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    25 May 2025, Volume 34 Issue 5
    Theory Analysis and Methodology Study
    A Bi-objective Location Model for Waste Sorting and RecyclingBased on an Improvedε-constraint Method
    DU Ruojun, JIA Tao, LEI Dong
    2025, 34(5):  1-8.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0136
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    Facility location problem is a classic area of research in the field of optimization and has been one of the hotspots that many researchers have continued to focus on for decades. Recently, the location of facilities related to urban public services has received more attention from academics. Urban public service facilities are essential for the normal operation of a city, but some of them have negative effects on the surrounding environment when they are in operation. Typical cases are waste disposal centers, also known as neighbourhood avoidance public facilities, where the location issues are often more complex. Proper selection of urban waste disposal facilities can help improve the quality of life for the general public, timely recycle valuable renewable resources and effectively reduce the severe impact of waste on the environment.
    Against this background, we consider a three-echelon recycling network consisting of collection points, disposal centers, and recycling centers. Each collection point generates different types of waste, which are disposed in the disposal centers, and then transported to the recycling centers for incineration or recycling. We first consider the capacity limitation, the nearest distance between disposal centers, the requirements for waste sorting and recycling, as well as the environmental negative effects of disposal facilities, and then we construct a bi-objective mixed integer programming model with the objective of minimizing the total cost and total negative effects in order to determine the location of waste disposal centers, and the allocation of recycling networks. By constructing and solving the model, it is ultimately necessary to answer: (1)the location and capacity planning of the disposal centers; (2)the demand allocation from collection points to disposal centers, and from disposal centers to recycling centers; (3)the transportation planning from disposal centers to recycling centers.
    Furthermore, to solve this model, based on the classical ε-constraint method, an improved ε-constraint method is designed by incorporating the optimization sequence strategy considering greedy rules (improved Strategy 1), and the cycle parameter strategy (improved Strategy 2) to obtain the Pareto frontier. Strategy 1 specifies the optimization order of the objective function under greedy rules, which makes use of the information on the slack variables and remaining variables generated during the solution process of CPLEX solver. The weights of each remaining variable are changed, forcing the constrained objective function to be optimized in a specific order based on the weight sizes of the remaining variables. Strategy 2 sets relevant parameters in the loop that can omit the number of cycles, which can effectively reduce redundant iterations and save computational time and space. After these adjustments, the improved ε-constraint method can be effectively applied to multi-objective programming models of larger magnitudes, avoiding the computational complexity of the classical ε-constraint method, while ensuring that a more accurate set of Pareto frontier solutions is eventually obtained. Subsequently, extensive data experiments are designed to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm and model. The results show that: (1)The model proposed in this paper can effectively improve the problem of the unreasonable layout of disposal centers; it can also reasonably reduce the number of waste disposal centers and balance the distance between them and the collection points. (2)Compared with the classical ε-constraint method, the improved ε-constraint method can obtain a large number of Pareto solutions with good quality and uniform distribution, avoiding the shortcomings of the classical ε-constraint method; it can also effectively reduce the number of iterations and save computational time, which is more suitable for solving large-scale problems.
    Finally, the improved ε-constraint method is applied to the real scenario of waste sorting and recycling in Xi’an. The results show that the proposed model may effectively improve the layout planning of disposal centers, and provide strategy selection and support for the implementation of such facilities.
    Location-routing Optimization of Medical Material Distribution Points fromthe Perspective of Epidemic Prevention and Emergency Guarantee
    WEI Xiaowen, WANG Dujuan, QIU Huaxin, XIA Chunyu
    2025, 34(5):  9-15.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0137
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    With the acceleration of China’s modernization, all kinds of public health emergencies have occurred frequently in recent years, which not only jeopardize people’s physical and mental health but also bring great pressure on the national medical and health service system. However, although the general cost reduction and efficiency-oriented material supply network of enterprises can obtain certain operational advantages by cutting production capacity and compression of inventory and other measures, when the risk of public health emergencies comes, the insufficient supply of emergency medicine and other materials and the phenomenon of lagging expose the vulnerability and complexity of the supply chain. Scientific and reasonable distribution points for emergency medical supplies, as well as efficient distribution network design and distribution decisions, will play an important supporting role in epidemic prevention and management.
    In the context of public health emergency prevention and control, this paper aims at minimizing the total cost of daily operation of medical material distribution points and maximizing the response capacity of emergency allocation of medical materials for epidemic prevention after an emergency, so as to study the problem of selecting the location of medical material distribution points and distribution. Specifically, it is to establish a dual-objective material distribution point location and distribution model that takes into account the daily supply of medical materials and emergency material protection, considering the stock of medical materials, the scale of demand, the urgency of the emergency response of enterprises in the region, and other factors.
    For methodology, the traditional idea of optimizing the location of transit facilities and the formulation of distribution routes in sequential order often leads to suboptimal results, so this paper will try to design an integrated approach to the synergistic optimization of the site selection of transit and distribution points and the distribution of emergency materials so as to further improve the efficiency of emergency logistics delivery. The algorithm introduces the particle swarm optimization mechanism to further improve the global search performance of the ant colony algorithm and incorporates the fast non-dominated sorting strategy to obtain the decision optimization solution set for the dual-objective feature of the problem. After the numerical experimental analysis of various scales and the comparison of the experimental results, the designed algorithm shows strong feasibility and effectiveness and demonstrates a better solving effect and higher solving efficiency in comparison with other algorithms. This paper copes with the fluctuation of material demand caused by the change in the event situation. The research results can provide management strategies under different decision-making preferences and provide effective theoretical and decision-making support for effectively preventing the hidden dangers of public health emergencies and controlling emergency logistics costs.
    Platform Opening and Pricing Strategy of Capacity SharingPlatform Considering Quality Differences
    ZHAO Daozhi, TAN Xinyue, DUAN Yuelong
    2025, 34(5):  16-22.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0138
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    The manufacturing capacity sharing studied in this paper mainly refers to a new economic model that maximizes the efficiency of manufacturing production by integrating and configuring dispersed manufacturing resources and capabilities around various stages of the manufacturing process, with Internet platforms as the basis and the sharing of facility or equipment usage rights as the feature. In the platform-based capacity sharing model, companies with idle capacity can share usage rights of their capacity through the platform with capacity demanders for profit, becoming capacity suppliers. This effectively avoids waste resulting from the purchase of production equipment with unstable utilization rates. In this paper, our research focuses on self-owned platforms with their own equipment. As the types of demand from platform customers for capacity aggregation increase, the platform’s own capacity cannot meet the diverse types of demand from customers. At this time, the platform wants to meet more capacity demands by introducing third-party capacity suppliers. However, the quality of the introduced capacity suppliers will also compete with the quality of the platform’s own capacity: when high-quality capacity suppliers are introduced, they will compete with the platform’s capacity, and the platform’s capacity may not have an advantage in terms of quality, which may affect the demand for sharing the platform’s own equipment and revenue. When the platform introduces low-quality capacity suppliers, the low-quality capacity suppliers will also compete with the platform’s capacity, and the platform’s capacity may not have an advantage in terms of price, which may also affect the demand for capacity intermediation and thereby affect the platform’s revenue. The introduction of capacity suppliers with different qualities will affect the stability of its revenue. Therefore, the motivation in this paper is to study what types of capacity suppliers should be introduced and how prices should be set to make the platform have more revenue. In previous literature, research on capacity sharing platforms is scarce. This research can fill the research gap in theory. The research in this paper can improve the platform’s revenue in terms of operational management and can help the platform enhance its operational stability in real life.
    This paper constructs a supply chain system consisting of a capacity sharing platform, capacity suppliers, capacity demanders, and consumers. The sequential game method is applied to study the operational decisions of the capacity sharing platform when introducing other capacity suppliers. When the platform has a lower commission for demanders of its equipment, lower commissions for low-quality suppliers, and higher commissions for high-quality suppliers, the openness of the platform will bring higher profits. When the platform introduces high-quality (low-quality) capacity suppliers, the price of platform capacity is lower (higher) than that of high-quality (low-quality) capacity suppliers, but the demand is also lower (higher) than that of high-quality (low-quality) capacity suppliers. When the commission rate of high-quality suppliers is low, the platform can obtain higher profits by introducing low-quality capacity suppliers.
    In the future, it is possible to further consider the platform’s openness strategy and pricing decisions while maximizing social welfare. In addition, this paper only considers the platform selecting different types of capacity providers to maximize its own profits. However, if the capacity providers can also choose to join different platforms, then the decision-making of the capacity providers joining different platforms should also be studied.
    Promotion Pricing Decision for Incomplete ComplementaryProducts of Retailers Considering Add-on Items Return
    SONG Sujuan, PENG Wei, WANG Chong
    2025, 34(5):  23-30.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0139
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    Compared with offline shopping, the uncertainty of product about quality and attribute, and the lack of the sense of use are the disadvantages of online shopping, which makes more and more online retailers provide money-back guarantee (MBG) to raise consumers’ purchasing confidence. Simultaneously, in order to cope with increasingly fierce market competition, online retailers often adopt “value increasing” promotion to stimulate sales. In fact, well-experienced speculative consumers will choose to purchase an additional add-on item to enjoy price discounts when their purchase amount is below the full reduction threshold. After successful payment, they may return the additional add-on item, which causes huge resources allocation pressure and return losses for online retailers. On the other hand, in order to improve the promotion effect, retailers may implement different product diversification strategies (such as selling complementary products) to enhance customer experience and meet the needs of different consumers. Existing research shows that due to complementary characteristics of complementary products, consumers can achieve greater benefits by using complementary products simultaneously. Therefore, how should retailers who sell incompletely complementary products, price when faced with the speculative consumers’ add-on items return behavior? Could the elasticity of complementarity between products alleviate the impact brought by speculative consumers? And how does MBG affect consumer the purchasing behavior and retailer’s profits?
    Existing research on promotional returns primarily focuses on the impact of consumer’s strategic waiting behavior on firm’s decision-making, with little attention given to consumers’ speculative behavior. And this behavior is a new phenomenon caused by retailers adopting “value increasing” promotion and allowing MBG together. In addition, in the study of incompletely complementary products, most of the literature usually analyzes its impact on the optimal bundling sales strategy of enterprises based on deterministic complementarity elasticity, ignoring the measure of complementarity and its analysis of the phenomenon of add-on items return in the online bundled sales model.
    Based on this, we attempt to analyze the problem of “value increasing” promotion pricing for retailers selling imperfect complementary products, considering a shopping scenario consisting of one retailer and two types of consumers (speculative consumer and ordinary consumers, respectively). Among them, speculative consumers are informed consumers who can enjoy price promotion by pretending to purchase an additional add-on item and return it after successful payment. Ordinary consumers are those who are uninformed and will notpretend to make an additional add-on item purchase to get price discounts and then ask for a refund. They make purchase decisions based on the degree of complementarity between two products. To address the above problem, we first provide a method for retailers to measure the degree of complementarity between products. Then, we construct a game model considering the speculative consumers’ add-on items return behavior, and explore the impact of promotional pricing strategies that differentiate the degree of complementarity between products and MBG on retailer equilibrium decisions. Finally, by comparing the existence and absence of complementary elasticity between incomplete complementary products under the provision of MBG, the mechanism of the impact of complementary degree on the speculative consumers’ add-on items return behavior is analyzed.
    Our results show that: (1)The promotion price in the case of complementary elasticity between two products decreases with an increase in complementary degree, and it may be lower than the promotion price in the case of no complementary elasticity. (2)MBG will affect consumers’ product purchase willingness, which is more favorable for product demand with complementary elasticity, and MBG will also drive-up promotional prices. (3)However, from the perspective of maximizing profits, online retailers may provide MBG only when the proportion of speculative consumers is small enough. (4)Finally, by comparing the profits of imperfect complementary products with and without complementary elasticity in the mode with MBG, we find that the complementary elasticity of imperfect complementary products can alleviate partly the negative impact of speculation consumer add-on items return behavior.
    Research on Vehicle Routing Optimization for MSW Collection withMultiple Vehicle Types and Compartments
    NI Zhicheng, YANG Zhen, WANG Nengmin, CAO Zhen, ZHENG Shuang
    2025, 34(5):  31-38.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0140
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    With the vigorous development of China’s economy, the steady progress of urbanization, and the rapid increase in the urban population, municipal solid waste (MSW) has also increased at an alarming rate. Due to incomplete classification, untimely collection and transportation, unreasonable utilization, and improper disposal, serious environmental pollution and economic losses have been incurred. Comprehensively implementing the classified waste recycling policy is an inevitable measure to handle this difficulty during the urban development. According to statistics, the costs of collection and transportation account for more than one half of the total waste treatment costs. In this context, optimally scheduling the vehicles to collect and transport MSWs so as to reduce the cost has important theoretical and practical significance for improving the efficiency of MSWs cleaning, environmental pollution reduction and the garbage classification policy implementation.
