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     

钢管约束混凝土抗侵彻性能试验

进行了12.7mm穿甲枪弹侵彻钢管约束混凝土和PVC管约束混凝土厚靶试验,建立了硬芯枪弹侵彻深度公式,研究了钢管约束混凝土的抗侵彻性能。结果表明:钢管约束混凝土靶的破坏模式与无约束混凝土靶存在显著不同,其核心混凝土侧面出现了环向裂纹;相对于无约束混凝土靶,钢管约束混凝土靶的抗侵彻能力明显提高,并具有较强的抗多发打击能力。     

Inventory financing under Risk-Adjusted-Return-On-Capital criterion

Risk-Adjusted-Return-On-Capital (RAROC) is a loan-pricing criterion under which a bank sets the loan term such that a certain rate of return is achieved on the regulatory capital required by the Basel regulation. Some banks calculate the amount of regulatory capital for each loan under the standardized approach (“standardized banks,” the regulatory capital is proportional to the loan amount), and others under the internal rating-based (IRB) approach (“IRB banks,” the regulatory capital is related to the Value-at-Risk of the loan). This article examines the impact of the RAROC criterion on the bank's loan-pricing decision and the retailer's inventory decision. We find that among the loan terms that satisfy the bank's RAROC criterion, the one that benefits the retailer the most requires the bank to specify an inventory advance rate in addition to the interest rate. Under this loan term, the retailer's inventory level is more sensitive to his asset level when facing an IRB bank compared to a standardized bank. An IRB (standardized) loan leads to higher profit and inventory level for retailers with high (low) asset. For retailers with medium asset, an IRB loan results in a higher retailer profit but a lower consumer welfare. Calibrated numerical study reveals that the benefit of choosing standardized banks (relative to IRB banks) can be as high as 30% for industries with severe capital constraints, volatile demands, and low profit margins, highlighting the importance for retailers to carefully choose the type of banks to borrow from. When the interest rate is capped by regulation, retailers borrowing from a standardized bank are more likely to be influenced by the interest rate cap than those borrowing from an IRB bank. Under strong empire-building incentives (the bank will offer loan terms to maximize the size of the loan), retailers with medium initial asset level shift their preference from IRB banks to standardized banks.     

院校体制编制调整中的资源优化配置

面对武警新一轮院校体制编制调整,如何优化资源配置,有效规避各种风险,是当前院校需要重点解决的课题。通过调查研究,总结分析了人、财、物等院校资源在体制编制调整中面临的风险,有针对性地提出了人力、财力和物力资源优化配置及规避风险的途径、方法和措施。对于提高资源使用效益,促进院校体制编制调整顺利推进,具有积极的指导和借鉴意义。     

怎样使教学过程更有效率

为了适应新形势的挑战,培养高素质的人才,高校的教学与管理必须进行改革。只有严格规范课堂管理,才能保证课堂教学质量,提高教学效率;教员要树立良好的师德师风,强化敬业精神,不断更新教学内容;学校要加强教学质量的监督控制,健全竞争激励机制。     

物理弱间断线上Ⅲ型斜交裂纹高阶渐近场

针对功能梯度材料层/均匀材料基体的物理弱间断线上斜交裂纹,通过分离变量和级数展开法构造位移函数,求得了裂纹尖端高阶渐近场。其界面裂纹尖端高阶渐近应力场具有与均匀材料相同的r-1/2的奇异性。由高阶项的表达式可知：材料非均匀性对应力场有显著影响。数学上,该解为此类问题的特征函数,能够描述此类材料各种含裂纹结构的整个应力场和位移场,当非均匀参数为零时,它可以退化到均匀材料反平面裂纹问题经典的W il-liam s解。     

Polaris,East of Suez: British Plans for a Nuclear Force in the Indo-Pacific, 1964–1968

This article investigates the little-known plans formulated by Harold Wilson's Labour government to deploy Polaris submarines in the Indo-Pacific region. The scheme was first proposed in 1965 as a response to several problems faced by British policy-makers, including China's acquisition of a nuclear capability, Britain's wish to maintain a meaningful position ‘East of Suez’ at reduced cost, and German pressure for equal treatment within NATO on nuclear matters. Despite extensive high-level discussion, the plans were finally abandoned in mid-1968, as Labour moved more decisively to forsake the world role.     

French war plans, 1914: The ‘Balance of Power Paradox’

Historians have noted that both German and French war preparation in 1914 fell victim to the inadequacies of traditional threat-based planning: vulnerability to ‘threat deception’ which caused each to underestimate or mischaracterize the threat; a tendency to ‘mirror-image’ by fitting intelligence into preconceived notions of how the enemy was expected to behave; and ‘group think’ that discouraged a serious consideration of alternative scenarios. This article applies the ‘Balance of Power Paradox’ to explain why, at the dawn of the twentieth century, war planning in both Germany and France was driven by an acute sense of weakness which encouraged each side to fashion highly ‘risk acceptant’ strategies. In particular, he examines why and how French commander-in-chief General Joseph Joffre evolved and rationalized his audacious, and disastrous, Plan XVII to leverage French weaknesses and prevent the stronger German Army from bringing the full weight of its military strength to bear against France. The potential implication of this historical vignette is that leaders, and by extension military planners, of both strong and weak states focus on the constraints faced by their opponents, and assume that they can avoid the limitations of their position, while their opponent cannot.     

载体干扰磁场补偿方法

获得载体航行路径上各点地磁场的精确测量值是地磁匹配导航的前提,而载体上各种干扰磁场的存在会引起磁力仪输出的偏差,影响匹配的精度,因此必须对载体干扰磁场进行补偿。在分析载体干扰磁场特性的基础上,提出利用矢量测量值对地磁场总场值进行补偿的方法。该方法首先根据矢量磁力仪的测量模型得到关于载体磁场参数的非线性方程,然后采用非线性参数估计方法估计出精确的载体干扰磁场系数,最后再利用估计结果对测量值进行补偿。通过仿真对该方法的有效性进行研究,并设计了半实物实验对其实用性进行验证。结果表明采用本文提出的方法补偿后地磁场总场值的测量误差在20nT以内,而且该方法参数估计精度高,应用方便,可以有效地对导航载体干扰磁场进行补偿。     

基于云分类器的液体火箭发动机故障诊断方法

本文首先将液体火箭发动机故障诊断问题转化为故障特征的模式分类问题,然后针对当前模式分类方法难以处理不确定性信息、属性特征空间的划分过硬等缺陷,结合云模型和云变换研究,提出了一种基于云分类器的液体火箭发动机起动过程故障诊断方法。历次试车数据的验证结果表明,该方法能够及时准确识别发动机起动工作过程中的故障模式。