Homogeneous Product Research Articles

Bundling decisions in a two-product duopoly – Lead or follow?

We evaluate the impact of bundling on firms’ product and pricing strategies by developing and solving a multi-stage game theoretic model to represent strategic interactions between two competing firms. Each firm is able to produce two homogeneous products and can opt to bundle them together, which may have the dual benefits of providing added value to consumers and reducing marginal cost for firms. One firm (the leader) determines its product offering before the other (the follower), and both then simultaneously set prices. We demonstrate the existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium and show that the option to bundle can benefit all competitors simultaneously. When mixed bundling is not an option, we characterize and quantify the leader’s advantage in terms of profitability. However, when mixed bundling is an option, the follower may reverse its profit disadvantage by using it as a potential threat. Furthermore, our numerical results show that (i) bundling enhances the balance between firms’ total profit and consumer surplus; (ii) for the firm that bundles, value addition and cost saving brought by bundling act as strategic complements in that their combined benefit is larger than the sum of individual benefits; and (iii) value addition and cost saving improve the market demand, firms’ total profit as well as consumer surplus.

Price discrimination within and across EMU markets: Evidence from French exporters

We study the cross-sectional dispersion of prices paid by EMU importers for French products. We document a significant level of dispersion in unit values both within product categories across exporters, and within exporters across buyers. This latter source of price discrepancies, which we call price discrimination, reflects the ability of exporters to sell similar or differentiated varieties of a given product at different prices to different buyers. Price discrimination (i) is substantial within the EU, within the euro area, and within EMU countries; (ii) has not decreased over the last two decades; (iii) is more prevalent among the largest firms and for more differentiated products; (iv) is lower among retailers and wholesalers; (v) is also observed within almost perfectly homogenous product categories, which suggests that a non-negligible share of price discrimination is partly triggered by heterogeneous markups rather than quality or composition effects. We then estimate a rich statistical decomposition of the variance of prices to shed light on exporters' pricing strategies.

Processing of spodumene concentrates in fluidized-bed systems

The production of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide out of lithium bearing ores requires a thermal activation for the phase transition in the mineral to enable an acid or soda leaching in the downstream hydrometallurgical section.In this paper, traditional processing of lithium ores in the lithium industry is reviewed and opportunities to improve product quality and recovery rate by simultaneously reducing energy consumption will be presented. The conventional process for pyro-processing is still based on rotary kiln, a technology in use since the early days of lithium ore processing, albeit not significantly further developed since. A new technology in this field is fluidized-bed calcination. A study of the major process parameters (temperature and residence time) was performed on laboratory and larger bench scale aiming for optimal product quality for subsequent processing.When converting α- to both β- and γ-spodumene, high conversion rates were achieved for all investigated materials. The conversion of α- to only β-spodumene varies significantly by concentrate. Preferential conditions were temperatures in the range of 1050–1070 °C with retention times of typically 25–40 min. Additional results include the characterization of granulometric properties, in particular the effect of defragmentation by decrepitation, elemental and mineral phase composition, and further aspects specifically related to the application of fluidized bed technology.After identifying optimal process conditions for calcination and proving general feasibility at laboratory scale, the technical feasibility was confirmed for a wide range of spodumene concentrates at bench and pilot scale (20 up to 500 kg/h feed) providing the basis for industrial process design. Thus, spodumene decrepitation through applying fluidized-bed technology is technically feasible for non-sticking material and high and homogenous product quality can be achieved.

Homogeneous production and characterization of recombinant N-GlcNAc-protein in Pichia pastoris

