The geometric mean is a Bernstein function

In the paper, the authors establish, by using Cauchy integral formula in the theory of complex functions, an integral representation for the geometric mean of $n$ positive numbers. From this integral representation, the geometric mean is proved to be a Bernstein function and a new proof of the well known AG inequality is provided.Comment: 10 page

Deadline Constrained Cloud Computing Resources Scheduling through an Ant Colony System Approach

Cloud computing resources scheduling is essential for executing workflows in the cloud platform because it relates to both execution time and execution cost. In this paper, we adopt a model that optimizes the execution cost while meeting deadline constraints. In solving this problem, we propose an Improved Ant Colony System (IACS) approach featuring two novel strategies. Firstly, a dynamic heuristic strategy is used to calculate a heuristic value during an evolutionary process by taking the workflow topological structure into consideration. Secondly, a double search strategy is used to initialize the pheromone and calculate the heuristic value according to the execution time at the beginning and to initialize the pheromone and calculate heuristic value according to the execution cost after a feasible solution is found. Therefore, the proposed IACS is adaptive to the search environment and to different objectives. We have conducted extensive experiments based on workflows with different scales and different cloud resources. We compare the result with a particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach and a dynamic objective genetic algorithm (DOGA) approach. Experimental results show that IACS is able to find better solutions with a lower cost than both PSO and DOGA do on various scheduling scales and deadline conditions

Treating Employees Equally or Differently? Towards a Theory of Idiosyncratic Human Resources Management

Under the environment of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity), organization’s development is increasingly relying on human resources with specific skills and abilities. But it is becoming more and more challenging to manage such employees. The traditional standardized human resource management (HRM) mode, which pays attention to the "best fit" or "best practice" has been unable to play its role effectively any more. In the past several years, scholars have proposed the idea of differentiated management (Marescaux & Sels 2013) used to direct the management of talent resources. However, there still lacks an in-depth investigation of differentiated HRM, especially from the perspective of employees' characteristics. This research aims to develop a theory of idiosyncratic HRM which implements differentiated management to different people (or groups) in recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal, salary and welfare, and employee relationship according to employees’ personality and need characteristics. This research not only provides a new perspective for HRM research, but also has practical significance for the reform and innovation of organization's HRM system. Keywords: best fit, best practice; idiosyncratic human resource management DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-3-01 Publication date: January 31st 202