The Interrelationship between Culture and Capital Structure:Evidence from International Retailers

The present study investigates the influence of cultural factors in 2022 on the capital structure of global retailers.There are sixteen retailers from eight countries in the sample.In recent times,numerous academicians have taken an interest in examining the capital structure and business model of retailers,owing to their swift and consistent growth.However,the fact that the majority of research originates from the retailers’host country gives rise to debate regarding the applicability of the capital structure of said retailers to countries with distinct cultural environments.Consequently,academics have begun to investigate whether the capital structure of multinational retailers is impacted by the diversity of national cultures.

Optimization of Electricity Purchase and Sales Strategies of Electricity Retailers under the Condition of Limited Clean Energy Consumption

In the process of my country’s energy transition,the clean energy of hydropower,wind power and photovoltaic power generation has ushered in great development,but due to the randomness and volatility of its output,it has caused a certain waste of clean energy power generation resources.Regarding the purchase and sale of electricity by electricity retailers under the condition of limited clean energy consumption,this paper establishes a quantitative model of clean energy restricted electricity fromthe perspective of power system supply and demand balance.Then it analyzes the source-charge dual uncertain factors in the electricity retailer purchasing and selling scenarios in the mid-to long-term electricity market and the day-ahead market.Through the multi-scenario analysis method,the uncertain clean energy consumption and the user’s power demand are combined to form the electricity retailer’s electricity purchase and sales scene,and the typical scene is obtained by using the hierarchical clustering algorithm.This paper establishes a electricity retailer’s risk decisionmodel for purchasing and selling electricity in themid-and long-term market and reduce-abandonment market,and takes the maximum profit expectation of the electricity retailer frompurchasing and selling electricity as the objective function.At the same time,in themediumand longterm electricity market and the day-ahead market,the electricity retailer’s purchase cost,electricity sales income,deviation assessment cost and electricity purchase and sale risk are considered.The molecular results show that electricity retailers can obtain considerable profits in the reduce-abandonment market by optimizing their own electricity purchase and sales strategies,on the premise of balancing profits and risks.

Jamming Assisted Covert Wireless Communication in Multi-Channel Systems

This paper investigates the jammerassisted multi-channel covert wireless communication(CWC)by exploiting the randomness of sub-channel selection to confuse the warden.In particular,we propose two sub-channel selection transmission schemes,named random sub-channel selection(RSS)scheme and maximum sub-channel selection(MSS)scheme,to enhance communication covertness.For each proposed scheme,we first derive closed-form expressions of the transmission outage probability(TOP),the average effective rate,and the minimum average detection error probability(DEP).Then,the average effective covert rate(ECR)is maximized by jointly optimizing the transmit power at the transmitter and the number of sub-channels.Numerical results show that there is an optimal value of the number of sub-channels that maximizes the average ECR.We also find that to achieve the maximum average ECR,a larger number of subchannels are needed facing a stricter covertness constraint.

A novel multi-channel porous structure facilitating mass transport towards highly efficient alkaline water electrolysis

An advantageous porous architecture of electrodes is pivotal in significantly enhancing alkaline water electrolysis(AWE)efficiency by optimizing the mass transport mechanisms.This effect becomes even more pronounced when aiming to achieve elevated current densities.Herein,we employed a rapid and scalable laser texturing process to craft novel multi-channel porous electrodes.Particularly,the obtained electrodes exhibit the lowest Tafel slope of 79 mV dec^(-1)(HER)and 49 mV dec^(-1)(OER).As anticipated,the alkaline electrolyzer(AEL)cell incorporating multi-channel porous electrodes(NP-LT30)exhibited a remarkable improvement in cell efficiency,with voltage drops(from 2.28 to 1.97 V)exceeding 300 mV under 1 A cm^(-1),compared to conventional perforated Ni plate electrodes.This enhancement mainly stemmed from the employed multi-channel porous structure,facilitating mass transport and bubble dynamics through an innovative convection mode,surpassing the traditional convection mode.Furthermore,the NP-LT30-based AEL cell demonstrated exceptional durability for 300 h under 1.0 A cm^(-2).This study underscores the capability of the novel multi-channel porous electrodes to expedite mass transport in practical AWE applications.