BackgroundTherapeutic glycoproteins have occupied an extremely important position in the market of biopharmaceuticals. N-Glycosylation of protein drugs facilitates them to maintain optimal conformations and affect their structural stabilities, serum half-lives and biological efficiencies. Thus homogeneous N-glycoproteins with defined N-glycans are essential in their application in clinic therapeutics. However, there still remain several obstacles to acquire homogeneous N-glycans, such as the high production costs induced by the universal utilization of mammalian cell expression systems, the non-humanized N-glycan structures and the N-glycosylation microheterogeneities between batches.ResultsIn this study, we constructed a Pichia pastoris (Komagataella phaffii) expression system producing truncated N-GlcNAc-modified recombinant proteins through introducing an ENGase isoform (Endo-T) which possesses powerful hydrolytic activities towards high-mannose type N-glycans. The results showed that the location of Endo-T in different subcellular fractions, such as Endoplasmic reticulum (ER), Golgi or cell membrane, affected their hydrolytic efficiencies. When the Endo-T was expressed in Golgi, the secreted IgG1-Fc region was efficiently produced with almost completely truncated N-glycans and the N-GlcNAc modification on the glycosite Asn297 was confirmed via Mass Spectrometry.ConclusionThis strategy develops a simple glycoengineered yeast expression system to produce N-GlcNAc modified proteins, which could be further extended to different N-glycan structures. This system would provide a prospective platform for mass production of increasing novel glycoprotein drugs.

Mild synthesis of Cu2O nanoparticles interfaced at the surface of 2D-Al nanosheets

Green low-sensitivity energetic materials which can be stored under laboratory conditions and do not ignite spontaneously at room temperature are currently of high relevance due to their multiple energy applications in propulsion, pyrotechnics or civil engineering. In this context, we report a gram-scale synthesis of copper oxide (Cu2O) nanoparticles interfaced at the surface of 2D aluminum (Al) nanosheets. This synthesis is mild, cheap, and environmentally friendly, allowing us to obtain a stable and homogeneous product with high crystallinity. The burst heat released was estimated to be 6841 ± 272 J g-1 under air, and 2946 ± 306 J g-1 under a nitrogen (N2) atmosphere, which are the largest values reported so far. We attribute this superior performance to the intimate interfacing between Al and Cu2O nanoparticles. The complex reactivity of this material was thoroughly studied, permitting to account for the branching of reactions occurring in the material under different conditions, which is essential for the understanding of the factors governing the reactivity.

Strategic Trade Policy in Reciprocal Dumping Model with Incomplete Information

This paper extends the conventional literature on strategic trade policy in reciprocal dumping model to the context that involves market demand uncertainty and incomplete information. In order to highlight the role of uncertainty and incomplete information, a simple scenario with linear asymmetric demand, additive stochastic market shock, homogeneous products, and identical constant marginal costs are considered. It is shown that incomplete information at industrial level redistributes the option value associated with better information to the country with the better informed firm. As a result, both governments tend to choose tariffs over export subsidies in the Nash equilibrium of the simultaneous strategic trade policy games under complete and incomplete information. This yields a second best outcome. Moreover, we show that Nash equilibrium outcome is inferior to free-trade outcome.

On the Equivalence of Tariffs and Quotas with Incomplete Information

This paper compares the social welfare effects of tariffs and quotas as strategic trade policy instruments in an oligopolistic industry where the domestic market demand is uncertain and the policy is chosen before the uncertainty is resolved. The uncertain demand, once realized, is assumed to be available only to the domestic firm when the output game is played between domestic and foreign firms. To highlight our assertion, a simple scenario with linear demand, additive stochastic market shock, homogeneous products, and identical constant marginal costs is considered. It is shown that a tariff is superior to a quota regardless of the degree of uncertainty. Moreover, we also show that a prohibitive quota that results in autarky is always preferred to a quota at the free-trade level.

The Artistic Truth of the Web Series

In China, the popularity of the web series has soared over recent years. Web series are popular due to their technical characteristics, their flexible and intriguing narrative skills and the progression of cyberculture, which distinguish web series from traditional television programmes. However, these traits can also lead to some negative drawbacks, such as the lack of originality, the homogenisation of content, and the exaggeration and sensationalism of real-life situations. These problems are likely to put artistic truth of web series at risk, transforming them into endless homogeneous audio-visual products, thus affecting the artistic creativity of their visual images. The first section of this study explores the development of the web series by analysing external factors, including interactive modes, technical production and commercial investment. The second section focuses on the internal factors contributing to the transformation of the content of the web series. The final section investigates how these changes result in diminishing artistic truth of the web series. The paper concludes that technological innovations enable web series to produce more vivid experiences, and the extreme fantasies they create enable viewers to indulge their endless desires and become addicted to the virtual world, even making them reluctant to face the real world.

