Revenue management with minimax regret negotiations

We study the dynamic bilateral price negotiations from the perspective of a monopolist seller. We first study the classical static problem with an added uncertainty feature. Next, we review the dynamic negotiation problem, and propose a simple deterministic “fluid” analog. The main emphasis of the paper is in analyzing the relationship of the dynamic negotiation problem and the classical revenue management problems; and expanding the formulation to the case where both the buyer and seller have limited prior information on their counterparty valuation. Our first result shows that if both the seller and buyer are bidding so as to minimize their maximum regret, then it is optimal for them to bid as if the unknown valuation distributions were uniform. Building on this result and the fluid formulation of the dynamic negotiation problem, we characterize the seller’s minimum acceptable price at any given point in time.     

Some thoughts on enterprise modelling

Enterprise management is highly value conscious, trying to determine and guide the activities of the company so as to be competitive (improve profits, reduce costs and time to market, etc.) and to build future capability to remain competitive. It is necessary to demonstrate why enterprise modelling is necessary to attain business objectives. We then discuss the role of interfaces in enterprise engineering and why enterprise modelling will play an even more significant role in the future enterprise. Finally, we discuss three research questions: model interoperability, the development of a reference model for global virtual enterprise, and plug-and-play, or 'component-based' enterprise engineering.     

Further Thoughts on the Utility of Risk Matrices

Risk matrices are commonly encountered devices for rating hazards in numerous areas of risk management. Part of their popularity is predicated on their apparent simplicity and transparency. Recent research, however, has identified serious mathematical defects and inconsistencies. This article further examines the reliability and utility of risk matrices for ranking hazards, specifically in the context of public leisure activities including travel. We find that (1) different risk assessors may assign vastly different ratings to the same hazard, (2) even following lengthy reflection and learning scatter remains high, and (3) the underlying drivers of disparate ratings relate to fundamentally different worldviews, beliefs, and a panoply of psychosocial factors that are seldom explicitly acknowledged. It appears that risk matrices when used in this context may be creating no more than an artificial and even untrustworthy picture of the relative importance of hazards, which may be of little or no benefit to those trying to manage risk effectively and rationally.     

Further properties on the degree distance of graphs

In this paper, we study the degree distance of a connected graph \(G\), defined as \(D^{'} (G)=\sum _{u\in V(G)} d_{G} (u)D_{G} (u)\), where \(D_{G} (u)\) is the sum of distances between the vertex \(u\) and all other vertices in \(G\) and \(d_{G} (u)\) denotes the degree of vertex \(u\) in \(G\). Our main purpose is to investigate some properties of degree distance. We first investigate degree distance of tensor product \(G\times K_{m_0,m_1,\cdots ,m_{r-1}}\), where \(K_{m_0,m_1,\cdots ,m_{r-1}}\) is the complete multipartite graph with partite sets of sizes \(m_0,m_1,\cdots ,m_{r-1}\), and we present explicit formulas for degree distance of the product graph. In addition, we give some Nordhaus–Gaddum type bounds for degree distance. Finally, we compare the degree distance and eccentric distance sum for some graph families.     

从可行性研究报告引起的深度思考

在科技成果转化及企业技改中的可行性研究存在着大量的问题,典型的有“可行的项目不可行”、“不可行的项目可行”等现象,对此进行了分析,并提出相应的建议。     

Strategyproof mechanisms for 2-facility location games with minimax envy

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - We study a fairness-based model for 2-facility location games on the real line where the social objective is to minimize the maximum envy over all agents....     

Further results on the reciprocal degree distance of graphs

The reciprocal degree distance of a simple connected graph \(G=(V_G, E_G)\) is defined as \(\bar{R}(G)=\sum _{u,v \in V_G}(\delta _G(u)+\delta _G(v))\frac{1}{d_G(u,v)}\), where \(\delta _G(u)\) is the vertex degree of \(u\), and \(d_G(u,v)\) is the distance between \(u\) and \(v\) in \(G\). The reciprocal degree distance is an additive weight version of the Harary index, which is defined as \(H(G)=\sum _{u,v \in V_G}\frac{1}{d_G(u,v)}\). In this paper, the extremal \(\bar{R}\)-values on several types of important graphs are considered. The graph with the maximum \(\bar{R}\)-value among all the simple connected graphs of diameter \(d\) is determined. Among the connected bipartite graphs of order \(n\), the graph with a given matching number (resp. vertex connectivity) having the maximum \(\bar{R}\)-value is characterized. Finally, sharp upper bounds on \(\bar{R}\)-value among all simple connected outerplanar (resp. planar) graphs are determined.     

关于强化缓冲算的进一步研究

在缓冲算子公理体系下,研究和构造了一类基于平均的强化缓冲算子,并比较了它们的内在关系和缓冲作用,实例验证了这类算子序列的有效性与实用性,有效解决了冲击扰动系统的行为数据在建模预测过程中常常出现的定性分析与定量预测不符的问题.     

