Dynamic inventory control with limited capital and short‐term financing

For most firms, especially the small‐ and medium‐sized ones, the operational decisions are affected by their internal capital and ability to obtain external capital. However, the majority of the literature on dynamic inventory control ignores the firm's financial status and financing issues. An important question that arises is: what are the optimal inventory and financing policies for firms with limited internal capital and limited access to external capital? In this article, we study a dynamic inventory control problem where a capital‐constrained firm periodically purchases a product from a supplier and sells it to a market with random demands. In each period, the firm can use its own capital and/or borrow a short‐term loan to purchase the product, with the interest rate being nondecreasing in the loan size. The objective is to maximize the firm's expected terminal wealth at the end of the planning horizon. We show that the optimal inventory policy in each period is an equity‐level‐dependent base‐stock policy, where the equity level is the sum of the firm's capital level and the value of its on‐hand inventory evaluated at the purchasing cost; and the structure of the optimal policy can be characterized by four intervals of the equity level. Our results shed light on the dynamic inventory control for firms with limited capital and short‐term financing capabilities.Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 184–201, 2014     

Strategic obfuscation of production capacities

Recent supply‐chain models that study competition among capacity‐constrained producers omit the possibility of producers strategically setting wholesale prices to create uncertainty with regards to (i.e., to obfuscate) their production capacities. To shed some light on this possibility, we study strategic obfuscation in a supply‐chain model comprised of two competing producers and a retailer, where one of the producers faces a privately‐known capacity constraint. We show that capacity obfuscation can strictly increase the obfuscating producer's profit, therefore, presenting a clear incentive for such practices. Moreover, we identify conditions under which both producers' profits increase. In effect, obfuscation enables producers to tacitly collude and charge higher wholesale prices by moderating competition between producers. The retailer, in contrast, suffers a loss in profit, raises retail prices, while overall channel profits decrease. We show that the extent of capacity obfuscation is limited by its cost and by a strategic retailer's incentive to facilitate a deterrence. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 244–267, 2014     

Impact of tax reduction policies on consumer purchase of new automobiles: An analytical investigation with real data‐based experiments

We investigate and compare the impact of the tax reduction policies implemented in the United States and China to stimulate consumer purchase of new automobiles and improve manufacturers' profits. The U.S. policy provides each qualifying consumer with a federal income tax deduction on state and local sales and excise taxes paid on the purchase price (up to a cutoff level), whereas the Chinese policy reduces the vehicle sales tax rate for consumers. We observe that these policy designs are consistent with the tax management system and the economic environment in the respective country. We analytically determine the effects of the two tax reduction policies on the automobile sales and the manufacturer's and the retailer's profits. Numerical examples are then used to provide insights on the importance of certain factors that influence the effects of the two policies. Finally, a numerical experiment with sensitivity analysis based on real data is conducted to compare the merits and characteristics of the two policies under comparable conditions. We find that the U.S. policy is better than the Chinese policy in stimulating the sales of high‐end automobiles, whereas the Chinese policy is better than the U.S. policy in improving the sales of low‐end automobiles. The U.S. policy is slightly more effective in increasing the profitability of the automobile supply chain; but, in general, the Chinese policy is more cost effective. The methodology developed herein can be used to evaluate other tax reduction policies such as those related to the purchase of energy‐saving vehicles and to serve as a decision model to guide the choice of alternative tax reduction policies. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 61: 577–598, 2014     

一种抗云雾散射干扰的激光引信信号检测方法

激光引信在云雾环境中工作时,云雾的后向散射信号对其正常的目标信号检测产生干扰,严重时有可能引起虚警。研究了云雾产生的后向散射信号与目标回波信号的不同特点,并由此提出了双门限检测方法,即同时对信号幅度与信号幅度的增速进行检测,从而有效识别云雾干扰信号以避免产生虚警。通过分析实际的试验数据,对回波信号的特点进行了验证,实际应用双门限检测方法,验证了其可行性。     