    Based on the investigation into the current status of MSW classification and transportation in China, in this paper, a heterogeneous vehicle joint collection strategy by coupling single-carriage and homogeneous multi-carriage fleet for classified municipal solid waste collection is proposed. A general heterogeneous vehicle routing problem with multi-carriage (HVRP-MC) in the MSW joint collection and transportation is thus studied. Given a set of MSW storage nodes and a fleet of heterogeneous capacitated vehicles installing one or multi-carriage with each compartment can load only one type of MSW, the HVRP-MC is to determine the optimal assignment of MSW to vehicle and its route so that each vehicle used departs from and returns to the depot. Each type of MSW at each storage node is collected by one vehicle without exceeding the maximum capacity of the corresponding carriage. The objective of the problem is to minimize the total transportation costs and set up costs of vehicles. A hybrid heuristic based on greedy algorithm is applied to obtain an initial solution. Then, an adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) is proposed to further improve the initial solution to achieve near optimal solutions. Based on the feature of the HVRP-MC, we develop some problem specific destroy operators and repair operators to improve the performance of the classical ALNS.
    Numerical experiments on various instances with different scale and proportion of type of MSW, as well as MSW storage nodes geographical distribution mode modified from Solomon’s data sets are generated to evaluate the performance of the proposed approaches. Computational results indicate that the proposed approach is very effective in solving the HVRP-MC,especially for those random clustered distribution instances with distinct residential distribution characteristics. In addition, the proposed method is good at achieving the optimal solution, and the computational time spent in solving the problem increases linearly with the size of the instance. Compared with the traditional single-carriage and homogeneous multi-carriage fleet for classified MSW collection strategies, the proposed heterogeneous vehicle joint collection demonstrates great advantage in reducing transportation costs.
    The research provides a new strategy and effective approach for the logistics network construction of classified MSW cleaning, which has important theoretical significance and application value for the construction of the “Wild China” national policy. In this research, we use Euclidean distance as distance measure. However, in realistic transportation scenarios, we also need to consider the factors such as time windows and road conditions, which may be closer to reality, and which provide new research directions for future study.
    Reactive Scheduling Optimization of Public HealthEmergency with Dynamic Resources Fluctuation
    DONG Yuchen, ZHENG Weibo, MA Zhiqiang, HE Zhengwen
    2025, 34(5):  39-46.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0141
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    The outbreak of COVID-19 poses a significant threat to the emergency management system of public health emergencies in China. The pertinence weakness of the emergency rescue plan has led to a lag in the organization and coordination of epidemic response and resources scheduling, which has affected patient care and epidemic prevention and control. In the actual emergency rescue process, medical resources are showing random changes due to unforeseen uncertainties, resulting in the failure of supply and even interruption, which affects the effective arrangement of rescue and disposal activities. In addition, the current use status of medical resources will affect the use of medical resources in the next stage. Therefore, how to scientifically arrange emergency rescue activities in a highly uncertain environment and improve the response efficiency of rescue disposal has become an important issue worthy of attention in the public health emergency management.
    The supply of medical resources is one of the main factors that affect the cost of emergency response to public health events. Due to uncertain factors such as the unclear laws of epidemic transmission, the supply of medical resources presents dynamic changes due to difficulty in accurately estimating them, and the current state of medical resource usage will affect the next stage of medical resources usage, which may lead to difficulties in smoothly executing activities such as patient treatment. Considering the correlation of the use status of medical resources, this paper studies the reactive scheduling optimization problem of public health emergencies under the dynamic change of medical resources, that is, when the random change of medical resources in each stage leads to the interruption of rescue activities, how do we optimize and adjust the rescue plan in time through reactive scheduling strategy, so as to minimize the activity adjustment cost and resource waiting cost in the whole emergency disposal process? Firstly, the reactive project scheduling optimization model of public health emergency under the change of resource correlation is constructed. Secondly, according to the NP-hard of the research problem, a tabu search heuristic algorithm is designed, and two improvement measures are proposed to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. These algorithms are compared and tested on a randomly generated standard instances set, and the results show that TS_LA3 algorithm combining the two improvement measures can obtain a better satisfactory solution. Finally, the influences of key parameters on project costs are analyzed.
    The results show that the total cost of emergency rescue project decreases with an increase in resources strength and resources availability probability, and increases with an increase in resources factor and resources transfer probability to interruption state. The adjustment cost of emergency rescue project increases with an increase in resources factor and resources transfer probability to interruption state, and decreases with an increase in resources strength and resources availability probability. The project resources waiting cost decreases with an increase in resources strength and resources availability probability, first increases and then decreases with an increase in resources factor, and increases with an increase in the resources transfer probability to interruption state. The increase in medical resources strength has a marginally decreasing effect on the adjustment cost of emergency rescue projects, the impact of resources waiting costs, and the total cost, and an increase in medical resources factors has a marginally decreasing effect on the total cost of projects. When the probability of medical resources usage transitioning to an interrupted state is low, the cost of project adjustment decreases with an increase in medical resources intensity and increases with an increase in medical resources factors. The resources waiting cost and total cost, first decrease and then increase with the increase in medical resources strength, and then increases and then decreases with an increase in medical resources factors. When the probability of interruption is moderate, the project adjustment cost, resources waiting cost, and total cost rapidly decrease as the intensity of medical resources increases. The cost of project adjustment increases rapidly with an increase in medical resources factors, and the waiting cost and total cost of resources also increase and tend to stabilize.
    This paper can provide effective decision support for the reactive scheduling of emergency rescue project in reality. Firstly, in the process of emergency disposal, when the rescue activities are interrupted, the measure of gathering the existing resources to the activities of high importance can effectively reduce an increase in the project adjustment cost caused by an uncertain change in resources. Then, the optimal selection of different resources supply strategies can effectively reduce the possibility of interruption of rescue plan, which can improve the stability of plan implementation and reduce the total cost of emergency rescue project. Finally, resources dependence fluctuations make the supply of resources and the types of resources demand have a marginal decreasing effect on the emergency rescue cost. The project decision-maker should reasonably evaluate the degree of uncertainty, and arrange the combination and supply intensity of different types of resources in different periods, which can improve the efficiency of resources utilization and reduce the cost of project adjustment.
    Research on Joint Optimization of Empty Container Repositioning andStorage in the Port Group Based on Distributed Robust Optimization
    CAI Jiaxin, WANG Wenmin, HUANG Ying, JIN Zhihong
    2025, 34(5):  47-53.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0142
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    The hinterland area after port integration often intersects and overlaps due to the characteristics of fuzzy and uncertain boundaries, and is widely present in public hinterland in reality. For shipping companies, the transportation network of empty containers has been updated due to the intersecting hinterland, and the direction of empty container repositioning also has more possibilities. The process of empty container repositioning has the characteristics of randomness and periodicity. During different decision-making cycles, the shipping company may be an empty container supply port, i.e. a surplus container port, but in the next stage, it may become an empty container demand port, i.e. a shortage container port. The uncertainty of empty container supply and demand makes shipping companies face the situation of empty containers transported from the port of shortage to the port of surplus. Reverse unreasonable transportation will exacerbate the imbalance between empty container supply and demand, and further affect the shipping company’s heavy container transportation plan, reducing service levels. At the same time, based on the dual attributes of containers as carriers and transporting goods, any single optimization cannot fully depict the practical problems brought by empty containers. Therefore, in the context of the development trend of port clusters, it is of great significance to carry out joint optimization of empty container repositioning and storage in an environment with uncertain empty container demand for the empty container repositioning network that links port clusters and landward hinterland.
    This paper aims to minimize the total cost of all decision-making cycles, taking into account constraints such as the balance of empty container inflow and outflow at each port node, the balance of transportation volume between ports and public hinterlands, exclusive hinterland terminals, the balance of transportation volume between public hinterland terminals, storage capacity limitations, and transportation capacity limitations. At the same time, a periodic inventory control strategy is introduced to reasonably control the empty container inventory of each port within the port group, thereby optimizing the cost of empty container inventory that changes due to empty container transportation operations. With distributed robust optimization, random constraints are processed and transformed into deterministic problems by introducing probability distribution sets. The combination design of dynamic programming and simulated annealing algorithm is used to solve the problem, and the numerical experiments are conducted to verify the superiority of the joint optimization and the effectiveness of the periodic inventory control strategy. The results indicate that the empty container repositioning network model linked by port groups and landward hinterlands is more efficient than the round-trip transportation model between ports and their hinterlands. The joint optimization of empty container repositioning and inventory control can reduce the total container management costs for shipping companies, including empty container repositioning and storage. Given the periodicity of liner transportation, the periodic inventory control strategy is more effective under uncertain demand for empty containers.
    The further research direction is to explore the combined optimization schemes of container repositioning, storage, and leasing among different port groups by shipping companies, while also exploring the effectiveness of other inventory control strategies in reducing empty container management costs in uncertain environments.
    Economic-statistical Optimization Design of VSET Control Chart forJoint Monitoring of Location and Scale Parameters
    WANG Haiyu, GUO Chunhua
    2025, 34(5):  54-60.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0143
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    Statistical process control can use the principle of mathematical statistics to ensure the smooth operation of the production process of the enterprise and make sure that the quantity, quality, cost and time required for production meet the requirements of the conditions, so that the enterprise forms a competitive production management ability. This has been widely concerned. As one of the most widely used product quality control tools for statistical process control, control chart is widely used by various enterprises. The existing control chart in this paper is optimized and improved. By combining the conventional Shewhart chart with the exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart and introducing the idea of dynamic control chart, a VSET control chart for jointly monitoring position and scale parameters is established by constructing Chi-square distribution statistics to meet the needs of enterprises for more efficient joint monitoring.
    In this paper, the average product length (APL) and the average product quality cost per unit are taken as the statistical and economic evaluation indexes of the control chart, and the calculation methods of the two indexes are analyzed based on Markov chain, and the multi-objective optimization design model of the economic statistics of the chart is established. In the MATLAB 2021 environment, NSGAⅢ (non-dominated sorting genetic algorithalgorithm-Ⅲ algorithm is used to solve the optimal dasign model, and the non-inferior solution set under the given production parameters and control parameters is obtained. Then, through the analysis of a numerical example, this paper shows how to apply the multi-objective optimization model of economic statistics of VSET control chart in the enterprise. Through the sensitivity analysis, the influence of the optimization model of the VSET control chart on the value of the objective functions and their relations are explained. Through the comparative analysis, the application range of the VSET control chart optimization model proposed in this paper is illustrated.
    The research results of this paper show that the VEST control chart economic statistics multi-objective optimization model proposed in this paper can effectively monitor abnormal shifts occurring in position and scale parameters. Besides, compared with the partial combination control chart of this control chart from the aspects of statistics and economy, Shewhart chart, VSI EWMA chart and Shewhart-EWMA chart with variable sampling interval have good effects on abnormal deviation of different degrees of position and scale parameters, and have a wider application range, which can effectively improve the monitoring efficiency of control chart and reduce the quality loss and economic cost of quality monitoring for enterprises.
    Finally, the paper also needs to look forward to the following aspects: the innovation of this paper lies in the establishment of Chi-square distribution statistics that can jointly monitor the position and scale parameters, and the combination monitoring of two commonly used control charts to improve the applicability of control charts. Whether the combination monitoring of the other two types of control charts can be more advantageous than monitoring alone needs further consideration. In addition, this paper only studies one type of dynamic control chart, which is the control chart with variable sampling interval. For dynamic control charts, there are also control charts with variable sample size and control charts with both variable sample size and sampling interval. How to apply these concepts of dynamic control charts to combined control charts and improve the monitoring efficiency of control charts still needs further research.
    Collaborative Resources Scheduling Optimization of Automated ContainerTerminal Equipment Considering Uncertainties under Mixed Process
    CHU Liangyong, LIANG Dong, ZHOU Yupei
    2025, 34(5):  61-67.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0144
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    There are many uncertainties in the operation of automated container terminals, which largely affect the efficiency of the terminals. Therefore, it is extremely vital to study the collaborative scheduling of equipment resources in automated container terminals under uncertainties. At the same time, fully automated container terminals have been newly built in recent years or based on the original terminal equipment for automation transformation, which is bound to have a mix of old and new equipment, so how to make the new and old equipment to work well together to improve the efficiency of the terminal is also within the scope of our study.
