Waste stemmed from inappropriate quality control and excessive inventories is a major challenge for perishable food management in grocery retail chains. Improvement of visibility and traceability in ...food supply chains facilitated by tracking and tracing technologies has great potential to improve operations efficiency. This research aims to reduce food spoilage waste and maximise food retailer's profit through a pricing approach based on dynamically identified food shelf life. The proposed model is evaluated through different pricing policies to exploit the benefits from utilising accurate product shelf life information captured through innovated tracking and monitoring technologies. Numerical analysis is conducted in an illustrative case study.
► We propose a pricing model based on dynamic quality evaluation. ► The pricing process is transformed into a more active manner to manage demand. ► We examine impacts of the accuracy of quality indicator on retailing performance. ► Timing and frequency of discount make a profound effect on the performance. ► Right pricing decisions reflecting quality feature are critical for the success.
•We investigate the optimal pricing policies for differentiated brands.•Intensified competition between the two manufacturers hurts the manufacturers.•Intensified competition between the two ...manufacturers benefits the retailer.•No dominance among supply chain members leads to the highest profit.•For competing manufacturers, being first to announce price results in lower profit.
We investigate a supply chain in which a retailer is supplied by two manufacturers with differentiated brands, a good brand and an average brand. The customers in the market are segmented based on value and brand preference, namely the customer acceptance of the average brand and the customer surplus for each brand. Both horizontal competition (between the two competing manufacturers) and vertical competition (between the manufacturers and the retailer) are considered through an exploration of different power structure combinations. Multiple-stage game models are developed to examine the impact of different power structures on the pricing decisions and the profits of the manufacturers and the retailer. We find that intensified competition between the two manufacturers hurts the manufacturers and benefits the retailer. No dominance among supply chain members (the two manufacturers and the retailer) leads to the highest profit for the entire supply chain. We also find that for the two competing manufacturers, being first to announce the pricing decision results in lower profit – the second to announce benefits from knowing the rival's price. This explains why rivals prefer not to reveal decisions on prices, bid rates, and contracts, as this information represents bargaining power. The impact of customer acceptance of the average brand is also analyzed.
This study investigated the microstructure and anisotropic mechanical properties of selective laser melting (SLM) processed Inconel 718 (IN718) component. In as-fabricated alloys, ultrafine columnar ...grained microstructure with highly dispersed precipitates γ" phases at grains boundary and even-distributed γ' phases inside the grains were observed. It was demonstrated that the as-fabricated longitudinal samples showed lower ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 1101MPa but higher elongation of 24.5% compared to the transverse samples which showed UTS of 1167MPa and elongation of 21.5%. The excellent mechanical properties of both the longitudinal and transverse samples can be ascribed to the refined microstructure of the SLM material resulting from the high cooling rate imposed by laser processing. The anisotropy in strength and ductility was attributed to the {100} fiber texture and columnar grain morphology. The {100} fiber texture of columnar grains leads to high strength in transverse direction, while the columnar grain boundaries also served as a path along which damage can preferentially accumulate, leading to fracture.
Due to an increasing awareness in environmental impact, consumers are more sensitive towards green products when making their purchasing decisions. The young generation, who represents the future of ...our society, seems to have a different attitude and belief which enables them to reflect on their choice of green products. This research empirically examines the influence of ecological affect and ecological knowledge on the green purchasing behaviour of the young generation. A survey was administered to young consumers between the age of 18 and 30. Structural equation modelling was applied to test the hypotheses. The analysis result confirms that the ecological effect and knowledge are significant in determining young consumers' green involvement as well as their actual purchase.
Rational design of optimal bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst with low cost and high activity is greatly desired for realization of rechargeable Zn–air batteries. Herein, we fabricate mesoporous ...thin-walled CuCo2O4@C with abundant nitrogen-doped nanotubes via coaxial electrospinning technique. Benefiting from high catalytic activity of ultrasmall CuCo2O4 particles, double active specific surface area of mesoporous nanotubes, and strong coupling with N-doped carbon matrix, the obtained CuCo2O4@C exhibits outstanding oxygen electrocatalytic activity and stability, in terms of a positive onset potential (0.951 V) for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and a low overpotential (327 mV at 10 mA cm–2) for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Significantly, when used as cathode catalyst for Zn-air batteries, CuCo2O4@C also displays a low charge–discharge voltage gap (0.79 V at 10 mA cm–2) and a long cycling life (up to 160 cycles for 80 h). With desirable architecture and excellent electrocatalytic properties, the CuCo2O4@C is considered a promising electrocatalyst for Zn–air batteries.
