Foodborne Exposure to Pesticides and Methylmercury in the United Arab Emirates

As part of a comprehensive environmental health strategic planning project initiated by the government of Abu Dhabi, we assessed potential dietary exposure in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to methylmercury (in seafood) and pesticides (in fruits and vegetables) above international guideline levels. We present results for the UAE population by age, gender, and body mass index. Our results show very low daily risks of exposure to pesticides in fruits and vegetables at levels exceeding WHO guidelines even under the conservative assumption that no pesticides are removed during washing and food preparation. Thus, exposure to pesticides on fruits and vegetables does not appear to be a major public health concern in the UAE. The chances of exposure to methylmercury in seafood are much higher; our model estimates a mean 1 in 5 daily risk of exceeding the FAO/WHO provisional tolerable weekly intake. However, great caution should be used in interpreting these results, as we analyzed only the risks and not the substantial benefits of fish consumption. In fact, previous studies have demonstrated that exposure to the n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in fish can increase IQ in developing children, and it can substantially decrease the risk in adults of coronary heart disease and stroke. Further research is warranted to compare the risk of Me‐Hg exposure from fish to the nutritional benefits of fish consumption in the UAE and to determine appropriate methods to communicate risk and benefit information to the UAE population.     

Pricing Decisions During Inter‐Generational Product Transition

How should companies price products during an inter‐generational transition? High uncertainty in a new product introduction often leads to extreme cases of demand and supply mismatches. Pricing is an effective tool to either prevent or alleviate these problems. We study the optimal pricing decisions in the context of a product transition in which a new‐generation product replaces an old one. We formulate the dynamic pricing problem and derive the optimal prices for both the old and new products. Our analysis sheds light on the pattern of the optimal prices for the two products during the transition and on how product replacement, along with several other dynamics including substitution, external competition, scarcity, and inventory, affect the optimal prices. We also determine the optimal initial inventory for each product and discuss a heuristic method.     

Inventory Policy with Parametric Demand: Operational Statistics,Linear Correction,and Regression

In this paper, we consider data‐driven approaches to the problem of inventory control. We first consider the approach of operational statistics and review related results which enable us to maximize a priori expected profit uniformly over all parameter values, when the demand distribution is known up to the location and scale parameters. For the case of the unknown shape parameter, we first suggest a heuristic approach based on operational statistics to obtain improved ordering policies and illustrate the same for the case of a Pareto demand distribution. In more general cases where the heuristic is not applicable, we suggest linear correction and support vector regression approaches to better estimate ordering policies, and illustrate these using a Gamma demand distribution. In certain cases, our proposed approaches are found to yield significant improvements.     

Transfer of risk in the newsvendor model with discrete demand

In this paper we consider the transfer of risk in a newsvendor model with discrete demand. We view the newsvendor model as a leader/follower problem where the manufacturer (leader) decides the wholesale price and the retailer (follower) decides the quantity ordered. Taking a Pareto-optimal contract as a starting point, the manufacturer wishes to design a real option contract to enhance profits. A new real option contract is said to be feasible if both parties' expected profit is at least as great as in the original contract. When demand is discrete, there are usually infinite feasible contracts that yield maximum expected profits to the manufacturer. In the paper we show that either all, some or none of these real option contracts offer an improved position for the retailer.     

基于CAPM的BOT项目“有限追索权”融资决策模型

为研究BOT项目有限追索权融资中贷款资金与股本资金在贷方和项目公司之间合理分配问题(即BOT最优融资结构),本文考虑项目公司和贷方根据CAPM方法进行投资决策,通过分析它们投资策略在利益上的冲突关系而建立一个BOT融资模型,并且用博弈论方法研究模型最优解的存在性及其性质。研究结果不仅为项目公司和贷方提供了对BOT项目融资决策的理论方法,而且为政府对BOT项目的管理提供了重要的理论工具。     

股市波动率的短期预测模型和预测精度评价

基于幂转换以及不设定扰动项的具体相关结构和分布形式,构建了半参数的短期预测模型来预测中国股市的波动率.模型采用基于极值估计量的两阶段估计法进行估计,估计方法的小样本性质表现良好.此外,还通过具有Bootstrap特性的SPA检验实证比较了新模型与其他6种预测模型的预测精度.实证结果表明,在各种损失函数下,半参数短期预测...     