    Although large ports around the world are currently dispatched unmanned, there is still room for improvement in overall dispatching efficiency. After a research on Xiamen YH automated container terminal,considering the business logic and equipment characteristics of the automated container terminal, we propose the mixed process operation mode on the basis of a single loading and unloading process, which is better applicable to the modified automated container terminal. The mixed process studied in this paper is a combination of five types of loading and unloading equipment: double-trolley shore bridge, single-trolley shore bridge, AGV, collector truck and yard bridge, i.e., double-trolley shore bridge and single-trolley shore bridge act on one ship at the same time, and two types of horizontal transportation equipment, AGV and collector truck, are put in place. It is dynamic for the operating environment of container terminals and there are uncertainties such as uncertainty of vessel arrival time, machinery own failure, fluctuation of loading and unloading efficiency and other uncontrollable factors, which cannot be accurately predicted by these parameters. When historical data can meet the needs of reality, uncertainty can be represented by probability distribution, etc.; when historical data cannot meet the needs of reality, fuzziness can better describe the uncertain variables existing in the terminal. In this study, the three uncertain factors are considered: demand of horizontal transportation equipment, travel time and operation time of vertical loading and unloading equipment in the scheduling problem. And aimed at minimizing the maximum completion time,a multi-equipment resources cooperative scheduling optimization model of shore bridge, horizontal transportation equipment and yard bridge are established, and the Beetle swarm algorithm is introduced.
    The YH automated container terminal data is used as an example for empirical evidence, the Beetle whisker search algorithm and Beetle swarm. The results show that the Tenebrae swarm algorithm designed in this paper is more convergent and the quality of the solutions obtained is better. Taking the uncertainty factors into account is closer to the practical terminal operation environment, and considering the hybrid process is more applicable to the utilization of existing equipment resources in the process of terminal automation transformation. The proposed model considering uncertain factors and hybrid processes and the Tenno swarm algorithm are an effective method to study the collaborative scheduling of equipment resources in automated container terminals.
    Stochastic Electric Vehicle Routing Problem with TrafficCongestion and Queueing at Charging Stations
    XIE Ning, ZHANG Shu
    2025, 34(5):  68-75.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0145
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    In recent years, with the increasing emphasis on environmental protection and the continuous improvement of relevant policies, the adoption of electric vehicles (EV) in last-mile delivery has received extensive attention. However, using EV faces challenges such as uncertain travel time due to traffic congestion and random waiting time at charging stations. These factors not only affect the efficiency of last-mile delivery but also increase the uncertainty of vehicle energy consumption and charging needs. Thus, this study investigates a stochastic electric vehicle routing problem in which the traffic congestion condition is uncertain and there is a stochastic queueing process at each charging station.
    The stochastic electric vehicle routing problem is formulated as a Markov decision process. The state of the system at each decision epoch includes information on EV and unvisited customers, real-time traffic conditions, and the queueing status of charging stations. The information on EV includes the vehicle’s current location and remaining energy level. The decision epoch is triggered by the arrival of EV at a customer location. The action taken at a decision epoch indicates the next location that EV should visit. The candidate locations for EV to visit could be a customer, a charging station, or the depot. The objective is to maximize the expected total rewards that can be collected by EV.
    Due to the notorious three curses of dimensionality, this problem cannot be solved exactly using forward dynamic programming. Instead, we propose two algorithms to solve the problem. One is an a priori offline approach and the other is a rollout algorithm. In the a priori offline approach, an a priori route is developed to visit customers. The route is pre-determined before EV leave the depot. However, when there are uncertain traffic congestion conditions, the travel time between locations is uncertain, so is the energy consumption of EV. Therefore, with time windows associated with each customer, EV may not be able to arrive at where customers are within their time windows. In such a case, the a priori route needs to be modified. The modifications of the pre-designed a priori route are named recourse actions. Specifically, when executing an a priori route, before leaving the current location, based on the currently observed traffic condition, if EV cannot arrive at the next customer schedule in the a priori route, the customer will be removed from the planned route and EV will head for the next location after it. In this study, a variable neighborhood search algorithm is proposed to obtain a good quality a priori route.
    In the rollout algorithm, we dynamically determine which location to head for at each decision epoch. There are two types of decisions in the rollout algorithm. One is the routing decision and the other is the charging decision. When making a routing decision, an a priori route with recourse actions is adopted to estimate the expected reward-to-go and help to choose the next customer to visit. Future possible traffic conditions are considered when developing the a priori route. When making a charging decision, we adopt a threshold charging policy, so that EV will head for a charging station if its current energy level is below the threshold. If EV need to be charged, the charging decision chooses a charging station, so that the traveling time to the station plus the queueing time at the station is minimal out of all candidate charging stations.
    To evaluate the performance of the above two algorithms, we conduct computational experiments using benchmark datasets. We use 56 data instances, each containing 20 customers and 8 charging stations. There are R, C, and RC instance sets. The instance set R corresponds to randomly relocated customers, while instance set C corresponds to clustered customers, and instance set RC corresponds to a mix of randomly relocated and clustered customers. For the R instance set, the rollout algorithm can collect 2. 33% more expected rewards from serving customers than the a priori offline algorithm. For the C instance set, the rollout algorithm collects 10.16% more expected rewards than the a priori offline algorithm, while for the RC instance set, it collects 5.74% more expected rewards than the a priori algorithm. The computational results indicate that the rollout algorithm performs the best when customers are clustered. In terms of computational time, we restrict the computational time for the rollout algorithm to make a decision at each decision epoch to one minute. Thus, the computational time of the rollout algorithm is comparable to the a priori offline algorithm.
    In this study, we consider a stochastic electric vehicle routing problem. A priori and dynamic solution algorithms are proposed to solve the problem. The computational experiments demonstrate that the rollout algorithm is in general better than the a priori offline algorithm. To extent this study in the future, we may consider non-linear charging and recharging functions of EV, in which it is more challenging to make dynamic routing and charging decisions.
    Research on Emergency Medical Supply Demand according to InfectiousDisease Epidemic Based on Modified SEIAR Model
    JIANG Huiyuan, HOU Chunxia
    2025, 34(5):  76-82.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0146
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    Infectious disease epidemic is the most devastative and disastrous public health emergency according to the greatest impact on public health security. In recent years, the outbreak of SARS, Ebola virus, MERS-CoV, COVID-19, Mpox, H1N1 and H1N9 have posed great threats to health threats, economic losses, psychological suffering and so no. In response to the infectious disease, prompt medical relief supplies are the key to reducing the damage. The rapid spread of infectious diseases is likely to cause the dilemma of soaring demand and shortage of medical supplies. Therefore, to rationally allocate the limited medical supplies, it is necessary to precisely forecast the demand of medical supplies in different epidemic areas.
    The most used method to predict the demand for medical supplies is a two-stage method. First, a model is built to predict the spread scale of infectious diseases and determine the number of infected people, and then the demand for medical supplies is predicted. In the two-stage method, the infectious disease transmission model is critical. There is a mutual feedback relationship between the demand of emergency medical supplies and the scale of infectious disease transmission, but the infectious disease transmission model proposed does not consider the reciprocal feedback relationship.
    In this paper, we construct a modified SEIAR model in which we set parameters for the effects of medical supplies, as well as quarantine measures. The modified SEIAR model can describe the influence of the medical supplies demand satisfaction on the number of infected people. According to the model, we derive the expressions of control regeneration indicators Rc, which can reflect the effectiveness of infectious disease control measures. Then, from the perspective of optimal control, we calculate the minimum satisfaction rate of emergency medical supplies demand under different quarantine proportions for the purpose of controlling the large-scale spread of the epidemic. Additionally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis of key parameters, and give suggestions on the dispatch of emergency medical supplies. In order to verify the validity of the modified SEIAR model, we conducted a case study of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. The mean absolute deviation of this model is 0.06, which proves the accuracy of the modified model. Furthermore, the results show that when the quarantine ratio p=0, the demand satisfaction rate of emergency medical supplies m=1, and the control regeneration number Rc could only be reduced to 2. 78. It means that the epidemic could not be controlled by using medical supplies without quarantine measures. When p=0.8 and m=0.55, Rc=1. That means when the quarantine ratio reaches 0.8 and the material demand satisfaction rate reaches 0.55, the epidemic can be controlled. This result can provide reference for management departments to formulate scientific medical supplies allocation targets in the situation of severe shortage. Moreover, according to the sensitivity analysis results, we can get conclusions that: (1)In case of serious shortage of emergency medical supplies, the satisfaction rate of all demand points for emergency medical supplies can be appropriately reduced based on the implementation degree and effect of quarantine measures. (2)Considering the reserve and financing situation of different kinds of medical supplies, the reasonable combination of the three kinds of supplies should be selected to meet the demand rate, and when the epidemic prevention effect of a certain medical material is outstanding, the demand for the material should be met as far as possible. The above conclusions can provide reference for management departments to formulate emergency medical supplies financing plan when facing the dilemma of shortage and a sharp increase in emergency medical supplies.
    Research on Cluster Analysis and Algorithm for BusinessStructure Integration of Securities Companies
    ZHANG Yuning, ZHANG Zhenxing
    2025, 34(5):  83-88.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0147
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    As the pillar industry of the financial industry, securities have an important impact on the capital market. As the main department of securities issuance and trading, securities companies play an important role in China’s capital market construction, economic transformation, system reform and other aspects. The business structure of securities companies, that is, the various businesses operated by securities companies and the combination relationship between them, determines the profit level of securities companies, and is also one of the important factors affecting the risk level of securities companies. Therefore, the selection of business structure of securities companies is a very important theoretical and practical problem for the survival and development of securities companies, and it is also one of the hot issues in the current securities industry.
    Through analysis and research, we find that the integration problem in the selection of business structure of securities companies is actually a combination problem of the business of securities companies according to some requirements, which is different from the securities portfolio problem, and just coincides with the relevant content of cluster analysis application research. Therefore, this paper considers the clustering method in clustering analysis, and quantitatively studies the integration problem in the selection of business structure of securities companies.
    Based on the qualitative research results of the business structure selection and integration of securities companies, the practical quantitative integration method is given. For the securities business structure with multi-business as the core, the interactive self-organization data algorithm is used to soft-divide the securities business collection, so as to realize the problem of business structure selection and integration of securities companies that cannot be specifically solved in the qualitative research, combined with the application calculation examples.
    In short, this paper studies the integration model and algorithm of the business structure selection of securities companies. For the securities business structure with multi-business as the core, the interactive self-organization data algorithm is used to soft-divide the securities business collection. In this way, the integration problem of business structure selection of securities companies that cannot be specifically solved in qualitative research is realized, and the transformation from qualitative research to quantitative research is completed.
    Feature Block Decomposition Algorithm of Sparse SupportVector Machine Based on SCN Function
    PAN Yang, MENG Zhiqing, WEN Guodong, JIANG Min
    2025, 34(5):  89-96.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0148
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    With the widespread application of machine learning classification algorithms in multimodal big data, the accurate classification of high-dimensional data becomes urgent and essential. As the feature dimensions of the classification objects continue to increase, the number of features involved in the final classification result also increases, leading to a decrease in classification accuracy. In practical applications, such high-dimensional classification results need to be more effective. Therefore, in multimodal large models, how to sparsify high-dimensional features has become an urgent issue in many practical classification applications.
    Traditional support vector machine models lack feature selection capabilities and are often affected by redundant features, decreasing classification accuracy. Thus, methods of achieving feature sparsification have become crucial. Many researchers have proposed to use methods that involve adding regularization terms for sparsification. Since the L0 norm is non-convex and non-smooth, belonging to an NP-hard problem, solving it directly is computationally challenging. As a result, some researchers have suggested using the L1 norm and the Lp norm as penalty terms to simplify the calculations while achieving similar sparsity effects. However, the core idea of these methods is to construct a function that approximates the L0 norm. Although they address the computational difficulties, there is still room for improvement regarding sparsity.
    This paper presents a sparse support vector machine approach based on the L0 norm. Considering the non-convex and discontinuous nature of the L0 norm, the paper employs a strongly transformable non-convex function to convert the L0 norm into a differentiable convex-concave continuous function. For the transformed convex-concave minimax problem, it is equivalent to a bilevel programming problem. The upper-level problem is solved by using both the conjugate gradient descent and the steepest descent algorithm, while the lower-level problem’s optimal solution can be directly obtained and substituted for the upper-level problem. This transformation turns the original problem into a convex optimization problem, thus addressing the difficulty of directly computing the L0 norm. Due to its equivalence, this model effectively retains the sparsity of the L0 norm. Finally, a feature block decomposition algorithm named CGDL-SVM is constructed. The basic idea is to divide samples into multiple small blocks based on features and solve them sparsely, and then merge the samples after block sparsification optimization and perform further sparsification optimization to obtain the final decision classification surface. This process simultaneously ensures classification accuracy while reducing the complexity of high-dimensional feature computation.
