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    25 September 2024, Volume 33 Issue 9
    Theory Analysis and Methodology Study
    Inspection and Maintenance Optimization of a Green Production-oriented Equipment
    TIAN Sen, ZHOU Lei, WU Xuanli, GU Xinyu, ZHAN Yijia, YANG Zhihan, ZHANG Nan
    2024, 33(9):  1-6.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0277
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    In recent years, the precipitous rise in carbon emissions has exacerbated the greenhouse effect, leading to environmental challenges such as global warming, which has emerged as some of the most formidable challenges faced collectively by the global community. Gradually, carbon taxes have evolved into a predominant instrument for developed countries to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. As one of the world's most significant carbon emitters, China is on the cusp of instituting a carbon tax system that is congruent with its national context, in alignment with its policies aimed at achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets.The manufacturing industry stands as a linchpin of China's economic growth. Concurrently, this sector has become the second-largest source of carbon emissions in China, thus emerging as a pivotal area that influences the realization of China's dual carbon objectives. The advent of dual carbon policies has necessitated a reassessment of existing production schedules, compelling enterprises to reconcile green initiatives, safety protocols, and profitability within a novel operational paradigm.
    The economic production quantity (EPQ) model posits that the economic production quantity over each operational cycle is a critical decision-making factor that influences overall profitability. Concurrently, the malfunctioning and failure of production equipment can directly impede the attainment of EPQ objectives, underscoring the significance of maintenance strategies in the formulation of production policies. Extant research has thoroughly examined the joint optimization of production and maintenance for production equipment thatadheres to a singular failure mode. However, in practical production processes, the production workflows of many enterprises tend to be more intricate, and the assumption of a single failure mode may not adequately simulate the actual failure patterns of equipment within the production chain.
    Against this backdrop, this paper delves into the joint optimization issue of economic production and condition-based maintenance for a production system characterized by competing failure modes. The system in question is susceptible to two types of independent failures, either of which, if occurred, would result in production cessation and necessitate system maintenance. By integrating considerations of carbon emissions, economic production quantities, equipment inspection, and maintenance, a production decision-making model is formulated. This model scrutinizes the impact of carbon tax costs on corporate production and maintenance decisions, with the objective of minimizing expected costs per unit of time. The economic production quantity and preventive maintenance thresholds are treated as decision variables, aimed at identifying the optimal production and maintenance strategies.
    The empirical numerical examples substantiate that inspection and maintenance strategies under a green production framework diverge from traditional economic production strategies. Given a static scenario where the levels of demand and the pricing of cost factors remain unaltered, the pricing mechanism of carbon taxation exerts a pivotal influence on the optimal strategic decisions of enterprises. An optimization model that incorporates carbon tax considerations can further diminish the expected costs per unit time, fostering a win-win scenario for green economics and contributing to the realization of dual carbon goals.
    For manufacturing enterprises, the application of this model facilitates the establishment of rational batch production plans and maintenance strategies, which can aid in reducing expected costs and carbon emission pollution per unit time. From a governmental perspective, the conclusions drawn from this study offer a reference for policy formulation. They are conducive to crafting a carbon tax system that possesses punitive strength without dampening the production enthusiasm of manufacturing enterprises. Such a system can expedite the deployment of clean energy and the construction of a clean energy framework.
    Scheduling Optimization of Emergency Materials in Urban Areas during Public Health Emergencies
    PAN Nan, ZHANG Miaohan, ZHANG Jingcheng, CAO Jianing, YANG Xiaohua
    2024, 33(9):  7-14.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0278
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    In the case of public health outbreaks such as the new coronavirus, the distribution of emergency supplies, as a basic means of responding to health and safety emergencies, plays a crucial role in the prevention and control of major public health emergencies such as the new coronavirus. To solve the problem of emergency materials scheduling under major public health emergencies, this paper introduces fuzzy demand into the secondary supply chain structure of “supplies transfer center & demand point” to reflect the uncertainty of demand under the influence of epidemic.
    In terms of model establishment, an optimization model based on credibility theory is constructed for the distribution of urban emergency materials. For the urban community emergency distribution scenario under a public health event outbreak, this paper utilizes triangular fuzzy numbers to characterize the material demand at the community points. Further, we induce opportunity constraints by using decision maker's preference values to quantify the fuzzy demand for emergency materials in each community to determine whether or not to carry out the scheduling task. In addition, considering the actual needs of emergency material distribution, the emergency material scheduling optimization model used is finally constructed with the optimization objective of shortest delivery time.
    In addition, this paper designs an improved metaheuristics algorithm based on the traditional sparrow search algorithm (SSA). To improve the optimization speed and capability of the SSA, strategies such as Cauchy variation and backward learning are introduced. Furthermore, numerical experiments are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of our designed algorithm compared to similar algorithms, such as the partial swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), and SSA etc. The designed algorithm is tested on benchmark functions, and the results indicate that our algorithm performs better in optimization than the other algorithms.
    Further, a case study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed method. Thirty communities as demand points and three hospitals as transit centers are selected from Shanghai for simulation experiments. The geographic locations of these demand points and transit centers are obtained from the open geographic data platform to obtain the distance matrix. Similarly, our algorithm is compared with PSO, GA, simulated annealing (SA) and SSA. The results show that the designed algorithm can reduce the vehicle cost by 6.61%, time cost by 5.10%, etc. compared with other cutting-edge algorithms. Finally, the impact of decision maker preference value on distribution is analyzed. New evaluation metrics are introduced to quantitatively analyze the satisfaction level of each community point, and the overall implementation results of the generated scheduling scheme are quantitatively analyzed. The decision makers need to rationally select preference values according to the different objectives in order to make better use of the distribution resources. The results show that the integrated case is optimal when the preference value is 0.4, while the best benefit exists for unit distribution vehicles when the preference value is 0.2.
    The contributions of this paper are summarized as follows: 1)An emergency material scheduling optimization model considering fuzzy demand is developed to reflect the real scheduling demand under the outbreak of health and safety events, and the fuzzy demand is effectively handled by the introduction of distribution opportunity constraints for emergency materials and decision maker's preference value. 2)An improved meta-heuristic algorithm is designed for solving the problem. The numerical test results show that the designed algorithm has better optimization effect than other similar algorithms such as PSO, GA, etc. 3)Simulation experiments are carried out by using public data and the decision makers' preference values are analyzed. However, the research in this paper has idealized the road situation and timeliness of materials in the process of emergency material scheduling. In the future research, we will further focus on the realism and general applicability of the model, and will actively explore the optimization problem of multimodal transportation in emergency material scheduling.
    Study on Joint Scheduling Optimization of Continuous Berth and Quayside Bridge Based on Reinforcement Learning
    DENG Hanyi, LIANG Chengji, SHI Jian, WANG Yu, GINO LIM
    2024, 33(9):  15-21.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0279
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    The continuous Berth Allocation and Quay Crane Assignment Problem (BACAP) is a critical challenge in port operations, primarily due to the traditional separation of berth allocation and quay crane scheduling. Historically, these processes have been treated as independent entities, leading to operational inefficiency and suboptimal performance. When berth allocation decisions are made without taking into account the allocation and scheduling of quay cranes, ports may experience delays, increased turnaround times for vessels, and an overall decline in productivity. This issue becomes increasingly pronounced in contexts with high vessel traffic and complex operational demands, where the need for a cohesive strategy is paramount.
    In this paper, we propose an innovative approach that builds upon the foundational framework of the continuous BACAP. Our methodology integrates both quay crane scheduling and berth allocation into a unified model. By recognizing the interdependencies between these two processes, we underscore the necessity of simultaneous decision-making, which serves to enhance port performance significantly. This integrated approach is designed to streamline operations, reduce delays, and ultimately improve the efficiency of port activities.
    To address the challenges associated with large-scale instances of this problem, we focus on reframing berth-quay joint scheduling as a simultaneous decision-making process. This involves not only determining the optimal docking location for each vessel but also defining the sequence of services provided by quay cranes. This dual focus is instrumental in facilitating a more efficient operational framework, particularly in environments characterized by high levels of complexity and demand.
    In our research, we transform the scheduling problem into a Markov Decision Process (MDP). This transformation allows us to develop a reinforcement learning (RL) scheduling algorithm that encapsulates essential components such as state representation, action selection, and a well-structured reward function. The RL algorithm is adept at making informed decisions regarding both berth allocation and quay crane scheduling, thereby enabling the derivation of relatively optimal solutions within a reasonable timeframe. This innovative application of reinforcement learning not only simplifies complex decision-making processes but also enhances the adaptability of the model across varying operational scenarios.
    A pivotal aspect of our research is the establishment of a mathematical model specifically tailored for the continuous berth-quay-bridge joint scheduling problem. The model's primary objective is to minimize the total time vessels spend in port, a key performance indicator for evaluating port efficiency. Our experimental results indicate that the reinforcement learning algorithm significantly outperforms traditional methods, such as genetic algorithms and CPLEX, especially in scenarios involving extensive datasets. The algorithm demonstrates a considerable reduction in computational time while yielding solutions of comparable or superior quality. These findings substantiate the effectiveness and superiority of our approach in addressing the complexities inherent in port operations.
    Furthermore, to enhance the performance of the reinforcement learning algorithm, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of various parameters, including the learning rate, action selection probability, and discount factor. By systematically investigating the influence of these factors on algorithm performance, we aim to fine-tune our approach, ensuring its robustness and adaptability in diverse operational contexts. This meticulous tuning process is critical for optimizing the efficiency of our RL algorithm and ensuring that it can handle the dynamic and often unpredictable nature of port operations.
    Through our research, we contribute valuable insights into the integration of advanced computational techniques within maritime operations. By demonstrating the potential of a cohesive approach to berth allocation and quay crane scheduling, we pave the way for future studies that could refine and expand upon our findings. The implications of this research extend beyond mere operational efficiency; they also present opportunities for enhancing the sustainability of port operations by reducing turnaround times and minimizing the environmental impact of maritime activities.
    In conclusion, our work serves as a critical step in addressing the complexities of the continuous BACAP. The integration of quay crane scheduling with berth allocation through a reinforcement learning framework not only improves operational efficiency but also provides a robust model that can adapt to various scenarios within the maritime industry. As the demand for port services continues to grow, we believe that our approach can significantly contribute to the development of smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable port operations in the future. This paper thus not only enhances our understanding of the BACAP but also offers a pathway for further research that could explore the full potential of integrated decision-making processes in maritime logistics.
    Research on Production Incentive Optimization Strategy of “Company+Farmer” Based on Social Contract
    SHEN Pei, YANG Li
    2024, 33(9):  22-27.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0280
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    The value protection contract signed in the traditional “company+farmer” model is not conducive to motivating farmers' production enthusiasm. Currently, there are few quantitative studies on social contracts, and the practice of social contracts is in urgent need of scientifically theoretical guidance. To solve this problem, this paper considers the coordination of agricultural product supply chain of farmers' production efforts and the incentive study of “company+farmer” model. From the perspective of a price change in the market, the decision model of signing social contracts when the market price is high, is constructed, and the optimization problem of companies and farmers is solved. It puts forward the contract selection rules and farmers' incentive decision under the “company+farmer” mode, clarifies the theoretical model and mechanism of social contract practice, and demonstrates its scientific nature.
    The results show that: (1)When the market is poor, signing the value preservation contract can achieve the coordination and stability of the supply chain, and also the scale and efficiency of agricultural production. By locking the profits of farmers in advance, the company can stabilize the cooperation with farmers, ensure their fixed income, help farmers reduce risks in the market they face, effectively realize risk sharing and interest coordination, and effectively use and allocate resources. However, when the market is good, the value protection contract does not motivate farmers' production efforts enough, so there is a high default rate. (2)When the market is in good condition or when the market price is expected to rise, the price of agricultural products purchased by the company will follow the market if the social contract is signed, so that farmers can share the market premium generated by a price rise in the market, which encourages farmers to make production efforts, achieves supply chain coordination, and increases the total profit of the supply chain. However, the company bears all the price risks in the market, and is prone to opportunistic behaviors, or even defaults. (3)When the market is in good condition or when the market price is expected to rise, the buyback social contract signed can improve the optimal profit of the company and farmers at the same time, and realize the Pareto improvement of the non-buyback social contract, and the total profit of the supply chain can be improved. In addition, with a rise in prices, the repurchase social contract can effectively limit the blind production expansion of farmers, avoid the company's opportunistic behavior, reduce the default rate, and truly realize the “risk sharing and benefit sharing” between companies and farmers, which is an innovative way to effectively serve the “company+farmer” model. Signing the social contract when the market is good is an optimization strategy in the “company+farmer” model. The social contract with repurchase realizes Pareto improvement over the social contract without repurchase. Recently, the agricultural market has been good, and agricultural companies in Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu have adopted this practice and achieved good results.
    The research results of this paper provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for enterprises and farmers to carry out practical business and cooperation in the “company+farmer” model. However, since this paper does not consider the impact of the social contract on farmers' reward, deposit setting and other provisions in the “company+farmer” model, further research and discussion can be carried out from the aspects of farmers' reward setting, risk coordination ratio and risk fund in future studies.
    Optimization of Resilience Recovery Strategy of Public Transport Commuter Corridor Based on Travel Activity Utility
    LI Xueyan, ZHANG Tongyu, LI Jing, ZHAO Rui
    2024, 33(9):  28-35.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0281
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    In the urban transit system, a certain cooperation relationship has been formed between the ground bus and the subway. In daily operations, as the main mode of transportation, the subway lines often bear a large amount of passenger flow, and may be affected by disturbances such as equipment failure, early termination of operations, natural disasters and deliberate attacks. It can be seen that it is necessary to further improve the scientific design of ground bus lines and enhance the resilience of commuter corridors while continuously enhancing the carrying capacity of rail transit hardware. Through the analysis of existing studies, it can be found that, on the one hand, there are few studies considering the resilience of the interaction between ground bus lines and subway lines. On the other hand, the performance of commuter corridors is also closely related to travel behavior factors. However, in the existing research on traffic resilience, the study on behavioral factors is rare.
