Chartering strategies for shipping companies

This paper describes a model which may be used in the evaluation of the relative effectiveness of policies used in the areas of ship chartering and the switching of combined carriers between the dry cargo market and the tanker market. The policies for chartering and market switching are expressed in the form of ‘desired proportions’ of the fleet operating in a particular charter-mode or a particular market. Graphical illustration of this form of expression of policies can be easily understood, so that alternative policies can be designed with relative ease. The effectiveness of a particular form of policy under various freight market conditions can be determined from the model, the use of which is illustrated by its application to the deployment of the fleet of an hypothetical shipping company. It is assumed that the feedback connection between the company's actions and the marketplace is negligible.     

Implicit prejudicial biases in student learning: the effects of sexual orientation

In an investigation of students' potential biases toward gay and lesbian instructors, 93 female and 59 male undergraduates viewed a lecture, rated the instructor and perceived learning, and completed a lecture-retention test. Lectures were given by a man or woman, identified as straight or gay or lesbian. Sexual orientation did not affect the instructor evaluation or perceived learning ratings for any of the groups. Although sexual orientation did not affect the lecture-retention scores for the female students, learning by the male students was significantly lower with the gay male instructor than with the straight male instructor (p = .03), suggesting an implicit bias.     

Supply chain outsourcing under exchange rate risk and competition

This paper studies the impacts of foreign exchange risk and competition intensity on supply chain companies who are involved in offshore-outsourcing activities. In particular, we develop a variational inequality model that considers firms' decision-making regarding pricing, offshore outsourcing, transportation, and in-house production under competition and foreign exchange uncertainty. We also use a series of simulation examples to answer questions regarding outsourcing and pricing strategies of supply chain firms with different risk attitudes, and explore numerically their associated profits and incurred risks.     

Exchange curves for fixing batch quantities

The problem considered is that of choosing batch quantities to minimize costs, subject to the constraints that neither overall set-up costs nor overall set-up time can be increased beyond certain limits. Theoretical and graphical solutions are obtained for two possible formulations of the problem, and a simple practical procedure is suggested.