Optimal pricing and production decisions in a supply chain with e-marketplace

The concept of the e-marketplace is introduced.Considering a supply chain with a single manufacturer who sells a single item in an e-marketplace,an analytical model for the use of the e-marketplace in a supply chain is provided.Assuming the market demand is stochastic and price-dependent,the conditions under which the manufacturer and the e-marketplace owner share the market in equilibrium is developed.The existence and uniqueness of the optimal selling price,quantity and transaction percentage are proved.An integrated supply chain is put forward,and then the efficiency of supply chain coordination is studied by comparing the integrated supply chain with the decentralized supply chain.To gain further insights on the theoretical models,extensive simulations are then carried out.

Improving the Size and Market Value of an Underutilised Yam （Dioscorea esculenta） in Ghana： Implications for Crop Breeding and Production Choices

Yam, Dioscorea esculenta which is a high value commodity is a threatened species in Ghana, due to several factors including neglect on the part of science, technology, research and development. Different doses of radiation were use to improve the size and market value of D. esculenta to promote it effective use and enhance effective conservation. We observed through repeated experiments that irradiation of yam planting material at 40 Gy gave the best results producing a M1 generation with a decreased number of tubers but with an increased tuber size per vine. Some yam characteristics are valued more than others, and prices vary across species, time, and market sites. Tuber weight exhibits an increasing marginal value and price per kilogram increases above an optimum size; therefore, yam producers and dealers derive additional reward from extra-large tubers. We conclude that, to effectively access and benefit from urban markets, producers should focus on the improved size and conical shaped-tubers, which are easy to process and meet the aesthetic qualities preferred by urban consumers. The implications for research on improved variety development to reduce poverty and for crop and resource management practices are drawn.

The comparison and analysis of real estate operation in China

This paper raises the comparison method of operational stages of the real estate market. In order to select similar operational stages, we established an analysis model by applying fuzzy grade-of-membership clustering in this paper. Firstly, we select the materials information of the real estate market in America, Germany and Japan. Secondly, the real estate markets of America, Germany and Japan are divided into several different stages. Lastly, we apply the method of fuzzy grade-of-membership clustering to select comparable stages. The result of analysis indicates that the real estate market of Japan and Germany (1960-1980) are similar to the market in China.

Notions of Free Market and Social Welfare in Islamic Economics

Trading and business in Islam has been identified as the second best profession after agriculture and Prophet Muhammad （PBUH） himself has been engaged in trading. The Islamic theory of market aims to provide optimization of returns and satisfaction for all stakeholders. It also seeks to make ＂free market＂ an instrument of promoting equity and social justice for the welfare of society. It combines tenants from the free market model as well as those in command market economy. Islamic economics identifies certain functional parameters for the efficient functioning of the market to achieve the optimization of returns and social welfare like absence of middle men, prohibition of hoarding, mode of finance free from interest and usury, taxation and other wealth redistribution instruments like Zakat and Khums, asset-based and risk-sharing partnerships and stakes, etc.. It essentially creates conditions for proper functioning of a competitive market as an instrument of economic progress and social equity. In Islamic economics, the role accorded to the state is to ensure that institutions are set up and vigilance officers are appointed which create the specified condition for the proper and fair functioning of the market and hence preventing what is identified as ＂market failure＂. The role of the state is to improve the functioning of the market as opposed to that of systematic intervention. This paper tries to examine the Islamic notions of ＂free market＂ in the traditional sources like Qur＇an, Hadees, the early texts of Islamic Jurisprudence, and contemporary writings on Islamic economic system and to make a comparative analysis with theories of market in capitalist and socialist frameworks. The paper will examine the extent to which Islamic notions of free market offer an alternative model to resolve the problems of growth, inequity, and risk management.

Analysis of top Chinese contractors' developmental tracks and evaluation of their strategic selection of international construction markets

The past decade has witnessed a rapid development of the international construction market. This research aims to investigate top Chinese contractors' developmental tracks and evaluate their strategic selection of international construction markets over the period from 2001 to 2006,based on the modified Boston Consulting Group Matrix (BCG). Results from 2001 to 2005 indicate that Asia and Africa,which were "question marks" markets for top Chinese contractors (abbreviated as TCCs),have the most potential to become "stars" markets; other question marks markets such as the Middle East and Europe are found not to be of potential; "dogs" markets such as the U.S.,Canada and Latin America should be relinquished progressively unless there is renewed growth opportunity over the next two years. Compared to developmental tracks of top contractors from some advanced countries,TCCs' investment and development strategy in Africa seems to be sustainable and intensive; TCCs' exit strategy for the Middle East appears determined and swift,while their strategy in Asia seems to be lacking in persistence. Furthermore,the data of 2006 indicates that TCCs improve their performance in Asia and Africa,and Africa has become a "stars" market for TCCs.This research sheds important lights and insights into the prevailing process of internationalization of TCCs and provides a strategic direction for their selection of international construction market. What is more,this research is also valuable to other Chinese contractors who are seeking the opportunity to enter the international construction markets.

