Superconvergence of mixed covolume method on quadrilateral grids for elliptic problems

This paper considers the mixed covolume method for the second-order elliptic equations over quadrilaterals.Superconvergence results are established in this paper on quadrilateral grids satisfying the h~2-parallelogram condition when the lowest-order Raviart-Thomas space is employed in the mixed covolume method.The authors prove O(h~2) accuracy between the approximate velocity or pressure and a suitable projection of the real velocity or pressure in the L~2 norm.Numerical experiments illustrating the theoretical results are provided.     

Exploring an Explicit Use of the Concept of Sustainability in Transport Planning

The aim of this paper is to explore an explicit use of the concept of sustainability within transport planning. This paper analyses the concept of sustainability based on a practical approach for a sustainable development of Nordhavn, an area of Copenhagen, exemplifying a complex planning problem. An exploration of the application of the concept of sustainability is carried out using elements of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). This approach indicates a need to separate the use of sustainability considerations regarding the transport planning ‘process’ from the transport planning ‘results’. The two approaches are related to the planning levels presented by Ulrich (Syst Prac 1(4):415–428, 1988). It was chosen to focus on the understanding of a sustainable transport planning process. This focus is addressed by four stakeholder groups interviewed based on the ‘ought to’ mode of Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH). Finally an outline of some of the factors of a sustainable transport planning process is proposed.     

Supply chain performance for deteriorating items with cooperative advertising

To study the effect of cooperative advertising on the supply chain of deteriorating items, this paper establishes a Stackelberg game model for a two-echelon deteriorating items supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer under a given support program with an exogenous participation rate. The manufacturer as the leader determines the wholesale price and production rate, and the retailer as the follower determines the retail price and advertising strategies. The strategies of the players under the decentralized scenario and the centralized scenario are respectively characterized. Numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis are conducted to gain some managerial insights. It is shown that the pricing, advertising and production strategies are negatively correlated to deteriorating coefficient, and both the profit and the channel efficiency decrease with deteriorating coefficient; The interaction between price, advertising investment and production rate results in a higher retail price of the centralized channel compared to that of the decentralized channel; Implementing the cooperative advertising program does improve the performance of the supply chain in some cases and the participation rate roughly at 0.5 is most preferable, but it is also possible to distort incentive and damage the channel performance when the participation rate reaches a relatively high level.     

Heterogeneity,nonlinearity and endogenous market volatility

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the explanatory power of behavior models with heterogeneous agents. The authors present a new nonlinear structural stock market model which is a nonlinear deterministic process buffeted by dynamic noise. An exogenous noise is introduced to the model with the assumption of IID normal innovations of the fundamental value in order to investigate how noisy dynamics interacts with deterministic process. The market is composed of two typical trader types: the rational fundamentalists and the boundedly rational traders governed by greed and fear. The interaction between noise and deterministic element determines the evolution process of the system as key parameters are changed. The authors find the model is able to generate time series that exhibit dynamical and statistical properties closely resembling those of the S&P500 index, such as volatility clustering, fat tails (leptokurtosis), autocorrelation in square and absolute return, larger amplitude, crashes and bubbles. The authors also investigate the nonlinear dependence structure in our data. The results indicate that the GARCH-type model cannot completely account for all nonlinearity in our simulated market, which is thus consistent with the results from real markets. It seems that the nonlinear structural model is more powerful to give a satisfied explanation to market behavior than the traditional stochastic approach.     

A situation calculus based approach to dynamic management of e-business services

In the era of e-businesses, the traditional business services are greatly challenged by the ever-increasing demands from customers with various backgrounds and personalities. Large numbers of new e-businesses are driven by the needs of customers. The existing dynamics inherent in the customer needs require the corresponding dynamic management of services. Attempting to respond to customers in a rapid and intelligent way, this paper proposes a situation calculus based approach for dynamically managing e-Business services in the ubiquitous environment. By employing the formalism of the situation calculus to enable intelligence and automation, the approach can implement. the functions of service automatic composition and model verification. These functions will improve the degree of customer-orientation and enable fast responsiveness in the emerging e-service systems.     

BOTTLENECKS IN PRODUCTION NETWORKS： AN OVERVIEW

1. Introduction Performances of a production system, such as the throughput, the circle time and the average delay, etc., are affected by the capacities of machines and resources available in the system. Some of them may affect the system performances more than others. Usually, the limitation of a system can be traced to the limitation of one or two machines or one or two kinds of resources, commonly called bottlenecks. From system point of view, bottlenecks are the congestion points of the sy…     

MODELING COMMERCIAL PROCESSES AND CUSTOMER BEHAVIORS TO ESTIMATE THE DIFFUSION RATE OF NEW PRODUCTS

1. Introduction In his famous seminal book (Rogers 1962), Rogers introduced and popularized a generic framework for analyzing and describing how the mechanism of diffusion of innovations works inside a given population. In this general approach, “innovation” can of course be understood in a large way: it may indeed referto various contexts such as the learning of a new practice, the use of a new tool, the launch of a new product, etc. The strength of Rogers' point of view comes from the fac…     

AGENT-BASED SIMULATION FOR KANSEI ENGINEERING： TESTING A FUZZY LINEAR QUANTIFICATION METHOD IN AN ARTIFICIAL WORLD

This paper argues that agent-based simulation can be used as a way for testing Kansei Engineering methods which deal with the human reaction from sensory to mental state, that is, sensitivity, sense, sensibility, feeling, esthetics, emotion affection and intuition. A new fuzzy linear quantification method is tested in an artificial world by agent-based modeling and simulations, and the performance of the fuzzy linear method is compared with that of a genetic algorithm. The simulations can expand people＇s imagination and enhance people＇s intuition that the new fuzzy linear quantification method is effective.     

双代号网络图中虚工序对时差计算公式的影响与修正

如何使用最少的虚工序和虚节点绘制双代号网络图属于NP-hard问题,所以对于任意一个给定的项目,会存在多个正确的而且虚工序画法不同的双节点网络图与之对应.本文的目的在于研究双代号网络图中不同虚工序对时差计算公式的影响并进行修正.虚工序画法的不同会导致网络图中产生数量和类型不同的节点,因此研究方法从分析节点入手.首先根据虚工序的画法将节点分为一般节点,虚出节点和虚进节点三类,然后逐一分析每类节点对工序时间参数节点式计算公式的影响.通过同定义式算法对比,结果发现工序自由时差和安全时差的节点式算法分别对于虚出节点和虚进节点失效.最后提出节点式计算公式的修正方法,实例分析证明本算法简捷有效.