Franchising cooperation through chance cross‐constrained games

This paper explores the role of franchising arrangements in the context of game theory. We assume a single franchisor and a single franchisee channel and address the impact of fixed lump‐sum fees, royalties, wholesale price, and retail price on the franchise contracts. We start with the chance cross‐constrained noncooperative situation where the franchisor, as the leader, first specifies his/her strategies. The franchisee, as the follower, then decides on his/her decision. We then relax the assumption of franchisee's inability to influence the franchisor's decisions and discuss cooperative situation between the franchisor and the franchisee. Nash's bargaining model is utilized to select the best Pareto‐efficient payment scheme for the franchisor and the franchisee to achieve their cooperation. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 47: 669–685, 2000     

A Bayesian analysis on the effect of multiple supply options in a quick response environment

In the apparel industry, vendors often suffer from high mismatches in supply and demand. To cope with this problem, they procure the same style product from different suppliers with different manufacturing costs. Especially in the quick response environment, which allows vendors to monitor trends in customer demand and search for available suppliers through the electronic market, they have additional opportunities to improve their decision‐making. In this paper, we propose an analytical profit maximization model and develop efficient decision tools to help both the middle and lower level managers pursuing this strategy. Furthermore, we have shown how significantly the vendors' potential competitive edge can be improved by exploiting multiple supply options, even at the expense of high premium procurement costs for late orders. The effect is critical, especially in a highly competitive market, and it has important implications for the top managers. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003     

New product introduction against a predator: A bilevel mixed‐integer programming approach

We consider a scenario with two firms determining which products to develop and introduce to the market. In this problem, there exists a finite set of potential products and market segments. Each market segment has a preference list of products and will buy its most preferred product among those available. The firms play a Stackelberg game in which the leader firm first introduces a set of products, and the follower responds with its own set of products. The leader's goal is to maximize its profit subject to a product introduction budget, assuming that the follower will attempt to minimize the leader's profit using a budget of its own. We formulate this problem as a multistage integer program amenable to decomposition techniques. Using this formulation, we develop three variations of an exact mathematical programming method for solving the multistage problem, along with a family of heuristic procedures for estimating the follower solution. The efficacy of our approaches is demonstrated on randomly generated test instances. This article contributes to the operations research literature a multistage algorithm that directly addresses difficulties posed by degeneracy, and contributes to the product variety literature an exact optimization algorithm for a novel competitive product introduction problem. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2009     

联合补充博弈的费用分摊

就一个仓库、多个零售商,对联合订货费用函数的模型进行分析,给出了一个求解最佳订货周期的多项式时间的算法,且算法的时间复杂性为O（nlogn）。利用文献[8]中的技巧,给出了该库存博弈的核。     

军事欺骗战法分析的数学方法-应用*

针对军事欺骗战法定量分析困难的问题,采用基于贝叶斯统计推断和博弈均衡分析的数学方法,在理论上为解决此难题提供了一种可行的方法.该方法首先定义基本概率矩阵,然后根据贝叶斯原理为交战双方构造用于统计推断的主观概率矩阵,并在由两个主观概率矩阵元素构成的偏序链与实施军事欺骗机会之间建立对应关系,再将此关系推广到基本概率矩阵,即是否存在实施军事欺骗的机会将由基本概率矩阵元素构成的偏序链决定.对理论成果的初步应用表明:通过分析由战场情报信息构成的基本概率矩阵的偏序链,可以科学地运用军事欺骗和反军事欺骗战法.     

改进博弈论的舰载无人机编队协同对海突击目标分配

目标分配问题是UAV自主控制的重要问题。针对舰载无人机编队协同对海突击目标分配问题,首先建立了基于离散动态贝叶斯网络的目标价值评估模型,在此基础上构建了舰载无人机编队的益损值矩阵,设计了舰载无人机编队协同对海突击目标分配的决策函数,提出了一种基于改进博弈论的目标分配方法,为4种不同约束条件下的目标分配问题分别设计了算法。最后对所建立的目标价值评估模型和改进博弈论的目标分配算法进行了实例仿真,仿真结果表明了模型和算法的可行性和有效性。     

The solution to an open problem for a caching game

In a caching game introduced by Alpern et al. (Alpern et al., Lecture notes in computer science (2010) 220–233) a Hider who can dig to a total fixed depth normalized to 1 buries a fixed number of objects among n discrete locations. A Searcher who can dig to a total depth of h searches the locations with the aim of finding all of the hidden objects. If he does so, he wins, otherwise the Hider wins. This zero‐sum game is complicated to analyze even for small values of its parameters, and for the case of 2 hidden objects has been completely solved only when the game is played in up to 3 locations. For some values of h the solution of the game with 2 objects hidden in 4 locations is known, but the solution in the remaining cases was an open question recently highlighted by Fokkink et al. (Fokkink et al., Search theory: A game theoretic perspective (2014) 85–104). Here we solve the remaining cases of the game with 2 objects hidden in 4 locations. We also give some more general results for the game, in particular using a geometrical argument to show that when there are 2 objects hidden in n locations and n→∞, the value of the game is asymptotically equal to h/n for h≥n/2. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 23–31, 2016     

Timing of information acquisition in a competitive environment

This article investigates the impact of timing on sellers' information acquisition strategies in a duopoly setting. Market uncertainty is captured by a representative consumer who has a private taste for the product's horizontal attribute, and both sellers can acquire this information either before (ex‐ante acquisition) or after (ex‐post acquisition) observing their own product qualities. We identify several conflicting effects of information acquisition that vary significantly in its timing and market characteristics. In the monopoly scenario, information acquisition is unambiguously beneficial and ex‐ante acquisition is the dominant option, because it helps a seller not only design the proper product but also craft better pricing strategy. By contrast, when there is competition, information acquisition eliminates the buffer role of market uncertainty and leads to the fiercest production or pricing competition, which makes the subsequent effects of acquisition detrimental, and a seller's payoff is nonmonotonic in terms of its acquisition cost. Moreover, compared with the ex‐ante information acquisition, ex‐post information acquisition normally generates higher sellers' equilibrium payoffs by postponing the timing of acquisition and maintaining product differentiation. Nonetheless, ex‐post information acquisition also provides the seller with greater acquisition incentive and occasionally makes him worse off than that in the ex‐ante scenario. Thus, in a competitive environment, having the option of information acquisition and flexibility in its timing can be both detrimental and irresistible. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 3–22, 2016     

A strategic model for state compliance verification

The theory of directed graphs and noncooperative games is applied to the problem of verification of State compliance to international treaties on arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Hypothetical treaty violations are formulated in terms of illegal acquisition paths for the accumulation of clandestine weapons, weapons‐grade materials or some other military capability. The paths constitute the illegal strategies of a sovereign State in a two‐person inspection game played against a multi‐ or international Inspectorate charged with compliance verification. The effectiveness of existing or postulated verification measures is quantified in terms of the Inspectorate's expected utility at Nash equilibrium. A prototype software implementation of the methodology and a case study are presented. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 260–271, 2016     

基于仿真结果的舰载武备系统试验鉴定方法研究

由于舰载武备系统现场实验效率低、实现困难等现状,提出了仿真结果用于试验鉴定的基本思想。用数学、统计语言对小子样场合下武器装备系统的试验鉴定问题进行了描述,将其"映射"成Bayes统计推断问题,得到了其Bayes统计推断数学仿真模型。经实例分析研究,与传统方法相比较,该方法提高了舰载武备系统试验鉴定水平,缩短了试验周期,有效保障了武器装备系统的作战使用。