    Therefore, the research work of this paper is divided into three parts. Firstly, considering the dynamics of commuter corridor's service efficiency, variables such as travel time are introduced as the main factors to define commuter corridor's resilience, and the resilience evaluation model of the commuter corridor is established. Furthermore, the behavioral factors based on the travel activity utility are introduced into the resilience model to make it more consistent with the traffic characteristics of the commuter corridor. Finally, a feasible resilience recovery strategy will be formed through multi-objective optimization of mobile bus lines when metro stations fail.
    Firstly, in the existing research, the average daily traffic flow of the bus line is often used as an important indicator to measure the resilience of the public transit network system. However, in reality, the decline in traffic flow may also be caused by a reduction in travel demand over a period of time. Therefore, considering the dynamics of commuter corridor's service efficiency, the travel time is introduced as the main factor to define the resilience of the transit commuter corridor, and the resilience evaluation model of the commuter corridor is established with reference to the definition of resilience in existing research. Secondly, based on the travel activity utility, the behavioral factors are introduced into the resilience assessment model to depict the travel behavior of ground bus and subway respectively. Moreover, the net utility of ground bus and subway is calculated respectively, which makes the travelers' perception of utility more consistent with the flow characteristics of commuter corridors. Thirdly, commuter corridor's resilience is improved by optimizing the stop plan and departure frequency of mobile bus. A multi-objective optimization model is established, in which the stop plan and departure frequency of mobile bus lines are set as variables, and the objective function is to maximize the resilience of the commuter corridor and minimize the resilience recovery cost. In the model, the travel activity utility is organically combined with the OD matrix equilibrium algorithm to depict the resilience recovery process of the commuter corridor. Moreover, the multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm based on quantum behavior is introduced to solve the Pareto optimal strategy of resilience recovery. Finally, the model and algorithm in this paper are applied to the commuter corridor composed of Beijing metro line 1 and the ground buses along the subway line, and the mobile bus lines in this commuter corridor are optimized based on the real traffic flow data.
    The study finds the following main results. (1)When the marginal utility of travel activity is taken into consideration, the optimization model can produce the optimal solution with lower cost and better resilience improvement. (2)When the metro stations are out of service, compared with only adding the same number of inherent bus lines, the optimized bus stop plan can significantly improve the resilience of the commuter corridor. (3)Only increasing the bus departure frequency without optimizing the stop plan will not necessarily restore the resilience. In reality, the methodology proposed in this paper can provide operational decision support for traffic management departments to effectively deal with emergencies and ensure the safe and orderly operation of the commuter corridor.
    Signal Game Model of Controlling Street Violence under the Government Information Superiority
    LIU Dehai, JIN Yu, LU Caiyun, LIU Qichen
    2024, 33(9):  36-41.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0282
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    In dealing with street violence, the government holds an information advantage. This paper studies how the government can utilize this advantage to signal public security budgets to induce rioters to surrender, and achieving the goal of stopping violence and restoring order. Street violence incidents are characterized by information asymmetry, antagonistic contradictions, phased developments, and zero-sum games between parties. It is crucial for governments to mobilize resources effectively under full intelligence information to curb violence and restore order. This paper constructs a two-stage signaling game model to analyze the government's optimal strike strategies under different budget scenarios. The model assumes that the government has complete information while rioters have incomplete information, and considers that the government's public security budget is finite. The study shows that when the rioters' expected cost of surrender is less than the loss from government strikes, their optimal strategy is to surrender in the first stage; when the expected losses are low, they tend to resist until the end. If the government has a sufficient budget, it needs to send a signal in the first stage by investing resources greater than the cost of surrender, forcing rioters to surrender in the first stage; otherwise, the government with a smaller budget needs to invest all its resources in the first stage to combat rioters.
    This paper uses the 2019 Hong Kong “anti-extradition bill” incident as a case study to validate the model's effectiveness. In the Hong Kong “anti-extradition bill” incident, the rioters updated their beliefs about the government's initial and remaining resources after observing the government's first-stage resource investment, and decided whether to surrender. The results show that when rioters expect the government budget to be sufficient, they will choose to surrender in the first stage; when the expected government budget is insufficient, they will choose to continue resisting. Through the case analysis, the study finds that the government can effectively force rioters to surrender by sending a signal in the first stage with resources greater than the cost of surrender, achieving the goal of stopping violence and restoring order.
    The findings of this study provide important insights for governments in handling street violence incidents and managing prolonged conflicts. The paper assumes that the remaining resources will not change in the second stage, i.e., the total resources invested in by the government remain unchanged. In future research, changes in the second stage government resources can be considered for a more in-depth analysis. This paper focuses on the game between the government and rioters under the information advantage, not considering other actors such as social groups, NGOs, and the public, who may potentially become rioters under certain conditions. Future research could incorporate these potential rioters into the model analysis. Additionally, combining smart city big data for precise situational awareness with numerical analysis could lead to more targeted conclusions.
    Overall, this paper systematically analyzes how the government can effectively handle street violence incidents by signaling public security budgets under an information advantage, providing theoretical and practical guidance for governments worldwide.
    Research on Cost Sharing Mechanism and Government Subsidy Mechanism of Supply Chain Product Innovation Based on Dynamic Differential Game
    XU Hao, CHEN Liuxin, YANG Jianchao, MA Lijun
    2024, 33(9):  42-48.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0283
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    With the increasingly fierce market competition and changing consumer demands, product innovation has become one of the key factors for enterprises to maintain their competitive advantage. By continuously launching new products or improving existing ones, enterprises can attract more customers, increase market share and sales revenue. Product innovation can also increase brand value, and enhance a company's image and position in the minds of consumers, thereby strengthening consumer loyalty and laying the foundation for the long-term development of the enterprise.
    By conducting in-depth research on product innovation, we can reveal the important influencing factors of product innovation on the long-term development of enterprises, explore innovation management models and methods, and provide theoretical guidance for enterprise innovation management. Systematic research on product innovation can help enterprises better understand market demand and consumer preferences, guide them in formulating innovation strategies and product development strategies, and improve their innovation capabilities and competitiveness. Product innovation research can also provide policy recommendations for government departments, and promote the development of an innovative economy, industrial upgrading and economic transformation.
    This article is based on a supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer is responsible for researching and developing products to improve their innovation level, while the retailer is responsible for marketing innovative products to increase their visibility. We use dynamic differential game theory to conduct research. Firstly, the product innovation of the manufacturer and the product marketing strategies of the retailer in the supply chain are studied in the absence of cost sharing and government subsidy. Then, two incentive measures, cost sharing and government subsidy, are introduced into product innovation and product marketing in the supply chain. The impact of cost sharing and government subsidy on manufacturer product innovation and retailer product marketing is explored, and the conditions for the existence of cost sharing and government subsidy are further analyzed. Finally, the best product innovation and product marketing scenarios through comparative analysis are explored.
    The research results indicate that cost sharing can improve the product marketing efforts of the retailer, but it does not change the manufacturer's innovation efforts. Government subsidy can increase the manufacturer's product innovation efforts but cannot change the retailer's product marketing efforts. Both the cost sharing and the government subsidy can increase product market demand and consumer utility, thereby improving the profits of various entities in the supply chain. Cost sharing mainly increases the profits of the retailer, while the government subsidy increases the profits of the manufacturer. Through comparison with the research results under four different scenarios, it can be found that in the absence of the cost sharing and the government subsidy, the innovation and marketing efforts of products are low, which leads to lower market demand and consumer utility, ultimately resulting in lower profits for supply chain members. When there is the cost sharing or the government subsidy, it will improve product innovation or marketing efforts, which will lead to an improvement in market demand and consumer utility, ultimately resulting in an improvement in the profits of supply chain members. However, we cannot determine which scenario is more beneficial for product innovation and marketing. When the cost sharing and government subsidy coexist, both the manufacturer's product innovation efforts and the retailer's product marketing efforts reach their maximum, which maximizes the market demand and consumer utility of the product, ultimately maximizing the total profits of supply chain members.
    Through this study, we have some suggestions. Firstly, in the process of product innovation, supply chain members should cooperate with each other and actively promote the formation of cost sharing models to promote product innovation and marketing. Secondly, government management departments should actively subsidize enterprises engaged in product innovation, stimulate their enthusiasm for innovative research and development, and promote technological progress and economic development.
    Dynamic Development and Coordination Mechanism of Cultural Tourism IP Product Supply Chain
    HE Yong, GUO Jian
    2024, 33(9):  49-55.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0284
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    With the development of the cultural and tourism industry and the increasingly strong demand for emotional and personalized consumption among tourists in the era of mass tourism, the contradiction between the supply and demand of cultural and tourism products is gradually becoming prominent. In order to break the bottleneck of product homogenization and strengthen brand effect, cultural and tourism enterprises will have the motivation to cooperate with IP design service providers to create cultural and tourism IP products, in order to enhance the emotional added value of the products. Considering the particularity of cultural and tourism IP products and the dynamic nature of collaborative development, it is currently an urgent challenge for enterprises involved to choose appropriate cooperation models to create and promote cultural and tourism IP products. In this context, by analyzing the IP attributes of cultural and tourism IP products, this paper characterizes the heat state equation and dynamic demand function of cultural and tourism IP products over a continuous period of time. Based on this, a supply chain for cultural and tourism IP products is constructed, and a differential game theory is used to study the dynamic development and operation strategies of cultural and tourism IP products from the perspective of internal enterprise cooperation.
    This article considers the continuity of collaborative development of cultural and tourism IP products and the natural decay of product popularity. By introducing the time factor, the differential game method is dynamically applied to the decision-making of secondary supply chain cooperation in creating cultural and tourism IP products. A secondary cultural and tourism IP product supply chain composed of a single cultural and tourism enterprise and a single IP design service provider is constructed, and the optimal development decisions of both parties, the optimal trajectory of cultural and tourism IP product popularity, supply chain members, and overall optimal profits are compared and studied under two scenarios: decentralized development mode and centralized development mode. At the same time, this article proposes a “two-way cost sharing incentive mechanism” to achieve supply chain coordination and optimize the profits of supply chain members. The analysis results of this article indicate that: the optimal trajectory of the popularity of cultural and tourism IP products has monotonicity. When the popularity of ordinary products is relatively low, the popularity trajectory of cultural and tourism IP products increases monotonically over time. Otherwise, it monotonically decreases over time. In the decentralized development model, cultural and tourism enterprises will only have the incentive to share part of the development costs of IP design service providers when their profit sharing ratio is below a certain threshold. Moreover, if the profit sharing ratio of IP design service providers is too high, it will weaken the investment enthusiasm of both parties and be detrimental to an increase in product popularity. The “two-way cost sharing incentive mechanism” can establish two-way supervision between cultural and tourism enterprises and IP design service providers, incentivizing both parties to make decisions with the goal of maximizing the overall profit of the supply chain, and the proportion of two-way cost sharing is only related to the profit sharing ratio among members.
    This paper only considers the cooperative development of a single cultural travel enterprise and a single IP design service provider. In real life, the development of cultural and tourism IP products may involve multiple entities, and the cooperative development of cultural and tourism IP products in complex supply chain systems needs further research. In addition, in the future, the government will be included as a game party, and the dual economic and social benefits of cultural and tourism IP products will also be considered as the next research direction.
    Cooperative Distribution Method of Freight Trains between Technical Stations Based on Multi-commodity Network Flow
    XUE Feng, WANG Jin, CHEN Chongshuang
    2024, 33(9):  56-62.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0285
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    The demand for freight transportation has gradually shifted from “quantity” to “quality” with the development of economy and society. As the adaptation site of a large number of transit car flows within the railway transportation network, the technical station is an important network node to reorganize the freight trains and car flows. The operation optimization of technical stations has been mostly studied with unidirectional technical station as the object for a long time. Nevertheless, the technical stations are related to each other actually on the railway network. The operation organization within the technical station affects not only its own work efficiency and benefits, but also other technical stations. If the two adjacent technical stations are regarded as a whole, and the car flow allocation is cooperatively optimized from the perspective of the regional railway network, greater transport benefits to obtain are expected. Under the background of railway freight logistics, studying the coordinated distribution method of freight trains between technical stations based on multi-commodity network flow has both theoretical and practical significance for making full use of transportation capacity and improving freight service quality.
    Compared with unidirectional marshalling stations, although the carrying capacity and resorting capacity of bidirectional marshalling stations have been greatly improved, it is inevitable that angular car flows will be generated, resulting in repeated disintegration. The generation of angular car flow is not only related to the station type, car flow structure and operation characteristics of bidirectional marshalling station itself, but also affected by the freight train formation plan of other technical stations on the railway network. Taking the starting and ending points of the station technical operations including train arrival, hump disintegration, car accumulation, freight train formation and train departure as the nodes and the edges between the nodes representing the corresponding technical working process, the marshalling station is abstracted as a network graph. The flow in the network diagram represents the car flow, the capacity on the edge represents the number of cars in a train, and the cost represents the operation time. Based on the analysis of the allocation process of freight trains, this paper proposes a coordinated allocation method of freight trains between technical stations based on multi-commodity network flow. Considering the exchange of car flow at the bidirectional marshalling station in front of train operation, the car flow group numbers of the up-direction and down-direction systems are accumulated separately. This paper establishes a coordinated distribution model of freight trains between technical stations, which is to maximize the flow of trains departing from the station, the total stay time of cars at the two adjacent technical stations, and the number of angular car flows. However, the decision variables and constraints of the model will increase rapidly with the expansion of the number of arrival and departure trains. Consequently, this paper constructs the effective edge set of the car flow to reduce model size. According to the resource allocation characteristics of the transportation problem, an effective coding and fitness function is designed, and the heuristic genetic algorithm is used to optimize the freight trains to obtain the disassembly sequence and allocation plan of freight trains. This model can be solved and verified by Gurobi solver.
