller and the sales agent conduct demand forecasting and generate private demand signals. Under this framework with two levels of adverse selection intertwined with moral hazard, we study the impact of the reseller's and the sales agent's forecasting accuracy on the profitability of each member. We show that the manufacturer's profitability is convex on the reseller's forecasting accuracy. From the manufacturer's perspective, typically improving the reseller's accuracy is detrimental when the accuracy is low but is beneficial when it is high. We identify the concrete interrelation among the manufacturer‐optimal reseller's accuracy, the volatility of the market condition, and the sales agent's accuracy. Finally, the manufacturer's interest may be aligned with the reseller's when only the reseller can choose her accuracy; this alignment is never possible when both downstream players have the discretion to choose their accuracy. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 207–222, 2014     

Return policy: Hassle‐free or your money‐back guarantee?

This article compares the profitability of two pervasively adopted return policies—money‐back guarantee and hassle‐free policies. In our model, a seller sells to consumers with heterogeneous valuations and hassle costs. Products are subject to quality risk, and product misfit can only be observed post‐purchase. While the hassle‐free policy is cost advantageous from the seller's viewpoint, a money‐back guarantee allows the seller to fine‐tune the consumer hassle on returning the product. Thus, when the two return policies lead to the same consumer behaviors, the hassle‐free policy dominates. Conversely, a money‐back guarantee can be more profitable even if on average, high‐valuation consumers experience a lower hassle cost than the low‐valuation ones. The optimal hassle cost can be higher when product quality gets improved; thus, it is not necessarily a perfect proxy or signal of the seller's quality. We further allow the seller to adopt a mixture of these policies, and identify the concrete operating regimes within which these return policies are optimal among more flexible policies. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 403–417, 2014     

Strategic outsourcing under technology spillovers

We study a supply chain in which an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and a contract manufacturer (CM) compete in the finished goods market. The OEM can decide whether to outsource the intermediate good, a critical component for producing the finished good, from the CM or make in‐house production. Technology transition improves the CM's production efficiency, and it can take two different forms: a direct technology transfer from the OEM to the CM or technology spillovers through outsourcing from the OEM to the CM. We document the possibility of strategic outsourcing, that is, the CM supplies the intermediate good to the OEM when she is less efficient than the OEM's in‐house production. We find that technology spillovers can strengthen the incentive for strategic outsourcing. Furthermore, compared with direct technology transfers, outsourcing coupled with technology spillovers may generate more technology transition. Outsourcing is a particularly appropriate channel for implicit collusion when the OEM is not very efficient with the production of the intermediate good. Our results suggest that ex post competition on the finished goods can create room for ex ante collaboration and provide some implications on the OEM's outsourcing strategies when facing a competitive CM.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 501–514, 2014     

分布式环形网络测发控系统故障恢复时间模型

测发控系统是武器系统中的重要组成部分.提出了一种基于分布式冗余协议(DRP)的测发控系统实现设想,避免了主从式网络中风险高度集中在主站的问题.在对DRP分布式环形网络冗余协议故障诊断和恢复机理进行详细分析的基础上,建立DRP故障恢复时间模型,根据该模型和控制系统采样周期的关系,分别进行环形网络化控制系统丢包概率分析.     

一种适于片上路由器的自适应缓冲调整策略

在典型的片上网络路由节点中,来自不同方向的报文被存储在相互独立的缓冲资源中。在网络负载不均衡的情况下,某些方向的报文将很快填满该方向的缓冲,而其他方向仍可能有较多的缓冲资源处于空闲状态,这样就导致了网络中的缓冲资源利用率不高,进而影响片上网络的整体性能。提出了一种自适应的片上缓冲调整策略,能够根据网络负载情况动态调节缓冲结构,有效地提高了缓冲资源的利用率。在90nmCMOS工艺下设计实现了多端口共享缓冲资源的片上网络路由器,实验结果表明,在负载不均衡的网络中,提出的路由器能够带来性能改进及功耗降低;在达到相同性能的情况下,新路由器的面积较典型路由器减少了20.3%,而其缓冲功耗节约了41%左右。     

冠脉搭桥术用 CO2 激光低能输出方法研究

弱ＣＯ_２激光能量的输出及控制是ＣＯ_２激光冠脉搭桥术的核心技术之一。本文介绍了一种利用普通医用ＣＯ_２激光器获得弱激光能量输出的技术与方法。该方法具有激光输出功率稳定,并可调、输出光斑上能量密度均匀,光斑大小可控的特点,它很好地满足了搭桥仪对激光输出参数的要求;该方法还可应用于其它弱ＣＯ_２激光医疗仪器中。文中对设计原理进行了分析,并给出了设计实例。     

The impact of demand uncertainty on product line design under endogenous substitution

The existing product line design literature devotes little attention to the effect of demand uncertainty. Due to demand uncertainty, the supply‐demand mismatch is inevitable which leads to different degrees of lost sales depending on the configuration of product lines. In this article, we adopt a stylized two‐segment setup with uncertain market sizes and illustrate the interplay between two effects: risk pooling that mitigates the impact of demand uncertainty and market segmentation that facilitates consumer differentiation. Compared to downward substitution, inducing bidirectional substitution through product line decisions including quality levels and prices can yield greater risk pooling effects. However, we show that the additional benefit from the risk pooling effect cannot compensate for the reduced market segmentation effect. We demonstrate that the presence of demand uncertainty can reduce the benefit of market segmentation and therefore the length of product lines in terms of the difference between products. We also propose three heuristics that separate product line and production decisions; each of these heuristics corresponds to one particular form of demand substitution. Our numerical studies indicate that the best of the three heuristics yields performance that is close to optimality. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 143–157, 2015     

Optimal pricing and scheduling control of product shipping

In this article, we seek to understand how a capacity‐constrained seller optimally prices and schedules product shipping to customers who are heterogeneous on willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to wait (WTW). The capacity‐constrained seller does not observe each customer's WTP and WTW and knows only the aggregate distributions of WTP and WTW. The seller's problem is modeled as an M/M/N_s queueing model with multiclass customers and multidimensional information screening. We contribute to the literature by providing an optimal and efficient algorithm. Furthermore, we numerically find that customers with a larger waiting cost enjoys a higher scheduling priority, but customers with higher valuation do not necessarily get a higher scheduling priority. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 215–227, 2015