Many sellers provide products for consumers directly on online platforms. This selling format is labeled “agency selling.” In this article, we investigate the platform's contract design and the ...seller's quality and return decisions in the agency selling. We find that the platform chooses a high commission rate to induce the seller to accept returns when the salvage factor is large enough or the consumers' willingness to pay for quality is sufficiently low. Compared to the direct channel, the seller is more likely to accept returns in the agency selling. Moreover, if the consumers' willingness to pay for quality increases, the platform intends to reduce the commission rate to induce the seller to increase the quality. The commission rate makes no influence on the generosity of the refund. However, when the consumers' willingness to pay for quality is sufficiently large, the platform prefers the seller to offer no refund and the commission rate may increase in the consumers' willingness to pay for quality. Finally, we consider two extensions: quality affects satisfaction probability and return window.
A critical issue for many governments is boosting the adoption rates of products or technologies that enhance consumer surplus or total social welfare. Governments may, for example, pay subsidies to ...producers or to consumers to stimulate the manufacture or consumption of specific products, for example, energy‐efficient appliances or more effective drugs. This research proposes a strategic government investment policy, namely, share acquisition, and demonstrates its effectiveness in reaching societal objectives. We consider a Cournot quantities‐choice market comprised of homogeneous firms where the government intervenes to buy shares, and turning private firms into state‐owned enterprises. We recognize that purchasing a single private firm is the optimal policy for the government to reach its societal objectives. Additionally, taking into consideration financial constraints, we find that the optimal stake increases with the budget. Compared with the optimal output‐based subsidy policy, when the budget is low, the optimal government investment policy induces a higher consumer surplus. In addition, in differentiated Cournot competition, under which firms compete in selling substitutable products, we find that when the budget is sufficient, the optimal stake purchased first decreases and then increases according to the substitutability level among products.
Erinacine A-enriched Hericium erinaceus mycelia is a well-established potential therapeutic agent for neurodegenerative disorders. However, the effect of erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia on ...promoting longevity remains unclear. This is the first study to investigate the effect of erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia on lifespan-prolonging activity in Drosophila melanogaster and senescence-accelerated P8 (SAMP8) mice. Two hundred D. melanogaster and 80 SAMP8 mice of both sexes were randomly divided into four groups and were administered with either the standard, low-dose, mid-dose, or high-dose erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia. After treatment, the lifespan was measured in D. melanogaster, and the lifespan, food intake and oxidative damage were evaluated in SAMP8 mice. Results showed that supplementation with erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia extended the lifespan in both D. melanogaster and SAMP8 by a maximum of 32% and 23%, respectively, compared to the untreated controls. Moreover, erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia decreased TBARS levels and induced the anti-oxidative enzyme activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase. Together, these findings suggest that erinacine A-enriched H. erinaceus mycelia supplement could promote longevity, mediated partly through the induction of endogenous antioxidants enzymes.
We consider a large original equipment manufacturer (OEM) who relies on a contract manufacturer (CM) to produce her product. In addition to the OEM's product, the CM also produces for a smaller OEM. ...Both the larger OEM and the CM can purchase the component from the supplier, but their purchase prices may differ and remain unknown to each other. The main question we address is whether the larger OEM should retain component procurement by purchasing components from the supplier and reselling to the CM (buy–sell), or outsource component procurement by letting the CM purchase directly from the supplier (turnkey). We show that, under buy–sell, the larger OEM's optimal strategy is to resell components at the highest possible component purchase price of the CM (i.e., the street price). By comparing buy–sell and turnkey, we find that a CM with low component price is better off under turnkey, even though under buy–sell he receives more profits through the products sold to the smaller OEM. Furthermore, the larger OEM's preference between buy–sell and turnkey depends on her component price, the volatility of the CM's component price and substitutability between the two products.
•Physical fatigue prediction accuracy was ≥ 85% for our two case studies.•Optimizing sensor placement negates the need for multiple sensors.•Heart rate sensor is effective for detecting fatigue in ...supply insertion tasks.•Torso IMU sensor is sufficient for fatigue detection in material handling tasks.•The developed code is freely available for investors and researchers.
The use of expert systems in optimizing and transforming human performance has been limited in practice due to the lack of understanding of how an individual’s performance deteriorates with fatigue accumulation, which can vary based on both the worker and the workplace conditions. As a first step toward realizing the human-centered approach to artificial intelligence and expert systems, this paper lays the foundation for a data analytic approach to managing fatigue in physically-demanding workplaces. The proposed framework capitalizes on continuously collected human performance data from wearable sensor technologies, and is centered around four distinct phases of fatigue: (a) detection, where machine learning methodologies are deployed to detect the occurrence of fatigue; (b) identification, where key features relating to the fatigue occurrence is to be identified; (c) diagnosis, where the fatigue mode is identified based on the knowledge generated in the previous two phases; and (d) recovery, where a suitable intervention is applied to return the worker to mitigate the detrimental effects of fatigue on the worker. Moreover, the framework establishes criteria for feature and machine learning algorithm selection for fatigue management. Two specific application cases of the framework, for two types of manufacturing-related tasks, are presented. Based on the proposed framework and a large number of test sets used in the two case studies, we have shown that: (i) only one wearable sensor is needed for fatigue detection with an average accuracy of ≥ 0.850 and a random forest model comprised of < 7 features; and (ii) the selected features are task-dependent, and thus capturing different modes of fatigue. Therefore, this research presents an important foundation for future expert systems that attempt to quantify/predict changes in workers’ performance as an input to prescriptive rest-break scheduling, job-rotation, and task assignment models. To encourage future work in this important area, we provide links to our data and code as Supplementary materials.
