Multiproduct Pricing Management and Design of New Service Products

In this thesis, we study price optimization and competition of multiple differentiated substitutable products under the general Nested Logit model and also consider the designing and pricing of new service products, e.g., flexible warranty and refundable warranty, under customers' strategic claim behavior. Chapter 2 considers firms that sell multiple differentiated substitutable products and customers whose purchase behavior follows the Nested Logit model, of which the Multinomial Logit model is a special case. In the Nested Logit model, customers make product selection decision sequentially: they first select a class or a nest of products and subsequently choose a product within the selected class. We consider the general Nested Logit model with product-differentiated price coefficients and general nest-heterogenous degrees. We show that the adjusted markup, which is defined as price minus cost minus the reciprocal of the price coefficient, is constant across all the products in each nest. When optimizing multiple nests of products, the adjusted nested markup is also constant within a nest. By using this result, the multi-product optimization problem can be reduced to a single-dimensional problem in a bounded interval, which is easy to solve. We also use this result to simplify the oligopolistic price competition and characterize the Nash equilibrium. Furthermore, we investigate its application to dynamic pricing and revenue management. In Chapter 3, we investigate the flexible monthly warranty, which offers flexibility to customers and allow them to cancel it at anytime without any penalty. Frequent technological innovations and price declines severely affect sales of extended warranties as product replacement upon failure becomes an increasingly attractive alternative. To increase sales and profitability, we propose offering flexible-duration extended warranties. These warranties can appeal to customers who are uncertain about how long they will keep the product as well as to customers who are uncertain about the product's reliability. Flexibility may be added to existing services in the form of monthly-billing with month-by-month commitments, or by making existing warranties easier to cancel, with pro-rated refunds. This thesis studies flexible warranties from the perspectives of both the customer and the provider. We present a model of the customer's optimal coverage decisions under the objective of minimizing expected support costs over a random planning horizon. We show that under some mild conditions the customer's optimal coverage policy has a threshold structure. We also show through an analytical study and through numerical examples how flexible warranties can result in higher profits and higher attach rates. Chapter 4 examines the designing and pricing of residual value warranty that refunds customers at the end of warranty period based on customers' claim history. Traditional extended warranties for IT products do not differentiate customers according to their usage rates or operating environment. These warranties are priced to cover the costs of high-usage customers who tend to experience more failures and are therefore more costly to support. This makes traditional warranties economically unattractive to low-usage customers. In this chapter, we introduce, design and price residual value warranties. These warranties refund a part of the upfront price to customers who have zero or few claims according to a pre-determined refund schedule. By design, the net cost of these warranties is lower for light users than for heavy users. As a result, a residual value warranty can enable the provider to price-discriminate based on usage rates or operating conditions without the need to monitor individual customers' usage. Theoretic results and numerical experiments demonstrate how residual value warranties can appeal to a broader range of customers and significantly increase the provider's profits

Combined Sales Effort and Inventory Control under Demand Uncertainty

We study the joint inventory and sales effort management problems of a retailer in a broad context and investigate the optimal policies for a single item, periodic-review system. In each period, the demand is uncertain depending on the sales effort level exerted by the retailer, which incurs an associated cost. The retailer’s objective is to find a joint optimal inventory replenishment and sales effort policy to maximize the discounted profit over a finite horizon. We first consider a basic setting with zero setup cost and no batch ordering, under which the base stock list sales effort policy is optimal. Two extensions are then investigated: (1) the case with nonzero setup cost, under which we show that (s,S,e) policy is optimal; and (2) the case with batch ordering, under which we prove the optimality of the (r,Nq,e) policy. Finally, we conduct numerical studies to provide additional managerial insights

Spatial and temporal hydrochemical variations of the spring-fed travertine-depositing stream in the Huanglong Ravine, Sichuan, SW China