Concavity and monotonicity properties in a groundwater management model

We consider a discrete‐time groundwater model in which the cost of pumping takes a slightly different form to that which has been traditional in the research literature to date. This enables us to prove that (a) the optimal pumping quantity is nondecreasing in the ground water stock, (b) the stock level remaining after each period's pumping is also nondecreasing in the groundwater stock, (c) the optimal decision is determined by maximizing a concave function, and finally (d) the optimal pumping quantity is nonincreasing in the number of periods to go. We show that (a)–(c), while intuitive, do not hold under traditional modeling assumptions. We also explain the connections between our results and similar ones for some classic problems of operations research. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 00: 000–000, 2011     

主机安全监控系统的设计与实现

针对现有主机监控系统存在的执行效率低、监控粒度粗等问题,通过在内核态设置钩子函数改写系统服务调度表,同时在用户层设置策略库进行细粒度监控,设计并实现了主机安全监控系统。该系统具有执行效率高、占用系统资源少、监控粒度细等特点。     

Optimal pricing and inventory control policy in periodic‐review systems with fixed ordering cost and lost sales

This paper studies a periodic‐review pricing and inventory control problem for a retailer, which faces stochastic price‐sensitive demand, under quite general modeling assumptions. Any unsatisfied demand is lost, and any leftover inventory at the end of the finite selling horizon has a salvage value. The cost component for the retailer includes holding, shortage, and both variable and fixed ordering costs. The retailer's objective is to maximize its discounted expected profit over the selling horizon by dynamically deciding on the optimal pricing and replenishment policy for each period. We show that, under a mild assumption on the additive demand function, at the beginning of each period an (s,S) policy is optimal for replenishment, and the value of the optimal price depends on the inventory level after the replenishment decision has been done. Our numerical study also suggests that for a sufficiently long selling horizon, the optimal policy is almost stationary. Furthermore, the fixed ordering cost (K) plays a significant role in our modeling framework. Specifically, any increase in K results in lower s and higher S. On the other hand, the profit impact of dynamically changing the retail price, contrasted with a single fixed price throughout the selling horizon, also increases with K. We demonstrate that using the optimal policy values from a model with backordering of unmet demands as approximations in our model might result in significant profit penalty. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

A multilevel passenger screening problem for aviation security

Passenger prescreening is a critical component of aviation security systems. This paper introduces the Multilevel Allocation Problem (MAP), which models the screening of passengers and baggage in a multilevel aviation security system. A passenger is screened by one of several classes, each of which corresponds to a set of procedures using security screening devices, where passengers are differentiated by their perceived risk levels. Each class is defined in terms of its fixed cost (the overhead costs), its marginal cost (the additional cost to screen a passenger), and its security level. The objective of MAP is to assign each passenger to a class such that the total security is maximized subject to passenger assignments and budget constraints. This paper shows that MAP is NP‐hard and introduces a Greedy heuristic that obtains approximate solutions to MAP that use no more than two classes. Examples are constructed using data extracted from the Official Airline Guide. Analysis of the examples suggests that fewer security classes for passenger screening may be more effective and that using passenger risk information can lead to more effective security screening strategies. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

基于复杂背景的图像分割算法

针对圆柱形钢棒在线计数特定的复杂背景提出了基于双阈值结合数学形态学运算的分割算法。首先分别根据2个阈值进行分割得到2幅二值图像,然后根据目标是圆形以及其大致位置等先验知识分别对2幅图进行腐蚀,开启,闭合等数学形态学运算,最后将高阈值分割得到的图像中的边界信息叠加到低阈值分割得到的图像中。实验结果表明,本方法作为本系统的图像预处理是有效的。     

重复脉冲激光辐照InSb(PV)型探测器的热损伤

在建立高斯型重复脉冲激光辐照InSb(PV)型探测器物理模型的基础上,采用近似解析解的形式计算了圆柱形InSb靶板的二维温度场。通过数值分析得出了在激光辐照时,InSb(PV)型探测器的温升与时间的关系,并计算出相应的损伤阈值。研究表明:在高斯型重复脉冲激光辐照下,损伤阈值受到脉冲数目、宽度、重复频率以及脉冲激光光斑半径的影响,InSb(PV)型探测器会发生熔融损伤,发生于迎光面的光斑中心。对于一定厚度胶层的InSb(PV)型探测器,只有强度大于一定阈值时重复脉冲激光的辐照才可能发生熔融损伤,越薄的胶层对应的损伤阈值越大。为了增加InSb(PV)型探测器的激光对抗能力,应该减小胶层厚度。