The mediating role of export-oriented Japanese foreign direct investment in China

Since the early 1990s, China has become the largest destination of Japanese foreign direct investment （FDI）. Observing this trend, the authors analyzed whether Japanese FDI did promote exports from China to the rest of the world, and more importantly, whether this is a strategy adopted by Japanese multinationals to penetrate not only the Chinese market but also the global market. This analysis takes into account not only the direct effects of FDI on exports, but also the indirect effects, by examining the mediating role of export oriented Japanese FDI in China from 1998 to 2007 through panel analysis. The study contributes to the conceptual framework of indirect relationship among the macroeconomic variables, FDI and exports provides some insights into the strategy of export oriented Japanese FDI in creating a win-win platform for Japan and China.

The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Youth Employment in Slovenia

Companies in Slovenia have implemented a number of measures to cope with the recent economic crisis and to adapt to market conditions. One of these measures has been eliminating jobs and reducing the number of employees. This led to an expansion in the number of unemployed, while the number of newly employed people has decreased. We have exanamned the problem of the employability of young people who are seeking employment and are often without the experience necessary for the work place. The aim was to make a systematic review of the programs for promoting youth employment that are carried out in Slovenia and that may reduce the number of unemployed youth. Youth unemployment in Slovenia for the years of 2008 and 2009 is also presented.

Customer-oriented Sales Management Mode- Study of Marketized Operation based on Provincial Broadcast Groups

Broadcast network, telecommunications network and Internet underpin the development of the information industry. The integration of them three is an inevitable trend of the modern IT industry. In this context, provincial broadcast groups are confronted with unprecedented challenges and opportunities, among which customers are a key element. This paper explores the customer-oriented sales management mode based on the marketized operation of provincial broadcast groups with Henan CATV Group as the illustrative case.

Dynamic Equivalence Theory and Advertisement Translation

With the fast globalization of the whole world and the intimate international cooperation of enterprises, translation is playing a more and more essential role, espeically in advertisemnts where enterprises want to establish a positive and healthy image in the competitive world market to promote their products and make more profits. Since Nida proposed his famous theory of dynamic equivalence, the English-Chinese advertisemnts translation has no longer been so mechanic and achieved more beauties. The translation of advertisement and trademark tends towards simplicity and visualization in association with the theory of dynamic equivalence, the objective criterion of translation proposed by Nida, emphasizing the inside connotation. Information is transformed during the process by analyzing carefully, distinguishing accurately, and processing flexibly in different situations so that translators can keep the information in high fidelity and gain dynamic equivalence.

长春长铃:庄家手里的野马

在这个市场中,经过一年半的洗礼之后,像长春长铃(600890)这样依然勇往直前的股票实属罕见,可能只有东风汽车等一两只股票能与之媲美。自从1999年12月股价起步以来。虽然经过两次高比例送配。但其股价已然保持着。向上生长的力量”。在市场整体熊相下。长春长铃能维持长达三年的大牛走势。其庄家的魄力在中国证券市场可能没有几人能出其右。这个悍庄到底是谁?记者多方调查。

Value-relevance of accounting numbers for valuation

Recent empirical work suggested that the ability of accounting numbers to explain the relationship between accounting numbers and stock prices has deteriorated over the past four decades. The findings of this study suggest that the accounting earnings and book value are capturing most of the information that is relevant to assess the values of firms. At the same time, it also suggests that earnings and book value as well as non-accounting beta are more valued during the financial crisis as compared to after the financial crisis. Overall, the accounting estimate of the value of the firm is not deviating from the markets＇ estimate, which suggests that accounting numbers play an important role in the valuation of firms in Malaysia.

Empirical Research on the Impact of Government Regulation on Economic Development

Government regulations has great significance to establish the corresponding business rules for the market operation. However, as a ＂latent variable＂ in statistical area, government regulations has no direct method to measure. Firstly, this paper constructs the observation indexes of government regulation at macro level. Secondly, it establishes the SEM to measure the effects of government regulation on economic development. Finally, policy implications about measuring government regulation are illustrated.

Non-classical Algorithm for Time Series Prediction of the Range of Economic Phenomena With Regard to the Interaction of Financial Market Indicators

The aim of the article is to present non-clasical copyrighted algorithm for prediction of time series, presenting macroeconomic indicators and stock market indices. The algorithm is based on artificial neural networks and multi-resolution analysis （the algorithm is based on Daubechies wavelet）. However, the main feature of the algorithm, which gives a good quality of the forecasts, is all included in the series analysis division into, a few partial under-series and prediction dependence on a number of other economic series. The algorithm used for the prediction, is copyrighted algorithm, labeled M.H-D in this article. Application of the algorithm was performed on a series presenting WIG 20. The forecast of WIG 20 was conditional on trading the Dow Jones, DAX, Nikkei, Hang Seng, taking into account the sliding time window. As an example application of copyrighted model, the forecast of WIG 20 for a period of two years, one year, six month was appointed. An empirical example is described. It shows that the proposed model can predict index with the scale of two years, one year, a half year and other intervals. Precision of prediction is satisfactory. An average absolute percentage error of each forecast was： 0.0099%---for two-year forecasts WIG 20; 0.0552%--for the annual forecast WIG 20; and 0.1788%---for the six-month forecasts WIG 20.