    The experimental analysis show that the total stay time of cars in the two adjacent technical stations has been saved by 122.5 hours, and the angular car flow of the bidirectional marshalling station has been reduced by 23 cars. The improvement effect is obvious. The coordinated distribution operation between stations is beneficial to improve the overall efficiency and overall efficiency of the global transportation organization benefit.
    The conditions for establishing the model in this paper are relatively ideal. Factors such as local car, the arrival and departure tracks and shunting locomotives at the technical station can be considered to find a high-quality feasible solution that is more in line with the actual situation in the future. The method and model in this paper have important guiding significance for realizing the coordinated distribution between railway technical stations, providing decision support for decision makers, and improving railway transport capacity.
    Research on Green Marketing Decision-making Considering Capital Constraints and Retailer's Fairness Concern
    LIN Zhibing, XU Haonan
    2024, 33(9):  63-70.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0286
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    With the rapid development of the economy, environmental pollution has increasingly become a critical issue, prompting the business community to recognize the importance of environmental protection. In response, many enterprises have adopted green marketing strategies to support sustainable development and enhance their public image. For instance, Yili has launched marketing initiatives such as “Discovering the Green of Expo” to highlight its commitment to environmental stewardship. However, green marketing often involves substantial costs and limited scale effects, which can impose considerable financial pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), frequently resulting in funding shortages. To address these financial challenges, trade credit strategy presents a new financing model for these enterprises. Additionally, the substantial investments and low returns associated with green marketing, combined with the potential for manufacturers to free-ride, make retailers concerned about profit distribution fairness, so as to influence their decision-making.
    In view of this, this paper integrates fairness concern into the green supply chain system, considering scenarios where the retailer faces financial constraints. Using Stackelberg game theory, we develop a green marketing model that accounts for the retailer's fairness concern, examining optimal decisions for channel members. We explore the conditions under which the retailer implements green marketing, and the impact of his fairness concern on decisions. Furthermore, we analyze the manufacturer's strategy of not offering trade credit (bank financing), comparing it with the trade credit strategy, and investigate the interaction between the retailer's green marketing strategy and the manufacturer's trade credit strategy.
    The research is organized as follows: First, we construct four models based on whether the retailer has capital constraints and whether green marketing is implemented. Second, we extend the research to scenarios where the manufacturer does not provide trade credit, discussing the interaction between the retailer's green marketing strategy and the manufacturer's trade credit strategy. Finally, we numerically explore the influence of interest rate on the optimal solution.
    The research findings are as follows: (1)When the manufacturer offers trade credit, the retailer's fairness concern will reduce the level of green marketing and the manufacturer's profit, but the change in the retailer's profit is related to the impact of retail price on demand. (2)When the retailer's fairness concern is weak, it will be preferable for the manufacturer to provide trade credit. (3)There will be a reasonable range of green marketing fixed cost that allows channel members to achieve Pareto improvement when the retailer engages in green marketing. Compared with the situation without capital constraints, the retailer can only afford lower fixed cost for green marketing under capital constraints, and the retailer is less willing to carry out green marketing. More importantly, when the fixed cost of green marketing is relatively high, the manufacturer can incentivize the retailer to carry out green marketing strategy through trade credit strategy. (4)To encourage the retailer to improve the level of green marketing, both banks and manufacturers should reduce the interest rate as much as possible, for the low interest rate is conducive to the improvement of the manufacturer's profit.
    In conclusion, this paper systematically examines the strategic choices of channel members considering the retailer's fairness concern. Future research could expand on this by exploring several key areas: (1)This paper assumes that the interest-free period and interest rate are exogenous variables. Future studies could investigate the interest-free period and trade credit interest rate as endogenous variables. (2)Channel members have different attitudes towards risk. It would be beneficial to study green marketing strategies in this context. (3)The issue of green marketing strategy selection in the context of demand information misrepresentation by retailers also deserves further research.
    Supply Chain Coordination of Fresh Products with Government Subsidy in the Live-streaming E-commerce
    SU Baiwei, ZHENG Qi
    2024, 33(9):  71-77.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0287
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    With the development of economy and change in consumers' shopping mode, live broadcast with goods, as a new sales mode, can expand the sales channels of fresh agricultural products and improve the circulation speed of fresh agricultural products. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the live broadcasting and cargo carrying industry of agricultural products, and has issued a series of policies to promote the development of live broadcasting and cargo carrying industry of agricultural products in recent years. However, due to the freshness of fresh products and the flow of live fans, the efforts of product preservation and the live broadcast efforts of the host are important factors affecting the supply chain of fresh agricultural products under the live broadcast e-commerce, which greatly affects the circulation efficiency of fresh agricultural products under the live broadcast mode. Under the live broadcast e-commerce mode, there are still some problems, such as uneven income distribution among supply chain members and insufficient effectiveness of government subsidies. Therefore, how the government should implement the subsidy strategy to improve the level of consumer surplus and social welfare, and how the optimal decision-making of fresh agricultural products supply chain members will change when the government subsidies are adopted are practical problems that need to be studied and solved urgently.
    In this paper, a Stackelberg game model is established for a supply chain composed of a fresh agricultural product supplier and an anchor, considering the freshness of fresh agricultural products, the price elasticity of product demand, and the efforts of the anchor of live broadcast e-commerce. Aiming at maximizing the profits and social welfare of the fresh agricultural product supply chain, the impact of government subsidies on the members of the supply chain will be analyzed when the price elasticity of fresh agricultural products is different. A “revenue sharing cost sharing” contract is designed to improve the profits of each member and the surplus of consumers, so as to achieve a win-win situation for all parties in the fresh agricultural product supply chain. Finally, supply chain coordination is achieved by using the supply chain contract theory, and the impact of government subsidies on consumer surplus and social welfare is further studied. The decision-making of government subsidies for anchors under the live broadcast mode is discussed, and the forms of subsidies for fresh agricultural products with different price elasticity of demand are analyzed. This provides a theoretical basis for the choice of government subsidy strategy.
    Our results show that: (1)Under the government subsidy mode, anchors will improve their efforts to obtain subsidies, and the number of anchor fans will increase synchronously. Although suppliers do not receive subsidies directly, their income will also increase with an increase in government subsidy coefficient. At the same time, suppliers will also improve the fresh-keeping efforts of fresh agricultural products. (2)Compared with the model without government subsidies, government subsidies under decentralized decision-making do not necessarily improve the income of supply chain members, the level of consumer surplus and social welfare. In addition, when the government subsidizes fresh agricultural products with greater price elasticity, this can improve the profits of supply chain members and consumer surplus, but will reduce the overall social welfare. (3)The “revenue sharing cost sharing” contract can effectively coordinate the fresh e-commerce supply chain, and improve the consumer surplus and the profits of supply chain members. (4)Government subsidies for fresh agricultural products with large price elasticity can increase consumer surplus. Government subsidies for freshagricultural products with small price elasticity of demand can improve the overall welfare of society. Therefore, when the government subsidizes fresh agricultural products, it should consider the impact of price demand elasticity of agricultural products on the subsidy effect.
    Financing Mode Selection Strategies of Closed-loop Supply Chain Considering Third-party Recycling and Retailer Capital Constraint
    LIU Chunyi, YOU Tianhui, CAO Bingbing
    2024, 33(9):  78-84.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0288
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    Governments and businesses have started to place more emphasis on recycling and remanufacturing due to the growing severity of resource scarcity and environmental pollution issues. Some manufacturing enterprises, such as Samsung, Huawei, and Hewlett-Packard, collect used products through professional third-party recyclers, process them into remanufactured products, and put them on the market for secondary sales. This helps to reduce environmental pollution and alleviate the problem with resource shortage. For the complex closed-loop supply chain consisting of the manufacturer, the third-party recycler, and the retailer, in the event of a shortage of capital for the retailer, the decision-making of each member will be affected by the extent of the retailer's shortage of funds and financing modes. The retailer with limited capital can finance itself to address the issue of capital shortage by applying for a bank loan or asking supply chain participants for financial support through paid deferred payment. Therefore, in a closed-loop supply chain with a capital-constrained retailer, a thorough investigation into the financing mechanisms that are more advantageous to them and other supply chain participants is required.
    For a closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer, a capital-constrained retailer, and a third-party recycler, considering that the capital-constrained retailer can choose to finance from the manufacturer (internal finance) or the bank (external finance), this paper studies the financing modes for the closed-loop supply chain. First, the revenue functions of the retailer, the third-party recycler, the manufacturer, and the closed-loop supply chain under the two financing modes are constructed. Then the optimal solutions under different financing modes are solved based on the idea of the Stackelberg game. Finally, the optimal financing mode from different perspectives is given by comparing the optimal decision on prices and return rates, as well as supply chain members' revenues under different financing modes.
    It is found that the transfer price and lending rate affect the optimal decisions on pricing and optimal return rate of the closed-loop supply chain to a certain extent. The optimal pricing and return rate of the closed-loop supply chain is independent of the amount of initial capital of the retailer when the loan interest rate is exogenously given. The results also show that the recycling difficulty of used products and the lending rate affect the financing mode choice strategy heavily: when the lending rates of the two financing modes are equal, then the internal financing will be more favorable to the manufacturer, retailer, and third-party recycler if the difficulty of recycling used goods is high, whereas the external financing will be more favorable to the retailer and the third-party recycler if the difficulty of recycling used goods is low.
    By studying the closed-loop supply chain financing model selection strategy considering third-party recycling and retailer capital constraint this paper not only provides modeling and methodological support for solving the optimal operation decision problem and the financing strategy selection problem of the closed-loop supply chain under different financing modes, but also enriches the existing research results. In this paper, to focus on the closed-loop supply chain financing mode selection strategy, the closed-loop supply chain pricing and recovery rate decision-making models constructed under different financing modes are based on non-random demand. However, in reality, market demand is usually stochastic, and faced with demand uncertainty, so decision makers will show various levels of risk preference. Therefore, future research could investigate the choice of the financing model for retailers' capital-constrained closed-loop supply chains in a stochastic demand environment. It also could be interesting to study the impact of chain members' risk attitudes on the recycling and remanufacturing strategies, and financing strategies of the closed-loop supply chain.
    Positional-dependent Weight Due Window Assignment Scheduling with Deterioration Effects and Resource Allocations
    ZHAO Shuang
    2024, 33(9):  85-91.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0289
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    In the real medical processes, logistics management and industry production processes, scheduling problems and models with deterioration effects and resource allocations are all very important. In addition, under the just-in-time (JIT) principle, scheduling problems for meeting the due window assignment are also very important. The due window, i.e., the time interval of delivery time, and the earliness-tardiness penalties will be negotiated in advance when customers purchase products.
    In this paper, we investigate the single processor (machine) due window assignment scheduling problems with deterioration effects and resource allocations simultaneously. The due window assignment includes the common due window (CONW) assignment and slack due window (SLKW) assignment. There are n independent and non-preemptive jobs to be processed on a single processor, where the processor and all jobs are available at time zero and the processor can only process one job at a time. The actual processing time of a job depends on its start processing time, i.e., a non-decreasing function of its start processing time-deterioration effects, and its allocation of non-renewable resources, i.e., a non-increasing function of resource allocated to this job. For the due window assignment, jobs completed within the due window incur no penalties or costs, but other jobs incur earliness or tardiness penalties. For the CONW assignment, the starting time and finishing time of the common due window are decision variables. For the SLKW assignment, each job is assigned a different due-window based on two common flow allowances, where these two common flow allowances are decision variables.
    In linear and convex resource allocation models, our goal is to determine the optimal schedule, resource allocation of jobs, the starting and finishing times of due window assignment, so as to minimize the sum of scheduling cost and resource consumption cost. The scheduling cost includes the linear weighted sum of earliness cost, tardiness cost and due-window assignment cost, and the weights are position-dependent weights, i.e., the weigh only depends on its position in a schedule, but does not correspond to some job. For the CONW assignment, some optimal properties of these problems are presented, i.e., the starting time and finishing time of the common due window are equal to some job completion times; for a given schedule, the optimal resource allocation can be obtained by the properties of linear and convex resource allocation functions. For the SLKW assignment, optimal properties of these problems are also presented, i.e., the common flow allowances are equal to some job completion times; for a given schedule, the optimal resource allocation can be obtained.
    In the linear resource allocation model, i.e., the resource consumption function is a bounded linear non-increasing function of non-renewable resource, it is proved that the optimal schedule of these both problems, i.e., the common and slack due window assignments, can be translated into the assignment problem, and the optimal solution algorithm is proposed to solve both problems. The algorithm is analyzed, it is showed that these problems are polynomially solvable, and the time complexity is O(n3), where n is the total number of jobs. In the convex resource allocation model, i.e., the resource consumption function is a convex non-increasing function of non-renewable resource, we show that both problems, i.e., the common and slack due window assignments, can be translated into the two vector matching problem by the optimal properties of convex function, and the optimal solution algorithm is presented to solve both problems. The algorithm is analyzed. It is demonstrated that these both problems can be solved in polynomial time, and the time complexity is O(n log n).
    For future research, it is worth investigating the due window assignment problems under flow shop or parallel machine setting, examining the due window assignment problems with job dependent weights, i.e., the weight only depends on the job, but does not correspond to the position in a schedule, or extending the models to general linear and non-linear deterioration functions.