    In the numerical experiments, we first compare the CGDL-SVM algorithm with three sparse support vector machine algorithms using other regularization terms on five UCI datasets, demonstrating that L0 norm regularization is superior to other regularization terms in terms of sparsity. Then, the CGDL-SVM algorithm is compared with four classical sparse algorithms in terms of sparsity and accuracy on five high-dimensional real-world datasets, and the results show that the CGDL-SVM algorithm not only performs well in terms of classification accuracy, especially excelling in sparsity but also exhibits excellent performance in high-dimensional datasets, indicating good practicality.
    In summary, the proposed algorithm in this paper has better sparsity while ensuring high classification accuracy, effectively balancing the contradiction between classification accuracy and sparsity, and providing new ideas for sparse support vector machine research.
    Research on Single-track Pickup Scheduling of OverheadRobotic Compact Storage and Retrieval System
    MA Yunfeng, CHEN Lei, HU Yina, REN Liang, ZHOU Zhigang
    2025, 34(5):  97-103.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0149
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    A compact warehousing system holds substantial significance for enterprises and it is also an important field for the development of intelligent warehousing in China. Overhead Robotic Compact Storage and Retrieval System (ORCSRS) has emerged as a new type of high-density automated warehouse. Theoretically, the ORCSRS can maximally meet the personalized and timely needs of consumers for products and services due to land resource scarcity. Currently, there is a research void on the retrieval scheduling problem for this warehousing system. So, this article fills in the gap in this field. Because the system is composed of multipleindependent picking tracks, the single-track pickup problem is its basic problem, and the problem of single-track pickup is the foundation for solving the pickup problem of the system. Therefore, this article studies the single-track pickup scheduling problem of the system.
    The ORCSRS single track-pickup problem is similar to the block relocation problem and can be regarded as a variant of the block relocation problem. However, it differs from existing block relocation problems in the following aspects: (1)Different constraint conditions: existing block relocation problems generally have strict pickup orders and complete retrieval, while this study does not have a pickup order and incomplete retrieval. (2)The optimization objectives are different. Due to the small system size of block relocation problem, the time spent on the crane’s movement can be ignored, and the number of relocations is a key factor affecting the pickup time. However, due to the large scale of the system and the large number of stacks, the moving distance of the picking robot during each relocation becomes an undeniable influencing factor. This work focuses on the objective of minimizing pickup time. The picking time is related to two factors: the number of relocations and the distance traveled by the picking robot. So, the optimization objective of this work is to minimize the sum of the number of relocations and the load moving distance of the picking robots. Firstly, we establish an integer programming model for this problem, which can only solve small-scale problems. Then, we design a heuristic algorithm based on beam search (abbr BSH) for large-scale problems. The algorithm makes some improvements on the branching operations of the first step and preserves some of each layer’s sub nodes based on beam search to enhance algorithm performance. Finally, we use Python to call Gurobi to solve integer programming model. Then, the BSH is compared with the integer programming model as well as the greedy algorithm commonly used in enterprises to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm. The BSH is compared with traditional beam search algorithms to validate the effectiveness of the improved algorithm.
    All numerical experiments are coded by Python. The extensive experiments show that the integer programming model can solve a small-scale problem with 5 stacks and 4 levels within 1000 seconds, the gap between the BSH algorithm and the integer programming model solution is within 1%, and the solving time of BSH is significantly faster than that of the integer programming model. For medium and large-scale problems, the model cannot find the optimal solution within a reasonable amount of time. The BSH algorithm can solve an instance with 50 stacks and 8 levels in a few tens of seconds and its performance is about 20% better than that of the greedy algorithm commonly used in enterprises. Compared with traditional bundle search algorithms, the performance of BSH algorithm has been improved by 7% to 12%; in terms of system configuration, it has been concluded that as the number of storage spaces increases, the optimal number of stack layers also increases, providing decision support for enterprise applications.
    In the future, the research can be conducted in the following areas: (1)This article only studies the single-track pickup problem and can focus on the multi-track pickup problem of this system. (2)This article only investigates the pickup problem of only one robot per track, so we can study the pickup problem of multiple robots.
    Research on Manufacturer Market Encroachment Strategy withConsumer’s Anticipated Regret and Low Carbon Preference
    ZHAO Zhengjia, BAI Yu
    2025, 34(5):  104-111.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0150
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    In recent years, the problem of global warming has become increasingly prominent, and sustainable development has received more and more attention. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that it is necessary to accelerate the development of green and low-carbon industries and actively promote the green and low-carbon transformation of lifestyles and consumption patterns. As a result, the industry attaches great importance to low-carbon manufacturing, more and more companies are recognizing the importance of taking environmental responsibility, and consumer preference for low-carbon products is increasing. On the other hand, with the rapid development of e-commerce and the gradual improvement of the market system, consumers are gradually moving from offline to online. Market entry barriers in many industries have also been greatly reduced, and green product manufacturers are beginning to encroach on the market for similar common products through online channels to capture market share. In addition, the market encroachment strategy needs to be formulated with a detailed analysis of consumer needs. Since the products have new features and attributes introduced by green manufacturers when they encroach on the market, even though companies publicize their new products through online and offline media before they are sold, consumers are not sure whether they will benefit from these new attributes until they actually buy and use them, and they may regret the purchase.
    In the above context, this paper considers a green supply chain system consisting of an incumbent manufacturer, a retailer, and an entrant manufacturer, where the incumbent manufacturer sells common products through the retailer and the entrant manufacturer sells similar and differentiated green products through the online channel. The entrant manufacturer consists of a manufacturing division and a downstream retail division, and there are two market encroachment strategies: (1)Direct selling encroachment: the entrant manufacturer and the downstream retail division are fully integrated, and the product is sold directly to the consumer through the online channel. (2)Agent selling encroachment: the entrant manufacturer and the downstream retail division are separated to make decentralized decisions with the goal of maximizing their own profits. At the same time, to study the problem of entrant manufacturer market encroachment strategy selection and analyze the impact of market encroachment and consumer’s anticipated regret on supply chain equilibrium decisions and profits, an entrant manufacturer direct selling encroachment model and an agent selling encroachment model are established with consumer anticipated regret and low-carbon preference. Finally, we conduct numerical simulations to further analyze the impact of consumer carbon sensitivity factor and anticipated regret sensitivity on supply chain members’ decisions and profits under different market encroachment strategies.
    The results show that when the consumer’s anticipated regret sensitivity and the carbon sensitivity factor are satisfied, the entrant manufacturer can always gain more profit from the agent selling encroachment strategy, but the carbon reduction is higher than the direct selling encroachment strategy only when the direct sales cost is larger. Agent selling encroachment strategies do not necessarily hurt incumbent manufacturer and retailer profits, and there exists a Pareto improvement region. Consumer’s carbon sensitivity factors always positively affect entrant manufacturer and retail division, and negatively affect incumbent manufacturer and retailer. The presence of anticipated regret weakens the impact of consumer carbon sensitivity factors on supply chain members, while negatively impacting entrant manufacturer as a whole, but facilitates the improvement of profits for incumbent manufacturers and retailers, and the possibility of win-win situation for supply chain members.
    There are still many deficiencies in this paper that need to be further studied. This paper only considers that entrant manufacturers will implement carbon emission reductions, and in reality, incumbent manufacturers can also implement carbon emission reductions to satisfy consumer’s low-carbon preferences, so it is possible to explore the optimal market encroachment strategy of entrant manufacturers when both implement carbon emission reductions, and further consider the situation in which consumers have different sensitivities to anticipated regret for products of the incumbent manufacturer and those of the entrant manufacturer.
    Flagship Store vs. Official Mall: Roles of Information Sharingin Manufacturer’s Direct Sales Models
    LIU Zheng, SHI Chunlai, DU Rong
    2025, 34(5):  112-119.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0151
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    With the rapid development of e-commerce, a great number of manufacturers are establishing online direct sales channels to better meet the online shopping demand. While distributing products through e-commerce platforms, many manufacturers choose to either establish flagship stores on these platforms (e.g., Midea and Bear Electric Appliance) or sell directly to consumers through their own official malls (e.g., Lenovo and Apple). Compared with manufacturers, e-commerce platforms can collect rich consumer data to effectively predict market demand, thus having an advantage in demand information. Based on this background, our study attempts to answer these questions: Under what conditions should the platform provide demand information to the manufacturer? How does the demand information sharing decision of the platform affect the manufacturer’s direct selling strategy? How does the direct sales strategy of the manufacturer affect the platform’s profit and the overall supply chain profit? These findings will provide guidelines for e-commerce platforms in deciding whether to share demand information and for manufacturers in designing their direct sales strategies.
    This paper considers a Stackelberg game model consisting of a manufacturer and an e-commerce platform. The manufacturer leads the game, and the platform follows. When reselling products through the platform, manufacturers either rely on the e-commerce platform to establish flagship stores (“resale+agency” model), or build their own official mall to sell products directly to consumers (“resale+self-build” model). Depending on whether the platform chooses to share or withhold its forecasted demand information from the upstream manufacturer, with both parties aiming to maximize their respective expected profits, we formulate objective functions for four scenarios: cases with and without information sharing under both the “resale+agency” and “resale+self-build” models. Subsequently, we derive the optimal decisions through backward induction. First, we analyze the e-commerce platform’s decision making regarding demand information sharing, and then discuss how the manufacturer chooses the direct selling model according to the platform’s information sharing decision. Our findings indicate that: (1)Under the “resale+self-build” model, the e-commerce platform does not share its demand information with the manufacturer, whereas under the “resale+agency” model, the commission rate plays a pivotal role in the platform’s information sharing strategy: a high commission rate incentivizes the platform to share demand information with the manufacturer, while a low rate leads to no information sharing. (2)For the manufacturer, the decision to build an official mall tends to occur under two conditions: (i) if the e-commerce platform does not share demand information in either model and the self-build channel’s unit selling cost is low; or (ii) if the platform does share demand information in the “resale+agency” model and the accuracy of this information is low. (3)For the e-commerce platform, if it chooses to withhold demand information under both the “resale+self-build” and the “resale+agency” models while the self-build channel’s per-unit selling cost remains low, or alternatively decides to share demand information with high accuracy under the “resale+agency” model, the manufacturer’s establishment of a flagship store ultimately proves strategically advantageous for the platform. (4)For the supply chain, if the e-commerce platform either withholds demand information in both models, or chooses to share such information in the “resale+agency” model and the demand information accuracy is high, the manufacturer’s establishment of a flagship store delivers significant benefits to the supply chain.
    Our study focuses on the game between a manufacturer and an e-commerce platform. In the future, we could extend to scenarios with multiple manufacturers or e-commerce platforms, e.g., examining competition among supply chain members to further explore the demand information sharing decisions of e-commerce platforms and the upstream manufacturers’ direct channel strategies. In addition, based on the findings of this study, it is always beneficial for the manufacturer when the e-commerce platform shares demand information with it, while the platform may choose not to share such information. Future research can discuss what incentive mechanisms manufacturers can develop to ensure e-commerce platforms consistently share real-time demand information.
    A Study of Age Replacement Policies Considering Opportunities and Time Window
    SU Can, QIAN Cunhua, SUN Youchun
    2025, 34(5):  120-126.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0152
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    Usually, preventive maintenance policy decisions are made without taking into account the system’s work cycle, resulting in a fixed-time preventive maintenance policy that may affect the normal use of the system. In addition, in actual production life, the price and labor cost of spare parts that need to be replaced are not always optimal due to economic and objective operating environment factors, so this paper proposes an age replacement policy that considers opportunities and contains time windows in order to be able to enhance the applicability of the model and reduce the cost of the system in use. The advantages and disadvantages of the policy can be compared in two dimensions: efficiency and flexibility. The policy is to relax the replacement of the system to be performed in a certain time window period. The policy is proposed to facilitate maintenance, or to enable low-cost maintenance.
    By building the expected cost rate function, the range of window time start point S and prevention time point T are discussed using image method and differentiation method, etc., and the relationship between the magnitude of the cost rate under different conditions is compared with numerical visualization. In the study of this paper, completion of the task is shown to provide an opportunity for substitution. The analysis shows that replacement first, replacement last, age replacement and random replacement are the special cases of the model proposed in this paper. The results of the final numerical validation show that there is no optimal time window in the strict sense, and the optimal age replacement policy is a simplified optimal time window with the highest efficiency but the narrowest applicability; the replacement first policy and the replacement last policy have the lowest efficiency, but have a semi-open time window for preventive replacement, which is the most flexible replacement policy; and the time window replacement policy balances the efficiency and flexibility of replacement. In practical application, the optimal age replacement policy is preferred if the conditions permit; when the time window replacement policy is used, the policy with the left end of the time window S less than the optimal replacement age or the right end of the time window T greater than the optimal replacement age is preferred, and the closer to the optimal replacement age, the higher its efficiency. However, the use of the corresponding time window policy close to the age of replacement enhances the applicability of the model.