Automatic hydrochemical logging and in situ titration com­bined withlaboratory analysis were used to understand the spatial and temporal hydrochemical variations of the spring-fed, travertine-depositing stream in celebrated Huanglong Ravine, Sichuan, SW China. This is essential for protection of the Huanglong World Natural Heritage travertine land­scape. It was found that the deposition of travertine was due to very strong CO2 degassing from the water, leading to de­crease in pCO2 and specific conductivity (SpC), and increase in pH and SIc downstream from the Spring. However, regular downstream hydrochemical evolution was interrupted by di­lution withsnow-melt water and by renewed CO2 from some downstream springs. The chemistry of Huanglong Spring itself was stable at a diurnal scale thoughit was altered by the great Wenchuan earthquake of May 12 2008. However, in spring-fed pools downstream, pCO2 and SpC were lower, and pH and SIc were higher in daytime than at night, whichindicates that the deposition of travertine was faster during the daylight hours. This was due to the combined effects of higher water tempera­tures and higher aquatic algae photosynthesis. In addition, it was found that the phosphate concentration in the stream in­creased remarkably downstream in the tourist midseason, in­dicating water pollution by tourism activities. The increase of phosphate (an inhibitor of calcite precipitation) may be one of the reasons for the decrease in travertine deposition rates and accelerated propagation of discoloration by diatoms during the past decades, whichneeds to be given more comprehensive study and tackled in future for the protection of these world famous travertine deposits

Effects of capsaicin on the cholesterol lithogenesis in the gallbladder of C57BL/6 mice

_Objective:_ High-fat diet was used to induce cholesterol lithogenesis in the gallbladder of C57BL/6 mice in which the effects of capsaicin on the cholesterol lithogenesis were investigated and the potential mechanism was explored. _Methods:_ A total of 30 C57BL/6 mice were randomly didivded intocontrol group (mice were feed with normal food), gallbladder stone group (GS group; mice received high fat diet) and capsaicin group (CA group; mice received high fat diet containing 0.015% capsaicin). _Results:_ Results showed 0%, 100% and 20% of mice had gallbladder stone in control group, GS group and CA group, respectively. All the parameters became abnormal in GS group as compared to control group, but improved to different extents after simultaneous intake of capsaicin (such as total cholesterol in bile acid, and total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein in the serum). In GS group, cholesterol saturated index (CSI) increased significantly (1.32 vs. 0.46) as compared to control group suggesting the cholesterol supersaturated bile. The CSI was reduced to 0.8 in CA group. In addition, simultaneous intake of capsaicin significantly improved the abnormal expressions of COX-2, MUC5AC and TRPV1 in the gallbladder and abnormal expressions of CYP7A1, HMG-CoA r

A Scenario Simulation Study on the Impact of Urban Expansion on Terrestrial Carbon Storage in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Assessing the impacts and drivers of urban expansion on terrestrial carbon storage (TCS) is important for urban ecology and sustainability; however, a unified accounting standard for carbon intensity and research on the drivers and economic value of TCS changes are lacking. Here, urban expansion and TCS in the Yangtze River Delta were simulated based on Patch-generating Land Use Simulation and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs models; scenario simulation; Literature, Correction, Ratio, Verification carbon intensity measurement; and land use transfer matrix methods. The results showed that (1) from 2000 to 2020, urbanization and TCS loss accelerated, with 61.127% of TCS loss occurring in soil, and land conversion was prominent in riverine and coastal cities, mainly driven by the urban land occupation of cropland around suitable slopes, transportation arteries, and rivers. (2) From 2020 to 2030, urban land expansion and TCS loss varied under different scenarios; economic losses from the loss of the carbon sink value under cropland protection and ecological protection were USD 102.368 and 287.266 million lower, respectively, than under the baseline scenario. Even if urban expansion slows, the loss of TCS under global warming cannot be ignored. Considering the indirect impacts of urbanization, the failure to establish a regional development master plan based on ecosystem services may affect China’s carbon targets

High-flux and bright betatron X-ray source generated from femtosecond laser pulse interaction with sub-critical density plasma

Recent progress on betatron X-ray source enables the exploration of new physics in fundamental science; however, the application range is still limited by the source flux and brightness. In this Letter, we show the generation of more than 1 × 1012 photons (energy > 1 keV) with a peak brightness of 7.8 × 1022 photons/(s mm2 mrad2) at 0.1% bandwidth (BW) at 10 keV, driven by a femtosecond laser pulse of ≈5.5 J and a sub-critical density plasma (SCDP). The source flux is more than two orders of magnitude higher than that from typical laser wakefield electron acceleration. This method to produce high-flux and bright X-ray source would open a wide range of applications. © 2023 Optica Publishing Group.11Nsciescopu