    Research on the Selection of Manufacturer's Sales Channel Strategy Considering “Live Streaming with Goods”
    ZHANG Wenqiu, JING Yi, LIU Qinqin
    2024, 33(9):  92-98.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0290
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    With the rapid development of Internet technology and e-commerce, the live webcasting business has gradually emerged, and “live streaming with goods”, as an important part of it, has attracted widespread attention. According to the 49th Statistical Report on the Development Status of China's Internet, as of December 2021, China's live webcast users reached 703 million, including 464 million live e-commerce users. The huge scale of live broadcast users has prompted more companies to start product promotion and marketing through the “live streaming with goods” approaches, of which inviting netizen anchors to cooperate is the most common. In the process of “live streaming with goods”, the web-celebrity anchor actively carries out two-way interaction with fans, vividly and three-dimensionally displaying product information, letting fans subconsciously “plant” the product, thus improving product awareness and market sales. At present, “live streaming with goods” has become a new channel for manufacturers to sell goods, which plays an important role in activating the market and driving demand upgrading. In addition, traditional retail is still an important channel for product sales, and in actual business operations, companies such as Haier and Gree, have opened both online “live streaming with goods” and offline retail channels, so such a dual-channel sales strategy is increasingly favored by manufacturers. Against the above background, we have combed through the literature on related topics, and found that the current research on webcasting mostly adopts an empirical approach, while research from the perspective of the game theory is relatively rare. At the same time, scholars have not considered the dual-channel structure of “live streaming with goods” and traditional retailing, or further considered the impact of the live-streaming spillover effect, so as to fail to study the sales channel strategy selection of the manufacturer.
    In light of this, we first assume that there are three sales strategies for the manufacturer in the market: the single traditional retail channel, the single “live streaming with goods” channel, and the hybrid dual-channel. Also, we have considered that “live streaming with goods” will produce a live-streaming spillover effect, which in turn will affect the traditional retail channel. Then, we determine the market demand under each strategy based on the consumer utility theory and use the relevant game theory to construct the mathematical model of each strategy. Next, we solve the manufacturer's optimal decision in various models and focus on three questions through comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis: How does a hybrid dual-channel strategy impact the manufacturer's market sale and economic return? How should the manufacturer select the optimal sales channel strategy? How should the manufacturer choose the appropriate anchor partnership under the hybrid dual-channel strategy and further enhance the economic return?
    The study shows that: the manufacturer's market sale with the hybrid dual-channel strategy is consistently higher than that with the single traditional retail channel strategy, but not necessarily higher than that with the single “live streaming with goods” channel strategy; the manufacturer's economic return with the hybrid dual-channel strategy is consistently higher than that with the single “live streaming with goods” channel strategy, but not necessarily higher than that with the single traditional retail channel strategy; only when the average level factor of anchor pit fees within the industry is small, or the level factor of fees is large and the consumer hassle cost is small, the manufacturer should adopt the hybrid dual-channel strategy, but when the level factor of fees and the hassle cost are large, the single traditional retail channel strategy should be adopted; in addition, if the manufacturer adopts the hybrid dual-channel strategy, it will be appropriate for the manufacturer to cooperate with head anchors when the average level of anchor pit fees within the industry is below a certain threshold, and conversely, once above that threshold, cooperation with waist anchors is more conducive to enhancing the economic return. Based on the above research results, we finally propose the following management insights: under the premise of maximizing the economic return, the hybrid dual-channel strategy is not necessarily the optimal strategy for the manufacturer, so the manufacturer needs to consider the law of the impact of live streaming on the traditional retail market and consumers' willingness to purchase, reasonably evaluate the cost of the “live streaming with goods” channel, and carefully select and optimize the sales channel strategy to obtain the maximum return. In addition, if the hybrid dual-channel strategy is adopted, the manufacturer needs to focus on the average level of anchor pit fees within the industry, and meanwhile choose anchors with suitable fan influence to cooperate with, and strengthen the overall publicity and promotion of the brand by signing agreements with the anchors to enhance the economic return further.
    Joint Economic-statistical Design of VSSI EWMA Chart and Planned Maintenance Based on APL
    WANG Haiyu, WEI Hehe
    2024, 33(9):  99-105.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0291
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    With the rapid development of science and technology, the competition between enterprises is becoming fiercer. To gain competitive advantage, enterprises must produce high-quality products to meet the needs of customers. The control chart and maintenance management are two kinds of quality management tools commonly used in modern production and manufacturing process. The control chart mainly monitors the production process through the statistical principle to obtain the potential fault information in the production process, so as to guide the corresponding maintenance strategy. Meanwhile, preventive maintenance can prevent the further deterioration of the production system. The influence of the two on product quality and production cost is closely related. In view of the fact that the dynamic exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart can quickly monitor the small and medium deviations occurring in the production system, in this context, the variable sampling size and sampling interval exponential weighted moving average (VSSI EWMA ) control chart is used to monitor the mean deviations occurring in the product quality characteristics of the production system, and the corresponding maintenance strategies are formulated according to the monitoring results of the control chart. The joint optimization design model of VSSI EWMA mean control chart and preventive maintenance is established from two aspects of economic performance and statistical performance, so as to effectively reduce the production cost and improve the product quality of enterprises.
    In order to monitor the mean deviation of the quality characteristics of the product due to equipment abnormality in the production system, a joint optimization design of VSSI EWMA control chart and preventive maintenance is proposed. As an accurate assessment of monitoring efficiency, average product length (APL) is calculated by using the Markov chain method as the monitoring efficiency evaluation index of the statistical performance of the control chart. On the basis of analyzing three renewed scenarios determined by the joint design of preventive maintenance and control chart, average quality cost per product is calculated as a more precise indicator for economic evaluation. Taking average product length and average quality cost per product as objective functions simultaneously, a joint economic-statistical multi-objective optimization design model of VSSI EWMA control chart and preventive maintenance is constructed. Using non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-III(NSGA-III), the calculation steps of the optimization design model are illustrated by a specific example, and the sensitivity of the main parameters of the model is analyzed. Finally, the model is compared with several existing joint design of EWMA control chart and planned maintenance. The results show that the optimization design method proposed in this paper has good performance in both statistical monitoring efficiency and economic quality cost.
    The control chart used in this paper is a unitary control chart for monitoring individual quality characteristics of products. With the diversified trend of customer demand, enterprises need to produce products with multiple quality characteristics. Therefore, there is still room for further improvement in the monitoring performance of VSSI EWMA control charts. Subsequent studies will consider the use of multiple dynamic control charts to monitor the production process to achieve more comprehensive dynamic monitoring.
    Interval Job Oriented Multi-types of Resources Allocation Problems in Cyber-Physical Systems
    ZHOU Haohao, MA Wubin, WU Yahui, DENG Su
    2024, 33(9):  106-112.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0292
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    With the rapid development of technologies such as digital twins and the Internet of Things (IoT), research on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) has become increasingly important. This paper focuses on the characteristics of job scheduling in CPS, aiming to maximize job value. Based on multiple types of resources, we explore resource allocation methods for interval jobs in CPS. As a new type of resource allocation problem, it is more complex than previous problems. In this paper, two subclasses of problems, VCC (Value-Cost Correlated) and VCN (Value-Cost Non-correlated) are distinguished based on the relationship between gains and costs, and integer programming models are constructed. To address the nonlinear constraints within these models, a preprocessing algorithm is used to transform the relevant nonlinear constraints. On this basis, greedy algorithms, branch-and-bound algorithms, and genetic algorithms are applied to solve the VCC and VCN problems. The experiments with a large number of test cases validate the effectiveness of the three algorithms and with the experiments we analyze the impact of parameters such as job arrival rates and job sizes on the algorithms, providing theoretical and methodological references for research on interval scheduling problems.
    As digital twin and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies advance, the boundaries between the information domain and the physical domain are becoming increasingly blurred, making the role of CPS even more critical. In CPS, the number of resources is typically limited, and when the volume of jobs exceeds the system's capacity, it will become necessary to select from the set of jobs. Each job has a certain value, which in commercial applications often translates into economic value, i.e., the price of the job. Additionally, considering cost-effectiveness, the economic benefits generated by allocating the same resources to different jobs can vary. Interval jobs are modeled in set form under both two situations, which is non-linear when processing. We design a feasible set judgment algorithm to transform the non-linear form to be linear. As a NP-hard problem, its search space increases exponentially with the growth of the problem size. For example, when the total number of resources is m, and the total number of tasks is n, the potential resource allocation strategies can be as many as 2mn, which results in a dimensional disaster.
    Based on the integer programming model, we have proposed several algorithms to solve the problem, including the greedy algorithm, the branch-and-bound algorithm, and the genetic algorithm. The greedy algorithm selects the best scheme at each stage according to the greedy strategy to optimize the current objective function value. The genetic algorithm is a heuristic algorithm for searching the solution space. When the problem scale is large, although it cannot guarantee the optimal solution, the genetic algorithm can usually find a good feasible solution within a limited time. Each chromosome's encoding represents a potential subset of jobs, but it may not necessarily be a feasible subset. We use a feasibility set judgment algorithm to evaluate job subsets. The branch-and-bound algorithm continuously adjusts the upper and lower bounds of the objective function value by relaxing different constraints, eventually obtaining the optimal solution. In 0-1 integer programming or mixed integer programming problems, by relaxing the integer variables in the computational integer programming problem to real variables, a linear programming problem is typically obtained as the relaxation of the integer programming problem. By repeatedly constructing a node pruning process, the optimal solution can ultimately be obtained.
    Extensive computational experiments are conducted to assess the performance of the three proposed algorithms. The results indicate that the branch-and-bound algorithm excels in providing superior solutions for problems involving a smaller number of jobs. Conversely, the genetic algorithm demonstrates satisfactory performance as the number of jobs increases. Future research directions could include enhancements to the heuristic algorithm and further exploration of resource allocation models.
    Analysis of University Associations Structure Based on k-clique Percolation Algorithm
    WANG Feng, CHEN Rumeng, HU Feng
    2024, 33(9):  113-119.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0293
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    In most real-world networks, there are no completely independent community structures, and they are usually made up of many intertwined and overlapping communities. An overlapping community structure refers to nodes that can belong to multiple different communities at the same time. For example, in a scientific collaboration network, some scientists may be both biologists and mathematicians. If we classify this network according to different disciplines, the same individual may be assigned to two different communities. In university student associations, some students participate in multiple associations, so as to be categorized into various communities. University student associations have the following characteristics: First, there are many organizations with a wide variety and large number of participants. Second, associations are becoming increasingly diverse. Different students' interests and hobbies are quite different, forming a wide range of university associations. Third, each organization establishes its own rules and regulations, with a more systematic management approach. The overlapping structures within university student associations represent the cross-penetration between communities. Studying the cross-penetration of university organizations from the perspective of the overlapping structure is a worthwhile topic to explore.
    Based on this, this paper collects a total of 6,580 data points on university students' participation in associations through surveys, QR code scanning, and hyperlinks. It removes responses from individuals who do not participate in any associations and those who have no common associations with any classmates, resulting in 5,040 valid data points. Each university student is treated as a node, and since students within the same organization know each other, a fully connected network of nodes belonging to the same organization is formed, creating edges for the network and constructing the university organization network. Using the k-clique percolation algorithm, we perform the overlapping structure detection and community partitioning. Furthermore, based on different values of k, we analyze overlapping relationships within the network by combining certain metrics of complex networks and hypernetworks.
    By comparing the ratio of retained nodes, number of community partition, and modularity Q value across different values of k to the actual partition results from the empirical dataset, the effectiveness of the algorithm is validated, leading to the optimal value of k. This paper helps to analyze the structure and characteristics of university associations, further puts forward guiding suggestions for the construction of associations in three aspects, namely, attaching importance to the guiding role of schools, strengthening the construction of association talents and association culture, and avoiding blind obedience in joining associations, which provide a theoretical basis for the construction and service of university associations and the selection of associations by college students, and also has certain practical significance.
    In future research, we will combine the characteristics of overlapping communities to find a fast and reliable community detection algorithm, and focus on the community detection method for hypergraph to ensure the practicability of the method. In addition, this paper studies the static undirected unweighted network, but due to the network evolution of new nodes and the new relationship, makes the network as a whole in a dynamic change. There are some directional edges in the real network, so there are a lot of weighted and directed networks. How to extend the community detection method to these networks is also the next research direction.
    Application Research
    Digital Transformation, Internationalization Strategy and Enterprise Innovation
    WANG Fusheng, ZHENG Xiyue, ZHANG Dongchao
    2024, 33(9):  120-125.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0294
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    With the rapid development of digital economy, how to adapt to the new era to achieve innovative development and reshape the international competitive advantage has gradually become an important issue for Chinese enterprises. As a new production factor, the wide application of digital technology provides enterprises with the possibility to accelerate innovation. Through digital transformation, enterprises can highly link various traditional innovation nodes, which can help them reduce market transaction costs and improve innovation R&D efficiency to the maximum extent. However, the application of digital technology itself is also very challenging, and the high costs and uncertainty risks associated with digital transformation can consume the innovation benefits brought by digital transformation. As a result, the economic consequences of digital transformation have become an important issue for scholars, given the interplay between the positive and negative effects of digital transformation. Along with the digital transformation, the accessibility and scalability of the world's innovation resources have led to the fact that companies are no longer limited to their internal innovation knowledge and resources, and more and more Chinese companies are choosing to acquire more innovation resources through overseas investments in order to quickly update and iterate themselves. As an important decision-making act, the implementation of internationalization strategy will be influenced by the digital transformation of enterprises. In practice, a large number of multinational enterprises have relied on digital transformation to promote their international expansion and thus achieve global access to innovation resources and innovation resource integration. However, there is still a gap in academic research on the role of internationalization strategy in the relationship between digital transformation and corporate innovation and its mechanism of action, and there is a lack of reasonable theoretical interpretation of the path dependence of corporate digital transformation on corporate innovation. In addition, the relationship between digitalization and innovation in multinational enterprises is not a simple cause-and-effect relationship of “digital transformation-corporate innovation realization”. In the process of using digital transformation to achieve innovation, firms need to cultivate dynamic capabilities to mobilize, utilize, and deploy key resources across organizational boundaries, but existing studies do not reveal in detail whether the innovation effects of digital transformation are affected by firms' dynamic capabilities, and cannot theoretically explain the situational dependence of digital transformation on firm innovation.