Many manufacturers sell their products through retailers and share the revenue with those retailers. Given this phenomenon, we build a stylized model to investigate the role of revenue sharing ...schemes in supply chain coordination and product variety decisions. In our model, a monopolistic manufacturer serves two segments of consumers, which are distinguished by their willingness to pay for quality. In the scenario with exogenous revenue sharing ratios, when the potential gain from serving the low segment is substantial (e.g., the low‐segment consumers' willingness to pay is high enough or the low segment takes a large enough proportion of the market), the retailer is better off abandoning the revenue sharing scheme. Moreover, when the potential gain from serving the low (high) segment is substantial enough, the manufacturer finds it profitable to offer a single product. Furthermore, when revenue sharing ratios are endogenous, we divide our analysis into two cases, depending on the methods of cooperation. When revenue sharing ratios are negotiated at the very beginning, the decentralized supply chain causes further distortion. This suggests that the central premise of revenue sharing—the coordination of supply chains—may be undermined if supply chain parties meticulously bargain over it.
In this paper, we investigate the optimal dynamic auction design for the display advertising industry. Currently, display advertising is sold through two markets side by side. In the traditional ...guaranteed market, the publisher commits to deliver a prespecified number of impressions within a fixed time frame through a guaranteed contract. In the spot market, the publisher runs an auction to allocate the impressions every period, and the supply of heterogeneous impressions is highly uncertain and nonstorable. Thus, the publisher must solve a dynamic capacity allocation problem of heterogeneous impressions across different contracts and markets, taking into account the uncertainties from both the demand and supply sides.
We characterize the precise trade-offs between extracting the revenue from the spot markets, materializing the instantaneous benefit shared with the guaranteed advertisers, and releasing the pressure of paying the penalty related to guaranteed contracts. Furthermore, we identify the dual role of the publisher as a system designer and as a bidder on behalf of the guaranteed advertisers. With heterogeneous due dates of guaranteed contracts, we demonstrate the inherent scheduling issue embedded in this dynamic revenue management problem, and completely solve the joint scheduling and capacity allocation problem for some special cases.
The online appendix is available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2017.1592
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A novel DEK-AFF2 fusion has been recently identified in four cases of basaloid to nonkeratinizing squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in the sinonasal tract and middle ear with high-grade morphology. The ...exceptional response to immune checkpoint inhibitor in the first reported case highlights the potential clinical importance of identifying tumors with DEK-AFF2 fusions. We herein reported the first series of seven cases of DEK-AFF2 fusion-associated sinonasal SCC with deceptively bland morphology, including four cases of low-grade papillary Schneiderian carcinoma, which is a recently described tumor type with unknown molecular underpinnings. The DEK gene rearrangement was confirmed by DEK break-apart fluorescence in situ hybridization and DEK-AFF2 fusion transcripts were detected by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. In contrast to the previously reported DEK-AFF2 fusion-positive high-grade carcinomas, these tumors had a monotonous and bland morphology and were all initially diagnosed as sinonasal papilloma (SP) of various types, with or without dysplasia or carcinoma in situ. The tumor was characterized by mixed exophytic and inverted patterns, broad papillary fronds, acantholytic change, cellular monotony, dense neutrophilic infiltrates, and peripheral palisading. All tumors were diffusely positive for p40 or p63 and negative for NUT and p16. Molecular drivers associated with SP, including EGFR and KRAS mutations and both high and low-risk human papillomavirus infection, were negative in all cases. Although there was no overt stromal invasion or desmoplastic reaction in the initial specimens, these tumors tended to progress locoregionally through a prolonged clinical course and occasionally develop lymph node metastases, high-grade transformation, or extensively local destruction eventually leading to death. These justify more aggressive clinical management. Therefore, we propose the new terminology “DEK-AFF2 fusion-associated papillary SCC of the sinonasal tract” to better describe this clinicopathologically and molecularly distinct entity.
Phenotypic heterogeneity and molecular diversity make diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) a challenging disease. We recently illustrated that amoeboid movement plays an indispensable role in DLBCL ...dissemination and inadvertently identified that the inhibitor of bromodomain and extra-terminal (BET) proteins JQ1 could repress DLBCL migration. To explore further, we dissected the impacts of BET inhibition in DLBCL. We found that JQ1 abrogated amoeboid movement of DLBCL cells through both restraining RAS signaling and suppressing MYC-mediated RhoA activity. We also demonstrated that BET inhibition resulted in the upregulation of a GTPase regulatory protein, the IQ motif containing GTPase activating protein 3 (IQGAP3). IQGAP3 similarly exhibited an inhibitory effect on RAS activity in DLBCL cells. Through barcoded mRNA/protein profiling in clinical samples, we identified a specific subgroup of DLBCL tumors with enhanced phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) activity, which led to an inferior survival in these patients. Strikingly, a lower IQGAP3 expression level further portended those with PI3K-activated DLBCL a very dismal outcome. The inhibition of BET and PI3K signaling activity led to effective suppression of DLBCL dissemination in vivo. Our study provides an important insight into the ongoing efforts of targeting BET proteins as a therapeutic approach for DLBCL.
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