    In this paper, the same preventive replacement cost is used for non-repairable parts. In a more in-depth study, we can also discuss the study of economically efficient strategies, e.g., giving a corresponding discount to the replacement cost considering the currency variation factor; the replacement cost can also vary dynamically at different time points. In addition, the model can also be extended to repairable parts to study the policy study under the cumulative shock process, etc.
    Application Research
    Research on Optimal Allocation of Micro and Small Enterprise LoansBased on Triple Demand Consideration of Return-Risk-Inclusion
    YAN Dawen, QI Ji, LIU Weiwei, CHI Guotai
    2025, 34(5):  127-134.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0153
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    The significant role of micro and small enterprises (MSE) in China’s economy has been recognized. They contribute substantially to the Gross Domestic Production (GDP), export earnings and employment opportunities. However, the poor availability of financing, especially accessing credit, is a major constraint on the development and growth of MSE. Because many small enterprises are unable to provide financial data for credit rating, commercial banks would not assess their true financial position so that they would reject credit applications. Though MSE borrow from banks on a small scale, the high default rate of MSE has led to huge losses, which also makes banks reluctant to make loan commitments to MSE. Thus, banks are faced with the challenge of controlling the credit risk of MSE loan portfolio in order to protect the interests of shareholders. At the same time, they also need to serve the task of inclusive finance for the development of MSE.
    This paper studies an optimal micro-credit loans allocation problem from three perspectives: bank shareholders, regulators and MSE. We build a 0-1 mixed-integer nonlinear optimization model for banks to provide loans for MSE. In this model, decision variables are defined as whether to issue loans and the amount of loans; the objective function is set to maximize the expected return of the loan portfolio; and the constraints are established to ensure that the bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) is not less than the regulatory requirement of 8% and the number of enterprises receiving loans is not lower than the target set by the bank. The innovations of this paper are as follows: firstly, while the objective of maximizing loan revenue to satisfy the needs of shareholders is considered, CAR constraint is introduced to control the overall credit risk; secondly, the need for inclusive finance is combined with the asset allocation problem of banks to ensure more small enterprises’ access to loans and alleviation of their financing difficulties to a certain extent; thirdly, the method incorporating with invoice data for computing a small company’s default probability is proposed. Invoice data can be used to analyze the relationship transaction information among enterprises, and thus can reflect the impact of changes in the credit quality of enterprises in the supply chain on default risk of enterprises applying for loans. For those small enterprises that may not provide balance-sheet data for banks to evaluate their financial position, with the help of the default probability method developed in this study they may get a credit rating, and thus the chance of obtaining loans would increase.
    In numerical experiments, credit data of 6460 enterprises from ABC, a commercial bank in China, is used to construct an asset allocation scheme. Among them, 3752 enterprises provide financial and non-financial data, and invoice data; 1278 enterprises only provide financial and non-financial data. The remaining 1430 enterprises only have invoice data. Sensitivity tests are applied to examine the influence of target CAR, the number of enterprises receiving loans and other factors on the optimal asset allocation. The results show that: (1)524 enterprises that only provide the invoice data receive loan approvals; (2)our asset allocation is sensitive to key factors. With the increase in capital adequacy ratio, funds flow from enterprises with lower credit-rating to enterprises with higher credit-rated, but the return rate of loan portfolio decreases. As the number of enterprises receiving loans increases, some of the loans originally allocated to higher credit-rated enterprises flow to lower-rated enterprises, but the bank’s capital adequacy ratio meets regulatory requirement. Finally, a comparison with an existing widely used bank asset allocation model shows that our model outperforms the existing one in terms of capital adequacy level and the number of enterprises getting loans, and provides an effective way to deal with the trade-off between credit risk control and promotion of inclusive finance.
    In addition to invoice data, MSE tax data, water, gas and electricity charges data may also be valuable. The role of these data in pre-loan default risk assessment, asset allocation decisions, and post-loan financial situation monitoring of MSE is worth studying in the future.
    Does M&A Similarity Inhibit R&D Investment?Text Analysis Based on the Operating Characteristics of Both Parties Involved in M&A
    LIU Jingjian, TIAN Nan, ZHANG Dongni
    2025, 34(5):  135-141.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0154
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    China’s economy has begun a new stage of high-quality development, and the requirements of enterprises for technological innovation are becoming more and more urgent. With the acceleration of technological progress and the continuous introduction of new products, in addition to independent research and development or collaborative research and development to improve the innovation capacity of enterprises, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become one of the shortcuts to quickly capture innovation opportunities. It is worthwhile to pay attention to whether and by what characteristics of M&A activities the technological innovation of enterprises is affected, and the existing literature mainly focuses on the value effect and innovation results of M&A. However, due to the complexity of the M&A process and the limited data disclosure, there is little empirical research on the mechanism and effect of the influence of the characteristics of M&A on R&D investment. Revealing this “black box” is of great significance for selecting M&A targets, improving resources integration and realizing synergies.
    This paper selects the domestic major restructuring M&A events that were implemented and completed from 2008 to 2020, and the bidders are A-share listed companies as samples. It applies Python to analyze the business scope and product features in the financial statements of the two parties to the merger and acquisition, and uses the related textual expressions such as business operation and technical products as the corpus source of the similarity estimation of the merger and acquisition, so as to measure the degree of similarity of the enterprises of both parties involved in the merger and acquisition based on the cosine similarity theorem. Using the Tobit model, we empirically test the effect of M&A similarity on the R&D investment of the main merging firms; we use the mediation effect model to test the path effect of resource integration and profit chasing, and further analyze the innovation efficiency in order to identify the critical paths; we use the instrumental variable method and dynamics test to alleviate the endogeneity problem and construct a moderating effect model to test the effect of innovation knowledge accumulation and creation on the relationship between M&A similarity and R&D investment.
    The results show that: overall, M&A similarity significantly reduces enterprises’ R&D investment, and for every one standard deviation increase in the degree of M&A similarity, the two-year average of enterprises’ R&D investment after M&A decreases by 8.55%; the path analysis reveals that the higher the degree of M&A similarity is, the lower the growth of R&D personnel ratio is, and the higher the level of return on capital, which supports the hypotheses of resource integration and profit chasing; the tests on patent results indicate that M&A similarity is more effective in streamlining and integrating R&D resources to improve innovation efficiency than profit chasing that leads to innovation inertia, and that the net effect is dominated by the resource integration effect to the profit chasing effect only after similarity reaches a certain level. Further discussion reveals that the more innovation knowledge a firm accumulates, or the less pre-merger proprietary knowledge it creates, the greater the inhibitory effect of M&A similarity on R&D investments. The insights of this paper are as follows: First, similarity is an important feature of M&A target selection, and the advantages of M&A similarity on innovation result in reducing the inertia that inhibits R&D investment. Second, enterprises should pay more attention to the efficiency of resources integration while chasing profits, with an effective integration of inter-firm resources and optimization of R&D staffing. Third, we should tap into the resources base advantage, improve the knowledge spillover effect of enterprises and maintain the innovation motivation and incentive mechanism. Future research can further focus on the impact of MNEs’ overseas M&A similarity on R&D investment decisions.
    Investment Risk Assessment and Fuzzy Inference Experimentfor Countries along “the Belt and Road”
    ZHANG Yaojia, GONG Zaiwu
    2025, 34(5):  142-148.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0155
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    For the past years, the world has been marked by changes unseen in a century and the international situation has become more and more turbulent. The anti-globalization trend is growing, particularly from Europe and the United States. This has brought even greater significance to “the Belt and Road” initiative. As Chinese companies’ investment in countries along “the Belt and Road” increases, numerous investment failure cases have also shown that Chinese enterprises lack identification and response to complex overseas risks. Based on this situation, China’s “14th Five-Year Plan” once again emphasizes the importance of building a system for protecting overseas interests and risk warning and prevention. Existing research focuses more on qualitative analysis, and quantitative methods rarely concern dynamic changes in the investment risk system of the host country, making it difficult to meet urgent practical needs.
    Based on this, this article considers that the assessment of investment risks is actually a study of complex economic and social systems, with multiple influencing factors and nonlinear mechanisms. Fuzzy sets are used to construct a model of the real world by providing a set of all possible states to express uncertain and imprecise real states. According to the authoritative database of International Country Risk Guild, an international country risk rating agency in the United States, this paper constructs the foreign investment risk evaluation system with four aspects: political risk, economic risk, financial risk, and social risk. Fuzzy rules are formulated based on this database and expert knowledge. By combining fuzzy logic with reality, the analysis examines the impact of individual risk factors within different risk ranges on investment risk, as well as the mechanisms behind these impacts. Furthermore, through a two-dimensional mapping surface of fuzzy inference, the study analyzes the constraints and synergistic effects among the various factors, leading to the following findings: (1)Political environment plays a crucial role in ensuring investment security. (2)The influence of financial risk on investment risk is contingent upon the social environment. (3)There is a strong synergistic effect between economic and social risks, while the correlation between economic risk and financial risk is relatively weak.
    On the basis of fuzzy inference, this paper has carried out scenarios for Myanmar, a neighboring country of China as well as the key country along “the Belt and Road”. Through a scientific analysis and reasonable construction of future scenarios, and by finding problems through risk assessment of the scenario, this paper gives risk warning and risk prevention countermeasures. Myanmar faces complex investment risks, including geopolitical sensitivity, political instability, ethnic conflicts and interference from major powers. There are also deep-rooted internal economic and social issues, which are of typical significance as a case study. Therefore, based on the current situation in Myanmar, two possible scenarios have been constructed: One is that the United States uses ideological and media means to incite anti-China sentiment and interfere with China’s investment in Myanmar. The other is that with the diplomatic mediation in ASEAN and surrounding countries, the internal situation in Myanmar is eased. China can provide support and assistance to Myanmar to help this country actively participates in the construction of the “the Belt and Road”. By using fuzzy inference to output investment indices for these two scenarios, it is possible to effectively quantify the impact of investment security risks in Myanmar and provide risk warning references for Chinese enterprises investing abroad.
    Non-zero-sum Investment and Risk Control Games ina Family of 4/2 Stochastic Volatility Models
    ZHU Huainian, ZHAN Zhijia, BIN Ning
    2025, 34(5):  149-155.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0156
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    Recently, GRASSELLI (2017) proposed a new SV model, called the 4/2 (that is, 1/2+3/2) SV model, which assumes that the instaneous variance is a linear combination of the 1/2 and the 3/2 terms. So, it combines the properties of both Heston’s SV and 3/2 models. In addition, the 4/2 model has some new features that are not contemplated in Heston’s SV model and 3/2 model. In view of the advantages of the 4/2 SV model, in this paper we try to consider the optimal investment and risk control strategies for two competing insurers under relative performance criteria. Specially, we set up a combined financial and insurance market consisting of one risk-free asset, one risky asset, and two dependent risk process representing the liabilities per unit (or per policy), for k=1,2. We apply the standard Cramér-Lundberg diffusion approximation model for the risk process Rk, and assume that each insurer can directly control her liability exposure, or alternatively, each insurer can decide the total amount of liabilities measured by units (or the number of policies) Lk times Rk. One can easily see that such an assumption is equivalent to allowing the insurer to purchase proportional reinsurance to manage her risk exposure from underwriting. Under the framework of Nash equilibrium theory, the relative performance concerns of insurers is used to describe their game behaviors,a non-zero-sum game model is constructed which maximizes the expected exponential utility of his terminal surplus relative to that of his competitor. Applying the techniques of stochastic dynamic programming, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equations for both insurers are obtained, and the Nash equilibrium strategies of both insurers are established by solving HJB equations. Moreover, two special cases are discussed. Finally, some numerical examples are conducted to illustrate the effects of several model parameters on the Nash equilibrium strategies and draw some economic interpretations from these results.
    Numerical examples demonstrate that the relative performance concerns of the insurer increase the retained insurance policies and the amount invested in the risky asset, which implies that the competition would lead the insurers to be much more risk-seeking.
    Several possible extensions of our work deserve further investigation. The first extension is to apply other utility functions in establishing objective functions in the game framework. Under such a formulation, explicit expressions for Nash equilibrium strategies might be difficult to derive. However, we could apply suitable numerical approximation methods when solving the system of HJB equations. Furthermore, this paper only considers games with perfect revelation, or perfect observation. It is well known that such assumption is too stringent, and the partial observation assumption is more realistic. In such a case, it would be interesting to investigate the game with asymmetric information. We leave these suggestions for future research.
