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     

Environmental regulation in project‐based industries

We study the environmental regulation of industrial activities that are organized as projects. Applications arise in construction, ship and aircraft building, and film making, among other industries. Relative to manufacturing, environmental regulation is different in project‐based industries, due to the uniqueness and geographical diversity of projects, and a lack of product takeback programs. Because the amount of waste and pollution generated by project companies can be large, regulators need environmental policies to ensure reduction of waste and pollution. We consider a regulator who attempts to maximize social welfare. We model this problem as a bilevel nonlinear program. The upper level regulator specifies waste reduction targets, which the lower level project companies meet using waste stream reduction and remediation of pollution, while attempting to control their project costs. We find that high waste diversion targets lead to outcomes with little pollution, but excessive project costs and only modest waste stream reduction. Projects that have lower task precedence density, or that have pollutants with different environmental impacts, show larger increases in project cost and time resulting from regulation. We describe a subsidy for waste stream reduction that coordinates the system, and we estimate the value of coordination. We also describe a bonus that encourages truthful reporting by project companies, and evaluate the relative cost and effectiveness of the subsidy and the bonus. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 228–247, 2015     

Pricing and inventory management during new product introduction when shortage creates hype

In this study, we analyze the joint pricing and inventory management during new product introduction when product shortage creates additional demand due to hype. We develop a two‐period model in which a firm launches its product at the beginning of the first period, before it observes sales in the two periods. The product is successful with an exogenous probability, or unsuccessful with the complementary probability. The hype in the second period is observed only when the product is successful. The firm learns the actual status of the product only after observing the first‐period demand. The firm must decide the stocking level and price of the product jointly at the beginning of each of the two periods. In this article, we derive some structural properties of the optimal prices and inventory levels, and show that (i) firms do not always exploit hype, (ii) firms do not always increase the price of a successful product in the second period, (iii) firms may price out an unsuccessful product in the first period if the success probability is above a threshold, and (iv) such a threshold probability is decreasing in the first‐period market potential of the successful product. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 304–320, 2015     

Smart Power and Military Force: An Introduction

Abstract

Smart power is comprised of two elements: the quest for building society among states and between states and non-state actors; as well as the desire for cleaner forms of power projection. This special issue explores how states continue to fumble over achieving the optimum mix of hard and soft power across several country cases and themed articles. This set of contributions suggests that smart power is not unlike a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ analogy: multifunctional and challenging to choose the right combination of ideational and material tools.     

曲面拟合法和梯度法相结合的图像亚像素配准算法

针对传统亚像素配准算法存在精度不高、计算复杂的问题,提出了一种曲面拟合法和梯度法相结合的图像亚像素配准算法。采用9点相关系数曲面拟合法对图像进行粗配准,求得一个相对粗略的亚像素配准位置;在两幅图像中选取相同尺寸的子区图像,在粗略的亚像素配准位置基础上,采用梯度法最终获得精确的亚像素配准位置。不同平移关系下的样本图像亚像素配准对比实验结果表明,该算法实现了曲面拟合法和梯度法的优势互补,有效提高了图像配准的精度,最大配准绝对误差由0.17像素降低为0.02像素。     

火控系统故障预测与健康管理技术

故障预测和健康管理(PHM)技术具有故障诊断、故障预测以及健康管理的功能,对降低火控装备维修成本、增强火控系统的完备性以及提高火控系统管理效率具有重要意义。根据通用火控系统发展现状及应用需求,将PHM技术引入到火控系统中。首先介绍了PHM技术原理和国内外发展现状,重点讨论了PHM关键技术和通用火控系统PHM体系结构。最后展望了火控系统PHM技术的发展趋势。     

基于品质度量的移动Ad Hoc网络分层密钥管理优化技术

提出了一个分布式的基于品质度量的分层密钥优化管理机制。该机制通过动态选择高品质的节点作为PKG来增强移动Ad Hoc网络的安全性,并将网络生存时间最大化。节点的选择可以归结为随机(restless bandit)问题,并且将密钥更新过程分为在线和离线两个部分,从而降低了计算复杂性。仿真结果表明,该机制可增强网络的安全性和将网络生存时间最大化,非常适合移动自组网的应用要求。     

汽车加油机器人关键技术分析

传统加油模式使操作人员易受有毒易燃油气的侵害,而且严冬酷暑时加油站作业环境恶劣,因此在加油站配置机器人实现智能化加油变得十分迫切。介绍了国内外汽车加油机器人的研究进展,指出其作业对象的差异性、环境的多变性以及作业过程的危险性。分析了当前汽车加油机器人所采用的加油机构、加注接口以及识别与定位技术的特点,指出加油机构优化、安全控制、智能识别与定位研究是汽车加油机器人发展的方向。     

基于领域本体的舰船装备维修保障知识表示研究

针对舰船装备维修保障领域维修保障知识缺乏有效统一管理、共享和重用程度低等问题,将领域本体理论引入维修保障知识管理中,提出了基于全寿命周期的舰船装备维修保障知识本体建模方法。分析舰船装备维修保障领域知识的来源、分类和构成,构建了装备维修保障领域的顶层本体及其概念关系。重点介绍了维修保障知识中故障案例知识的本体建模表示,并提出了基于预检索的全局故障案例知识检索算法,建立了原型系统并应用验证。结果表明:该方法能够解决目前维修保障知识管理中存在的问题,提高了知识检索效率。     

Balancing stability and efficiency in team formation as a generalized roommate problem

The assignment of personnel to teams is a fundamental managerial function typically involving several objectives and a variety of idiosyncratic practical constraints. Despite the prevalence of this task in practice, the process is seldom approached as an optimization problem over the reported preferences of all agents. This is due in part to the underlying computational complexity that occurs when intra-team interpersonal interactions are taken into consideration, and also due to game-theoretic considerations, when those taking part in the process are self-interested agents. Variants of this fundamental decision problem arise in a number of settings, including, for example, human resources and project management, military platooning, ride sharing, data clustering, and in assigning students to group projects. In this article, we study an analytical approach to “team formation” focused on the interplay between two of the most common objectives considered in the related literature: economic efficiency (i.e., the maximization of social welfare) and game-theoretic stability (e.g., finding a core solution when one exists). With a weighted objective across these two goals, the problem is modeled as a bi-level binary optimization problem, and transformed into a single-level, exponentially sized binary integer program. We then devise a branch-cut-and-price algorithm and demonstrate its efficacy through an extensive set of simulations, with favorable comparisons to other algorithms from the literature.