Making combination vaccines more accessible to low-income countries: The antigen bundle pricing problem

Combination vaccines have become the preferred choice for immunizing children in high- and middle-income countries. However, these new vaccines are prohibitively expensive for low-income countries, causing them to rely on older, less-expensive vaccines. This product divergence decreases economies of scale for the purchase of vaccines and eliminates the financial incentive for manufacturers to maintain production of less-expensive vaccines or even to develop new vaccines for diseases affecting developing countries. This paper treats combination vaccines as bundles of antigens that can be priced as a single item. Such bundles are used to formulate an optimization problem that determines the combination vaccine allocation between vaccine producers and different countries under a price discrimination agreement. The objective of the optimization problem is to satisfy countries' antigen demand at the lowest possible price, while providing a reasonable profit for the vaccine producers. The optimization problem results in a mixed-integer non-linear programming model that maximizes the sum of manufacturing profits and the customer surplus, and hence, it maximizes the total social surplus. Moreover, a constructive heuristic is proposed to determine an approximation to the best allocation of combination vaccines and their range of feasible prices. Computational results show that vaccine prices in all market segments become more affordable as the supply of the most complex combination vaccines becomes more available to low-income countries.     

Improved governance of Indian school system through school consolidation

Formal education is provided in schools that should be accessible to citizens, facilitating them to reach the schools with ease, safety and without travelling too large a distance. The requirement of accessibility, however, brings into consideration the corresponding cost and resource utilization. There exists a vast school network in India, with many schools established under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan program. However, the existence of too many schools, mostly low in enrolment, is creating problems in terms of quality of teaching and infrastructural facilities offered by these schools. This trade-off between large size schools having good infrastructure and conducive ecosystem, and many small schools deprived of it, can be addressed by appropriate school consolidation. The current study presents a mathematical programming model for school consolidation that aims to minimize the total disruption and transfer the students to an alternative school considering the school network. The model is then applied to a case for a district in the Indian state of Karnataka. Various scenario runs have been done to come out with the appropriate policy parameters for the given district and the results are highly encouraging. The model and analysis can be replicated as well as customized according to the needs of different states.     

借助拉格朗日乘数法优化社会扩大再生产

文章提出一种借助拉格朗日乘数法优化两大部类社会扩大再生产的方法。运用拉格朗日函数法,将获得扩大再生产的最优解析解问题,转化成目标函数在定义域边界点上的若干取值比较和判定问题,使问题变得很简单、明确。进而容易地确定扩大再生产的最优解所处的边界点,获得最优解。借助马克思《资本论》中的一个举例,对此方法做了计算验证。     

两阶段法求解混装模式下的加热炉调度

针对目前加热炉调度模型少有考虑混装模式下加热炉调度优化的不足,建立了连铸-热轧混装-体化模式下的加热炉生产调度优化模型,并提出了基于贪婪算法和模拟退火算法的两阶段求解方法.生产数据测试表明该模型和算法能有效解决加热炉调度问题.     

不确定性与房地产税额确定组合优化

房地产税额确定的准确性主要取决于两个方面:房地产估价和税率。目前房地产估价有三大基本方法,即市场比较法、成本法和收益法。除此之外还有一些其他方法,如假设开发法、路线价法、长期趋势法等,然而不管哪一种方法由于受到各种主观和客观因素的影响,其估价值都存在着误差。为了减少这种误差,本文构建了一种房地产组合估价优化方法,它能够有效降低房地产在估价中存在的不确定性,从而减少税额误差。     

广东产业结构调整对高等教育的影响及其对策

文章运用产业经济理论和高等教育发展理论 ,研究广东产业结构和高等教育结构之间的关系 ,探讨在“十五”期间 ,面临广东产业结构的优化升级对高等教育的发展所提出的新要求 ,如何使高等教育的类型结构、布局结构、层次结构和学科结构适应经济结构、产业结构、技术结构和人才结构 ;如何使高等教育的发展能为广东产业结构的调整、优化提供智力和人才的支撑 ,为广东率先基本实现现代化作出贡献。     

机泵系统流量调节方案的优化设计

本文旨在对任一机泵系统流量调节的各种方案进行优化设计,为此建立了以投资回收期为目标函数、满足流量分布等为约束条件的数学模型。同时通过对单台、并联机泵系统各种调节方案的节能计算公式的推导,最终得出目标函数的最优解。     

Stakeholder identifying and positioning (SIP) models: From Google's operation in China to a general case-analysis framework

Through examining online search service provider Google's much-talked about business operation in China over the past several years, this research introduced a series of practical stakeholder identifying and positioning (SIP) models that can be used for various PR case analysis, issue management and decision-making process. Stakeholder, though an important concept that is at the epicenter for understanding and practicing public relations, has nonetheless received insufficient scholarly scrutiny from the public relations’ perspective, and has been so loosely defined that it often leads to confusion rather than clarification. This study categorized all stakeholders into three broad “PR” dimensions, namely, (1) Product and Revenue; (2) Policy and Regulation; and (3) Perception and Reputation. The dynamic interactions and interrelations of these stakeholders were further streamlined and illustrated through several commonly applicable models.     

基于正交试验法PPE+PA6注塑件收缩变形研究

采用正交试验的方法获得PPE+PA6合金塑料在不同的工艺参数下成型薄壁件的收缩量,比较了不同工艺参数对收缩变形影响的重要性,并以体积收缩率为控制目标,通过正交试验等数值计算方法得到优化的工艺参数组合,为模具设计和注塑工艺优化探索了一种较实用的方法.     

A technical note on “A fuzzy set approach for R&D portfolio selection using a real options valuation model” by Wang and Hwang (2007)

In this paper, three critical issues with the paper “A fuzzy set approach for R&D portfolio selection using a real options valuation model”, coauthored by Wang and Hwang and published in Omega 2007 are addressed. Shortcomings of the original work are highlighted and corrective measures to improve the approach are proposed.