Omni-Channel Retailing and Firm Performance from a Customer Lifetime Value Perspective

In the digital era,retailers are keen to find out whether omni-channel retailing helps improve long-term firm performance.In this paper,we employ machine learning techniques on a large consumption data set in order to measure customer lifetime value(CLV)as the basis for determining long-term firm performance,and we provide an empirical analysis of the relationship between omni-channel retailing and CLV.The results suggest that omni-channel retailing may effectively enhance CLV.Further analysis reveals that this process is influenced by heterogeneous consumer requirements and that significant differences exist in the extent to which the omni-channel transition may influence CLV depending on consumer preferences for diversity of commodities,sensitivity to the cost of contract performance,and sensitivity to warehousing costs.Hence,retailers should provide consumers with a complete portfolio of goods and services based on target consumers’heterogeneous requirements in order to increase omni-channel efficiency.

Design of Cold-Junction Compensation and Disconnection Detection Circuits of Various Thermocouples and Implementation of Multi-Channel Interfaces Using Them-A Secondary Publication

Cold-junction compensation(CJC)and disconnection detection circuit design of various thermocouples(TC)and multi-channel TC interface circuits were designed.The CJC and disconnection detection circuit consists of a CJC semiconductor device,an instrumentation amplifier(IA),two resistors,and a diode for disconnection detection.Based on the basic circuit,a multi-channel interface circuit was also implemented.The CJC was implemented using compensation semiconductor and IA,and disconnection detection was detected by using two resistors and a diode so that IA input voltage became-0.42 V.As a result of the experiment using R-type TC,the error of the designed circuit was reduced from 0.14 mV to 3μV after CJC in the temperature range of 0°C to 1400°C.In addition,it was confirmed that the output voltage of IA was saturated from 88 mV to-14.2 V when TC was disconnected from normal.The output voltage of the designed circuit was 0 V to 10 V in the temperature range of 0°C to 1400°C.The results of the 4-channel interface experiment using R-type TC were almost identical to the CJC and disconnection detection results for each channel.The implemented multi-channel interface has a feature that can be applied equally to E,J,K,T,R,and S-type TCs by changing the terminals of CJC semiconductor devices and adjusting the IA gain.

Impact of Shipping Distance on Online Retailers' Sales:A Case Study of Maiyang on Tmall

Many studies have qualitatively explained that information and communication technology(ICT) has loosened the restrictions of distance and space on retailers' sales. Few empirical studies, however, have explored the impact of shipping distance on online retailers' sales. This study examined the Maiyang(M-Y) store on Tmall in China as a case study to investigate the relationship between shipping distance and sales. The results showed that sales volume in 2014 at the county level did not strictly obey the distance decay law. The shipped distance of high-priced commodities may not be much longer than that of low-priced commodities. Within the scope of investigation, the relationships between income, cost, and net profit curves do not follow central place theory. Goods have neither thresholds nor ranges. The key factor in the spatial discrepancy of sales is the size of market. The impact of shipping distance on sales is not as strong as that of traditional retailers in Information Era.

Pricing decision of green supply chain under the game competition of duopolistic retailers

In order to evaluate the impact of green production introduced by the manufacturer and study the competitive strategy between two retailers,four strategic models among diverse retailers,i.e.,Cournot,Stackelberg and two cases of collusion,are constructed.The optimal decision is obtained by the game theory and numerical analysis.The results indicate that the manufacturer's marginal profitability is no less than that of the two retailers.However,due to the manufacturer's green cost,the downstream profitability of the supply chain may exceed the upstream manufacturer's profitability.The retailers'Cournot behavior causes the manufacturer to acquire the highest profitability and set the highest green level.However,there is an opposite result in collusion.Two retailers will choose Cournot pricing when the consumer's green sensitivity is higher than a threshold.When consumers are more sensitive to the price difference of products,retailers prefer collusion,and then choose the Stackelberg behavior.Manufacturers'profitability will increase as competition among retailers intensifies.Proper competition allows two duopolistic retailers to acquire a higher profitability.

Identifying the Geography and Determinants of O2O Online Retailers in Megacity in Central China:A Case Study of Zhengzhou City

