Product Design and Supply Chain Coordination Under Extended Producer Responsibility

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation focuses on the life‐cycle environmental performance of products and has significant implications for management theory and practice. In this paper, we examine the influence of EPR policy parameters on product design and coordination incentives in a durable product supply chain. We model a manufacturer supplying a remanufacturable product to a customer over multiple periods. The manufacturer invests in two design attributes of the product that impact costs incurred by the supply chain—performance, which affects the environmental impact of the product during use, and remanufacturability, which affects the environmental impact post‐use. Consistent with the goals of EPR policies, the manufacturer and the customer are required to share the environmental costs incurred over the product's life cycle. The customer has a continuing need for the services of the product and optimizes between the costs of product replacement and the costs incurred during use. We demonstrate how charges during use and post‐use can be used as levers to encourage environmentally favorable product design. We analyze the impact of supply chain coordination on design choices and profit and discuss contracts that can be used to achieve coordination, both under symmetric and asymmetric information about customer attributes.     

Motivating Retail Marketing Effort: Optimal Contract Design

We study a distribution channel where a manufacturer relies on a sales agent for selling the product, and for investing in the most appropriate marketing effort. The agent's effort is hard to monitor. In addition, the cost of effort is the agent's private information. These impose challenges to the manufacturer in its endeavor to influence the agent's marketing effort provisions and to allocate profit between the two parties. We propose two contract forms. The franchise fee contract is a two‐part price schedule specifying a variable wholesale price and a fixed franchise fee. The retail price maintenance contract links the allowed retail price that the agent charges customers with total payment to the manufacturer and sales level. Under information asymmetry, for implementing either contract form, the manufacturer needs to offer a menu of contracts, hoping to invoke the “revelation principle” when the agent picks a certain contract from that menu. We show that the two contract forms perform differently, and each party's preference toward a particular contract form is linked with the total reservation profit level and/or the sales agent's cost type. We provide managerial guidelines for the manufacturer in selecting a better contract form under different conditions.     

Forecast Updating and Supplier Coordination for Complementary Component Purchases

We study a supply chain where an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) buys subassemblies, comprised of two complementary sets of components, from a contract manufacturer (CM). The OEM provides a demand forecast at the time when the CM must order the long lead‐time set of components, but must decide whether or not to provide updated forecasts as a matter of practice. Forecast updates affect the CM's short lead‐time purchase decision, and the anticipation of updates may also affect the long lead‐time purchase decision. While the OEM and CM both incur lost sales costs, the OEM can decide whether or not to share the overage costs otherwise fully borne by the CM. We investigate when the OEM is better served by committing to provide updated forecasts and/or committing to share overage costs. For a distribution‐free, two‐stage forecast‐update model, we show that (1) the practice of providing forecast updates may be harmful to the OEM and (2) at the OEM's optimal levels of overage risk sharing, the CM undersupplies relative to the supply chain optimal quantity. For a specific forecast‐update model, we computationally investigate conditions under which forecast updating and risk sharing are in the best interest of the OEM.     

达米特“意义使用”论探析

达米特的“意义使用”论主要是对后期维特根斯坦“意义即使用”论的一种辩护和发展。为了回答 “意义使用是否包含了话语所表达的内容”这个一问题,达米特试图把“使用”与隐含知识相关联,通过语言使用者实际使用语言意义的能力来把握和理解语言使用者关于语言意义的隐含知识,使语言意义的使用与语言意义的隐含知识相统一。他的“意义使用”论表明了其认识论立场,但要使其“意义使用”论通过语言使用者实际使用语言意义的能力达到理解语言意义的目的,必须具有形而上学假定,否则,其“意义使用”论易于使其“意义使用”论走入相对主义漩涡及无法回答“意义是什么”这一元意义理论问题的困境。     

大学生自尊水平与自我妨碍的关系研究

自尊水平与自我妨碍的关系研究成为社会心理学探讨的热点。通过创设评价性实验情景唤起被试的行动式自我妨碍行为,测量被试的自尊水平,并引入了内隐自尊的测量,与外显自尊相对照,探讨内隐、外显自尊水平与自我妨碍行为的关系。结果发现低自尊个体比高自尊个体具有更强的自我妨碍倾向,男性比女性自我妨碍倾向更强。     

汉英古典诗歌中人称指示词显隐模式的探源比较

分析英汉古典诗歌中人称指示词的差异,指出汉语诗歌中人称指示词常常被省略、隐匿或淡化,而在英语诗歌中则相对彰显;从英汉语言差异、英汉诗歌美学差异、中西文化中个体地位的差异三方面入手,探讨造成两者之间迥然不同的显隐模式的原因。     

生鲜农产品供应链关系契约稳定性影响研究——以冷链设施补贴模式为视角

基于我国当前生鲜农产品供应链中产品价格、盟员关系不稳定,农户和消费者利益受损的现实,本文通过构建两种供应链组织模式下的利润模型,研究了关系契约对农产品生鲜度及供应链利润的影响,并探讨了其"自我执行"机制;分析不同组织模式下冷链设施补贴模式对关系契约稳定性的影响。研究表明,关系契约在提升农产品生鲜度及供应链利润方面有显著作用,但不能完全保证契约的稳定性;引入冷链设施虽在进一步提高生鲜度及利润方面有明显作用,但不同引入方式对关系契约稳定性影响较大,而选择恰当的冷链设施补贴模式("公司+合作社+农户"组织模式下政府对农业合作社的补贴)可提升农产品生鲜度及农户盈利水平,最终提升生鲜农产品供应链关系契约的稳定性。     

隐性知识与显性知识的多学科探究及对语言教与学研究的影响

隐性知识系统和显性知识系统分布于大脑的不同区域并执行着不同的功能。产生两种知识系统的母语与外语学习过程也不相同。文章首先探讨了两种知识系统的早期语言教育和语言学研究背景及研究评价。然后,总结了认知科学和认知神经科学的主要研究发现、心理语言学和神经语言学的研究初步结论等,这些研究对于外语教学和学习、二语习得方面的研究有重要影响。     

Exploring unobserved heterogeneity in perinatal and neonatal mortality risks: The case of an Italian sharecropping community, 1900–39

Previous researchers have found that traditional determinants explain only a limited part of the variation in perinatal and infant mortality at the family level. In the study reported in this paper, we explored the factors that make the perinatal/neonatal death risk more heterogeneous across families. We estimated logistic regressions with cluster random effects at the maternal level, using data from the Italian village of Granarolo from 1900 to 1939. We estimated the effects of selected predictors on perinatal/neonatal mortality and unexplained inter-family variation. We found that non-rural skilled and lower-skilled workers experienced higher perinatal and neonatal mortality risks. Unexplained heterogeneity at the maternal level was lower for women living in sharecropper families than for those in landless labourer and non-rural worker families. Unexplained perinatal and neonatal mortality components were also due to socio-economic differences and were not necessarily related only to maternal biological features or shared genetic frailty.     

An implicit function based procedure for analyzing maximum likelihood estimates from nonidentically distributed data

A methodology is presented for gaining insight into properties — such as outlier influence, bias, and width of confidence intervals — of maximum likelihood estimates from nonidentically distributed Gaussian data. The methodology is based on an application of the implicit function theorem to derive an approximation to the maximum likelihood estimator. This approximation, unlike the maximum likelihood estimator, is expressed in closed form and thus it can be used in lieu of costly Monte Carlo simulation to study the properties of the maximum likelihood estimator.