    Research on Technological Innovation Efficiency of ListedConstruction Companies from Perspective of Innovation Value Chain:An Empirical Analysis Based on Super-efficiency Network SBM Modeland Bayesian Model Averaging
    CHENG Min, YI Xiaofeng, WANG Fangliang
    2025, 34(5):  156-163.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0157
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    As the development of China’s construction industry transforms from investment-driven to innovation-driven, construction companies have paid more and more attention to technological innovation and have invested a lot of capital and manpower in it. However, the input efficiency of innovation resources needs to be clarified. Technological innovation is a multi-stage process including the input and output of resources and the transformation of achievements. The innovation value chain (IVC) embodies the transfer and value addition of various resources across multiple stages. Studying the technological innovation efficiency (TIE) from the perspective of the IVC helps to understand the utilization efficiency of innovation resources at each stage.
    In this study, 48 listed construction companies (LCCs) are selected as research samples for empirical analysis. Firstly, from the perspective of the IVC, the technological innovation process of LCCs is divided into two stages: technology research and development (R&D) and achievement transformation. The efficiency evaluation index system of the two stages is constructed respectively. The number of R&D personnel, R&D cost, and net fixed assets are selected as the inputs of the technology R&D stage. The number of patent applications is chosen as the output of the technology R&D stage as well as the input of the achievement transformation stage. The number of non-R&D personnel and operating costs are chosen as the additional inputs of the achievement transformation stage, and the net profit and operating income are taken as the outputs of the achievement transformation stage. Secondly, the efficiency measurement model is constructed by combining the super-efficiency network slacks-based measurement (SBM) model and the data envelopment analysis (DEA) window analysis method and is used to measure the TIE of China’s LCCs from 2016 to 2020. Finally, 17 factors influencing TIE are selected from four aspects including internal corporate governance, corporate operation, resource allocation, and external environment. The impact of these factors on LCC’s TIE is analyzed by using the Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method.
    The main research results are as follows. (1)In terms of the overall efficiency, the average value of TIE of the sample companies in the study period is between 0.50 and 0.54, and the overall efficiency still needs to be improved. (2)In terms of the sub-stage efficiency, the average value of the transformation efficiency of sample companies is higher than that of the R&D efficiency, which indicates that R&D efficiency constrains the improvement of the TIE. Besides, there are 8 companies with high R&D and transformation efficiency, 12 companies with low R&D efficiency and high transformation efficiency, 19 companies with low R&D and transformation efficiency, and 9 companies with high R&D efficiency and low transformation efficiency. LCCs should improve the efficiency of both phases from an IVC perspective to improve the overall TIE. (3)Seven key factors affecting the TIE of LCCs are obtained based on the BMA method. Among them, years of establishment, growth ability and profitability have significantly positive effects on the TIE of LCCs during the study period, while company size, R&D cost intensity, government support, and R&D staff intensity do not.
    The efficiency measurement index system and evaluation model of LCCs in this study are constructed from the perspective of the IVC, which can reasonably evaluate the TIE of LCCs, find the weak parts of technological innovation, and provide a basis for managers to understand the current situation of technological innovation and optimize technological innovation strategies of companies. The research method can also be used to measure the TIE of companies in other industries.
    Multi-period CVaR-based Sparse Portfolio Selection Optimizationunder Constraints on Trading Frequency
    WU Zhongming, XIE Guoyu, QU Shaojian, WANG Xiulai
    2025, 34(5):  164-169.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0158
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    With the development of the economy and the increase in the income level of the population, the demand for investment and financial management has been growing. Uncertainty is an essential attribute of financial activities. Return and risk often go hand in hand, and rational investors expect to maximize returns while minimizing risk. Therefore, portfolio selection has been a hot topic of research in the field of finance, where the relationship between risk and return is represented by a quantitative model, which is solved by adding various constraints to determine the specific proportion of each risky asset to be invested. In practice, investment activity is not static and requires consideration of multi-period decision making problems that are flexible and adaptable to market conditions. Technology has improved, financial products are being innovated, the number of risk assets available in the market is vast and the frequency of trading reflects the behaviours of investors’ buying and selling or adding or subtracting positions. In order to reduce management difficulties and transaction costs, it is of great theoretical and practical importance to study the sparse optimization problem of how to select very few assets for investment in the context of high-dimensional data. At the beginning of each new period, the choice is made again in response to new changes in the market.
    However, frequent trading behaviour makes it more difficult for investors to manage, and the resulting transaction costs such as commissions and stamp duty are not conducive to achieving optimal returns at the end of the period. A portfolio with a sparse number of investments during the period and a sparse number of trades during the week is more consistent with the optimization objective and the actual situation. Therefore, we add a penalty term to the weight vector in the model to constrain the number of investments and the frequency of transactions during the investment process. A multi-period sparse portfolio optimization model with trading frequency constraints is proposed. The model uses the conditional value at risk (CVaR) as a measure of tail risk, and uses the Fused LASSO method to embody the trading frequency restriction. Applying the classical paradigm to the difference between the single-period asset position vector and the adjacent-period investment vector, we can obtain the optimal solution for different degrees of sparsity by adjusting the size of the canonical parameter. The objective function is set to a minimum CVaR value, while a constraint term on the frequency of trading is added and the investment wealth correlation between the inter-periods is specified. For the non-smooth optimization model with inequality constraints, a multi-block alternating directional multiplier method is applied to solve the problem, decomposing the original problem into multiple sub-problems, which are alternately updated until convergence. The algorithm combines the separability of the dyadic method with the relaxation of the Lagrange multiplier method to reduce computation time.
    To verify the validity of the model computational method, the Fama and French database, which is available for download on a public website and consists of 48 industry assets, is first used for the relevant numerical tests. In addition, to better fit the domestic securities market and determine whether the model is practically feasible, 16 representative stocks from each sector are selected from the A-share market, their closing price data are downloaded from Wind Financial Terminal, cleaned and the returns are obtained by the logarithmic method. Through in-sample and out-of-sample empirical analysis, one year is chosen as the interval period in the experiment, and the initial wealth value is set to unit 1. Three indicators reflecting performance are calculated separately: dilution, number of changes in hands and Sharpe ratio. Based on the data, the following conclusions can be drawn: the CVaR-based multi-period sparse portfolio model with trading frequency restrictions proposed in this paper performs better than the equal-weighted model with sufficient risk diversification and the minimum CVaR model. The value-at-risk can be reduced and the sparse solution objective can be achieved under the set minimum end-of-period return condition, while also providing better results in terms of Sharpe ratio. By adjusting the regularisation parameters in the model, personalized investment strategy recommendations can be obtained based on specific investor preferences. The sparse optimization approach can be further improved in subsequent research, where non-convex optimizations such as SCAD and MCP can be substituted for parametric regularization. Alternatively, the idea of robust optimization can be combined with portfolio to find the worst-case optimal solution and eliminate estimation errors.
    Stability of Digital Technology Embedded in Community GovernanceSystem under Field of Meta-governance
    TANG Yue, XU Jiangtian, WU Feng, LIN Chaoran
    2025, 34(5):  170-176.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0159
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    Digital technology integration within the community governance system can be classified into four categories: enabling-empowerment, enabling-digit, empowerment, and disembededness. While enabling-empowerment is often the most effective model, it can inadvertently devolve into a disembedded state. An effective strategy for enhancing digital community governance involves constructing a meta-governance field to reconfigure community governance, positioning the government as the central entity that guides and regulates the actions and interests of all stakeholders involved in the digital transformation process. Despite the government’s predominant role, the strategic approaches of grassroot self-governing organizations, digitally-equipped platform enterprises, and the general public (as the embodiment of governance goals) also significantly influence the trajectory and ultimate form of digital technology integration within the community governance system. Consequently, this paper investigates the operational mechanism of digital technology application in the community governance system under the meta-governance field. It further establishes a tripartite evolutionary game model, led by the local government and involving neighborhood committees, platform enterprises, and the general public. This model aids in analyzing the stability of the integration mode of digital technology.
    The research posits that grassroots governance’s digital aspects are upheld by a structure described as “leading + main body”, where the core comprises “one main body and multiple elements”. The term “leading” in “one main body” pertains to grassroot governments leveraging digital channels to fulfill public functions and enhance public services. The “main body” in “multiple elements” refers to grassroot self-governing organizations, platform-based enterprises, and the general public, all of which engage in public decision-making and implementation via digital governance platforms. Based on this understanding, the stability of digital technology integration within community governance systems in the field of meta-governance is analyzed by constructing an evolutionary game model. The game participants are identified as the neighborhood committee, platform enterprise, and general public to ensure the model’s applicability and accurate abstraction of real scenarios. Initially, the cost-benefit matrix of the tripartite evolutionary game model is enumerated, taking into consideration the costs and benefits of various participation strategy combinations among the three parties. Subsequently, the stability of this system is analyzed by examining the costs and benefits of the game participant’s strategy, constructing a replicator dynamic system, and calculating the equilibrium solution’s eigenvalues. Lastly, through a simulation analysis of parameter assignment in the model, the paper further elucidates the impact of factors such as participation cost, benefit allocation, and policy support on the sustainability of the three strategies.
    The findings indicate that: (1)Costs significantly influence the strategic preferences of all participants. The willingness of platform enterprises to engage in community digital governance is the most significantly swayed by participation costs, whereas the public is the least influenced by these costs. (2)Increased explicit benefits can, to an extent, bolster the participants’ enthusiasm. The neighborhood committee’s strategy evolution exhibits a high sensitivity to explicit benefits, while the platform enterprise and general public show a comparatively low one. (3)The income distribution scheme can impact the process and type of digital technology integration. Specifically, it can influence how digital techniques are incorporated into the community governance system, but will not lead to disintegration. (4)Policy support is crucial for the enabling-empowerment pattern, although the enabling-empowerment patterns remain stable even in the absence of policy support. Further exploration of interactions between multi-subject strategies and local governments is also suggested.
    Analysis of Multidimensional Time-series Data EnhancementBased on TL-TimeGAN and its Application
    ZHI Luping, WANG Wanmin
    2025, 34(5):  177-184.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0160
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    Aiming at the problems of data scarcity and data imbalance in time-series anomaly detection, this paper proposes a multidimensional time-series anomaly detection model based on TL-TimeGAN (A Time-series Generative Adversarial Network based on Temporal convolutional network and Long-short term memory network, TL-TimeGAN), which mainly consists of data preprocessing, creation of sliding time window, TL-TimeGAN, synthetic data quality evaluation, time-series data augmentation, Tabnet network, and evaluation and interpretation of the model.
    In order to better capture the stepwise dependencies between sequences, on the one hand, this paper uses a temporal convolutional network with causality attribute to construct a generative adversarial network, and on the other hand, uses a long short-term memory network to construct an embedding network and a recurrent network to realize the model to handle both short-term dependencies and long-term dependencies simultaneously, so as to propose a model based on temporal convolutional networks and long short-term memory networks for time-series data. This network framework combines supervised and unsupervised learning to learn not only the distribution of features on each time-series, but also the potential complex relationships between variables at different time points to explain the correlation of the series, and still maintains the characteristics of co-training of TimeGAN (Time-series Generative Adversarial Networks, TimeGAN), which relies on different loss functions for the training of autoencoder networks and generative adversarial networks.
    In this paper, we propose a comprehensive evaluation method combining qualitative and quantitative analyses as an evaluation index of synthetic data quality, which further comprehensively evaluates the coverage, degree of prediction and similarity of synthetic data, mainly from the perspective of the combined analysis method of coverage, usefulness and similarity test. The empirical results show that TL-TimeGAN outperforms TimeGAN in coverage, usefulness and similarity of the synthesized time-series data, and is able to capture the “time-series dynamics” in historical data well, synthesize high-quality time-series data, and solve the problem of data scarcity.
    Due to the anonymity of blockchain and the automatic execution of smart contracts, failure to detect fraud may lead to irreversible economic losses or even loss of personal interests, so accurate and timely anomaly detection can warn to users, avoid unnecessary economic losses, and promote the healthy development and application of blockchain technology. Therefore, in this paper, based on the Ethereum fraud detection dataset, we use Tabnet network to detect anomalies in augmented data and obtain the local feature importance as well as the global feature importance, in order to enhance the practical guidance value of the augmented data applied to practical work. In the training process of Tabnet network, AMEX evaluation index is innovatively introduced as a customized evaluation index to achieve early stopping of the model and prevent overfitting.
    The Tabnet network sparsely selects the most salient features through a masking layer so that the learning power of the decision step is not wasted on irrelevant features, thus improving the parametric efficiency of the model. In order to achieve global interpretability, we visualize the importance of the features, and based on the ranking results, it can be seen that the top ten most important features are: the number of ERC20 token transactions sent to the unique account address, the maximum value of Ether received, the average value of Ether sent, the total number of normal transactions received, the total number of ERC20 token transactions sent by Ether, and the total number of contract transactions created, total number of Ether transactions received for ERC20 tokens, total amount of ERC20 tokens transferred to other contracts in Ether, the time difference (in minutes) between the first and last transaction, and the total Ether balance after enacted transactions.