In recent years,O2O e-commerce,represented by online group-buying,has developed vigorously,which had significant impacts on urban commercial space.Zhengzhou City is a rising national central city in China,and its e-commerce development level is ahead,but relevant researches are rare.Therefore,the data of online retailers of Meituan.com was collected and combined with Baidu map and Baidu heat map data.Then,we adopted the methods such as spatial statistics and geodetector to explore the geography and determinants of O2O online retailers in Zhengzhou urban area.The main conclusions are 1)The spatial development of O2O online retailers is characterized by significant global high-value agglomeration.2)The agglomeration areas of different types of O2O online retailers are different.Most of them are concentrated in the old urban area within the Third Ring Road of Zhengzhou City,forming five comprehensive agglomeration areas.3)The areas with the high e-commerce development level are mainly concentrated in the northeast and southwest of the x-shaped region formed by the intersection of Lianyungang-Lanzhou and Beijing-Guangzhou railways.Erqi Square and Guomao 360 Plaza are at the highest development level,followed by Zhongyuan Wanda Plaza and Daxue Middle Road.The development level at other areas is relatively low.4)Zhengzhou’s O2O commercial pattern is highly dependent on physical business.The population distribution,especially the population distribution during the nightlife period,plays a vital role in its spatial development,followed by accessibility.The influences of physical distance are slightly larger than that of time cost,but the difference between them is little.In addition,travelling costs have the least impact.This paper could provide certain references for urban commercial planning.

Decision-Making of a Single Supplier and Multiple Loss-Averse Retailers under Partial Trade Credit

Under partial trade credit,suppliers usually require retailers to pay a fraction of the purchase cost immediately when ordering and the remaining payment is deferred at the end of the sales period.Considering a supply chain consisting of a risk-neutral supplier and multiple loss-averse retailers,we develop models under partial trade credit.We analyze the optimal decisions of a supplier and retailers under decentralized decision-making.The study shows that there is a unique Nash equilibrium among the retailers,and the optimal total order quantity of retailers increases as the delayed payment ratio increases and as the degree of retailers'competition increases,but decreases with an increase in the loss aversion.Numerical studies are conducted to demonstrate the solution procedures and the effects of the parameters on decisions and profits.

Properties of Nash Equilibrium Retail Prices in Contract Model with a Supplier, Multiple Retailers and Price-Dependent Demand

Recently, price contract models between suppliers and retailers, with stochastic demand have been analyzed based on well-known newsvendor problems. In Bernstein and Federgruen [6], they have analyzed a contract model with single supplier and multiples retailers and price dependent demand, where retailers compete on retail prices. Each retailer decides a number of products he procures from the supplier and his retail price to maximize his own profit. This is achieved after giving the wholesale and buy-back prices, which are determined by the supplier as the supplier’s profit is maximized. Bernstein and Federgruen have proved that the retail prices become a unique Nash equilibrium solution under weak conditions on the price dependent distribution of demand. The authors, however, have not mentioned the numerical values and proprieties on these retail prices, the number of products and their individual and overall profits. In this paper, we analyze the model numerically. We first indicate some numerical problems with respect to theorem of Nash equilibrium solutions, which Bernstein and Federgruen proved, and we show their modified results. Then, we compute numerically Nash equilibrium prices, optimal wholesale and buy-back prices for the supplier’s and retailers’ profits, and supply chain optimal retailers’ prices. We also discuss properties on relation between these values and the demand distribution.

Online Grocery Brick and Mortar Retailers.State of the Art in Italy,But Is It a Profitable Strategy?

In contemporary entrepreneurial environment based on customer retention,the growth of the Internet has pushed the most dynamic businesses to compete in the electronic market.The recent evolvement of the Internet as a new major distribution channel has obtained much attention,as the online channel calls the viability of traditional stationary retailing into question.Today,since innovation is a key factor in the Digital Age,the presence in the digital marketplace is essential for retailers,also in the food retailing.The paper aims to analyze the online commerce for food groceries and compare the evolution from 2017 to 2019.The sample represents the 99%of Italian brands of brick and mortar supermarkets and hypermarket.The first study was conducted in 2017,after two years the paper has analyzed the same sample and reported how many groceries retailers have adopted the online selling.Through the visit of every Internet site and some interviews to managers,this paper proposes the reasons why only a limited number of grocery brands sell food over Internet.Moreover,this paper calculates the cost(in Italy)to prepare the expense and satisfy the order of a customer.Characteristics of goods(freshness,perishability,cold chain warranty,etc.),expensive operations needed to prepare the delivery,the cost of delivery,and difficult reverse logistics are the main causes of low adoption of e-commerce.Online groceries retailers are concentrated around big cities in particular in the north Italy(Milan,Turin,Genoa,etc.).Expense is prepared inside the retail by the employees.Some shops use the drive-in model and only a limited number of cases deliver to home.The few cases of food e-commerce offer the delivery only in a limited area of big cities.At the end,this paper demonstrates the logistics cost(picking,packing and transport)in Italy is higher than the price of the service and this strategy isn’t profitable for companies.

