Demand Allocation and Profit Sharing to Improve Salt Farmer’s Revenue: A Cooperative Game Approach

The main problem of the salt supply chain system is the oligopoly market structure dominated by middlemen which reduces the bargaining power of farmers. It has, however, been discovered that vertical collaboration (farmers to cooperatives) and horizontal collaboration (farmers to farmers) models have the ability to increase farmers' revenue. Therefore, this research was conducted to determine the effect of both horizontal and vertical collaboration models on the salt supply chain system with the expectation to increase farmers' revenue. This involved the application of the cooperative game theory with Shapley's value used as the basis for decision making. The result showed that the collaboration of stakeholders in the salt supply chain system has the ability to increase farmers' revenue, especially when they sell a maximum of 20% of their products through cooperatives and the rest through middlemen. This means the existence of farmers as cooperative members has a positive impact as observed in the revenue increment. Therefore, it is recommended that cooperatives improve their functions and roles as providers of savings and loans and market seekers, determine the appropriate prices for salt, and improve the quality of the products produced by their members. Moreover, a collaboration between farmers is mutually beneficial and this means efforts should be made to ensure cooperation, especially for small farmers.

Shapley-Based Estimation of Company Value—Concept, Algorithms and Parameters

The aim of the article is to propose a new method of valuation of a company, considering its ownership relations with other companies. For this purpose, the concept of the Shapley value from cooperative game theory is used as the basis for assessing such dependent companies. The paper presents proposals for Shapley value calculation algorithms for our model. We expand our model by discussing personal relations in addition to ownership relations and point out how intuitionistic fuzzy sets may be helpful in this context. As a result, we propose two new expanded models. In the first probabilistic model, we apply Pearson’s correlation coefficient, in the second, we use a correlation coefficient between intuitionistic fuzzy sets to determine the personal relationships. Finally, we present and interpret results for a real-world economic network with 17 companies.

Optimal Politics of Conflict over Physical-Industrial Development Using a Technique of Cooperative Game Theory in Iran

One of the most important parameters for economic growth is industrial development in many developing regions like Iran. The Markazi province in the center of Iran is one of the most important industrial areas in the country, where unplanned economic development in recent decades has led to many social and environmental problems. Accordingly, the main organizations involved in industrial development in this region are facing difficulties in the future development of industrial areas, which has become a complex problem. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to study the industrial development dispute in the Markazi province through a cooperative model of game theory in order to achieve conflict resolution through a comprehensive approach. In this research, the conflict has been analyzed through strategic analysis of stakeholders. For this purpose, a model of cooperative game theory and its bargaining analysis methods, including social choice rules (SCRs) and fallback bargaining (FB), and six available options were used. According to the six SCRs, the most likely option that can exist between the Department of the Environment (DOE) and the Industrial and Mining Organization (IMO) is compromise coordination (C). In addition, the results of the Fallback Bargaining (FB) rule in three different forms show that the most appropriate options for agreement between the IMO and DOE are the moderate version of construction through arbitration (TCa) and compromise coordination (C). In fact, the results indicate that if the actors involved in this conflict do not cooperate to resolve it, it can lead to more complex problems and the involvement of other groups who may not even have a proper perception of the conflict. In addition, the findings show that cooperation between the parties and understanding of their positions and views along with the policy coherence are necessary to strive for sustainable development and maintain economic growth and development.

Multiobjective Optimization Method and Application of Tolerance Allocation for the Steam Turbine Based on Cooperative Game Theory

Aiming at the optimization problem of multiple objectives with contradictions and conflicts in the process of allocating the tolerance for complex products, taking advantage of the features of coordinating, and balancing contradictions and conflicts of cooperative game theory, this paper uses cooperative game theory to solve the multiobjective optimization problem of tolerance allocation. The quality requirements and cost requirements of assembly products are used as the game decision parties, and the fuzzy clustering method is used to group the design variables of tolerance allocation problem of the steam turbine to form the strategic space of game parties. Take the quality level and cost level of the assembly product as the optimization goals, complete the calculation of the utilities of the two game parties, and establish the multiobjective optimization model of tolerance allocation based on cooperative game theory. Finally, the Shapley value method based on cooperative game theory, the Nash equilibrium method based on noncooperative game theory, and the traditional single-objective optimization method with the quality as the constraint and the cost as the optimization objective are used to solve the tolerance allocation problem of steam turbine. The solution results show that the method of cooperative game realized the balance, coordination, and comprehensive optimization of the quality and cost from the perspective of collective interests, overcame the shortcomings of the traditional single-objective optimization method, and obtained better result than the Nash equilibrium method.