What Happened to the CER Market? A Dynamic Linkage Effect Analysis

The certified emission reduction (CER) carbon trading market promoted by the clean development mechanism (CDM) has become an important platform for the development of the international carbon market. However, the CER carbon market has shown unsteady development with the present phenomena of price decrease, transaction inactivity, and recession. Against this backdrop, this study aims to explore the intuition behind CER price volatility from the new perspective of internal and external market dynamic linkages. By introducing three homogeneous carbon products of CER futures, namely, the daily dataset of CER spot, EUA (European Union Allowance) spot and EUA futures, and taking five heterogeneous market drivers comprising stock, exchange rates, coal, crude oil, and natural gas into account, we analyze the dynamic correlations and volatility spillovers between CER futures returns and these influencing factors using the DGC-MSV model. With sample data from January 2013 to May 2019, our empirical results show a persistent dynamic dependence between CER futures price and its factors. The homogeneous and heterogeneous markets have significant positive and negative spillover effects, respectively, on the CER futures market. The decline of CER futures price in the post-Kyoto era is due to two aspects: fluctuation of the exchange rate market, which is closely connected to the settlement of currency, and coal price volatility in energy markets. However, the CER futures market has no obvious spillover effect on other markets, except for its strong impact on the CER spot market and weak information spillover to the exchange rate market. Overall, this finding indicates the feeblest financial property of CER carbon futures market.

Development of a descriptive monocultural model for creating an innovative organization

A methodology for designing an innovative organization has been developed within the framework of a descriptive approach to draft design in monocultural environments of the organization as a whole and of individual managers. The definition of single design elements is proposed as a design tool. The design basis is the conceptual sketch of the organization’s activities, which includes the elements of resources, added value, product, its value and demand for it, defined as a single production operation. A classification of types of homogeneous products according to their purpose and resources used has been given. The classification of types of homogeneous products for industrial purposes includes tools, fixtures, machine and equipment, areas, structures and infrastructure. The problems of choosing a product and using the resource have been solved. This methodology is recommended for use by managers and professionals involved in the design of organizations.

Predviđanje prodaje na platformi e-trgovine, korišćenjem data mining modela

In this paper we applied twinning algorithm for product that are sold via e-commerce platform. To establish relatively homogenous product groups that were on sale on this e-commerce platform during the last year, it was necessary to form predictive mathematical model. We determined set of relevant variables that will represent group attributes, and we applied K-means algorithm, Market Basket model and Vector Distance model. Based on analysis of basic and derived variables, fixed number of clusters was introduced. Silhouette index was used for the purposes of detecting whether these clusters are compact. Using these cluster separations, we created models that detect similar products, and try to analyze probability of sales for each product. Analysis results can be used for planning future sales campaigns, marketing expenses optimization, creation of new loyalty programs, and better understanding customer behavior in general.

How does subsidy change a firm’s market power? The case of China’s rice processing industry

ABSTRACT The effect of subsidy on firms’ market power is controversial and unclear. In this article, we investigate such effect through an unbalanced panel data at firm level. Empirical results indicate that subsidy weakens the market power of firms subsidized. We then verify our hypothesis for this result that striving for subsidy through building or keeping relationship with governments will lead to higher administration and selling expense, and therefore lower market power, given that the rice processing industry is relatively competitive due to its low entry barrier and high homogenous product. Compared with non-state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises are found to be weaker in market power, to be higher in administration expense and to be lower in selling expense, which are well consistent with China’s reality. Finally, robustness test consolidates our conclusions.

Chemical Properties, Rheological Behavior, and Melissopalynological Analysis of Selected Brazilian Honeys from Hovenia dulcis Flowering

Abstract Monofloral honeys are high-added-value food, a reason for constant cases of fraud. This study investigated Brazilian monofloral honeys from Hovenia dulcis flowering produced by Apis mellifera and Tetragonisca angustula bees. Chemical, physicochemical, rheological, and melissopalynological analysis were assessed. Properties such as moisture, pH, ashes, total acidity, total available carbohydrate, and soluble sugars of all analyzed honey samples agreed with the established by the legislation. All the honey samples were satisfactorily fitted by both Ostwald-de Waele and Casson rheological models revealing homogenous products, mostly presenting pseudoplastic character. The melissopalynology confirmed the presence of H. dulcis pollen in the MH samples; however, some honeys did not show >45% pollen of H. dulcis, thus revealing mislabeling cases. Continuous evaluation of honey is necessary, once this is a valuable food frequently involved in frauds, hence causing problems to consumers.