    This paper takes 367 high-technology firms listed in Chinese A-shares from 2010 to 2019 as research objects to analyze the impact of digital transformation on corporate innovation, and introduces internationalization strategy as a mediating variable to explain the specific path of digital transformation affecting corporate innovation, and analyzes the moderating role of dynamic capabilities of firms on the relationship between digital transformation and corporate innovation based on dynamic capabilities theory.
    The empirical results show that: digital transformation can significantly promote corporate innovation, and the above findings still hold after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests; digital transformation can both accelerate and regulate the internationalization process; internationalization strategy plays a significant mediating effect between digital transformation and corporate innovation. That is, digital transformation not only promotes innovation by accelerating firms' overseas investment, which helps them gain first-mover advantage, but also promotes innovation by regulating their overseas investment process and achieving a regular investment rhythm. Furthermore, firms' dynamic capabilities have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between digital transformation and innovation, which shows that the stronger the firms' dynamic capabilities are, the greater the impact of digital transformation on firms' innovation.
    An Improved Multivariate Markov Chain Default Prediction Model ——Based on the Judgment of a Group of Experts on Default Correlation among Companies
    YAN Dawen, CHI Guotai, ZHANG Fan
    2024, 33(9):  126-133.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0295
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    An enterprise's default behavior may not only cause its bankruptcy, but also lead to the financial distress of other enterprises, and even induce systemic risks. Due to the complex web of links between financial enterprises, such as an extensive use of mutual credit guarantee, large capital borrowing and complex cross-shareholding relations among themselves, financial stresses to one part of the group can spread to others, leading to a system-wide threat to financial stability. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 was triggered by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, which led to a comprehensive collapse of US financial system. In fact, non-financial enterprises may also withstand a financial default contagion. A specific instance is the knock-on effects of Evergrande Real Estate default behavior in 2021 that caused the deterioration of financial conditions of many real estate companies. The accurate estimation of default correlation between interested companies is quite important for the subsequent default risk measurement. However, it has always been challenging due to two main reasons. Firstly, the joint credit migration is less likely to be directly observed; and thus, the link needs to be inferred to observable correlations, such as equity returns, which may lead to inaccurate assessment of correlation. Secondly, the degree of mutual influence on default behavior from firm A to firm B and from firm B to A is different and lack of covariance-like symmetry, owing to the big difference among companies in terms of industry dominance and competitiveness.
    Under the existing framework of the multivariate Markov chain model, this paper utilizes a group decision-making method to adjust the key coefficients associated with the existing approach, proposing an improved multivariate Markov chain model for default prediction. The primary distinction between this model and existing multivariate Markov chain models lies in the estimation of the credit transition influence coefficients. The current study constructs a linear optimization model with the credit transition influence coefficients as decision variables and an objective function that minimizes the distance between the probability distributions of credit statuses in two consecutive periods, reaching or approaching a stable state. Once these optimal coefficients are determined, the model can predict the default status of different firms in the next period by utilizing the current credit status of the firms and the one-step transition probability matrix. This paper introduces a novel approach within the existing framework for solving credit transition influence coefficients by incorporating experts' opinions to rank the influence of different enterprises on one company's credit change. It employs an improved G1 method to assign weights to the opinions of various experts, forming a set of inequality constraints of credit transition influence coefficients that reflect the authoritative expert wisdom in the process of the coefficients forming. This approach reveals the role of different companies in the joint credit changes, altering the optimal values of key parameters in the existing model.
    The innovations and contributions of this paper are twofold: First, it integrates expert judgments on the default correlations with the determination of key parameters in the multivariate Markov chain model, addressing the issue of correlations, unobservable and difficult to measure, in the credit status changes of multiple firms. Second, by using the credit transition influence coefficients to reflect the impact of different companies on the formation of a firm's credit status in the next period, it addresses the limitations of current research that only considers the mathematical significance of these parameters in terms of normalization and non-negativity. This approach enhances the key parameter's interpretability, thereby improving the model's explanatory power.
    In the empirical analysis, this paper utilizes a dataset of credit state transitions from publicly listed financial companies to construct the existing multivariate Markov chain model and the proposed improved model and compare their default prediction capabilities. The results indicate that the improved model proposed in this paper outperforms the existing model in terms of both predictive accuracy and interpretability. The optimal credit transition influence coefficient matrix derived from the existing approach shows that each row contains only one element of 1, with all other elements being 0, and the element of 1 occurs randomly and follows no discernible pattern. This suggests that a firm's future credit status is only related to the current credit status of other firms, and surprisingly, not to its own historical credit status, which contradicts common understanding. In contrast, the distribution of the optimal influence coefficients in the proposed model reveals two key characteristics: first, the diagonal elements are the largest, and second, there are more instances where non-diagonal elements are non-zero. This indicates that while a company's credit change is related to the credit changes of other companies, it is most influenced by its own credit status in the previous period. All these findings demonstrate again that human expertise and judgment introduced by this paper as a new dimension of information can correct the key parameters of the traditional multivariate Markov chain model and further enhance its predictive performance.
    Research on the Prediction of Regional Carbon Price: A GA-VMD and CNN-BiLSTM-Attention Approach
    WU Lili, TAI Qingrui, BIAN Yang, LI Yanhui
    2024, 33(9):  134-139.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0296
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    Recently, a global consensus has been reached that carbon emissions should be reduced in response to global environmental problems. It is now widely believed that an effective carbon tax policy and the establishment of a carbon emission trading system are the key to the transition to a low-carbon economy. Carbon prices, which directly mirror the supply and demand for carbon emission rights in carbon markets, exert significant influence over both investors and regulatory authorities. Accurate forecasts of carbon prices are essential for informed decision-making. However, carbon prices are affected by internal market mechanisms and external environmental fluctuations, and are therefore non-stationary and non-linear. Therefore, carbon price prediction faces a huge challenge. This paper improves the accuracy of carbon price prediction by complementing current research on the application of decomposition-forecast-ensemble hybrid models.
    Currently, carbon price prediction models are shifting from traditional models to data-driven ones, enabling deep learning algorithms to have more applications in this field. To build an effective hybrid forecasting model and reduce data noise, the paper proposes a new framework that is based on the GA-VMD-CNN-BiLSTM-Attention hybrid model. Here the genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted to search the optimal parameter combination of variational mode decomposition (VMD); convolutional neural networks (CNN) are established to discover the relationship between influencing factors and carbon prices; a bidirectional long and short-term memory network (BiLSTM) is applied to extract time series information; and an attention mechanism is used to strengthen the influence of important information on carbon prices. In addition to deterministic point prediction, this paper uses a non-parametric kernel density estimation with Gaussian kernel function (KDE-Gaussian) for interval forecasting. The interval forecasting can quantify the uncertainty of carbon prices and serve as a more practical reference for decision-makers. In our empirical analysis, this paper uses data from China's Hubei Emission Exchange dating from April 2, 2014, to June 15, 2022, for a total of 1857 trading days, to predict the daily closing price. The four main innovations and contributions of this paper are as follows. First, GA-VMD is applied to obtain multiple intrinsic mode function (IMF) components, so as to input multiple effective and smooth subsequences in the forecasting model. The optimal parameters of VMD are found through continuous iteration of GA, which avoids the uncertainty of artificial selection and effectively eliminates the noise influence in the decomposition process. Second, a hybrid CNN-BiLSTM-Attention prediction model is established. The CNN feature extraction capability is combined with the BiLSTM time series information extraction capability to improve the one-way transmission LSTM into BiLSTM with simultaneous forward and backward transmission, thus enhancing the memory of the neural network. Third, an attention mechanism is introduced into the BiLSTM side. This method trains weights on the hidden states of all BiLSTM time steps. Consequently, it outputs all forecasting information by weighted summation. Therefore, it can improve the forecasting effect by increasing the influence of important information. Fourth, on the basis of deterministic point prediction, non-parametric KDE-Gaussian is applied for interval forecasting. The prediction intervals at different confidence levels can serve as an improved practical reference for decision-makers.
    To verify the superiority of the proposed model, this paper presents a comparative analysis of 12 models divided into 3 groups. The first group includes the models of LSTM, BiLSTM, BiLSTM-Attention, and CNN-BiLSTM-Attention. In the second group, VMD is added to the benchmark models to reflect the effect of noise reduction. Then the genetic algorithm is added to the third group. We then evaluate the forecasting results of different models and compare them using point prediction evaluation metrics. Compared to 11 other models, the GA-VMD-CNN-BiLSTM-Attention model is more accurate and reliable: its goodness-of-fit (R2) reaches 98.91%, while its MAE, RMSE, and MAPE values are as low as 0.1246, 0.7298, and 0.0111, respectively. In addition to deterministic point prediction, the paper performs interval forecasting for 278 data points from the Hubei Emission Exchange in the test set to quantify the uncertainty of carbon prices and provide a more practical reference for decision-makers. The result shows that the KDE (Gaussian) prediction method provides a more reliable interval prediction, with a 15.57% reduction over the KDE (Epanechnikov) method and a 34.92% reduction over normal distribution in coverage width-based criterion (CWC) index at a 95% confidence level.
    By revealing the particularly challenging issue that underlies carbon price forecasting, our analysis sheds light on current low-carbon policies in China. To improve these policies, the paper proposes that China should establish a comprehensive carbon emissions data system, gradually implement paid allocation of allowances, enrich trading products, and promote a jointly developed financial market and the carbon market. This paper has not yet considered how and to what extent other factors such as policy making and changes in domestic andinternational situations affect carbon prices. This is a possible direction for future studies.
    A Novel Approximate Non-homogeneous Direct Discrete Grey Model and its Application
    LI Changchun, CHEN Youjun
    2024, 33(9):  140-146.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0297
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    Over the past 40 years, through the unremitting efforts of several generations, the grey system theory has made vigorous development on the basis of original ideas and theoretical frameworks. The grey prediction model, as one of the core contents of grey system theory, has been widely applied to various fields of life. In order to avoid the jump error caused by the conversion from difference equation to differential equation in the traditional grey prediction model during the modeling process, and to better explore the inherent laws of the development and change of the data sequence, this paper combines the discrete grey modeling method and the direct modeling idea, and at the same time introduces a quadratic time term to construct an approximate non-homogeneous direct discrete grey prediction model with nonlinear time-varying parameters, called NDDGM(1,1,k,k2).
    First, some relevant knowledge and theories required in this article are given, the reasons for the low accuracy of the traditional model are analyzed, and the basic form of the novel model is given. Then, the parameter estimates of the novel model are obtained based on the least squares method, and the predictive expression of the model is derived. Next, the applicable scope of the novel model is discussed, and the applicable scope of the traditional grey prediction model is expanded from approximate homogeneous exponential sequence to approximate non-homogeneous exponential sequence, exponential linear combination sequence, exponential parabolic combination sequence, and cubic curve sequence. In addition, the properties of the novel model are also studied, and it is theoretically proven that the novel model has whitening coincidence for exponential parabolic combination sequence and cubic curve sequence. Finally, through the numerical simulation of approximate non-homogeneous exponential sequence, exponential linear combination sequence, exponential parabolic combination sequence, and cubic curve sequence and prediction analysis of soft soil foundation settlement, the results show that the errors of the novel model are all minimal, thus the effectiveness and practicability of the novel model are verified.
    Natural gas, as a clean energy, plays an important role in China's path to achieving the goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality”, and there is also a lot of research on grey prediction models. To this end, the model in this article is applied to the prediction of total natural gas consumption in China's automobile manufacturing industry, and four representative models are selected for comparative analysis. The results show that the model in this paper minimizes the mean absolute percentage error, the absolute percentage error and the root mean square percentage error, and its simulation and prediction accuracies are significantly higher than those of the traditional model, which further reflects its superiority. It is an effective supplement to the existing grey prediction model and has certain theoretical and application value.
    Research on the Relationship between Regional Logistics and Economy: A Case Study of Sichuan Province
    LUO Yong, QIN Chunrong, PENG Jianwen
    2024, 33(9):  147-152.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0298
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    In the contemporary context where globalization and informatization are continuously deepening, the logistics industry, as a core component of the modern economic system, plays a pivotal role in the development of regional economies. The efficient operation of the logistics system is not only crucial to the efficiency of the circulation of goods and services but also a key factor in enterprises' cost reduction and enhancement of market competitiveness. Therefore, an in-depth study of the interplay between regional logistics and the economy holds profound significance, both on a theoretical and practical level. Theoretically, this research contributes to the enrichment and refinement of the theoretical framework of logistics and regional economic development, offering new explanatory variables and analytical frameworks for regional economic theory. In practical terms, this study holds significant value for guiding regional logistics planning and policy formulation. It can provide a scientific basis for governments and relevant departments, assisting them in making more informed decisions in areas such as logistics infrastructure construction, logistics policy support, and regional economic development strategies.
    In order to delve into this issue, this paper has selected Sichuan Province in China as the subject of study. Through the Sichuan Statistical Yearbook, a systematic collection of 28 indicators related to logistics and the economy has been conducted, spanning a period of 17 years from 2003 to 2019. The logistics indicators encompass five aspects: the scale of logistics demand, the length of transportation routes, the number of vehicles, the number of employees, and asset investment. This comprehensive dataset provides robust support for analyzing the interplay between logistics and the economy and for establishing predictive models.
    During the initial data collection phase, we identify as many as 21 indicators related to logistics and seven related to the economy. Faced with such a multitude of indicators, directly constructing a predictive model would encounter issues such as an excessive number of variables and high model complexity, which would not only increase the computational burden of the model but also affect its practicality and interpretability. To address this issue, this paper employs a correlation coefficient matrix for indicator selection. By calculating the correlation coefficients between various indicators, we identify those that are highly correlated and selected eight indicators closely related to logistics and one closely related to the economy, laying a solid foundation for subsequent model construction.
