Assortment optimization with position effects under the nested logit model

We study the assortment optimization problem with position effects under the nested logit model, whose goal is to find the revenue-maximizing subset of products as well as their corresponding display positions. In this joint assortment-position optimization problem, the choices of products are affected by not only their qualities and prices but also the positions where they are displayed. Despite determining the assortment and their corresponding display positions sequentially, we propose to solve this problem in an integrated way to obtain the optimal solution. We formulate this problem as a nonlinear binary integer programming model and develop a dynamic programming based solution approach to obtain the optimal assortment-position assignments. We carry out extensive numerical experiments to evaluate the benefit of our integrated approach. The most important insight we discover is that it is not necessarily better to put the most attractive products in the best position. Moreover, we show that compared to the sequential approaches, our approach can improve revenue by 10.38% on average, which suggests that firms should take into consideration position effects when making assortment decisions. Finally, we discuss results related to two extensions of this problem, that is, the special case when positions are preassigned to nests, and the joint assortment-position-price optimization problem.     

Social benefits of government investment in enterprises

A critical issue for many governments is boosting the adoption rates of products or technologies that enhance consumer surplus or total social welfare. Governments may, for example, pay subsidies to producers or to consumers to stimulate the manufacture or consumption of specific products, for example, energy-efficient appliances or more effective drugs. This research proposes a strategic government investment policy, namely, share acquisition, and demonstrates its effectiveness in reaching societal objectives. We consider a Cournot quantities-choice market comprised of homogeneous firms where the government intervenes to buy shares, and turning private firms into state-owned enterprises. We recognize that purchasing a single private firm is the optimal policy for the government to reach its societal objectives. Additionally, taking into consideration financial constraints, we find that the optimal stake increases with the budget. Compared with the optimal output-based subsidy policy, when the budget is low, the optimal government investment policy induces a higher consumer surplus. In addition, in differentiated Cournot competition, under which firms compete in selling substitutable products, we find that when the budget is sufficient, the optimal stake purchased first decreases and then increases according to the substitutability level among products.     

Purchase and retrieval competition for seasonal produce

We study the competition problem of purchase and multiretrieval of perishable seasonal produce, where wholesalers purchase and stock their products in the first period, and then retrieve and sell them in subsequent periods. We first consider the duopoly case and assume that the prices are exogenous and fluctuate. In each period, after the price realization, the wholesalers retrieve some stock from their warehouses to satisfy their demands. One wholesaler's unsatisfied customers can switch to another and be satisfied by its left retrieved products. Any unsold retrieved stock has no salvage value and any unsatisfied demand is lost. The unretrieved stock is carried to the next period at a perishable rate. The wholesalers compete for the substitute demand by determining their own purchase and retrieval quantities. We show the existence and uniqueness of a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium, and that the Nash equilibrium strategy has the simple “sell-down-to” structure. We also consider the general N-person game and show the existence of the Nash equilibrium, and characterize the structure of the equilibrium strategy for the symmetric case. In addition, we consider the case with endogenous prices, and show that the problem reduces to a repeated newsvendor game with price and inventory competition. We derive the conditions under which a unique Nash equilibrium exists and characterize the equilibrium strategy. Finally, we conduct numerical studies to examine the impacts of the model parameters on the equilibrium outcomes and to generate managerial insights.     

Optimal policies for stochastic clearing systems with time-dependent delay penalties

We study stochastic clearing systems with a discrete-time Markovian input process, and an output mechanism that intermittently and instantaneously clears the system partially or completely. The decision to clear the system depends on both quantities and delays of outstanding inputs. Clearing the system incurs a fixed cost, and outstanding inputs are charged a delay penalty, which is a general increasing function of the quantities and delays of individual inputs. By recording the quantities and delays of outstanding inputs in a sequence, we model the clearing system as a tree-structured Markov decision process over both a finite and infinite horizon. We show that the optimal clearing policies, under realistic conditions, are of the on-off type or the threshold type. Based on the characterization of the optimal policies, we develop efficient algorithms to compute parameters of the optimal policies for such complex clearing systems for the first time. We conduct a numerical analysis on the impact of the nonlinear delay penalty cost function, the comparison of the optimal policy and the classical hybrid policy (ie, quantity and age thresholds), and the impact of the state of the input process. Our experiments demonstrate that (a) the classical linear approximation of the cost function can lead to significant performance differences; (b) the classical hybrid policy may perform poorly (as compared to the optimal policies); and (c) the consideration of the state of the input process makes significant improvement in system performance.     

浅析军代表处理质量问题的一般程序

本文按照质量问题双归零的原则,从发现问题、分析问题、解决问题三个方面对军品质量问题处理的程序进行了分析,归纳出了六个解决问题的一般步骤,以求为当前军代表处理质量问题提供一些借鉴。     

国内外安全标准现状与发展及其对构建国防工业安全标准体系的启示

介绍了国外发达国家、先进组织机构安全标准及体系的现状与特点,分析了国内安全标准的制修订情况和危险化学品、防尘防毒安全生产标准体系的分类与构成。在分析国防科技工业安全标准现状的基础上,提出了构建国防工业安全标准体系的主要任务和实施要求。     

适应航空兵军事训练转变要求加强和改进思想政治工作

航空兵军事训练向信息化条件下训练转变是提高我军信息化条件下海上威慑和实战能力的必然途径。政治工作要适应训练转变要求,努力创新内容、方法和手段,为训练提供强大精神动力和智力支持。     

冷战后的法国军事转型

冷战后尤其是希拉克当选为法国总统后,法国开始调整国家安全与国防政策,法军开始全面实行军事转型,目标是在确保拥有可靠的、足够的核威慑下,终止义务兵,缩小军队规模,努力建设一支高度灵活、快速反应,能预防和管理各种烈度危机与冲突的职业化军队。法国的军事转型对欧盟防务建设和北约军事力量的提高具有重大影响,进而对大西洋两岸关系产生影响。     

分布式灾难恢复系统

分布式灾难恢复系统采用客户层、服务层和管理层3部分组织形式,完成数据的网络备份和恢复,并提供管理功能。系统通过构建分布式远程备份体系结构,采用ACE(自适配通信环境)面向对象构架,线程池和反应器编程模式,实现了网络互连、事件驱动程序设计,完成了备份计划制订、数据备份、数据恢复3个阶段各个模块的功能。     

便携式地空导弹抗击武装直升机作战效能研究

根据便携式地空导弹和武装直升机的基本性能指标,运用数学解析的方法,对某便携式地空导弹抗击武装直升机的作战效能进行了分析计算,并得出计算结果.从计算结果可以看出,作为抗击武器直升机的武器系统,某型便携式地空导弹具有较高的作战效能.同时,结合计算结果分析了影响作战效能发挥的主要因素,提出了提高便携式地空导弹抗击武装直升机作战效能的对策.