The relationship between presenteeism and job satisfaction: A mediated moderation model using work engagement and perceived organizational support

Research on presenteeism has largely focused on its prevalence, determinants and consequences on the health of both employees and organizations. To date, few studies have examined the influence of presenteeism on workers’ attitudinal and motivational responses. Based on the Effort–Recovery Theory, this study evaluates the mediating effect of work engagement in the relationship between presenteeism and job satisfaction. Building on previous work, this study also proposes to consider perceived organizational support as a moderator of the work engagement–job satisfaction relationship. Presented in the form of a mediated moderation model, the results of bootstrapped regression analyses show three main results. First, presenteeism is negatively associated with work engagement and job satisfaction. Secondly, work engagement is one of the factors through which presenteeism influences job satisfaction. Thirdly, perceived organizational support moderates the association between work engagement and job satisfaction so that, at a low level of work engagement, feeling supported by the organization makes a difference on job satisfaction. Overall, this research is part of the limited number of studies that have focused on the interplay existing between presenteeism and its consequences in terms of job attitudes.     

基于碳标签制度的两级供应链协调机制研究

以市场需求随机的视角建立Stackelberg博弈模型,研究基于碳标签制度的供应商和零售商组成的两级供应链协调策略。模型引入产品碳足迹e₁作为决策变量,分别研究了在收益共享与成本共担契约下集中决策和分散决策中决策变量最优解及最优利润的变化情况。研究结果表明,在考虑碳排因素时集中决策相比于分散决策具有明显的优势;在参数满足一定条件下零售商通过与供应商共担碳减排成本,可以实现利润的增长,初步验证模型的契约设计的有效性。     

医疗信息共享对患者转移数量和服务质量水平影响研究

当前我国医院间存在严重的"信息孤岛",医院参与医疗信息共享意愿不高,患者的诊疗信息被静态碎片化储存而无法充分有效地利用。考虑到医院进行医疗信息共享将降低患者转移成本,本文构建一个多阶段双寡头动态博弈模型研究医疗信息共享对医院竞争过程中患者转移数量和服务质量水平决策的影响。首先,根据是否存在转移成本,将患者分为新患者和经验性患者,借助Hotelling模型刻画患者的效用函数,分析患者就诊决策。然后,在政府价格规制和不考虑医院利他性情景下,构建了医院累积期望收益目标函数,使用动态规划方法,求解实现医院累积期望收益最大化的服务质量水平,获得了实现患者相互转移且医院在市场中共存的马尔可夫完美均衡。最后,根据医院参与医疗信息共享后患者转移成本降为零,分析与比较信息共享前后患者转移数量和服务质量水平变化。研究发现：在不同医院间本身存在患者转移背景下,医院参与信息共享后,患者转移数量增加但存在一个上限,增加的转移量与患者在医院间的转移成本呈正相关,与初始感知效用的差值范围呈负相关;医院参与信息共享后,均衡状态下的医院服务质量水平高于信息共享前的服务质量水平。因此,在不改变当前医保支付方式下,要加快推进医疗信息共享,政府部门可以根据医院的患者数量和服务质量水平变化对其进行定期补贴,以激励医院积极参与医疗信息共享,本文给出了这个补贴的量化表达。     

免费VS.订阅:考虑广告质量的网络内容盈利模式选择

不同于已有决策模型对网络内容质量或广告质量的忽略,本文考虑用户粘度、广告质量及其信息不对称等因素或决策情形,运用委托代理理论,分别针对免费模式与订阅模式建立博弈模型,探讨网络内容提供者的最优盈利模式选择问题及其最优的内容质量策略与广告定价策略,并设计广告合同以激励拥有私人信息的广告主"讲真话"。结果表明：（1）网络广告尤其是优质网络广告的存在有利于系统实现帕累托改进,并能缓解订阅模式的实施难度;（2）信息不对称削弱了网络广告质量对网络内容提供者与社会福利的积极作用,并且网络广告质量越高,其信息价值越大;（3）订阅模式并非始终优于免费模式,并且相同条件下,前者适宜"少而精"策略而后者适宜"广而平"策略。