    In future work, the theoretical foundation part of the autoencoder as well as the generative adversarial network needs to be studied in depth to further optimize the network structure, reduce the memory usage of the model, and improve the performance of the model.
    Non-state Shareholders’ Governance and Investor Relations Management in SOE:Evidence from the Board Power of Non-state Shareholders in Chinese Listed SOE
    ZHANG Xiaoqing, MA Lianfu
    2025, 34(5):  185-192.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0161
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    With the gradual implementation of the registration system and the introduction of new regulations on “delisting by market value”, the survival of the fittest in the A-share market is accelerating, and small and medium-cap companies will face the dilemma of “no one cares”. Strengthening investor relationship management and improving market value management have become a topic that concerns listed companies. As an important component of China’s capital market, state-owned enterprises (SOE) have the problem of “prioritizing profits over market value”. According to relevant statistics, the overall valuation of state-owned enterprises in China’s capital market is lower than their intrinsic value. The Notice on Matters Related to the Work of Investor Communication of Central Enterprise-Held Listed Companies in 2021 issued by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council pointed out that “the value creation ability of listed companies has continued to increase, but some companies still have problems such as insufficient attention to investor relations management (IRM), and the ability to convey company value and the storytelling of central enterprises need to be improved”. Existing literature has shown that even if the company’s fundamentals are good, establishing investor confidence through communication is crucial for increasing market value. The market value management of state-owned enterprises should achieve the maximization of market value on the basis of improving their value creation ability.
    However, the frequent occurrence of “pseudo-market value management” behavior in China’s capital market, which uses information advantages to manipulate stock prices to deviate from the intrinsic value of the companies, is clearly contrary to the original intention of regulatory authorities to improve the quality of listed companies and maintain the equal rights of all types of shareholders through market value management. Unlike “pseudo-market value management”, IRM serves as a market value management approach that facilitates the protection of small and medium-sized investors’ information rights and enhances the stability of the capital market. Good interaction and communication with investors can help tell a good story about state-owned enterprises to the capital market and prevent the company’s market value from being undervalued. According to relevant data, the overall level of investor relationship management in state-owned enterprises is lower than that of non-state-owned enterprises. The main reason is that there is insufficient external pressure and internal motivation for state-owned enterprises to communicate with external investors. How to introduce non-state-owned shareholders to participate in governance, and then help state-owned enterprises transition from owner vacancy to owner “in place” to enhance the internal motivation of managers to interact and communicate with investors, and thereby improve the market value and stock pricing efficiency of state-owned enterprises is a research issue worth exploring. The board of directors of listed companies has a significant impact on investor relationship management. Therefore, this article examines the impact of directors appointed by non-state-owned shareholders on investor relationship management in state-owned enterprises, and further explores the motivations, mechanisms, and consequences of this influence.
    With the listed state-owned enterprises in the Chinese A-share market from 2011 to 2021 as samples, the study analyzes whether non-state shareholders’ governance improves IRM using the OLS model. After robustness and endogeneity tests such as the PSM-DID model, the Heckman two-stage model, replacement of explanatory variables, and consideration of the impact of COVID-19, the main conclusions remain robust. The results are as follows. First, non-state shareholders’ governance has a positive effect on IRM of state-owned enterprises. As the proportion of directors assigned by non-state shareholders increases, the level of IRM increases significantly.Second, the effect of non-state shareholders’ governance is greater for firms with higher stock price crash risk. This result reveals that directors assigned by non-state shareholders promote IRM motivated by stabilizing stock price. Third, directors assigned by non-state shareholders prompt IRM through alleviating agency problems and improving business performance. Ultimately, the market value of state-owned enterprises increases and the degree of undervaluation of market value decreases after improving IRM.
    The research contributions of this article lie in: Firstly, existing literature mainly studies the governance effects of non-state-owned shareholders from the perspectives of enhancing internal control quality, increasing accounting information quality, suppressing executive corruption, and improving incentive contracts. This article finds that it can help to promote investor relationship management, enriching relevant researches on the governance effects of non-state-owned shareholders. Secondly, most existing literature takes all A-share listed companies as research samples and finds that various internal governance mechanisms, such as independent directors, affect investor relationship management. This article considers the particularity of state-owned enterprises and finds that non-state-owned shareholder governance is another internal governance mechanism that affects investor relationship management, expanding relevant researches on the influencing factors of investor relationship management. Finally, in the context of the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s clear statement of “cracking down on ‘pseudo-market value management’”, this article has some inspirations on how to promote state-owned enterprises to engage in true market value management.
    Research on Free Strategy of Software Firm Considering Consumers’Personal Internal Preferences and Network Externalities in Salience Theory
    ZHAO Na, CHEN Sijia, WU Hao, LI Yang
    2025, 34(5):  193-200.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0162
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    With the development of information technology and the advancement of society, there is a steady increase in the production and sales of software products, on which consumers become more dependent. A large user base indicates a great potential in the paid market. In order to attract more paying users, software firms have introduced free trial strategies to promote product diffusion, of which time-and feature-limited free trials are most widely used. The time-limited free trial means that the full-featured version of a product is provided free of charge during a limited probation period, and consumers will decide whether to buy it after the trial. The feature-limited free trial refers to the fact that the firm provides users with two versions simultaneously. One is the permanently free version with only basic functions and services as well as inferior quality, and the other is the paid value-added version with full functions and services as well as superior quality. Software products are featured by network externality, which means a greater number of users will cause greater effects, and consumers will take the number of users into account when purchasing a software product. Therefore, both free trial strategies can promote product diffusion and reduce users’ uncertainty about product quality through network externalities. However, in reality, different consumers have different preferences for product attributes and different sensitivity to changes in quality and price. Therefore, although the free trial strategies can make the quality-sensitive consumers more willing to pay, there is a problem that the price-sensitive consumers may not pay for the paid version since their demands have already been satisfied by the free version. Such an intrinsic preference behavior of consumers and the impact of network externalities bring challenges to the strategic choice and price decision of software firms.
    In this paper, the influence of consumers’ preferences and network externalities on the software company’s choice of the free trial strategy for a software product is explored. In studies of depicting individuals’ preference behavior, the salience theory holds that consumers assign greater weights to the attributes they prefer before making purchase decisions. Thus, this theory can well depict the individual preference behavior. In this paper, two attributes of software product price and quality are selected, and consumers are divided into price-sensitive types (giving higher weight to price) and quality-sensitive types (giving higher weight to quality). Salience theory is used to describe the different levels of sensitivity of different types of consumers to price and quality attributes of software products. Then, by using the model method and considering the influence of both consumers’ personal internal preferences and network externalities, the utility functions of consumers under no-free, time-limited free and feature-limited free trial strategies are constructed to obtain the demand and profit functions of software companies. Finally, the optimal profit from the 3 different strategies is given. After comparison analysis, the optimal free trial strategy under different market conditions is proposed for the company. The results of this study show that: (1)As the strength of network externalities increases, the optimal free trial strategies are time-limited, no-free and feature-limited successively if consumers’ unit cognitive increment in product quality after the time-limited free trial is greater than the perceived quality before trial. If consumers’ unit cognitive increment is smaller than the perceived quality, the optimal free trial strategies are time-limited and feature-limited successively. (2)When the software firm adopts the time-limited free or no-free trial strategy, greater sensitivity to quality results in higher pricing and greater profits. This result still holds true when the feature-limited free trial is implemented, if the strength of network externalities does not exceed a certain threshold or it surpasses the level that makes the profit from the price-sensitive market positive. If the strength of network externalities exceeds the threshold, but the profit from the price-sensitive market is positive, greater sensitivity to price leads to higher pricing and higher profits. (3)No matter what strategy the company adopts, it can improve the optimal profit by increasing consumers’ dependence on network externalities.
    This paper comprehensively considers the influence of both by consumers’ intrinsic preferences and network externalities on their selection of software products, uses the salience theory to describe consumers’ intrinsic preferences for product quality and price, and constructs utility models that combine salience with network externalities to get game equilibrium results in different types of markets. Furthermore, this paper also analyzes how software firms should measure pros and cons. The study results provide reference for software firms to make marketing strategies, such as whether to implement free trail strategies and what kind of free trail strategy to implement. However, there are still some limitations in this paper. Future studies can take into account the effect of disutility caused by disappointment of consumers to the time-limited free trial. In addition, this paper only discusses the game relationship between software firms and consumers, but ignores the competition among alternative products manufactured by different software firms in the market.
    Research on Green Supply Chain Financing Portfolio StrategiesConsidering Bilateral Capital Constraints
    WEI Jie, REN Ke, ZHANG Kaiyue
    2025, 34(5):  201-208.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0163
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    With the continuous expansion of human social production activities and the increasing scale of resources consumption, the challenges of resources scarcity and ecological environment degradation are becoming increasingly prominent. How to reduce the environmental hazards of production and improve the utilization of resources has become a hot topic. To tackle the environmental damage and resources utilization dilemma caused by production activities, green supply chain has emerged. However, the development of China’s green supply chain is still in its primary stage, so producers need to invest more money than they do if they produce manufacturing traditional products and will face the problem of capital constraints. Retailers need to spend a lot of money ordering a large quantity of green products of high prices and also will face the problem of capital constraints. Thus, limited capital restricts the advancement of small and medium-sized producers and retailers in sustainable supply chains. In order to solve capital constraints, green producers and retailers can take three financing portfolio strategies, the financing portfolio strategy of advanced payment and bank loan, delayed payment and bank loan, and sight payment and bank loan. Different financing portfolio strategies will have different effects on their respective earnings and enthusiasm to produce and sell green products. Therefore, this paper focuses on the financing dilemma faced by both producers and retailers in green production due to financial constraints, aiming to address the following three core issues: (1)Is there any bankruptcy risk for producers and retailers? If so, what are the conditions to trigger the bankruptcy risk? Can banks, as lenders, achieve the balance between income and expenditure? (2)What is the impact of changes in bank loan interest rate on product greenness, producer’s profits and retailer’s profits? (3)How will the different loan interest rates given by banks to producers and retailers affect the choice of financing portfolio strategy? Through the above analysis, it will not only offer a great help for producers and retailers to make optimal financing portfolio decisions, but also significantly promote the efficient development of green supply chain.
    Focusing on the bilateral capital constraints problem of producers and retailers in green supply chain, this paper takes the two-echelon green supply chain comprised of a single producer and a single retailer as the research object. This paper proposes three financing portfolio strategies: (1)Financing portfolio strategy of advanced payment and bank loan (AF strategy). In this strategy the retailer initiates loans from banks and pays the producer in advance. (2)Financing portfolio strategy of deferred payment and bank loan (DF strategy). In this strategy the producer initiates loans from banks and allows the retailer to defer payment. (3)Financing portfolio strategy of sight payment and bank loan (IF strategy). In this strategy the producer and retailer jointly initiate loans from banks and make sight payment for goods. No matter which strategy is adopted, the producer and retailer will both face financing risks. Considering the financing risks, this paper constructs Stackelberg models to analyze the optimal decision-making for producers and retailers, as well as the conditions under which the bank can achieve balanced budgets. It also deeply explores the impact of interest rate variations on the choice of financing portfolio strategies of the producer and retailer, analyzes it and draws some valuable implications. In order to verify the inferences, numerical simulation is performed by MATLAB software.
    Through the research on the financing portfolio strategy of the producer and retailer with bilateral capital constraints, the specific research results are as follows. For the bank, it will be profitable only if the producer chooses the deferred payment and bank loan financing portfolio strategy, and its revenues from sales of green products are not sufficient to repay the loan principal. The difference in loan interest rates between the producer and retailer, r1 andr2, will significantly affect their selection of financing strategy options: whenr1≥r2 , the equilibrium strategy will choose the DF strategy; when r1>r2, the strategy choice will depend on the relative scale of the equilibrium interest rate r*, and the loan rates of both parties, showing phased characteristics: (1)when r1>r2≥r*, the producer and retailer have different strategy preferences, and there is no equilibrium strategy that satisfies both parties; (2)when r1>r*>r2, the equilibrium strategy will choose the AF strategy.
    This study explores the field of green supply chain financing, focusing on addressing the financing strategy challenges faced by upstream and downstream enterprises under bilateral capital constraints, and proposes targeted financing portfolio solutions. Of course, there are still some limitations in this study. For example, this paper only analyzes and studies the financing strategy when the market demand for green products is determined. In the future, we can also study capital constraints in green supply chain based on uncertain market demand. Besides, government subsidies and other helpful policies can also be taken into consideration.
