Selecting optimal selling format of a product in B2C online auctions with boundedly rational customers

The advancement of Internet technology has enabled new formats for selling products in the B2C online auctions. At present, on the major online auction sites, there exist three popular selling formats, namely, the posted price, pure auction and buy-price auction formats. It is an important decision problem for a firm to select the most profitable format to sell its products through the Internet. The customer behavior is of course a crucial element of the decision process. To the best of our knowledge, most models available today assume that customers are perfectly rational. To better understand the decision process, in this paper, we incorporate the concept of bounded rationality into consideration. We first present a “behavior choice function” to characterize the behavior of the customers with bounded rationality. Then corresponding to each selling format, we construct a revenue model based on the bounded rationality for analysis. Finally, we conduct some elaborate computational experiments to investigate the performance of each revenue model for developing new managerial insights. Our computational results clearly demonstrate how the bounded rationality of customer behavior affects the choice of a preferable selling format for a B2C firm in an online auction.     

Cooperative advertising in a distribution channel with fairness concerns

Cooperative (co-op) advertising has been widely used in practice and employed as a strategy to improve the performance of a distribution channel. It is known from the existing models that co-op advertising could not achieve the channel coordination (i.e., maximize the total channel profit). In this paper, we consider a distribution channel consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer, and investigate the effect of the retailer’s fairness concerns. Applying the equilibrium analysis, we obtain the following results: (1) Channel coordination can be achieved if the retailer has fairness concerns and model parameters satisfy certain conditions. (2) Although both channel members become better off with co-op advertising if neither channel member has fairness concerns, we find situations where co-op advertising brings detrimental effects to the retailer if the retailer has fairness concerns. (3) The retailer’s fairness concerns may increase or decrease the equilibrium participation rate, the equilibrium advertising effort, and the equilibrium profit of the manufacturer and the whole channel. (4) We identify the conditions under which the effectiveness of co-op advertising can be improved or reduced by the retailer’s fairness concerns. As long as co-op advertising can bring extra profit to the manufacturer, the retailer’s fairness concerns could improve the effectiveness of the co-op advertising. (5) There exists a Pareto improvement for the profits of both the manufacturer and the retailer when a retailer without fairness concerns becomes fair-minded.     

Competitive strategies for an online generalized assignment problem with a service consecution constraint

This work studies a variant of the online generalized assignment problem, where there are m ? 2 heterogeneous servers to process n requests which arrive one by one over time. Each request must either be assigned to one of the servers or be rejected upon its arrival, before knowing any information of future requests. There is a corresponding weight (or revenue) for assigning each request to a server, and the objective is to maximize the total weights obtained from all the requests. We study the above problem with a service consecution constraint, such that at any time each server is only allowed to process up to d consecutive requests.     

线上线下混合式实验教学模式的改革与探索

大学化学实验课程是培养材料、化学、化工等专业人才应用基本操作和理论解决实际问题的综合性实践训练环节。文章探讨了当前大学化学实验发展由于受到仪器设备大型化、专业化、成本大、更新快等因素限制出现瓶颈,设计了线上线下混合实验教学模式,进行相应的软硬件建设,并开展线上线下混合式实验教学模式的改革与探索。该教学模式具有良好的教学效果,并且可复制可推广,为创新人才的培养和实验教学的创新提供了有益的借鉴。     

Optimal deterministic algorithms for some variants of Online Quota Traveling Salesman Problem

This paper is concerned with the Online Quota Traveling Salesman Problem. Depending on the symmetry of the metric and the requirement for the salesman to return to the origin, four variants are analyzed. We present optimal deterministic algorithms for each variant defined on a general space, a real line, or a half-line. As a byproduct, an improved lower bound for a variant of Online TSP on a half-line is also obtained.     

椭圆偏振法测定在线Low-E玻璃的可见-近红外光学常数与膜厚

从在线Low-E玻璃光学机理出发,用椭圆偏振光谱仪对在线Low-E玻璃功能层和过渡层的可见-近红外波段的光学常数进行研究.测量了样品在三个不同入射角的椭偏参数,分别用Lorentz双振子模型和Cauchy模型来描述Low-E玻璃功能层和过渡层的光学色散特性.通过拟合椭偏参数获得在线Low-E玻璃的光学常数及每层膜厚度,并用扫描电镜对样品的膜厚进行表征.结果表明,Lorentz双振子模型和Cauchy模型能很好地解释在线Low-E玻璃的光学特性;同时,椭圆偏振法也为多层膜系统提供了一种测定光学常数和膜厚的可靠方法.     

Computer simulation of the enantioselective separation of weak bases in an online capillary electrophoresis based microanalysis configuration comprising sulfated cyclodextrin as selector

Computer simulation was utilized to characterize the electrophoretic processes occurring after reactant mixing in an online assay format used for monitoring the enantioselective N‐demethylation of ketamine to norketamine in the presence of highly sulfated γ‐cyclodextrin (HS‐γ‐CD). The incubated reaction mixture (at pH 7.4 and without chiral selector) is bracketed by a low pH BGE containing 2% HS‐γ‐CD as chiral selector, thereby forming a discontinuous buffer system. Upon power application, simulation provides insight into the formation of moving boundaries and new zones together with the prediction of the behavior of ketamine and norketamine enantiomers. The analytes first migrate cationically in a zone electrophoretic manner until they come in contact with HS‐γ‐CD upon which enantioseparation is initiated. Complexation has a focusing effect and the electrophoretic transport becomes reversed, that is, toward the anode. Simulation revealed that the initial conditions for the chiral separation, including buffer components concentrations, pH, and ionic strength, are different than those in the BGE. As a consequence thereof, the experimentally determined complexation parameters for the BGE were unable to correctly describe the migration behavior of the analytes in this column section. An increase in the input binding constants by a factor of two to four, as a result of the decreased ionic strength, resulted in simulation data that agreed with experimental findings.     

在线液相-气相二维色谱测定卷烟主流烟气中的苯并[a]芘

建立了在线液相-气相二维色谱测定卷烟主流烟气中的苯并[a]芘方法.采用剑桥滤片捕集烟气粒相物,环己烷萃取,以D12-苯并[a]芘为内标,然后用在线液相-气相二维色谱测定:样品直接进样进入液相色谱,经微型硅胶柱分离,含苯并[a]芘的部位切割进人气相色谱,排干溶剂后启动气相色谱升温,经毛细管柱进行分离,用质谱检测.本方法将烟气苯并[a]芘测定中的硅胶柱层析和气相色谱-质谱分析在线连接起来,可不经样品前处理净化直接进样分析;而且每次进样可达40 μL,与常规气相色谱-质谱分析最大进样2.0 μ.L相比,分析灵敏度提高了20倍.方法线性范围达0.08～ 50 ng/L,相关系数为r2=0.999,回收率为94.2％～105.5％;检出限和定量限分别为0.09和0.30 ng/支,应用本方法对14个不同类型市售卷烟和2R4F标准烟进行了测定,结果与GB/T21130-2007测定结果相符合.