Progress in Genotoxicity Evaluation of Engineered Nanomaterials

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are being produced at an increasing rate. Because of their unique physicochemical properties, ENMs have been used in a wide variety of commercial products. The specific properties of ENMs, such as their relatively larger surface area, however, could also cause adverse biological effects different from their bulk counterparts. Nanomaterials can be genotoxic while their bulk counterparts are not, or vice versa, due to these specific characteristics. Also, the differences between nanomaterials and bulk materials can generate uncertainty when measuring the genotoxic potential of ENMs using current genotoxicity assays that were developed for conventional chemicals or bulk materials. In this chapter, we summarize current progress in evaluating the genotoxicity of ENMs with a focus on results from the standard genotoxicity assays, possible mechanisms underlying the genotoxicity of ENMs, the suitability of current genotoxicity assays for evaluation of ENMs, and application of ENM genotoxicity data for risk assessment. Future perspectives for the evaluation of ENM genotoxicity are also addressed

Optimal Monotone Mean-Variance Problem in a Catastrophe Insurance Model

This paper explores an optimal investment and reinsurance problem involving both ordinary and catastrophe insurance businesses. The catastrophic events are modeled as following a compound Poisson process, impacting the ordinary insurance business. The claim intensity for the ordinary insurance business is described using a Cox process with a shot-noise intensity, the jump of which is proportional to the size of the catastrophe event. This intensity increases when a catastrophe occurs and then decays over time. The insurer's objective is to maximize their terminal wealth under the Monotone Mean-Variance (MMV) criterion. In contrast to the classical Mean-Variance (MV) criterion, the MMV criterion is monotonic across its entire domain, aligning better with fundamental economic principles. We first formulate the original MMV optimization problem as an auxiliary zero-sum game. Through solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs (HJBI) equation, explicit forms of the value function and optimal strategies are obtained. Additionally, we provides the efficient frontier within the MMV criterion. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the practical implications of the results

Improving the Performance of Modular Production in the Apparel Assembly: A Mathematical Programming Approach

We construct the mathematical models to find the optimal allocation of the module’s capacity (module members) to different assembly operations in a module for given garment assembly tasks in a modular production system. The objectives of the models are minimizing the holding cost for work in process (WIP) inventories in the module and the total deviation of the WIP inventories from their corresponding target values in the module during a specific time interval. The solutions of the models can be used as reference to achieve better allocation of the module members to different operations in a module to fulfill the given garment assembly tasks

Assessment of China’s Macro-Readiness for Integrated Innovative Management Technologies Employment

Introduction. Economic entities should constantly apply various forms of innovation, including managerial and organizational innovations, to ensure the processes of developing and acquiring adaptive capacity. One of these innovations is integrated management technologies covering several interacting heterogeneous technological, economic, organizational, social, and psychological processes or several management functions. Aim and tasks. The study aims to elaborate a procedure for assessing a country’s macro-readiness to apply integrated innovative management technologies and qualitatively characterise its level. Results. An assessment of macro-readiness to apply integrated innovative management technologies was conducted using the case of China. In order to obtain a generalized evaluation of the country’s macro-readiness to apply integrated innovative management technologies, synthetic taxonomic indicators based on readiness components and a general synthetic indicator were generated. The synthetic human capital and research indicator changed from low (0.243) in 2016 to high (0.647) in 2020. The same trend is inherent in the synthetic indicator of ICT availability and use, which increased from 0.367 to 0.920, and in the synthetic indicator of institutional and business environment, which increased from 0.310 to 0.876. Although it has improved from 0.205 to 0.451, the synthetic indicators of financial resources and development have not yet reached a high level. Conclusion. The suggested procedure for assessing macro-readiness to apply integrated innovative management technologies is based on constructing a synthetic indicator of readiness, combining the taxonomic indicators of human, digital, financial, and institutional readiness. This procedure, implying the determination of their qualitative levels, enables us to determine a country’s readiness to support business entities’ adoption of new management technologies. The assessment of China's readiness for applying integrated innovative management technologies using the developed approach revealed that the ICT component is the best developed, while the financial component is the most underdeveloped