A dynamic model for optimal design quality and return policies

A clearly explained and generous return policy has been established as a competitive weapon to enhance sales. From the firm’s point of view, a generous return policy will increase sales revenue, but will also increase cost due to increased likelihood of return. Design quality of the product has been used as a competitive weapon for a long time. This paper recognizes the relationship between design quality and price of the product, and the firm’s return policy. Quality level in the product would influence the amount of return directly. When the product quality is higher, the customer satisfaction rate will increase and the probability of return will decrease. We develop a profit-maximization model to jointly obtain optimal policies for the product quality level, price and the return policy over time. The model presented in this paper is dynamic in nature and considers the decisions as the product moves through the life cycle. We obtain a number of managerial guidelines for using marketing and operational strategy variables to obtain the maximum benefit from the market. We mention several future research possibilities.     

The capacities of certain special channels with arbitrarily varying channel probability functions

In [5] Ahlswede and Wolfowitz have obtained the capacities of a.v.ch. with binary output in a number of cases, essentially with the aid of a lemma which relates the capacity of the a.v.ch. to that of a suitable (“underlying”) d.m.c. A generalization of this lemma to a special kind of a.v.ch. with output alphabet b>2, has been given by Ahlswede (Lemma 1 of [1]) and used in [1] and [2] to prove the existence of the weak capacities of various channels under different conditions. We give a detailed proof of a weakened version of Ahlswede's lemma and show, in passing, that his lemma is incorrect. We then define certain special types of a.v.ch and, on the basis of the detailed analysis given by us earlier, we prove lemmas of a similar type for these a.v.ch. We are thus able to extend certain results given for binary output a.v.ch. in [4] and [5] to these special a.v.ch. for which b>2.     

Thermal behavior of gamma-irradiated urea–formaldehyde composites based on the differently activated montmorillonite K10

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - This work investigated the thermal characteristics of irradiated composite materials formulated on the urea–formaldehyde resin (UF) and...     

Specific capacitance of CoS encapsulated g-C3N4 core shell nanocomposite as extremely efficient counter electrode in quantum dots solar cells

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - In this context, the electrical conductivity and surface activity of cobalt sulphide (CoS) as counter electrode CE is improved by incorporating with...     

Spectroscopic Characterizations of Metal-Complexes of 4-Hydroxybenzoic Acid With the Ni(Ⅱ), Mn(Ⅱ), and Cu(Ⅱ) Ions

One of the phenolic acids is 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (HBA) which takes the form of a white crystalline solid with a molecular formula of C₇H₆O₃, a melting point of 214.5 ℃ and a molecular weight of 138.12 g·mol-1. It soluble in polar organic solvents like acetone and alcohols, and slightly soluble in chloroform and water. The reactions between the metal ions and the HBA were carried out under specific conditions like (molar reaction was 2∶2 (ligand to metal), reaction temperature was 60 ℃, media was neutral (pH 7), and solvent was H₂O ∶MeOH (1∶1). Under these conditions, the HBA was deprotonated to form (HOC₆H₄CO-₂; L-). The ligand L- was coordinated to the metal ions forming the metal complexation. The reaction of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (HOC₆H₄CO₂H; HL) with the Ni(Ⅱ), Mn(Ⅱ) and Cu(Ⅱ) ions afford metal-complexes with gross formula of [Ni₂L₂(NO₃)₂(H₂O)₄], [Mn₂L₂(NO₃)₂(H₂O)₄] and [Cu₂L₂(NO₃)₂(H₂O)₄], respectively. These complexes were characterized by elemental analysis (CHN), magnetic susceptibility, UV-Vis spectra, infrared (IR), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) techniques. The complexes of HBA are insoluble in common solvents and hence molar conductance could not be measured, but this very insolubility indicates that the complexes are neutral. Data has demonstrated that the ligand (L-) was coordinated to the metal ion by bidentate bridging carboxylate group (COO-), with an octahedral geometry. Thus, HBA is expected to act as bidentate uninegative ions and the coordination number of the metal ions is six. XRD results showed that the complexes possess uniform and organized microstructures in the nanometer range with a main diameter in the range of 11～28 nm.     

Synthesis and characterization of a reduced heteropoly-tungstovanadate: (NH4)7[VvO4W 10IV V 2IV O36].ca. 22H2O

The compound (NH₄)₇[ V^vO₄W ₁₀ ^VI V ₂ ^VI O₃₆]·ca.22H₂O (1) has been synthesized from an aqueous ammonium acetate buffer (pH 4) containing sodium vanadate, sodium rungstate_and sodium dithionite. Compound (1) crystallizes in a cubic space groupFm — 3, witha = 22.2001(6) ? and Z = 8. The anion [V^vO₄W ₁₀ ^VI V ₂ ^IV O₃₆]^7- is a typical Keggin type structure with V^VO₄ as the central tetrahedron. (1) has further been characterized by elemental analyses, redox titration, IR, EPR, and electronic spectroscopy and room temperature magnetic moment measurement.     

The impact of decision timing on the suppliers’ interactions: simultaneous moves <Emphasis Type="Italic">versus</Emphasis> sequential moves

The last few decades have witnessed a huge growth of outsourcing in industry where the downstream firm assigns its production tasks to different upstream suppliers. This makes the supply chain structure more complicated and gives rise to some relevant operational questions. This paper focuses on a supply chain structure that consists of one assembler and two suppliers, and both suppliers’ production yields are stochastic. The assembler delegates the quantity decisions to the suppliers, and the two suppliers choose their production quantities either simultaneously or sequentially. We compare the suppliers’ equilibrium production strategies under these two scenarios. Our results show that the decision sequence can exert significant influences on the firm’s and channel’s equilibrium payoffs. At any given wholesale price, both suppliers produce more components under sequential moves than under simultaneous moves, and this results in higher payoffs for the suppliers, the assembler and the entire supply chain. The supplier’s profit increases if he can make the decision later under sequential moves. From the channel’s perspective, it is more beneficial for the supplier with a higher production cost to make the decision first. The assembler is able to extract more surplus by endogenously setting the wholesale price. However, this may make the suppliers worse off under sequential moves than under simultaneous moves.     

An adaptive finite element method in reconstruction of coefficients in Maxwell’s equations from limited observations

We propose an adaptive finite element method for the solution of a coefficient inverse problem of simultaneous reconstruction of the dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability functions in the Maxwell’s system using limited boundary observations of the electric field in 3D.