The basic algorithm for the design and construction of a monocultural innovation organization

Algorithmization of management activities in the transition to the digital economy is one of the most important tasks of modern management science. Sketch design is defined by the algorithm creation tool. This algorithmization method is applied to the processes of choosing the type of a homogeneous product, its quality and other consumer properties, utility for the consumer and manufacturer. Products are classified according to their purpose and the resources for their production. The quality of the product is defined as the ratio of the actual properties of the product to the normative ones, while it is necessary to take into account the influence of manufacturing defects, which entails a transition from linear to non-linear quality functions. The cumulative assessment of the product for the consumer is determined taking into account his subjective assessment of the properties of the product, expressed in the weight of the quality of individual utilities. For a manufacturer, the aggregate assessment of product quality directly depends on the main properties of the product, taking into account its other properties, and inversely depends on the cost of purchasing it, taking into account their functional elasticity. The algorithm is recommended for use by specialists dealing with algorithmic management activities.

Detection of homogeneous production batches of semiconductor devices by greedy heuristic clustering algorithms with special distance metrics

Authors present a comparative efficiency analysis of application of k-means and k-medoids clustering models for solving the problem of grouping of semiconductor devices into homogeneous production batches using three types of metrics: Euclidean distance, Mahalanobis distance, Manhattan distance.

Efficiency of distance measures in the automatic grouping of electronic radio devices by k-means algorithm

This study investigates the problem of separation mixed lot of semiconductor devices for space applications into homogeneous production batches. The impact of distancemeasures in clustering algorithmk-means on the accuracy of the separating a mixed production batch is studied. This paper proposes the K-means algorithm withsquared Mahalanobis distance as an alternative the squared Euclidean distance. With the various combined mixed lots of semiconductor devices it was shown, that the proposed squared Mahalanobis distance highly depends on the method for determining initial cluster centers.