New Maintenance Strategies for Generating Companies in Power Market

A new approach to maintenance scheduling of generating units(MSU)in competitive electricity markets was presented,which was formulated as a noncooperative game with complete information.The payoff of each generating company(Genco)was defined as the profit from the energy auction market minus maintenance cost and risk loss.The compensation fee of interruptible load was a part of the maintenance cost when the permitted maintenance capacity in the system was insufficient.Hourly energy auction was incorporated in the computation of both revenues from energy market and risk loss of maintenance strategy as a nested game.A new heuristic search algorithm for the calculation of the game equilibrium of MSU was presented,which coordinates the solutions of non-equilibrium,unique equilibrium and multiple equilibria.Numerical results for a two-Genco system and a realistic system were used to demonstrate the basic ideas and the applicability of the proposed method,as well as its computational efficiency.

Analyzing the Operational Performance Migration of Telecom Operators

Due to the rapid development of mobile Internet services, such as Skype and WeChat, traditional telecom services have suffered a large decline in the business volumes in recent years. Thus, telecom operators pay much attention to analyzing the changes of the enterprise performance, in order to adjust market strategies in time. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to analyze the operation data of telecom operators dynamically,which can characterize the changing process of the operating states and predict the developing trends. In particular, the proposed methodology contains two steps: migration pattern analysis and trajectory pattern analysis.Firstly, migration analysis is based on the changing of operating states between two points-in-time, which is referred to as the migration paths. Applying the clustering analysis to the migration paths can obtain the migration patterns, which characterize the changing feature of telecom operators during a short period, e.g. one month. Secondly, we combine a sequence of consecutive migration paths to obtain the migration trajectory. Through analyzing different trajectories based on the hierarchical cluster method and the Markov chain model, we obtain the trajectory patterns,which describe the changing progress during a relatively long period, e.g. one year. Based on the trajectory patterns, we can predict the possible performance changes. Finally, we apply the proposed method to a Chinese telecom operator for an empirical research, and has obtained a lot of development rules which provides insights into current telecom.

Generation Reliability Assessment in Electricity Markets Using Cooperative and Non-cooperative Concepts and Intelligent Systems

Deregulation policy has caused some changes in the concepts of power systems reliability assessment and enhancement. In the present research, generation reliability is considered, and a method for its assessment is proposed using game theory and NN （neural networks）. Also, due to the stochastic behavior of power markets and generators＇ forced outages, MCS （monte carlo simulation） is used for reliability evaluation. Generation reliability merely focuses on the interaction between generation complex and load. Therefore, in the research, based on the behavior of players in the market and using game theory, two outcomes are considered： cooperation and non-cooperation. The proposed method is assessed on IEEE-Reliability Test System with satisfactory results. LOLE （loss of load expectation） is used as the reliability index and it will be shown that generation reliability in cooperation market is better than non-cooperation outcome.

Working Capital Management Programs： Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The paper develops a view on the history and future of working capital programs and focuses on the state of the art in four remarkable years： 1900, 1930, 1960, and 1990. In these years, an operations approach, an accounting approach, an economic approach, and a capital market approach, respectively, were prevalent. The paper shows that all of the approaches have their merits for today＇s working capital management （WCM） programs and discusses useful working capital program indicators, taking into account the cash conversion cycle （CCC） and its delineation into accounts receivables （A/R）, inventory, and accounts payables （A/P） periods. This enables the author to take step ahead to the magic year 2020. Finally, the paper discusses briefly an academic development agenda.

Corporate Behavior Theory on Stakeholder Harmonious Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is the focus of all stakeholders in the balance of contradictions and conflicts in the view of corporatc behavior theory, harmonious governance may be the development direction of future corporate governance. The article explains the framework of harmonious governance based on the theory of corporate behavior, and holds that shareholder value and stakeholder value is as important as, combination of incentive-compatible and mutually compatible, interaction between market governance and relationship governance, is a major innovation path of harmonious corporate governance by stakeholders.

Dynamics of price cooperating model in commodity market

For the problem of price fluctuation in the commodity market, some ordinary differential equation models are proposed and the stability of equilibrium price is studied. In this paper, we develop a mathematic model for price cooperation with diffusion and lag. When the economic parameters satisfy some conditions, the existence and stability of periodic price are investigated.

Production response to price risk and market liberalization of Nigerian major agricultural crops

This study models supply response for major agricultural crops in Nigeria which include the standard arguments and price risk. The data comes from Central Bank of Nigeria annual reports and statement of account, National Bureau of Statistics＇ abstract of statistics and annual Agricultural survey manual. The data are analyzed using autoregressive distributed lag and cointegration and error correction models. The results indicate that producers are responsive not only to price but also to price risk and exchange rate.