    After completing the indicator selection, we perform min-max normalization on the selected data to eliminate the impact of different indicators' units of measurement, ensuring the fairness and accuracy of the model. On this basis, we establish two predictive models: a linear regression predictive model and a neural network predictive model. The linear regression model, with its simplicity and ease of interpretation, is widely used in economic data analysis; the neural network model, with its strong nonlinear fitting ability, can capture more complex data relationships.
    To verify the effectiveness of the models, we also construct linear regression predictive models and neural network predictive models without variable selection, as well as mainstream exponential smoothing and grey prediction methods, to forecast the regional gross domestic product. By comparing the mean squared error, mean absolute error, and determination coefficient of these six models, we find that the linear regression predictive model and the neural network predictive model after indicator selection have a clear advantage in prediction accuracy, indicating that our selection method not only reduces the complexity of the model but also effectively improves the model's predictive performance.
    However, we are also aware that with the rapid development of the economy and the continuous changes in the logistics industry, historical data may not fully reflect the current and future actual situations. This means that our predictive models may have certain biases due to the limitations of the data. In addition, logistics and economic activities are complex systems with multiple dimensions and factors, and our research may only touch the tip of the iceberg, with many potential important influencing factors not yet fully explored or considered. Therefore, future research should pay more attention to the integration and analysis of multi-source data, trying to capture the interaction between logistics and the economy from a broader perspective. For example, data from fields such as supply chain management, international trade, and technological innovation can be considered to build more comprehensive and accurate predictive models. At the same time, with the development of big data and artificial intelligence technology, we can also use advanced algorithms such as machine learning and deep learning to improve the predictive ability and adaptability of the model.
    Platform Participants' Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior and Platform Performance: The Moderating Effect of Traffic Distribution
    ZHANG Yamin, JIANG Junfeng, SHANG Yanying, WANG Xiulai
    2024, 33(9):  153-159.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0299
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    In recent years, the nonstandard and immoral behaviors of participants in the development of the platform have become increasingly prominent. To increase exposure, e-commerce participants choose scalping, which can improve the current performance of the platform. But why does Amazon still forbid such a behavior? By referring to employee unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), the e-commerce behavior that positively affects the current performance of the company and the platform (“organization”) but violates social morality and social responsibility is defined as the pro-organizational unethical behavior of platform participants. The theoretical significance of this paper is to expand the relationship of unethical pro-organizational behavior from the relationship between the enterprise and its internal actors at different levels (individuals, teams, departments) to the relationship between the platform and its participants, expand the main body of platform research, reveal the symbiotic relationship between the platform and its participants, and enrich the research level of UPB.
    On the whole, this paper constructs the logic thread of “unethical pro-organizational behavior-platform scale/quality-platform performance”, and reveals the moderating role of traffic distribution in the process of unethical pro-organizational behavior affecting platform long-term and short-term performance. In addition, the sample data collected in this paper mainly adopts the questionnaire survey method. 370 questionnaires are issued and 301 valid questionnaires are recovered, with an effective recovery rate of 81.4%. The sample data is reasonably distributed, with a certain degree of objectivity and representativeness. This paper will also conduct regression analysis through SPSS26 and AMOS24. It is found that the positive impact of UPB on the short-term performance of the platform can be regarded as a spillover effect, while the negative impact of UPB on the long-term performance of the platform is a stigma effect. UPB improves short-term performance by expanding the scale of the platform, and UPB reduces long-term performance by weakening the quality of the platform.The more accurate the traffic distribution of platform, the weaker the negative relationship between UPB and platform quality, which improves the long-term performance of the platform.
    This paper reveals the mechanism of the impact of UPB on the short-term and long-term performance of the platform under its moderation of traffic distribution, and provides suggestions and supports for the platform to improve the accuracy of traffic distribution and curb the negative impact of participant UPB. Future research can focus on the following three aspects: First, on the issue of how platform enterprises govern UPB participants, we can balance long-term and short-term benefits based on the temptation and self-control framework in the future, and explain why different platforms choose different governance mechanisms. It can also further explore how the synergy of technological governance and institutional governance in the digital intelligence era can inhibit participants' UPB. Second, the path of UPB's impact on the platform's long-term performance has been moderated by traffic distribution, but the impact of traffic distribution as a governance means on the platform's performance has not been clarified. In the future, we can further study how to optimize traffic distribution to promote the healthy development of the platform and reveal the mechanism of traffic distribution affecting the platform's performance. Third, the development of platform performance is affected by many factors. This paper includes the contingent factors of participant behavior and platform traffic allocation. In the future, we can study the process of multiple antecedent variables jointly affecting platform performance from the perspective of configuration.
    Innovation in Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Computing Capacity Service Platform: Case Analysis of the Project to Channel Computing Resources from the East to the West
    LI Taixin, LIU Feng, XU Jian
    2024, 33(9):  160-167.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0300
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    To meet the huge demand of information industry for computing capacity, China has initiated a project to channel computing resources from the east to the west, which enables large-scare computing capacity scheduling. The computing capacity service platform is the key part of the project which is responsible for providing computing capacity to support massive concurrent services. It is faced with the challenge of heavy processing burden but limited computing capacity resources for delay-sensitive services. In this paper, we aim to study the innovation in deep reinforcement learning based computing capacity service platform. The significance of the research can be summarized as the following three points. Firstly, this paper is the first academic paper to study the core technology of computing capacity service platform. Starting from the challenges and practical background faced by the computing capacity service platform, the paper explores its inherent complex system scheduling and management problems. Secondly, a deep reinforcement learning based computing capacity resource providing strategy is designed for computing capacity service platforms. Thirdly, the performance of the provided strategies is verified through simulations. Countermeasures and suggestions for the subsequent design and construction of the computing capacity service platform are proposed based on simulation results.
    The deep reinforcement learning based computing capacity providing strategy is also designed for service platform management. Firstly, a Hidden Markov Model based model for computing capacity chain is proposed considering energy consumption, delay and bandwidth as a multi-objective. The model is proposed mainly for delay sensitive services and considers the processing capacity limitations. Multiple sub-tasks of a computing task are deployed on the computing capacity chain composed of multiple edge network nodes according to networkenvironment changes based on a certain scheduling strategy. Meanwhile, indicators such as energy consumption, delay and bandwidth are considered to optimize the selection of computing capacity providing nodes and the path of computing capacity chain collaboratively. Secondly, the improved list Viterbi based prioritized replay double deep Q network algorithm (VPDDQN) is designed which considers the complex and changing network environment and the huge scheduling action space. VPDDQN is mainly composed of two steps. (1)The improved list Viterbi algorithm selects several optimal candidate scheduling solutions corresponding to a certain state in order to accelerate model training speed and reduce model training difficulty. (2)DDQN, which is a kind of deep reinforcement learning algorithms, is improved to select the best scheduling solution of the candidate solutions. In this way, the proposed strategy can make the optimal scheduling and optimization solution for edge computing capacity chain according the state of network environment.
    Taking the project to channel computing resources from the east to the west as a case background, we select two cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as the simulation scenario. The simulation results are as follows. Firstly, the proposed algorithm VPDDQN, which is used as computing capacity providing strategy for the project, is efficient and the model training time is short for VPDDQN. Secondly, the proposed algorithm has the best overall performance of the other benchmark algorithms in terms of delay, bandwidth and energy consumption. Thirdly, the proposed computing capacity providing strategy can achieve the maximum completion rate of computing tasks for different scales of computing tasks, thereby improving the economic efficiency of computing capacity network operation. The simulation results show that the proposed strategy can help the platform improve the performance and economy of computing capacity provision.
    Finally, we provide policy implications and suggestions for building the computing capacity service platform from the perspectives of intercity computing capacity collaboration, information collection and regional tasks planning. Firstly, reasonable and efficient computing capacity providing strategies have a crucial positive impact on the construction and operation of the project. Secondly, the management department needs to recognize the complexity of the multi-point collaborative computing capacity chain providing method and collect real-time information about the delay, bandwidth and energy consumption of geographically distributed edge computing sites. Thirdly, task plans should be made according to local conditions to improve completion rate of computing tasks and the economy of computing power network operation.
    Study on Stability Promotion Mechanism of the Third-party Governance Pattern of Non-scale Livestock and Poultry Waste Considering Seasonal Factor
    JIN Jie, ZHAO Qiuhong
    2024, 33(9):  168-174.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0301
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    The environmental pollution resulting from non-scale livestock and poultry waste has been one of the big problems in rural ecological environment governance. In the past period, in which the Chinese government led a poverty alleviation campaign, non-scale livestock and poultry breeding was used as an important measure helping the poor for its low technical requirement and less initial investment. Thereby, the quantity of breeding in relevant areas has increased sharply for the past years. However, due to the lack of a complete management system and necessary capital input, wastes produced by non-scale livestock and poultry breeding are not handled properly, which not only pollute the local soil and underground water, but also pose a threat to residents' physical health. Therefore, a systematic plan should be formulated to sustain economic development and protect the environment in the meantime.
    The third-party governance pattern of non-scale livestock and poultry waste is effective to promote the sustainable development of non-scale livestock and poultry industry, in which specialized waste treatment enterprises take an active part in waste resource utilization under the guidance of government departments. The alternation of seasons is an objective factor which could cause interferences to the continuous running and stable development of the third-party governance pattern, but the influence of it has not been given sufficient attention in previous studies. From this point of view, an evolutionary game model reflecting the interactive relationships among farmers, the third-party enterprises and government departments is established, and the system dynamics simulation method is applied to analyze the effectiveness of various types of ecological subsidy policies for promoting the stability of the third-party governance pattern. With a comprehensive consideration of the data information obtained from the actual investigation and game model simulation analysis, the results show that there is no stable equilibrium strategy solution in the current interactions among three players, which means that subsidies and supports from the government side are necessary for the existence of the third-party governance pattern. Next, in all three subsidy policy scenarios, payoffs of the government departments are found to be higher than those in no subsidy scenario. Therefore, government departments should encourage and guide enterprises to participate in the disposal of non-scale livestock and poultry waste. Furthermore, compared with production subsidy and participation subsidy, the combined subsidy plan with a consideration of seasonal factors (government departments provide production subsidy to the third-party enterprises off season and provide participation subsidy in peak season) would be more effective for promoting the stability of the third-party governance pattern.
    With a consideration of seasonal factor, the authors explore the promotion measures of the stability of the third-party governance pattern of non-scale livestock and poultry breeding waste, and this study aims at providing theoretical support and action proposals for policymakers to construct a more comprehensive resource utilization system of agricultural waste. The limitation of this paper is that though the authors have made this study and built a simulation model on the basis of real-life case, suggestions proposed by the paper would also face a lot of obstacles and uncertainties if they were applied in actual operations. In the specific implementation process, the actual situation of the third-party enterprises and local government departments should be considered. Secondly, for the sake of calculation, changes in the prices of organic manure and ecological carrying capacity are divided simply into that off season and in peak season respectively in this paper. In a follow-up study, we would expand the simulation model and explore the stable equilibrium strategy among three participants with dynamically changing organic manure price and ecological carrying capacity. In addition, modelling parameters in this paper are set according to the typical areas on the loess plateau. In the follow-up study, we would collect more data from different types of areas, and by substituting them in the simulation model, make a contrastive analysis, so that the results of our research would be more practical and reliable.
    Research on Financial Market Spillover Effect under Major Public Health Emergencies
    LIANG Zhipeng, CHEN Jinyu, LIAO Jianhui, DONG Xuesong
    2024, 33(9):  175-181.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0302
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    The outbreak of a major public health emergency will not only have an impact on the national economic operation system, but also will do so through the capital chain and be transmitted to the financial market, causing large fluctuations in the financial market. The outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 caused production stagnation, severe market fluctuations, short-term economic downturn, and rising investor sentiment, which ultimately dealt a severe blow to the financial market. The gradual emergence of synchronous price changes among various sub-markets of the financial market will further trigger systemic financial risks. Therefore, how the financial market reacts to the impact of the COVID-19, whether there are spillover effects between financial markets, and exploring the sources of risks and transmission paths between financial markets under major public health emergencies are issues that need to be studied urgently. This paper constructs a spillover index model to systematically study the response of financial markets and the spillover effects between financial sub-markets under the impact of the COVID-19, and puts forward reasonable suggestions for this purpose. It is of great significance to systematically build a mechanism for responding to public health emergencies, prevent and resolve systemic financial risks, and maintain China's financial security.
    This paper is based on the spillover index model of DIEBOLD and YILMAZ (2012, 2014) and describes the spillover effect between financial markets based on variance decomposition. This paper selects eight financial markets, including commodity market, gold market, real estate market, money market, stock market, fund market, foreign exchange market and bond market, as the research objects, and the sample period is from July 21, 2005 to June 30, 2022. The data comes from the Wind database. First, the impact of the COVID-19 on the financial market is analyzed through impulse response. Second, the intensity and scale of dynamic spillovers in the financial market are examined from the two levels of return rate and volatility using the spillover network analysis framework and rolling window method. Finally, the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the financial market spillover effect and the risk transmission path are examined through marginal net spillover effect analysis.
    The results show that: First, the impact of the COVID-19 on the financial market is mainly short-term, and the impact of the epidemic on the financial market is limited. Second, in addition to the market's own factors, nearly 50% of changes in financial markets come from external shocks, and there are significant spillover effects between markets in the financial system. Among them, the stock market plays a dominant role in the financial market. Third, the volatility spillover in the financial market is higher than the return rate spillover, and the yield is relatively stable while the volatility is more volatile. This shows that the volatility spillover in the financial market is more sensitive than the yield spillover, and volatility has a stronger ability to transmit information between markets. Finally, the outbreak of the COVID-19 has exacerbated the contagion of systemic risks in the financial market, and the risk network between markets has become closer after the outbreak. However, with the effective control of the epidemic, the risk contagion effect has gradually weakened. Therefore, in order to prevent the spread of financial risks across markets, it is necessary to strengthen financial risk supervision, establish a financial risk prevention mechanism under sudden public health events, and maintain financial security.
