Purpose – This paper therefore aims at systematically estimating the agricultural trade induced farm employment effects in China. Design/methodology/approach – Using detailed agricultural trade and production data during 1994‐2009, the authors estimate the “labor contents” of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether China is still a passive price taker from the US soybean futures, or instead domestic futures market has developed certain degrees of pricing power through time. The finding helps to identify the importance of China soybean futures in...

In the pharmaceutical industry, sales representatives visit doctors to inform them of their products and encourage them to become an active prescriber. On a daily basis, pharmaceutical sales representatives must decide which doctors to visit and the order to visit them. This situation motivates...

A series of interesting questions will be proposed and tried to be answered in this paper such as: Is there a limit of disaster-bearing capability in a region human-environment system (HES) when the system is hit by an extreme flood disaster? If so, what does it mean and how can it be explained?...

This paper describes exact and heuristic approaches for scheduling multiple cranes that service a shipyard that produces multiple ships concurrently. Cranes transport a variety of materials over a shared network of tracks; therefore, inter-crane interference is a major factor affecting makespan...

Forecasting prices in online auctions is important for both buyers and sellers. With good forecasts, bidders can make informed bidding decisions and sellers can select the right time and place to list their products. While information from other auctions can help forecast an ongoing auction, it...

Purpose – This paper therefore aims at systematically estimating the agricultural trade induced farm employment effects in China. Design/methodology/approach – Using detailed agricultural trade and production data during 1994-2009, the authors estimate the “labor contents” of...

We introduce a stochastic inventory relocation problem for a one-way, station-based car-sharing system with electric vehicles (EV), in which customers' rental demands and rented vehicles' travel distances are uncertain and workers are hired to relocate vehicles between stations. To maximize the...