Rock masses in underground spaces often experience in-situ stress field and seepage field coupling which gives them complex mechanical behavioural and permeability characteristics. In this study, a ...High Pressure Triaxial Automated System for Rock (HPTAS) is employed in triaxial compression testing of red sandstone under different seepage pressures, and the variation laws of strength, deformation, axial strain stiffness and permeability during rock failure are analysed. The results show that with changes in the seepage pressure, there are also changes in the rock's strength and ability to resist deformation, and the stress threshold decreases with an increase in the seepage pressure. In addition, seepage pressure does not affect the strain stiffness trend, but it affects the value. Throughout the process of stress and strain, the permeability curve firstly decreases and then increases rapidly before finally stabilizing, and the peak value of the permeability curve lags behind that of the stress-strain curve. According to the law of permeability evolution during the pre-peak progressive failure process, a piecewise functional relationship model between permeability and stress is established in this study, and theoretical values agree well with experimental results. These experimental results can be used as a reference for monitoring and controlling rock stability during geological engineering when a seepage-stress coupling action is applied.
•Triaxial compression tests were conducted on red sandstone under seepage pressure.•Seepage pressure can reduce the stress characteristic value of rock.•Seepage pressure does not affect the strain stiffness trend, but it affects the value.•The piecewise function model reflects permeability evolution characteristics.
NaVPO4F has received a great deal of attention as cathode material for Na‐ion batteries due to its high theoretical capacity (143 mA h g−1), high voltage platform, and structural stability. Novel ...NaVPO4F/C nanofibers are successfully prepared via a feasible electrospinning method and subsequent heat treatment as self‐standing cathode for Na‐ion batteries. Based on the morphological and microstructural characterization, it can be seen that the NaVPO4F/C nanofibers are smooth and continuous with NaVPO4F nanoparticles (≈6 nm) embedded in porous carbon matrix. For Na‐storage, this electrode exhibits extraordinary electrochemical performance: a high capacity (126.3 mA h g−1 at 1 C), a superior rate capability (61.2 mA h g−1 at 50 C), and ultralong cyclability (96.5% capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 2 C). 1D NaVPO4F/C nanofibers that interlink into 3D conductive network improve the conductivity of NaVPO4F, and effectively restrain the aggregation of NaVPO4F particles during charge/discharge process, leading to the high performance.
NaVPO4F/C nanofibers are synthesized with NaVPO4F nanoparticles (≈6 nm) embedded in porous carbon matrix via an electrospinning method. For Na‐storage, NaVPO4F/C nanofibers exhibit extraordinary electrochemical performance: a high capacity (126.3 mA h g−1 at 1 C), a superior rate capability (61.2 mA h g−1 at 50 C), and ultralong cyclability (96.5% capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 2 C).
The crowd density estimation has important application value in intelligent safety prevention, traffic safety and tourist attractions safety prevention, etc. The task of crowd density estimation is ...to estimate the crowd density distribution by extracting and analyzing the crowd features. Traditional crowd density estimation methods show great differences in perspective changes in 2D images, resulting in loss of feature spatial information and difficulty in extracting scale features and crowd features. In this paper, we propose a novel crowd density estimation method based on multi-scale information fusion and matching network in scenic spots. A multi-scale feature extraction module is introduced to extract multi-scale features of different convolutional layers in matching networks. Through the combination of multi-scale asymmetric convolution and dilated convolution with different expansion rates, the expression ability of extracted semantic information and scale information is enhanced. Finally, in the multi-scale information fusion network, the semantic embedding method is used to introduce spatial information into high-level semantic information. The high level semantic information is introduced into the low level spatial information to enhance the feature expression. And the scale information is integrated with the spatial global context information to obtain the high quality density map and predict the crowd more accurately. Then, we conduct experiments on open data sets, and the results show that the presented model in this paper has good adaptability in scenic spots with large differences in crowd distribution, the average MSE with proposed method is below 15, which is the lowest value and it can extract features from different scenes to estimate density distribution and accurately count crowds.
Circularly polarized light (CPL) is central to photonic technologies. A key challenge lies in developing a general route for generation of CPL with tailored chiroptical activity using low‐cost raw ...materials suitable for scale‐up. This study presents that cellulose films with photonic bandgaps (PBG) and left‐handed helical sense have an intrinsic ability for circular polarization leading to PBG‐based CPL with extraordinary |g | values, well‐defiend handedness, and tailorable wavelength by the PBG change. Using such cellulose films, incident light ranging from near‐UV to near‐IR can be transformed to passive L‐CPL and R‐CPL with viewing‐side‐dependent handedness and |g | values up to 0.87, and spontaneous emission transformed to R‐CPL emission with |g | values up to 0.68. Unprecedented evidence is presented with theoretical underpinning that the PBG effect can stimulate the R‐CPL emission. The potential of cellulose‐based CPL films for polarization‐based encryption is illustrated. The evaporation‐induced self‐assembly coupled with nanoscale mesogens of cellulose nanocrystals opens new venues for technological advances and enables a versatile strategy for rational design and scalable manufacturing of organic and inorganic CPL films for photonic applications.
Chiral photonic cellulose films have intrinsic ability to generate and manipulate circularly polarized light (CPL) with extraordinary |g | values in a broad spectral regime. The CPL handedness is well defined, and the wavelength control is simple to realize. Photonic bandgap effects cause stimulated CPL. It presents a versatile and scalable strategy for customized CPL materials using renewable cellulose for photonic applications.
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