    This article focuses on the spillover effects between financial markets under the impact of the COVID-19. Future research can expand financial market analysis to multi-agent analysis such as energy, metal and carbon markets. The model in this paper only considers the changes in spillover effects between financial markets under normal market conditions and fails to account for extreme market shocks. Future research can expand the spillover effect analysis to the quantile spillover model to examine the spillover effects and investment portfolios under bearish, normal, and bullish market conditions.
    Heterogeneous Investor Attention and Information Efficiency of Stock Market
    YUAN Ying, FAN Xiaoqian, LIU Lu
    2024, 33(9):  182-187.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0303
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    Most of the existing literature regards investors as indiscriminate individuals and studies the impact of overall investor attention on information efficiency of stock market. However, the behavior of local and non-local investors in the financial market is different. Therefore, the impacts of local and non-local investor attention on information efficiency of stock market should be separately investigated.
    This paper considers heterogeneous investor attention, divides overall investor attention into local and non-local investor one, and studies the impact of heterogeneous attention on information efficiency. To be specific, we conduct an empirical study using the samples of all Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2019. We use geographic distance to distinguish local and non-local search volume and construct the direct measures of local and non-local attention. Based on company financial data and search volume data, we adopt the fixed-effects model to explore the differentiated impact of local and non-local attention on information efficiency and further study the effect of local and non-local attention on information efficiency under different liquidity levels. The results show that there is local bias in investor attention. More importantly, an increase in local attention promotes information efficiency, but an increase in non-local attention reduces information efficiency. In addition, liquidity enhances the promotion effect of local attention on information efficiency and also strengthens the reduction impact of non-local attention on information efficiency.
    The main contributions of our study are as follows. First, to our knowledge, this is the first paper that formally investigates and compares the impacts of local and non-local attention on information efficiency, and we further explore the effect of heterogeneous attention on information efficiency under different liquidity levels, which provides new insights for understanding the relationship between different types of investor attention and information efficiency. Second, by considering the geographic information of investor attention, this paperconstructs direct measures of local and non-local attention, which provides a new idea for the construction of existing investor attention. Finally, the empirical results show that there are indeed differences in the impact of local attention and non-local attention on information efficiency. Specifically, local attention improves information efficiency, while non-local attention reduces information efficiency. The result provides empirical evidence for the local information advantage hypothesis.
    Several implications can be drawn from this study. For researchers, this paper provides a new method for the construction of local and non-local attention and confirms the differential impact of local and non-local attention on information efficiency, which is conducive to understanding the behavior of investors more accurately. Practitioners, especially non-local investors, should learn more professional investment knowledge, improve their ability to obtain and analyze company information, and make more rational investment decisions. Companies should timely and reasonably disclose their information, reduce information asymmetry between local and non-local investors, and weaken the impact of market noise on stock price changes. Regulators should improve the information transparency of the listed companies, alleviate the information disadvantage of non-local investors, and formulate more effective policies for improving market efficiency.
    Awareness of Loan Quality and the Construction of Orderly Farmer's Loan Market
    LI Shanmin, Ning Manxiu
    2024, 33(9):  188-193.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0304
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    In recent years, the default of agricultural loans in China has become increasingly serious. According to the data from the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, as of the end of 2021, the non-performing loan ratio of rural commercial banks was 3.63%, which is 2.82 times that of large commercial banks, 2.37 times that of joint-stock commercial banks, and 1.68 times that of urban commercial banks. The high default rate of agricultural loans has caused rural financial institutions to fear and hesitate in lending, which has dragged down their economic performance, affected the expansion of rural loan scale, and become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of rural finance. Loan quality awareness reflects the attitudes and perceptions of borrowers and lenders towards loan behavior, and is the foundation and logical starting point for loan behavior. It involves the control of loan quality projects by credit officers and the evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of loan projects by farmers. So naturally, there is a question of whether the higher awareness of loan quality among both borrowers and lenders can curb agricultural loan defaults, alleviate credit rationing in the agricultural loan market, and promote the construction of a healthy agricultural loan market. The answer to the question is a fundamental issue in the development of agricultural loan market. It not only helps reduce agricultural loan defaults and fill the gap between supply and demand in the agricultural loan market, but also has important guiding significance for reversing the problem of rural financial institutions leaving agriculture and funds leaving agriculture. However, it is often overlooked by academia and financial regulatory authorities.
    This paper uses evolutionary game theory and simulation technology to study the impact of loan quality awareness on the evolution of behavioral strategies of farmers and loan officers. The results show that when the loan quality awareness of farmers and credit officers tends to weaken, the game system will converge to the situation where farmers submit low-quality loan projects, and credit officers accept low-quality loan projects. In this case, farmers' loan defaults are rampant, so the farmers' loan market order is severely disrupted. Rural commercial banks appear to be reluctant to lend and afraid of lending, so a unilateral rural financial market that only deposits but does not lend forms. When the credit officer's awareness of loan quality is strong and the farmer's awareness of loan quality is random, the game system will converge to the situation where the credit officer accepts the high-quality loan projects and the farmer submits the high-quality loan projects. In this case, all the credit officers are interested in high-quality loan projects, and the farmers choose to submit high-quality loan projects. The whole farmers' loan market is composed of low-risk farmers, so a healthy and sustainable agricultural loan market is established. When the credit officer's awareness of loan quality is strong and the farmer's awareness of loan quality is weak, the game system will converge to the situation where farmers submit low-quality loan projects and credit officers accept high-quality loan projects. And the widening gap between supply and demand of loan quality leads to serious credit rationing in the farmers' loan market.
    Research on the New Energy Automobile Industry Chain Shareholding Cooperative Innovation Strategy to Improve the Industry Chain Level
    MA Liang, LIU Yujie
    2024, 33(9):  194-200.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0305
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    Since the 21st century, with the increasing demand for the endurance of new energy vehicles, more and more enterprises in the new energy vehicle industry chain have taken different alliance forms to cooperate and innovate in order to improve the endurance of new energy vehicles, increase enterprise profits and enhance the industrial chain benefits.
    In the new energy vehicle industry chain, battery suppliers and new energy vehicle manufacturers, as important enterprises in the industry chain, can cooperate and innovate through mutual shareholding. Based on the consumer's preference for endurance, this article introduces shareholding strategy into the new energy vehicle industry chain and uses game theory methods to establish three shareholding decision models, explores the shareholding strategy of upstream and downstream enterprises in the new energy vehicle industry chain to enhance the level of the industry chain through cooperation, and analyzes the final effect and role.
    Specifically, the non-controlling forward shareholding decision model of battery suppliers in new energy vehicle manufacturers is first studied, and it is found that the range of new energy vehicles and the profits of battery suppliers are always positively correlated with changes in the forward shareholding ratio. Secondly, a non-controlling backward shareholding decision model for new energy vehicle manufacturers in battery suppliers is studied, which shows that the change in new energy vehicles and the profits of battery suppliers are always positively correlated with changes in the backward shareholding ratio. In the case where the consumer's preference for battery endurance is certain, the relationship between the profit of the new energy vehicle manufacturer and the backward holding ratio is related to the size of the backward holding ratio. Finally, the model of mutual non-controlling holding decisions between the battery supplier and new energy vehicle manufacturer is studied, which shows that in the case where the consumer's preference for battery endurance is certain, when the forward cross shareholding ratio is less than a certain value, the battery endurance, the profit of the battery supplier, and the profit of the new energy vehicle manufacturer are positively related to the change in the proportion of forward cross-holding, and negatively related to the change in the proportion of backward cross-holding; when the holding ratio of the battery supplier for the new energy vehicle manufacturer exceeds a certain value, the battery endurance, the profit of the battery supplier, and the profit of the new energy vehicle manufacturer are negatively related to the change in the proportion of forward cross-holding, and positively related to the change in the proportion of backward cross-holding.
    The research findings show that: (1)After the implementation of any holding strategy, the profits of battery suppliers will definitely increase, and the profits of new energy vehicle manufacturers will also increase within a certain shareholding ratio range. The endurance and market demand will both be improved, and the equity cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain can improve the performance of the industry chain and effectively enhance the level of the new energy vehicle industry chain. (2)All the three holding strategies can increase the profits of both battery suppliers and new energy vehicle manufacturers, enhance the willingness of the two enterprises to engage in equity cooperation, and enable the holding strategy to have strong practical feasibility. (3)When the R&D cost coefficient and consumers' preference for endurance capacity are fixed, the degree to which the three shareholding strategies improve the level of the industry chain is related to the corresponding shareholding ratio values. In summary, the research results provide decision support for the upstream and downstream members of the new energy vehicle industry to adopt the cooperative innovation mode of holding strategy, enrich the theoretical research on the level of the new energy vehicle industry and industrial modernization, and provide guidance for the development of the new energy vehicle industry.
    Pricing SSE 50ETF Option Based on Deep Learning
    LI Zhe, WANG Chao, ZHANG Weiguo, YI Zhigao
    2024, 33(9):  201-207.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0306
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    With the rapid development of the new generation of information technology, AI methods have been widely used in many areas of the financial industry, such as asset pricing, investment portfolio, algorithmic trading, risk management, credit approval and fraud detection. At present, benefiting from the computing power and predictive performance of AI technology, many financial institutions or government regulators are beginning to use AI technology (including machine learning) to improve the efficiency of their daily operations. In recent years, with the popularization of massively parallel computing and GPU devices, the computing power of computers has been greatly improved. In addition, the scale of data available for machine learning is growing. Therefore, thanks to an increase in data, the enhancement of computing power, the maturity of learning algorithms and the richness of application scenarios, deep learning methods based on neural networks have improved and developed rapidly. As we all know, option is one of the most important derivatives in risk management practice such as hedging risk and hedging. With the wide application of derivatives in risk transfer in financial markets, the accurate and efficient pricing of options has become the most important and challenging key scientific problems in modern financial economics. At present, a large number of scholars have begun to turn to the application of deep learning in the field of financial derivative pricing.
    The deep learning method is introduced into European option pricing in this paper, which constructs a data-driven non-parametric option pricing model based on deep neural network. The empirical research is conducted using the sample data of SSE 50ETF call options and put options, and a comparative analysis is made with the classical Black-Scholes model. Specifically, from the perspective of root mean square error, the DNN model improves the pricing power of SSE 50ETF call options by 76.97% compared to the BS model, while for put options it improves by 70.27%. From the perspective of average absolute percentage error, the DNN model improves the pricing power of call options by 63.74% and put options by 64.88% compared to the BS model. Additionally, from MSE, RMSE and MAE perspectives, as virtual value degree weakens and real value degree strengthens, out-of-sample pricing error of DNN model gradually increases indicating that virtual options generally have lower pricing errors than real options or value options do. However, from the MAPE perspective, as virtual value degree weakens and real value degree strengthens, the out-of-sample pricing error of the model gradually decreases, that is to say, the pricing error for real value options is generally lower than that for virtual or value ones. The selection of evaluation indices to assess the model does not have a uniform requirement, and the corresponding index can be chosen based on the actual needs of investment decision-making. From the perspective of MAPE, it is observed that as the remaining duration increases, the out-of-sample pricing error of SSE 50ETF options based on the DNN model gradually decreases. Particularly, in terms of pricing performance, flat options, real options, and deep real options show better results in medium-term and long-term scenarios. Therefore, this research not only enriches and enhances the application of existing non-parametric option pricing theory in China's option market but also provides valuable references for investors and risk managers with significant theoretical value and practical significance.
    Of course, there are still some shortcomings in this study. For example, we can further consider implied volatility, SSE 50ETF volatility index iVX, conditional heteroscedasticity model, etc., in the selection of volatility. In terms of the input variables dimension of the deep neural network, we can further consider the influence of macroeconomic policy, investor sentiment, market liquidity and other factors on option pricing. The classical parametric option pricing models (such as the Heston model, double exponential jump model, variance gamma model) can be enhanced by introducing a deep learning method to build a hybrid option pricing model. Additionally, it is also an important topic worth exploring in the future how to mine financial text data and incorporate it into option pricing.
    Do Investors Care about Signing Auditor's Experience? Cost of Equity Perspective
    LIU Xiaoxia, LI Minghui, YANG Xin
    2024, 33(9):  208-213.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0307
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    As an important external governance mechanism, high-quality audit can reduce investor's information risk and mitigate agency conflicts between insiders and investors. In turn, investors will ask for lower cost of capital for companies with higher auditor quality. Therefore, according to the information theory and agency theory, there is a correlation between audit and cost of equity. The existing literature has found that the characteristics of accounting firms, such as accounting firm's size or industry expertise, have negative impacts on the company's cost of equity. At the level of individual auditors, however, it is still unknown whether investors pay attention to the experience of signing auditors in pricing equity and adjust the cost of equity capital accordingly.
    Using the data of A-share non-financial listed companies and their auditors, this paper measures signing auditor's general experience according to the cumulative number of audit reports issued by the signing auditor, and then explores the impact of the average experience of two signing auditors on the cost of equity capital. The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between the general experience of the signing auditors and the cost of equity after controlling the characteristics of the accounting firm. The above results suggest that investors will look at the level of experience of signing auditors and “reward” companies audited by experienced signing auditors in pricing equity. The authors use PSM, the entropy matching method, and two-stage residual method to alleviate the endogeneity concern, and run robustness tests by using alternative measures of the cost of equity and the experience of signing auditor and controlling other characteristics of the signing auditors. The results remain stable.