Retailers Enliven Catalog Offerings Through Apps

New York Times reported on November 20 that when you browsed Anthropologie’s stores, you would feel as if you’re wandering through an artsy home, where there are sure to be closets full of eclectic outfits, bedrooms with bohemian quilts and kitchen tables with

An Analysis of the Impact of Charging for Plastic Shopping Bags to Retailers in Japan

In accordance with a revision of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, there is an accelerating trend towards charging for plastic shopping bags （PSBs） in Japan for the purpose of reducing their discharge. The objectives of this research were to gauge, by means of a questionnaire survey, the opinions of retailers with regard to charging for PSBs, and to consider future directions for reducing the quantity of waste discharged. A questionnaire survey on charging for PSBs was conducted for retail stores in Shizuoka City. The survey was carried out in two phases. The results of the first phase （August to October 2008） showed that supermarkets were generally positive, while conversely other retailer types were negative. The results of the second phase （November to December, 2010）, targeting only supermarkets that had introduced charging after the first survey, showed that there was no major confusion and the shift proceeded relatively smoothly. In addition, the number of customers did not decline on account of charging, and the ratio of shoppers bringing their own reusable ＂eco bags＂ jumped dramatically. On these accounts, it is evident that charging for PSBs is an effective means of reducing usage of PSBs. The authors view it as important for the relevant governmental agencies to work towards promoting charging at retailers and simultaneously repeatedly explaining to consumers the necessity for charging.

Retailers,You Can Get Omni-Shopper’s Satisfaction!

This paper evaluates the influence that information processing routes have on omni-shopping behavior,as well as analyzing the consequences of this behavior for retailers through a cognitive-affective approach.A sample of 705 mobile phone users was used for this purpose.The results obtained using the binomial logit model in a first phase and later with an application of structural equations,reflect that omni-shoppers have a more planned purchasing behavior than those who develop a one-stop shopping behavior.They search for information in a rational and deep way,spending time and effort.As for the consequences that the omni-channel behavior has for retailers,it has been found that those omni-shoppers who experience negative emotions with the retailer,have a low perceived value of the company and their satisfaction will also be negative.

Multi-channel terahertz focused beam generator based on shared-aperture metasurface

Most of existing metasurfaces usually have limited channel behavior,which seriouslyhinders their development and application.In this paper,we propose a multi-channel terahertz focused beam generator based on shared-aperture metasurface,and the generator consists of a top square metal strip,a middle layer of silica and a metal bottom plate.By changing the position and size of the shared-aperture array,the designed metasurface can generate any number of multi-channel focusing beams at different predicted positions.In addition,the energy intensity of focusing beams can be controlled.The full-wave simulation results show that the metasurface achieves four-channel vortex focused beam generation with different topological charges,and five-,six-,eight-channel focused beam generation with different energy intensities at a frequency of 1 THz,which are in good agreement with the theoretically calculated predictions.This work can provide a new idea for designing the terahertz multichannel devices.

Fast pre-stack multi-channel inversion constrained by seismic reflection features

Classical multi-channel technology can significantly reduce the pre-stack seismic inversion uncertainty, especially for complex geology such as high dipping structures. However, due to the consideration of complex structure or reflection features, the existing multi-channel inversion methods have to adopt the highly time-consuming strategy of arranging seismic data trace-by-trace, limiting its wide application in pre-stack inversion. A fast pre-stack multi-channel inversion constrained by seismic reflection features has been proposed to address this issue. The key to our method is to re-characterize the reflection features to directly constrain the pre-stack inversion through a Hadamard product operator without rearranging the seismic data. The seismic reflection features can reflect the distribution of the stratum reflection interface, and we obtained them from the post-stack profile by searching the shortest local Euclidean distance between adjacent seismic traces. Instead of directly constructing a large-size reflection features constraint operator advocated by the conventional methods, through decomposing the reflection features along the vertical and horizontal direction at a particular sampling point, we have constructed a computationally well-behaved constraint operator represented by the vertical and horizontal partial derivatives. Based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) optimization, we have derived a fast algorithm for solving the objective function, including Hadamard product operators. Compared with the conventional reflection features constrained inversion, the proposed method is more efficient and accurate, proved on the Overthrust model and a field data set.

Fake Makes Chinese Retailers Lose Millions

On April 13,the judiciary of Brazil St.Paul under the help of the local police suddenly confiscated the wholesales market of Chinese clothing,located at Street 25 of the shopping center. In all,48 Chinese dealers were seized under allegation