CAPACITY SHARING STRATEGY WITH SUSTAINABLE REVENUE-SHARING CONTRACTS

This paper develops a duopoly model to analyse capacity sharing strategy and the optimal revenue-sharing contract under a two-part tariff and examines the effects of capacity sharing, cost, and sharing charges in three scenarios. The paper uses the two-part tariff method and adds a more realistic assumption of incremental marginal costs to improve the research on capacity sharing strategies. The results show that capacity constraints affect the sustainable development of firms. A sustainable revenue-sharing contract can create a win-win situation for both firms and promote capacity sharing. Capacity sharing, cost, and the revenue-sharing rate have different impacts in different scenarios; the optimal revenue-sharing rate and fixed fee can be determined to maximise the profits of firms that share capacity. However, capacity sharing may not improve social welfare.

Vacation Queueing Model for Performance Evaluation of Multiple Access Information Transmission Systems without Transmission Interruption

We consider a MAP/PH/1-type queueing system with server vacations as a model that is useful for the analysis of multiple access systems with polling discipline without transmission interruption. Vacation of the server corresponds to the service providing competitive information flows to the polling system. In this paper, we consider a vacation queueing model under pretty general assumptions about the probabilistic distributions describing the behavior of the system and the realistic assumption, in many real-world systems, that ongoing service cannot be terminated ahead of schedule. We derive the criterion of the stable operation of the system and the stationary distributions of the system states and the waiting time. An illustrative numerical example is presented.

Representative and responsive bureaucracy in Nepal: a mismatch or a realistic assumption?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate, firstly, to what extent has Nepal’s bureaucracy become representative in terms of reflecting the country’s demographic composition, and secondly, has the bureaucracy become more responsive to citizens since the implementation of a quota policy in 2007.Design/methodology/approachThis paper relies on factual and perceptual data in analysis. In order to analyze and interpret representative bureaucracy, this paper adopts factual data derived from the secondary sources, especially data generated by the Government of Nepal. Second, the perceptual set of data was collected through two rounds (2008, 2014) of a country-representative survey in Nepal.FindingsThe findings suggest that in terms of representativeness, the bureaucracy is still dominated by high-caste Hindus, while other ethnic communities, except the Newars, are utterly under-represented. Surprisingly, Dalits are represented in higher posts as per their percentage in the population, but they are still underrepresented in the civil service in general. Women’s representation has also increased through participation in the civil service, but they still mostly hold junior or non-gazetted posts. Citizens’ evaluations regarding responsiveness and processes of service provision are also mixed.Originality/valueThis paper is a unique attempt to understand the aspects of representativeness and responsiveness in relation to Nepalese Civil Service.

Post- to Pre-Tax Discount Rates: Not a Simple Conversion

It is widely accepted that financial markets tend to make assessments of value on expectations of post-tax cash flows, since that is what equity investors receive. There is however, from time to time, a need to ascertain and apply a pre-tax discount rate to discount pre-tax cashflows. Examples include (i) the assessment of regulatory returns and (ii) impairment testing of cash generating units. This paper highlights the implicit assumptions inherent in the most commonly applied shorthand method of determining pre-tax discount rates before considering modifications to create a more realistic assumption set. The paper concludes with the derivation of a shorthand formula for finite life project cashflows, which often require a pre-tax discount rate. The author agrees that while all the cash flows should be modelled on a post-tax basis and then back solved, using an iterative approach, to find the actual pre-tax rate, where a shorthand is required the formulae discussed in this paper can be applied, provided the limitations are understood.

The Dynamics of Anarchy

A computational model of interaction in anarchy is presented and used to predict the outcome of anarchy. Hobbes’ and Locke’s classic a priori analyses of the State of Nature are compared, including the reasons for their divergent conclusions. Several game-theoretic models of anarchy are examined that employ Hobbes’ realistic assumption that typically in anarchy some moderates most desire mutual cooperation, while other dominators most desire to exploit others’ cooperation. A priori type-based game-theoretic models yield inconsistent conclusions and rest upon unrealistic assumptions. A dynamical Variable Anticipation Threshold type-based model is explored, where individuals in anarchy modify their behavior as they learn from repeated interactions. Under quite general conditions, a population converges to Hobbes’ war of all against all even if only a small percentage of its members are dominators. This analysis gives a dynamical vindication of Hobbes’ conclusion that for a sizable population in anarchy, war is indeed inevitable.