    The results of mechanism tests show that experienced signing auditors can improve the company's accounting information quality, thereby reducing the cost of equity capital. The results of the heterogeneity tests show that the degree of information asymmetry (measured by the number of analyst followings and the complexity of the company's business) and two types of agency conflict, and the regional legal environment where the company is located can strengthen the effect of signing auditors' experience, while the signing auditor's client-specific experience (tenure) and accounting firm's size can weaken the effect of the signing auditor's experience. Specifically, the negative correlation between signing auditor's experience and the cost of equity capital is only significant in the companies with higher degree of information asymmetry and agency conflict, higher level of regional rule of the law, while the correlation is not significant in Big10 accounting firms or signing auditors with long tenure.
    This paper contributes to the literature from the following aspects: Firstly, by exploring the relationship between signing auditor's experience and the cost of equity, this paper enriches the research on the relationship between audit and cost of equity capital from the perspective of individual auditor's experience. It also provides empirical evidence on the economic consequence of CPA's experience from the perspective of the cost of equity. Secondly, since the ex-ante cost of capital is also a measure of financial reporting quality from the perspective of investor's perception, this paper helps to understand the effect of individual auditor's experience on accounting information quality, and further, audit quality.
    This study also has important practical implications. Firstly, by providing empirical evidence about the effect of signing auditor's experience on the cost of equity capital, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of disclosing relevant information of signing auditors to a certain extent and supporting the reform of improving audit transparency in China and Western countries. Secondly, the results of this study show that experienced signing auditors help to reduce the cost of capital which is beneficial for the company. Such results mean that the listed company can signal its quality and reduce the cost of equity capital by selecting experienced CPAs as signing auditors.
    Management Science
    Research on the Impact of Online Coupon on Manufacturer's Channel Operation under Channel Efficiency Asymmetry
    ZHOU Jianheng, CHEN Xingli
    2024, 33(9):  214-220.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0308
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    In the past decade, e-commerce platforms have witnessed a strong growth in online sales. Some manufacturers establish online channels through retailers, such as ERKE, Walmart, Nike China, etc. However, opening an offline direct store has become an important part of the future development for some manufacturers. Significantly, manufacturers encroaching the market through offline channels have also impacted online channels and damaged online retailers' profits. Currently, coupon promotions have become an important means for online retailers to increase sales, and in the context of encroachment, placing coupon may become an effective means for retailers to prevent or suppress the manufacturers' encroachment. In practice, the offline channel operation efficiency of manufacturers is their private information, and it is not held by retailers. Asymmetric channel operation efficiency provides more space for manufacturers to encroach the market through offline channel, but is not conducive to retailers' ordering decisions. Based on this, the following questions need to be addressed: Firstly, does the manufacturer with private information have the motivation to share channel operation efficiency information with the retailer? If so, how to convey information? Secondly, is coupon always beneficial for the retailer, and how do coupon strategies affect manufacturer's channel strategies? Thirdly, are the effects of information asymmetry and coupon on the decisions of the manufacturer and retailer consistent? The research on the above issues provides theoretical methods for the formulation of market strategies between e-commerce enterprises and manufacturers under e-commerce discounts and information asymmetry, and is also conducive to efficient operation of the supply chain and orderly competition among channel members.
    Based on the signal game theory and business practice, this paper mainly analyzes the information sharing mechanism under encroachment and coupon. Embedding coupon into manufacturer's channel operation and utilizing the impact of online coupon on demand, this paper explores whether coupon can help retailers resist the manufacturers' offline encroachment behavior. Secondly, based on the optimization of supply chain operations, this paper provides strategic choices and consensus among the e-commerce platform, retailer, and manufacturer. The results show that the manufacturer's encroachment behavior changes the supply chain information structure, leading to different pricing strategies for high and low type manufacturers. Under information asymmetry, the information mechanism of the manufacturer is influenced by differences in channel operation efficiency and retailer's initial belief. When differences in channel operation efficiency are small, the manufacturer prefers not to share information, and vice versa. Asymmetric information reduces the wholesale price and profits for the high type manufacturer, while increasing profits for the retailer, e-commerce platform, and supply chain. Coupon from e-commerce platform expands the asymmetric information effect and increases the difficulty of information sharing for the manufacturer. However, it does not change the information mechanism of the manufacturer. Under certain conditions, retailer can suppress the manufacturer's encroachment through offering coupon.
    Based on the findings of this article, the following management insights can be obtained: e-commerce platforms and retailers should not blindly offer coupon when pursuing a higher performance. Before decision, it is necessary to fully understand changes in consumer perception in the market and make business decisions based on the relevant information. The relationship between the e-commerce platform and retailer is not solely based on profit sharing. In fact, the retailer can leverage the advantages of e-commerce platforms in coupon to suppress the manufacturer's encroachment behavior and achieve a win-win situation. Secondly, an information advantage is not necessarily a good thing for supply chain members, as information asymmetry may cause unnecessary losses. It is imperative to establish a reliable, transparent, and low-cost information sharing mechanism beforehand.
    Although this paper focuses on the commercial behavior of e-commerce platforms in coupon, it ignores the situation where the retailer offers coupon. Therefore, exploring the impact of retailer's coupon behavior on the manufacturer's encroachment will be an interesting topic for further research.
    Research on Cloud Order Dynamic Acceptance and Scheduling Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning
    DING Xianghai, ZHANG Mengchai, LIU Chunlai, HAN Jie
    2024, 33(9):  221-226.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0309
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    Cloud manufacturing is a new intelligent manufacturing model which uses network and service platform to provide all kinds of on-demand manufacturing services for customer needs. The main characteristics of cloud manufacturing can be summarized as customer-centric, service uncertainty, and service on demand. After production enterprises participate in cloud manufacturing, there are two types of orders: established existing orders and dynamic arrival cloud orders.
    In the cloud manufacturing environment, the OAS problem with the flexible flow shop as the processing environment is described as follows: After the platform sends the cloud order to the enterprise with surplus capacity, the enterprise needs to choose whether to accept the order and complete the production arrangement under the premise of producing the existing order. Order arrival follows Poisson distribution, and each order includes quantity, price, delivery time, machining part number and other information. If a cloud order is dynamically distributed to the enterprise, the enterprise needs to combine the production information of the cloud order, the production situation of the workshop and the arrival of future orders, and determine the collection of accepted orders and the production and processing arrangement, so as to maximize the total profit of the enterprise.
    Based on flexible flow shop, an improved DQN algorithm is proposed to solve the problem with order acceptance and scheduling in cloud platform dynamic order dispatching. The single agent aims at maximum profit, and the single agent aims at minimum delay time and minimum disturbance. Since the objective functions of the two agents are different, they are non-homogeneous agents, so each agent adopts an independent DQN algorithm, and a dynamic interaction mechanism is established between agents. After the cloud order arrives, the receiving agent chooses to accept or reject the order and transmits the accepted order information to the placing agent. After trying different scheduling rules, the scheduling agent finds the optimal scheduling strategy through the feedback obtained by the reward function. The DQN network structure is improved in the scheduling agent, which increases the number of rules for selecting work piece and machine to 50, and further designs the process candidate set and machine candidate set combining the critical path, and the algorithm improvement strategy such as the earliest start of the process.
    The improved DQN algorithm is compared with the heuristic rule, Q-learning algorithm and DQN algorithm. The numerical experiments show that the improved algorithm is stable and superior to other algorithms in terms of maximum and average profit under different delay penalty factors, with higher order acceptance rate and balanced machine load. When the number of cloud orders increases, the worst solution of the improved algorithm is also better than the other algorithms. This shows the effectiveness of the improved algorithm. The scheduling strategy of the agent can optimize the scheduling of dynamically arrived cloud orders, improve the resource utilization rate of the workshop while producing existing orders normally, and improve the profit and order acceptance rate of enterprises. According to the research, most heuristic rules are short-sighted, but they have better performance when combined with DQN algorithm. Different rules are applicable to different scheduling targets and production environments. When deciding whether to accept cloud orders, DQN algorithm, after continuous learning, chooses appropriate scheduling rules and utilizes improved strategies, and can make each rule adjust order acceptance strategy and scheduling strategy in a short time, reduce workshop disturbance, and reduce the impact of delay penalty cost on profits, so as to ensure that the enterprise can obtain the maximum profit.
    Is the Disclosure of Corporate Uncertainty Perception Effective? Based on the Perspective of the Cost of Equity Capital
    LIANG Hongyu, WU Guobing, WENG Yangjie, ZHANG Zeshuo
    2024, 33(9):  227-233.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0310
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    Corporate perception of uncertainty is the information disclosure made by enterprises after they perceive the economic policies uncertainty they face. Economic policy is the guiding principle and measures formulated by the government to solve economic problems in order to increase the country's economic welfare, and provide an external environment and rules of the game for enterprises to carry out the production and business activities. The existing literature on economic policy uncertainty measures economic policy uncertainty more from the macro level, ignoring the heterogeneity of economic policy uncertainty faced by enterprises. The study of economic policy uncertainty generally focuses on the impact of economic policy uncertainty on corporate behavior decisions, and has not yet delved into the investors' decision-making. As one of the core concepts of corporate finance and capital market, the cost of equity capital is the basis for enterprises to make investment and financing decisions, protect shareholders' rights and choose dividend policies, and is also a “barometer” of investors' interests, which reflects the economic results of investors' investment decisions. Therefore, the research on the impact of enterprise uncertainty perception on cost of equity capital can help to clarify the differential impact of the implementation of economic policies on different micro-subjects, to increase the policy targeting of different micro-subjects, and improve the compatibility between policy objectives and implementation effects.
    This paper constructs a heterogeneous investor investment decision model to illustrate the mechanism of corporate perception of uncertainty perception affecting cost of equity capital, and proposes two hypotheses. The first one is that the disclosure of enterprise uncertainty perception will increase, which will lead to an increase in the cost of equity capital. The second one is that the disclosure of enterprise uncertainty perception can affect the cost of equity capital through four ways: information risk, information cost, predictability of future earnings and heterogeneity of the senior management team. Taking listed companies from 2000 to 2021 as a sample, this paper uses financial data and equity structure information from CSMAR database, uses textual analysis to extract a measure of the economic policy uncertainty perceived by individual firms from the “management analysis and discussion” of the company's annual report in CNRDS database, and empirically analyzes the impact of corporate uncertainty perception on equity capital cost. It investigates the mechanism of enterprise uncertainty perception on equity capital cost, by using the probability of informed trading to measure information risk, adverse selection cost to measure information cost, optimism in analysts' earnings forecasts to measure the predictability of future earnings of enterprises, and the heterogeneity of the company's senior management team to characterize the quality of prior information.
    The results show that corporate uncertainty perception leads to an increase in the cost of equity capital. Channel analysis shows that corporate uncertainty perception can affect the cost of equity capital through the four major ways: information risk, information cost, predictability of future benefits and heterogeneity of senior management teams. In the expansive analysis, it is found that the tone of corporate management and social responsibility commitment can play a role in regulating the relationship of uncertainty perception and the cost of equity capital, and when enterprises perceive the increase in economic policy uncertainty, they will significantly reduce diversified operations. This helps to reduce the forward cost of equity capital.
    Review of Discrete Traffic Network Design Problem
    XU Jingmei
    2024, 33(9):  234-239.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2024.0311
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    The rapid development of urbanization and corresponding increase in the number of private vehicles have led to a significant rise in traffic congestion, posing a critical and everyday challenge to urban management. The scientific planning and design of urban transportation networks are crucial in optimizing traffic flow distribution, enhancing road network capacity, and improving transit efficiency, thereby fundamentally alleviating traffic pressure. Nevertheless, the Discrete Network Design Problem (DNDP), a frequently encountered issue in transportation planning, has received relatively little attention due to its complexity as an NP-hard and non-convex optimization problem. This paper provides a comprehensive review of DNDP, outlining its origins, conceptual definitions, classification methods, model construction, and solution strategies to inspire further academic interest and exploration in this field.
    This paper systematically classifies DNDP into three types: strategic decision-making similar to continuous network design problems, tactical decision-making involving decisions such as one-way traffic directions, and integrated problems that consider both strategic and tactical decisions. A general bilevel programming model is proposed, where the upper level represents the government's objective to optimize the entire transportation network system, and the lower level represents travelers' objective to pursue the most efficient travel routes. This model combines the concepts of User Equilibrium (UE), Stochastic User Equilibrium (SUE), and System Optimal (SO) for traffic assignment. The paper reviews various algorithms for solving DNDP, including exact methods such as branch-and-bound, heuristic algorithms, and metaheuristic algorithms, highlighting their applications and limitations.
    The review reveals that while exact methods can provide optimal solutions at the cost of computational time, heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms offer effective approximations. The paper discusses several case studies where these algorithms have been applied to networks of different scales, demonstrating their effectiveness. It also emphasizes the importance of considering demand elasticity in traffic assignment, which has gained attention in recent years. Furthermore, the paper introduces various objectives used in the upper-level optimization model, such as minimizing total cost or travel time, minimizing total travel distance, and maximizing spare capacity.
    The paper acknowledges the challenges faced in the DNDP field, particularly the trade-off between solution quality and computational efficiency. It suggests that future research could benefit from hybrid algorithms that combine the efficiency of metaheuristic algorithms with the accuracy of exact algorithms. Additionally, the emergence of shared mobility and the integration of information and mobile internet technologies present new challenges and research directions for transportation network design. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for further research to address these emerging trends and to develop more sophisticated models and algorithms capable of adapting to the dynamics of urban transportation networks.
    In conclusion, this paper provides an extensive review of DNDP, offering an in-depth understanding of its complexity and significance in urban transportation planning. It emphasizes the importance of algorithm development and the need for innovative solutions capable of effectively addressing the complexities of DNDP. The paper also points out the potential for integrating emerging technologies into transportation network design, paving the way for future research in this crucial area.
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