对广义夏普准则应用问题的进一步研究

广义夏普准则考虑了待选资产和现有投资组合之间的相关性,因而是一种更有效的投资决策准则。本文对广义夏普准则的具体应用进行了研究,讨论了一种待选资产是否值得投资的比例范围以及最佳投资水平的确定问题,得出了一些重要结论。本研究对基金管理人的投资决策具有指导意义。     

所有权与控制权分离问题再探讨--兼论我国国有资产管理体制改革的相关问题

本文从伯利和米恩斯提出的两权分离的命题出发,探讨了所有权与控制权产生分离的原因、控制权的本质以及所有权与控制权的整合方式,并将其应用到我国国有资产管理体制改革的研究中,提出了相关的政策建议.     

对基于递归图的时间序列可预测性的进一步研究

理论与实例皆表明:在重构系统相空间的基础上构造递归图来描述时间序列的可预测性时,递归图能否真实反映时间序列的实际可预测程度,这起决于重构系统相空间时是否选用了合适的嵌入参数.本文在虚假最近邻域概念的基础上,提出了可同时确定最优的嵌入维数与时间滞后的方法,为正确、快速判定时间序列的可预测性提供了可靠的保证.     

Further Effects of Lottery Odds on Responding

Lotteries (i.e., probabilistic bonus contingencies) are an established intervention in Organizational Behavior Management. Although common, there are many permutations of lotteries used in literature and they are often combined with other interventions. One key variable that may influence the effectiveness of lotteries are the odds that the lottery will pay out to those who earn entry. The current investigation evaluated a lottery intervention with varied payout chances (25%, 12%, 6%, or 3%). A 6% chance of winning was the lowest odds of winning where responding was reliably maintained across two participants. Implications of these results and future direction for research are discussed below.     

时序多指标决策问题进一步研究

在多指标决策时序条件下,当指标分别为效益型、成本型、固定型、区间型、偏离型和偏离区间型指标时,本文完善了指标精确取值时多指标决策矩阵中各类指标的标准化公式.同时,给出了指标取区间值模糊数时上述各类指标的标准化公式,完善了多指标决策的基础理论.最后作了分析和总结.     

进一步加强对持职干部的管理

近些年来,随着社会主义市场经济的发展,国家实施西部大开发、振兴东北老工业基地等重大工作部署的推进,挂职十部的规模越来越大,形式越来越多,初步呈现出互动、开放、立体式的工作格局. 总的来看,干部挂职锻炼工作进展顺利,发展健康,既促进了区域间、部门间的协调发展和交流合作,又加快了老少边贫地区的发展;挂职干部既更新了观念、开阔了视野,又砥砺了意志、增长了才干.但是,也出现了一些值得注意的新情况、新问题.     

Real options valuation principle in the multi-period base-stock problem

This paper analyzes the multi-period base-stock problem where there is a financial risk associated with a stochastic demand. For the single-period problem, it is known that the optimal inventory policy can be obtained with the Black and Scholes option pricing formula. This paper pushes the analysis further by applying the options valuation framework to the multi-period problem and presenting an algorithm for finding the optimal inventory policy. A computational study indicates that the effect of systematic risk is typically negligible (as for the single-period problem). Therefore, it can be concluded that systematic risk in demand is of little importance for optimal inventory control.     

Continuity of care: some experiences and thoughts

Continuity of health care is a goal to be achieved. Most are for it. Many claim to provide it. But how do we know we have it? What are the key features of continuity? While dictionaries do not define the phrase "continuity of health care," we do find definitions of "continuity." The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, includes in its definitions: "the state or quality of being uninterrupted in sequence or succession, or in essence or idea; connectedness, coherence, unbroken..." Stedman's Medical Dictionary includes: "absence of interruption, a succession of parts intimately united..." These definitions stress an uninterrupted succession and include the concept that there needs to be a connection to the parts. Without that connection, continuity, in health care delivery or elsewhere, does not exist.     

Testing of the ‘reduction of compound alternatives’ principle

This paper reports an empirical investigation of the effects of three pictorial forms of problem representation on conformance with the Reduction of Compound Alternatives Principle of expected utility theory. The most common form of representation, written problem statements, was compared with three pictorial representations: tubes containing one hundred labeled balls, decision matrices with each column proportional in size to the probability of the corresponding event, and bar graphs. The tubes representation led to fewer violations of the Principle. In addition, when subjects were trained to construct proportional matrices from written problem statements, they exhibited fewer violations than those who received the same problems already formatted in proportional matrices. The results reported here should contribute to the development of a theory of the way people frame decision problems.     

Trade-offs and the precautionary principle: A lexicographic utility approach

The precautionary principle is often argued to be irrational because it cannot adequately explain how resources should be distributed across multiple possible catastrophes or between catastrophic and noncatastrophic risks. We address this problem of trade-offs by extending a recently proposed formal interpretation of the precautionary principle (PP) within a lexical utility framework and using it to prove results about which distribution of resources maximizes lexical utility when several catastrophic risks exist, given different assumptions. We also explain how our lexical utility interpretation of PP can recommend balanced distributions of resources between disaster prevention and other concerns.