No Refund or Full Refund: When Should a Fashion Brand Offer Full Refund Consumer Return Service for Mass Customization Products?

We analytically explore in this paper the consumer return policy under fashion mass customization (MC) program. To be specific, we model the stochastic fashion MC program with the consideration of consumer demand uncertainty. If a consumer return policy is implemented, we further consider return uncertainty. By modeling the optimization objective of the risk averse MC fashion brand via a mean-variance approach, we derive the closed-form optimal solution under each case. We then conduct both analytical and numerical sensitivity analyses. For the scenario with full refund and return, we reveal the analytical conditions under which the optimal retail price and the optimal number of options available for customization (called the “optimal modularity level”) vary monotonically with respect to the salvage value and the return service charge. For the scenario when there is no refund and return, we show that the optimal retail price and the optimal modularity level are decreasing in the MC fashion brand's degree of risk aversion, the demand uncertainty, and the price-demand sensitivity coefficient. In addition, our numerical analysis indicates that whether the risk averse MC fashion brand would prefer offering consumer return with full refund to no return depends heavily on the demand-return correlation (DRC) parameter

Research progress of key technologies for preparing concrete admixtures by multiple activation of iron-containing tailings

Iron tailings are an excellent secondary resource. Reasonable use, it can not only alleviate the problem of resource shortage, but also solve some environmental pollution problems. Therefore, it has a good development prospect. The resource utilization of iron tailings has always been a hot spot of social concern. The article reviews the results achieved by the predecessors. In addition, outlines the method of activation of iron tailings and the influence of its strength and durability as a concrete composite admixture. At last, the prospects of the research on the utilization of iron tailings are put forward

Sales Forecasting for Fashion Retailing Service Industry: A Review

Sales forecasting is crucial for many retail operations. It is especially critical for the fashion retailing service industry in which product demand is very volatile and product’s life cycle is short. This paper conducts a comprehensive literature review and selects a set of papers in the literature on fashion retail sales forecasting. The advantages and the drawbacks of different kinds of analytical methods for fashion retail sales forecasting are examined. The evolution of the respective forecasting methods over the past 15 years is revealed. Issues related to real-world applications of the fashion retail sales forecasting models and important future research directions are discussed

Response of CH4 and N2O emissions and wheat yields to tillage method changes in the North China plain.

The objective of this study was to quantify soil methane (CH(4)) and nitrous oxide (N(2)O) emissions when converting from minimum and no-tillage systems to subsoiling (tilled soil to a depth of 40 cm to 45 cm) in the North China Plain. The relationships between CH(4) and N(2)O flux and soil temperature, moisture, NH(4) (+)-N, organic carbon (SOC) and pH were investigated over 18 months using a split-plot design. The soil absorption of CH(4) appeared to increase after conversion from no-tillage (NT) to subsoiling (NTS), from harrow tillage (HT) to subsoiling (HTS) and from rotary tillage (RT) to subsoiling (RTS). N(2)O emissions also increased after conversion. Furthermore, after conversion to subsoiling, the combined global warming potential (GWP) of CH(4) and N(2)O increased by approximately 0.05 kg CO(2) ha(-1) for HTS, 0.02 kg CO(2) ha(-1) for RTS and 0.23 kg CO(2) ha(-1) for NTS. Soil temperature, moisture, SOC, NH(4) (+)-N and pH also changed after conversion to subsoiling. These changes were correlated with CH(4) uptake and N(2)O emissions. However, there was no significant correlation between N(2)O emissions and soil temperature in this study. The grain yields of wheat improved after conversion to subsoiling. Under HTS, RTS and NTS, the average grain yield was elevated by approximately 42.5%, 27.8% and 60.3% respectively. Our findings indicate that RTS and HTS would be ideal rotation tillage systems to balance GWP decreases and grain yield improvements in the North China Plain region

Greenhouse gas flux and crop productivity after 10 years of reduced and no tillage in a wheat-maize cropping system.

Appropriate tillage plays an important role in mitigating the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in regions with higher crop yields, but the emission situations of some reduced tillage systems such as subsoiling, harrow tillage and rotary tillage are not comprehensively studied. The objective of this study was to evaluate the emission characteristics of GHG (CH4 and N2O) under four reduced tillage systems from October 2007 to August 2009 based on a 10-yr tillage experiment in the North China Plain, which included no-tillage (NT) and three reduced tillage systems of subsoil tillage (ST), harrow tillage (HT) and rotary tillage (RT), with the conventional tillage (CT) as the control. The soil under the five tillage systems was an absorption sink for CH4 and an emission source for N2O. The soil temperature positive impacted on the CH4 absorption by the soils of different tillage systems, while a significant negative correlation was observed between the absorption and soil moisture. The main driving factor for increased N2O emission was not the soil temperature but the soil moisture and the content of nitrate. In the two rotation cycle of wheat-maize system (10/2007-10/2008 and 10/2008-10/2009), averaged cumulative uptake fluxes of CH4 under CT, ST, HT, RT and NT systems were approximately 1.67, 1.72, 1.63, 1.77 and 1.17 t ha(-1) year(-1), respectively, and meanwhile, approximately 4.43, 4.38, 4.47, 4.30 and 4.61 t ha(-1) year(-1) of N2O were emitted from soil of these systems, respectively. Moreover, they also gained 33.73, 34.63, 32.62, 34.56 and 27.54 t ha(-1) yields during two crop-rotation periods, respectively. Based on these comparisons, the rotary tillage and subsoiling mitigated the emissions of CH4 and N2O as well as improving crop productivity of a wheat-maize cropping system

The seasonal characteristics of N₂O flux under the different tillage systems.

<p>i and iii were the periods of wheat growth in 2007–2008 and 2008–2009, respectively; ii and iv were the periods of maize growth in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The arrows indicate the time of tilling, and the dotted lines distinguish the different periods of crop growth. The data are means ± SD (n = 3).</p

The wheat yield variations of HT, RT and NT after subsoiling from 2008–2010.

<p>Different small letter means <i>P</i><0.05.</p

The atmospheric temperature and precipitation at the experimental site.

<p>The data were collected by the agricultural meteorological station approximately 500 m from the experiment field.</p

A to C Variation of Soil temperature at a 5 cm depth (°C) after subsoiling; D to F Variation of Soil water content at a 0∼20 cm depth (%) after subsoiling; G to I Variation of Soil NH₄⁺-N at a 0∼20 cm depth (mg·kg⁻¹) after subsoiling.

<p>Arrows and the dotted line indicate time of subsoiling.</p