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access Assisted Device-to-Device Communication: Best Helping Base Station Approach

<span>It can be studied in this paper that a cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) helps device-to-device (D2D) communication system through base station (BS). In particular, we investigate BS selection scheme as a best channel condition for dedicated devices where a different data transmission demand on each device is resolved. The analysis on amplifying-and forward (AF) relay is proposed to evaluate system performance of the conventional cooperative NOMA scheme. Under the realistic assumption of perfect channel estimation, the achievable outage probability of both devices is investigated, and several impacts on system performance are presented. The mathematical formula in closed form related to probability has also been found. By implementing Monte-Carlo simulation, the simulation results confirm the accuracy of the derived analytical results. Also, the proposed D2D cooperative NOMA system introduces expected performance on reasonable selected parameters in the moderate signal to noise ratio (SNR) regime.</span>

Model Checking Probabilistic Epistemic Logic for Probabilistic Multiagent Systems

In this work we study the model checking problem for probabilistic multiagent systems with respect to the probabilistic epistemic logic PETL, which can specify both temporal and epistemic properties. We show that under the realistic assumption of uniform schedulers, i.e., the choice of every agent depends only on its observation history, PETL model checking is undecidable. By restricting the class of schedulers to be memoryless schedulers, we show that the problem becomes decidable. More importantly, we design a novel algorithm which reduces the model checking problem into a mixed integer non-linear programming problem, which can then be solved by using an SMT solver. The algorithm has been implemented in an existing model checker and experiments are conducted on examples from the IPPC competitions.

Underestimated Cost of Targeted Attacks on Complex Networks

The robustness of complex networks under targeted attacks is deeply connected to the resilience of complex systems, which is defined as the ability to make appropriate response to the attack. In this paper, we study robustness of complex networks under a realistic assumption that the cost of removing a node is not constant but rather proportional to the degree of a node or equivalently to the number of removed links a removal action produces. We have investigated the state-of-the-art targeted node removing algorithms and demonstrate that they become very inefficient when the cost of the attack is taken into consideration. For the case when it is possible to attack or remove links, we propose a simple and efficient edge removal strategy named Hierarchical Power Iterative Normalized cut (HPI-Ncut). The results on real and artificial networks show that the HPI-Ncut algorithm outperforms all the node removal and link removal attack algorithms when the same definition of cost is taken into consideration. In addition, we show that, on sparse networks, the complexity of this hierarchical power iteration edge removal algorithm is only On log2+ε⁡n.

A pedagógia és az andragógia határán

Tanulmányunkban összehasonlítjuk Knowles elmélete alapján a felnőttképzések andragógiai és pedagógiai megközelítését, a humán fejlesztés andragógiai, és a tradicionális oktatók által képviselt pedagógiai modellt.A pedagógiai modell az információk és a készségek átadására koncentrál, ellentétben az andragógiai modellel, amely a tanuló rendelkezésére bocsájtja azokat a forrásokat, amelyek segítenek elsajátítani az információkat.Meggyőződésem, hogy a két megközelítés nem dichotóm és egymást kizáró, sokkal inkább egy spektrum két végpontja, amiről eldönthetjük, hogy adott szituációban melyik modell a célravezető a felnőttképzésben.***In order to distinguish between the pedagogical and andragogical approaches to design and operate adult educational programs, Knowles compared his andragogical model of human resource development with that used by most traditional educators, which he called a pedagogical model.The pedagogical model is a content model concerned with the transmitting of information and skills. By contrast, the andragogical model is a process concerned with providing procedures and resources for helping learners acquire information and skills.I agree that these two approaches are not neatly dichotomous and mutually exclusive, but rather as two ends of a spectrum, with a realistic assumption in a given situation falling in between the two ends.