ACHIEVING THE VISION OF THE NPT

This article assesses the prospects for a strategy of incrementalism to lead to achievement of the core bargain of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: non-nuclear weapon states' nuclear nonproliferation in exchange for nuclear weapon states' nuclear disarmament to the point of “global zero.” Game theory, prospect theory, and liberal international theory are used to evaluate the potential of a strategy of incrementalism. While separately each has insights to offer, it is when all three theoretical approaches are used in tandem that meaningful explanatory gains emerge. The article concludes that incrementalism probably cannot lead to complete nonproliferation and global nuclear zero. Instead, signal events (as described by prospect theory) are needed to “punctuate” incremental processes in negotiations (best explained by liberal international theory) in order to move past hindrances such as international structural constraints (exemplified by game theory) and the conservative risk-taking propensities of state elites (described by prospect theory).     

Selling to strategic and loss‐averse consumers: Stocking,procurement, and product design policies

Motivated by the presence of loss‐averse decision making behavior in practice, this article considers a supply chain consisting of a firm and strategic consumers who possess an S‐shaped loss‐averse utility function. In the model, consumers decide the purchase timing and the firm chooses the inventory level. We find that the loss‐averse consumers' strategic purchasing behavior is determined by their perceived gain and loss from strategic purchase delay, and the given rationing risk. Thus, the firm that is cognizant of this property tailors its inventory stocking policy based on the consumers' loss‐averse behavior such as their perceived values of gain and loss, and their sensitivity to them. We also demonstrate that the firm's equilibrium inventory stocking policy reflects both the economic logic of the traditional newsvendor inventory model, and the loss‐averse behavior of consumers. The equilibrium order quantity is significantly different from those derived from models that assume that the consumers are risk neutral and homogeneous in their valuations. We show that the firm that ignores strategic consumer's loss‐aversion behavior tends to keep an unnecessarily high inventory level that leads to excessive leftovers. Our numerical experiments further reveal that in some extreme cases the firm that ignores strategic consumer's loss‐aversion behavior generates almost 92% more leftovers than the firm that possesses consumers’ loss‐aversion information and takes it into account when making managerial decisions. To mitigate the consumer's forward‐looking behavior, we propose the adoption of the practice of agile supply chain management, which possesses the following attributes: (i) procuring inventory after observing real‐time demand information, (ii) enhanced design (which maintains the current production mix but improves the product performance to a higher level), and (iii) customized design (which maintains the current performance level but increases the variety of the current production line to meet consumers’ specific demands). We show that such a practice can induce the consumer to make early purchases by increasing their rationing risk, increasing the product value, or diversifying the product line. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 435–453, 2015     

Revenue management: A real options approach

Revenue management is the process of actively managing inventory or capacity to maximize revenues. The active management typically occurs through managerial levers such as price, promotion, or availability. We present a novel real options approach to revenue management that is specifically suited to the car rental business. We illustrate the concept with actual car rental data. The model produces minimally acceptable prices and inventory release quantities (number of cars available for rent at a given price) as a function of remaining time and available inventory. The pricing and inventory release recommendations of the developed model confirm earlier empirical analysis that suggested current practises discount too deeply early in the booking cycle. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

Single machine parallel batch scheduling subject to precedence constraints

We consider the single machine parallel batch scheduling problems to minimize makespan and total completion time, respectively, under precedence relations. The complexities of these two problems are reported as open in the literature. In this paper, we settle these open questions by showing that both problems are strongly NP‐hard, even when the precedence relations are chains. When the processing times of jobs are directly agreeable or inversely agreeable with the precedence relations, there is an O(n²) time algorithm to minimize the makespan. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

On vibration analysis of functionally graded carbon nanotube reinforced magneto-electro-elastic plates with different electro-magnetic conditions using higher order finite element methods

This article deals with evaluating the frequency response of functionally graded carbon nanotube rein-forced magneto-electro-elastic (FG-CNTMEE) plates subjected to open and closed electro-magnetic cir-cuit conditions. In this regard finite element formulation has been derived. The plate kinematics adjudged via higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) is considered for evaluation. The equations of motion are obtained with the help of Hamilton's principle and solved using condensation technique. It is found that the convergence and accuracy of the present FE formulation is very good to address the vibration problem of FG-CNTMEE plate. For the first time, frequency response analysis of FG-CNTMEE plates considering the effect of various circuit conditions associated with parameters such as CNT dis-tributions, volume fraction, skew angle, aspect ratio, length-to-thickness ratio and coupling fields has been carried out. The results of this article can serve as benchmark for future development and analysis of smart structures.     

Influence of a liquid-filled compartment structure on the incoming shaped charge jet stability

Liquid-filled compartment structure consists of a bulk steel plate with matrix blind holes which are filled with liquid and a steel front plate to seal up the liquid with rings and bolts.The liquid-filled compart-ment structure can resist the shaped charge warhead effectively.This paper presents experimental and theoretical investigations of the penetration ability of the residual shaped charge jet emerging from the liquid-filled compartment structure after the penetration process at different impact angles.On the basis of shock wave propagation theory,the influence of the liquid-filled compartment structure on jet sta-bility is analysed.The interferences of the liquid backflow caused by a reflected shock wave and a back plate on jet stability under different impact angles are also examined.In addition,the range of the disturbed velocity segments of the jet at different impact angles and the penetration ability of the re-sidual jet are obtained.A theoretical model is validated against the experimental penetration depths.