    Research on Synergistic Effect of Vehicle Pollution Control andCarbon Reduction Based on Framework Effect
    JIA Shuwei, ZHU Wanminghao
    2025, 34(5):  209-216.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0164
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    For the target of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the research on the mechanism of urban traffic pollutants and CO2 reduction (referred to as “pollution control and carbon reduction”) has become an urgent task. Transportation accounts for 24% of global CO2 emissions, while road transportation accounts for about 18%. However, transportation sector accounts for a significant proportion of energy consumption, with road transportation emissions bearing the brunt. The greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants generated by vehicle emissions have a relatively adverse impact on climate, economy, and people’s physical and mental health. Therefore, research on the synergistic effects of urban traffic pollution control and carbon reduction (TPCCR) has important practical significance.
    In this article, the system dynamics and behavioral economics theory are combined, and a frame-effect-based-motor-vehicle-trip-psychological-decision-making algorithm is constructed, considering the carbon tax policy, which is applied to the management of TPCCR. Through dynamic simulation and comparative analysis, the impact of the baseline scenario, green low-carbon and psychological linkage scenarios on the synergistic effect of TPCCR is revealed. The optimization scenarios have also been formulated. The data mainly comes from the “China Mobile Source Environmental Management Annual Report”, “Beijing Transport Development Annual Report”, “Beijing Statistical Yearbook”, “China Statistical Yearbook”, and some existing literature.
    The results show that: the single carbon tax policy can reduce motor vehicle pollutants and CO2 emissions to a certain extent, with synergistic effects, but the emission reduction effect on PM2. 5 is still limited. The pollutants and CO2 emissions reduction of passenger and trucks vary significantly, especially during the epidemic period. The improved model (low-carbon and psychological linkage scenarios) can achieve the goal of carbon reduction and has certain pollution reduction performance. Compared with the original model, the low-carbon and psychological linkage scenarios show a decrease of approximately 5.8% and 23. 3% in the amount of CO2, and a decrease of approximately 5.9% and 23. 6% in the amount of PM2. 5. Therefore, both types of improved models have synergistic effects on reducing pollution and carbon emissions, but the effect of the low-carbon scenario is relatively limited. The psychological linkage model that emphasizes the strength of carbon tax policies and framework effects has a more significant effect. Based on the above findings, the following suggestions are proposed from the perspectives of optimizing economic regulation models, emphasizing differences in passenger and freight emissions reduction, and strengthening psychological guidance.
    Some governments have tried to take measures in response to the call for low carbon, but the CO2 and PM2. 5 content of motor vehicles still has risen rapidly year by year in the current situation, which does harm to the economy and environment. The single carbon tax policy can reduce the total emissions of motor vehicle pollutants (including CO2 and PM2. 5), and has a synergistic effect on reducing pollution and carbon emissions of motor vehicles. In the carbon tax policy, the psychological guidance generated by the framework effect is taken into account to make a relatively significant change in the synergistic emission reduction effect. The reasons may include two aspects. The first is that the framework effect enhances the intensity of the carbon tax policy and reduces the number of motor vehicle trips to a certain extent. The second is to add psychological guidance to the carbon tax policy, which makes enterprises vulnerable to the impact of the positive framework. In the face of uncertain operating income and the tax relief that can be obtained by reaching the emission reduction target, enterprises choose the tax relief with certainty, and the logistics and passenger flow controlled by enterprises can be reduced, thus reducing the emissions of CO2 and PM2. 5 from motor vehicles. Therefore, the two-factor drive has the synergistic effect of “1+1>2” for reducing pollution and CO2 of motor vehicles.
    Management Science
    Research on Financing Efficiency of China’ Maritime Enterprisesunder Background of Maritime Power Strategy
    SU Guoqiang, CHEN Weihao
    2025, 34(5):  217-223.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0165
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    In the context of the maritime power strategy, although China’s marine economic development has made remarkable progress, there are still many shortcomings. As marine economic activities are characterized by high risk, high investment, long recovery cycle and strong professionalism, the problems of financing difficulties and low financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises still exist, and the production and operation still lack funds, making it difficult to achieve expansion and development. Based on the analysis of the development status of marine-related enterprises, this paper takes the data of 43 listed marine-related enterprises in China from 2016 to 2019 as the research sample, uses the DEA model to analyze the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises from static and dynamic perspectives, and employs the Tobit model to empirically analyze the influencing factors of the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises.
    The empirical results show that: (1)From the perspective of static financing efficiency: First, a large number of marine-related enterprises have the problem of high input and low output, and the input-output efficiency of each enterprise is low. Most of the marine-related enterprises do not effectively use the funds after listing, which makes the overall financing efficiency of China’s marine-related enterprises low. Second, excessive investment of enterprises is the main reason for low financing efficiency. Third, due to the particularities of marine-related enterprises, access to some factors of production is limited, and with the gradual expansion of production scale, some factors of production may not be satisfied. (2)From the perspective of dynamic financing efficiency: First, technological regress and insufficiency are the main reasons for the decline of financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises. Second, technological progress and scale efficiency are the main factors that affect and determine the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises, but compared with technological progress, the resources allocation capability of marine-related enterprises has a greater impact on the financing efficiency. Third, at present, the management and technology level of China’s marine-related enterprises is low, the input-output structure of enterprises is still not perfect, and the current production scale of enterprises has not reached the optimal production scale.
    The empirical results of the influencing factors of financing efficiency for China’s marine-related enterprises show that: (1)GDP is positively correlated with the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises. This favorable macroeconomic environment provides marine-related enterprises with more profit opportunities, increasing their demand for funds and improving their return on investment. Consequently, this enhances capital utilization rates and financing efficiency. (2)The financing amount obtained by marine-related enterprises is positively correlated with their financing efficiency. A sound capital market environment facilitates easier access to financing for marine-related enterprises, thereby improving their financing efficiency. (3)The asset-liability ratio shows a significant negative correlation with both the technological efficiency and pure technological efficiency of marine-related enterprises. This occurs because most marine-related enterprises are currently experiencing decreasing returns to scale. Reducing debt financing and down-scaling operations, and leveraging positive scale effects could further enhance financing efficiency. (4)The operating income growth rate is positively correlated with the technological efficiency but negatively correlated with the pure technological efficiency of marine-related enterprises. This indicates that enterprises with strong growth potential find it easier to secure financing and reduce financing costs, ultimately improving financing efficiency. (5)Return on net assets (RONA) is positively correlated with pure technological efficiency of marine-related enterprises. RONA is a key indicator of enterprise operation and management performance. A higher RONA signifies stronger profitability and reflects a higher level of operational and managerial competence, leading to higher financing efficiency. (6)Company size is negatively correlated with the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises, resulting in low financing efficiency due to decreasing returns to scale and inefficient management. Clearly, this negative correlation hinders the implementation of China’s maritime power strategy. (7) Ownership concentration is positively correlated with the financing efficiency of marine-related enterprises. Concentrated ownership reduces agency costs by aligning management objectives with shareholder interests. Higher ownership concentration leads to a more stable equity structure, which enhances financing efficiency.
    Based on the implementation background of the maritime power strategy, we recommend that: governments should not only implement accommodative monetary policy or expansionary fiscal policy to foster a favorable macroeconomic environment, but also strengthen capital market mechanisms to facilitate listings of marine-related enterprises, diversify their financing channels, and reduce financing constraints. Meanwhile, marine-relatedenterprises themselves should optimize capital structures, strategically utilize diverse financial instruments, broaden financing channels, reduce debt reliance, lower per-unit funding costs, and enhance financing efficiency.
    Impact of Shadow Banking of Non-financial Firms on Financial Risk
    HAN Minghui, LI Runyi, XIAO Qi
    2025, 34(5):  224-231.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0166
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    Since China’s economy entered the new normal, economic growth has slowed down. With the structural imbalance between the development of the real economy and that of the virtual economy, the long-term problems of financial repression, hard credit constraints and credit discrimination in the process of China’s economic development, more and more enterprises with financing advantages have been investing resources originally used for operational business in financial assets to chase high investment returns, actively acting as credit intermediaries, providing funds to small and medium-sized enterprises and non-listed private enterprises with high financing constraints through various ways such as entrusted loans, entrusted wealth management, private lending and the purchase of various shadow credit products.
    As a new form of shadow banking, non-financial enterprises engaging in shadow banking business will affect the investment in the real economy and lead to the economy “from real to virtual”. In addition, the participation of non-financial enterprises in shadow banking activities is actually a kind of lending activity with high risk, strong concealability and certain characteristics of regulatory arbitrage. What’s more, due to the cross-market, cross-institution and cross-asset operation characteristics of business, the relevance of the system is greatly enhanced, and the contagiousness of risks between different markets and institutions is enhanced, which is easy to lead to the accumulation of financial risk. Ultimately, it affects the stability of the financial system. Grasping the dialectical relationship between the “virtual” and “real” of non-financial enterprises, promoting the coordinated development of their real and financial investment, and preventing and resolving the financial risk caused by the excessive scale of their shadow banking are important parts of maintaining financial stability.
    This paper collects the provincial and firm-level data from 2008 to 2019 from the CSMAR and Wind Database. First, based on the provincial level data, this paper introduces the TOPSIS-grey correlation analysis method based on “vertical” distance optimization to construct a dynamic financial risk stress index to measure financial risk. This model can comprehensively and meticulously measure the financial risk level of different regions at multiple points and the overall risk level within the point time, providing a new measurement method for financial risk. Second, based on firm-level data, this paper uses entrusted loans, entrusted wealth management, the purchase of various shadow credit products and private lending to refer to the shadow banking business of non-financial listed companies. The proportion of shadow banking business in total assets is used to measure the scale of shadow banking business. Third, based on the provincial panel data from 2008 to 2019, this paper examines the impact of shadow banking business of non-financial enterprises on financial risk. The findings suggest that the shadow banking business of non-financial firms increases the financial risk and remain robust when endogeneity and regional spillover effects are taken into account. Fourth, this paper deeply analyzes the internal correlation characteristics between shadow banking of non-financial enterprises and financial risks. The results of the channel analysis suggest that shadow banking of non-financial firms pushes up asset prices in an economic boom and reduces overall social liquidity in an economic downturn, thereby increasing financial risk. Besides, shadow banking of non-financial enterprises can reduce real investment and lead to increased financial risk. Fifth, this paper examines the heterogeneous impact of shadow banking of non-financial enterprises on financial risks at the level of business type and region. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that non-financial enterprises engaging in entrusted wealth management business is the main reason for increasing financial risk, and the impact of engaging in entrusted loans, private lending and other shadow banking business on financial risk is not significant; the effect of shadow banking of non-financial enterprises on financial risk is significant only in the central and western regions. The research in this paper has strong policy implications for the prevention and resolution of major financial risk.
    Alternative and Advertising Investment Strategies for NewLogistics Platforms Entering the Local Market
    WANG Pengfei, LI Shuai, JI Ying
    2025, 34(5):  232-239.  DOI: 10.12005/orms.2025.0167
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    At present, platforms cover a wide range of fields such as online sales, life services, social entertainment, information, financial services, computing applications, etc., covering almost every link from production to consumption. For example, there are DDT and GaoDe Taxi in passenger transport platforms, as well as Truck Help, LCL, Lala, and Quick Dog Taxi (former 58 Express) in freight transport platforms. In this paper, taking freight transport platforms as the object, we establish three game models of bilateral substitution and unilateral substitution and explore the substitution of a new logistics platform entering the local market, and the choice of advertising strategy.
    In this paper, with the help of master-slave game model, firstly, the thresholds of advertisement intensity at which the old platforms take disincentives are analyzed. Secondly, three different alternative models are analyzed horizontally to determine the alternative strategies of new platforms entering the market, and then the advertising strategies under different market scales are analyzed vertically. Finally, the basic model is extended, and the accuracy and rationality of the model are verified by numerical analysis.
    The results show that when the new platform’s advertising intensity exceeds a certain threshold, the old platform takes disincentives in the form of price reductions, and does so more quickly in large freight markets. But it will be conducive to the bilateral platform to create higher value, when advertising intensity is within a certain threshold. The new platform should enter the local freight market of “low mobility, bilateral substitution, and large size”, have more market share, and create a higher value. Regardless of the size of the market, the market share and revenue of the new platform are smaller than those of the old platform. Transfer costs will result in a decline in the market share and revenue of new platforms, and as mobility increases, the gap between the old and new platforms will become more prominent. The purpose of this study is to provide some decision-making basis and support for the new platform decision-makers when they enter the freight market and respond to the reaction of the original platform.
    This paper is based on certain assumptions, and only considers the market entry strategy in terms of platform revenue and market share, but does not assess the impact of risk assessment of transactions after market entry and the degree of information disclosure of the old platform in the local freight market on the entry of the old platform. In the next step, we will further consider the substitution rate of the new platform in the mobile owner-operator segment, and analyse the significant impact of risk assessment and information disclosure on the market share and revenue of the old and new platforms.
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