Protocol: Value Stream Maping in Healthcare. A systematic literature review

Until 2016, very few works had investigated the use of the VSM. With this research, we will discover if the situation has changed in the last 3 years. In the lean manufacturing context, different techniques that help the continuous improvement process can be used (Marin-Garcia & Bonavia, 2011; Marin-Garcia & Carneiro, 2010; Marin-Garcia et al., 2012; Scott, 2001). One is the Value Stream Map (VSM) (Coetzee et al., 2016; Marin-Garcia & Mateo Martínez, 2013; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015). This publication is a protocol (Marin-Garcia, 2015; Marin-Garcia, 2019) that aims to promote research transparency and replication. The concepts investigated in it are defined (VSM and health services sector), a research niche is justified, and the search and codification procedure of the systematic literature review is established. Although there are different versions of the VSM (Dinis-Carvalho et al., 2018; Hines & Rich, 1997; Shou et al., 2017), we will focus on that proposed by Rother and Shook (1998). The main peculiarity of the version by Rother and Shook (1998) is that it graphically shows the flow of information and the flow of materials in the same diagram (Lucherini & Rapaccini, 2017; Shou et al., 2017; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015), which is necessary to complete a project, a product or a service (Bevilacqua et al., 2014; Lucherini & Rapaccini, 2017). It is also very intuitive and easy to understand, even by non-technical people (Lucherini & Rapaccini, 2017).The VSM version that we have chosen is usually applied via standardized symbols (Lucherini & Rapaccini, 2017; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015) following a 4-stage procedure (Rother & Shook, 1998; Shou et al., 2017): 1) select a product family (each VSM represents a family of sufficiently homogeneous products to represent the process); 2) draw the current VSM; 3) model the improved process by drawing the desirable future VSM; 4) implement actions to obtain a similar process to the future VSM. These four stages can be split into eight in other implementation versions (Tapping, 2007; Tapping et al., 2002; Tapping & Shuker, 2003). The above procedure allows value-added (VA) and nonvalue-added (NVA) activities and initiating actions to be identified to improve the proportion of VA versus NVA (Bevilacqua et al., 2014; Shou et al., 2017; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015). Our goal is to include any healthcare level (primary care, secondary care - medical specialists, hospitals, referral centers for rare diseases, and geriatric or disability care). We wish to explore the use in organizations of any country worldwide whose ownership is public, private or a nonprofit foundation. We will focus on patient health services. We will not include the pharmaceutical industry or the operation of governmental or nongovernmental public health structures (e.g. ministries, the Red Cross or similar). Different literature reviews on the VSM have been published. Some focus on analyzing several sectors, predominantly manufacturing. Previous research seems to indicate that the VSM allows the transparency of the process to improve by making it much more understandable for the agents involved in it (Shou et al., 2017; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015); reduce process times (lead times) (Shou et al., 2017) and inventories (Shou et al., 2017). However, these results come mostly from repetitive manufacturing contexts (linked to the automotive or consumer electronics sectors, or their auxiliary industries), and normally from Anglo-Saxon countries. There do not seem to be enough publications in order to generalize these results to all kinds of contexts. Some publications reveal that the barriers from using such tools can overcome facilitators in public service contexts (Marin-Garcia et al., 2018b).Very few reviews have focused specifically on the VSM and the health services sector (Nowak et al., 2017; Vidal-Carreras et al., 2015). Both conclude that there is not enough material to provide evidence for and a conclusive answer to our research questions. The systematic review that we propose in this protocol intends to answer (in a future publication) the following questions: 1) what is the VSM research gap that applies to the health services sector that currently exists?; 2) is the VSM being used in hospitals or other health centers?; 3) what VSM version is common in health sector publications?; 4) collect examples of the VSM in hospitals/heath centers; 5) how was the VSM used in the hospitals/health centers that have applied it?; 6) what problems and/or difficulties have arisen while drawing the VSM or after drawing it? Different programs will be used for the bibliometric analysis (see details in Marin-Garcia and Alfalla-Luque (2019)). First, the R Bibliometrix package (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017; Garfield, 2004; Wulff Barreiro, 2007) and also the suitability of SciMAT (Cobo et al., 2012; Santana & Lopez-Cabrales, 2019) to visualize thematic maps and strategic maps will be tested.

Product Besov and Triebel–Lizorkin Spaces with Application to Nonlinear Approximation

The Littlewood–Paley theory of homogeneous product Besov and Triebel–Lizorkin spaces is developed in the spirit of the $$\varphi $$ -transform of Frazier and Jawerth. This includes the frame characterization of the product Besov and Triebel–Lizorkin spaces and the development of almost diagonal operators on these spaces. The almost diagonal operators are used to obtain product wavelet decomposition of the product Besov and Triebel–Lizorkin spaces. The main application of this theory is to nonlinear m-term approximation from product wavelets in $$L^p$$ and Hardy spaces. Sharp Jackson and Bernstein estimates are obtained in terms of product Besov spaces.

Optimal treatment of agricultural land - special multi-depot vehicle routing problem

This paper describes a problem of optimal agricultural land treatment using aviation. The studied problem consists of determining the optimal routes for a given set of aircraft used for chemical treatment of arable agricultural land divided into parcels. This NP (nondeterministic polynomial time) problem is represented on a graph and a mixed integer mathematical programming model of the problem is formulated. This mathematical model is a specific variant of the multi-depot vehicle routing problem where a min-cost plan for the transportation of a homogeneous product (chemicals used for land treatment) from different supply locations (airfields) to different demand locations (agricultural parcels) should be generated. Some specifics of the agricultural land chemical treatment are described in the paper and the following specific conditions are taken into consideration: each parcel is treated only by one way of treatment and one aircraft; for each aircraft its chemical and fuel reservoir capacities are sufficient to serve its route. The complexity of the problem and the impossibility to obtain exact solutions for larger dimensions of the problem led to the formulation of a special heuristics which is presented in this paper. Numerical experiments are successfully conducted for larger problem dimensions and results are presented.

The uniqueness of plethystic factorisation

We prove that a plethysm product of two Schur functions can be factorised uniquely and classify homogeneous and indecomposable plethysm products.