The effect of supply uncertainty in price-setting newsvendor models

We consider a price-setting newsvendor model in which a firm needs to make joint inventory and pricing decisions before the selling season. The supply process is uncertain such that the received quantity is the product of the order quantity and a random yield rate. Two cost structures are investigated, the in-house production case in which the firm pays for the input quantity and the procurement case in which the firm pays for the quantity received only. Our objective is to investigate the effect of yield randomness on optimal decisions and expected profit. By using the theory of stochastic comparisons, we find that under both cost structures, a less variable yield rate leads to a lower optimal price and a higher expected profit. Moreover, we show that in the in-house production case, a stochastically larger yield rate also results in a lower optimal price and a higher profit, but this is not true in the procurement case. Examples show that the effect of supply uncertainty on optimal order quantity is not universal.     

英语语调性别差异的统计分析

本文主要采用语料库语言学的研究方法,选取IViE语料库中英国剑桥地区6男6女共12位母语朗读者的不同句型的单句和段落朗读中的相关句型,从英语语调的核心声学参数调核音高入手,分析男女朗读者在5种不同句子类型(陈述句、陈述疑问句、一般疑问句、特殊疑问句和感叹句)上的异同。我们针对408句声音语料,利用先进的计算机语音分析软件获取研究数据,再通过严格的统计分析,以定量分析的方式考察英语不同句型的调核音高差异程度和调核音高的性别差异,分析英国英语语调在调核音高上的性别差异和特点。     

Rank Conditional Coverage and Confidence Intervals in High-Dimensional Problems

Confidence interval procedures used in low-dimensional settings are often inappropriate for high-dimensional applications. When many parameters are estimated, marginal confidence intervals associated with the most significant estimates have very low coverage rates: They are too small and centered at biased estimates. The problem of forming confidence intervals in high-dimensional settings has previously been studied through the lens of selection adjustment. In that framework, the goal is to control the proportion of noncovering intervals formed for selected parameters. In this article, we approach the problem by considering the relationship between rank and coverage probability. Marginal confidence intervals have very low coverage rates for the most significant parameters and high rates for parameters with more boring estimates. Many selection adjusted intervals have the same behavior despite controlling the coverage rate within a selected set. This relationship between rank and coverage rate means that the parameters most likely to be pursued further in follow-up or replication studies are the least likely to be covered by the constructed intervals. In this article, we propose rank conditional coverage (RCC) as a new coverage criterion for confidence intervals in multiple testing/covering problems. The RCC is the expected coverage rate of an interval given the significance ranking for the associated estimator. We also propose two methods that use bootstrapping to construct confidence intervals that control the RCC. Because these methods make use of additional information captured by the ranks of the parameter estimates, they often produce smaller intervals than marginal or selection adjusted methods. These methods are implemented in R (R Core Team, 2017 R Core Team (2017), R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [Google Scholar]) in the package rcc available on CRAN at https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rcc/index.html. Supplementary material for this article is available online.     

Compromising prioritization from pairwise comparisons considering type I and II errors

We explore an important problem in prioritizing product design alternatives, using a real-world case. Despite the importance of prioritization in the area of new product development, the development of systematic schemes has been limited and the concepts and methods developed in the decision analysis area do not seem to be used actively. Therefore, we propose a new method, referred to as the compromising prioritization technique, to prioritize the product design alternatives based on paired comparisons. It introduces type I and type II errors and compromises these two errors to arrive at a desirable order of alternatives. To accomplish this, the two indices of homogeneity and separation are developed together with a heuristic algorithm. A comparative study is also conducted to support our method for use in product development and analogous areas. We then demonstrate how to use the developed compromising prioritization technique using a case study on the asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL)-based high-speed internet service product.     

First global observations of atmospheric COClF from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment mission

Carbonyl chlorofluoride (COClF) is an important reservoir of chlorine and fluorine in the Earth's atmosphere. Satellite-based remote sensing measurements of COClF, obtained by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) for a time period spanning February 2004 through April 2007, have been used in a global distribution study. There is a strong source region for COClF in the tropical stratosphere near 27 km. A layer of enhanced COClF spans the low- to mid-stratosphere over all latitudes, with volume mixing ratios of 40-100 parts per trillion by volume, largest in the tropics and decreasing toward the poles. The COClF volume mixing ratio profiles are nearly zonally symmetric, but they exhibit a small hemispheric asymmetry that likely arises from a hemispheric asymmetry in the parent molecule CCl₃F. Comparisons are made with a set of in situ stratospheric measurements from the mid-1980s and with predictions from a 2-D model.     

A comparison of computational strategies for geometric programs

Numerous algorithms for the solution of geometric programs have been reported in the literature. Nearly all are based on the use of conventional programming techniques specialized to exploit the characteristic structure of either the primal or the dual or a transformed primal problem. This paper attempts to elucidate, via computational comparisons, whether a primal, a dual, or a transformed primal solution approach is to be preferred.The authors wish to thank Captain P. A. Beck and Dr. R. S. Dembo for making available their codes. This research was supported in part under ONR Contract No. N00014-76-C-0551 with Purdue University.     

BODIL: a molecular modeling environment for structure-function analysis and drug design

BODIL is a molecular modeling environment geared to help the user to quickly identify key features of proteins critical to molecular recognition, especially (1) in drug discovery applications, and (2) to understand the structural basis for function. The program incorporates state-of-the-art graphics, sequence and structural alignment methods, among other capabilities needed in modern structure–function–drug target research. BODIL has a flexible design that allows on-the-fly incorporation of new modules, has intelligent memory management, and fast multi-view graphics. A beta version of BODIL and an accompanying tutorial are available at http://www.abo.fi/fak/mnf/bkf/research/johnson/bodil.html     

International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP); IMEP-14: Picturing the performance of analytical laboratories measuring trace elements in sediment

The International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP) is an interlaboratory comparison scheme founded, owned and co-ordinated by the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) since 1988. IMEP-14, for the first time in the series, is focusing on trace elements in sediment. Reference values for ten elements stating total concentrations and expanded uncertainties according to GUM were established. In total, 239 laboratories from 43 countries in five continents participated in the comparison, and the degree of equivalence between the results from the laboratories and the reference values is presented graphically. Identical samples were distributed to nine National Measurement Institutes within the frame of the CCQM-P15 pilot study. Participation in the IMEP-14 interlaboratory comparison was offered to laboratories in the EU new member states and acceding countries according to the IRMMs Metrology in Chemistry support programme for EU new member states and acceding countries.This revised version was published online in August 2004 with corrections to text especially to the Discussion section.     

A simple diagonals-parameter symmetry and quasi-symmetry model

Goodman (1979) proposed a class of diagonals-parameter symmetry models for square contingency tables with ordered categories, A simple version of that model is considered in which the log odds parameters have a linear pattern. The model is also a simple quasi-symmetry model. It fits well when there is an underlying bivariate normal distribution.     

Limits for queues as the waiting room grows

We study the convergence of finite-capacity open queueing systems to their infinite-capacity counterparts as the capacity increases. Convergence of the transient behavior is easily established in great generality provided that the finite-capacity system can be identified with the infinite-capacity system up to the first time that the capacity is exceeded. Convergence of steady-state distributions is more difficult; it is established here for the GI/GI/c/n model withc servers,n-c extra waiting spaces and the first-come first-served discipline, in which all arrivals finding the waiting room full are lost without affecting future arrivals, via stochastic dominance and regenerative structure.