Digital Commons Network^™

Deny, Deny, Deny, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Vehicle Routing Problem With Stochastic Demand (Vrpsd): Optimisation By Neighbourhood Search Embedded Adaptive Ant Algorithm (Ns-Aaa), M Nagalakshmi, Mukul Tripathi, Nagesh Shukla, Manoj Tiwari

Nagesh Shukla

Taking into account the real world applications, this paper considers a vehicle routing problem with stochastic demand (VRPSD) in which the customer demand has been modelled as a stochastic variable. Considering the computational complexity of the problem and to enhance the algorithm performance, a neighbourhood search embedded adaptive ant algorithm (ns-AAA) is proposed as an improvement to the existing ant colony optimisation. The proposed metaheuristic adapts itself to maintain an adequate balance between exploitation and exploration throughout the run of the algorithm. The performance of the proposed methodology is benchmarked against a set of test instances that were generated using …

Asean Public Private Partnership Guidelines, Fauziah Zen, Michael Regan

Michael Regan

The ASEAN PPP Guidelines are designed for ASEAN nations and provide a common set of policy principles for member countries. The Guidelines offer a broad framework based on best practice standards that will help government departments to manage the processes and procedures that need to be taken when implementing PPP projects. In this respect, common policy principles provide consistency, confidence and certainty to foreign private investors and help facilitate cross-border PPP projects and enhance greater connectivity through harmonisation of member’s regulatory requirements. ASEAN nations will already have in place PPP laws and policies, and many international agencies provide financial assistance …

Bio-Ink For On-Demand Printing Of Living Cells, Cameron J. Ferris, Kerry J. Gilmore, Stephen Beirne, Donald Mccallum, Gordon G. Wallace, Marc In Het Panhuis

Gordon Wallace

Drop-on-demand bioprinting allows the controlled placement of living cells, and will benefit research in the fields of tissue engineering, drug screening and toxicology. We show that a bio-ink based on a novel microgel suspension in a surfactant-containing tissue culture medium can be used to reproducibly print several different cell types, from two different commercially available drop-on-demand printing systems, over long printing periods. The bio-ink maintains a stable cell suspension, preventing the settling and aggregation of cells that usually impedes cell printing, whilst meeting the stringent fluid property requirements needed to enable printing even from many-nozzle commercial inkjet print heads. This …

Agent-Based Demand Management In A Power Distribution Network By Considering Distributed Generations, Fenghui Ren, Minjie Zhang, Danny Soetanto

Dr Fenghui Ren

A distribution network carries electricity from transmission network to consumers through facilities such as substations, buses and feeders. Distributed generations emerge as the new alternative power resource to a distribution network at a smaller and distributed scale. On one hand, distributed generations can decrease substations' load and power price. On the other hand, they will bring difficulties to substations for demand management. This paper proposes a multiagent model to represent a radial distribution network. The model includes five types of agents, which are substation agents, bus agents, feeder agents, load agents and generation agents. Through communicating with neighbouring agents, each …

Consumer Demand For Domestic And Imported Broiler Meat In Urban Ghana: Bringing Non-Price Effects Into The Equation, Andrea E. Woolverton, Stephen Frimpong

Stephen Frimpong

Ghana’s domestic poultry industry is one of many in West Africa that is seeking strategies to compete with imported poultry products. This study investigates if urban Ghanaian consumers are willing to pay for non-price attributes in poultry; hence, offering potential competitive niches. Consumer preferences in Accra, Ghana for domestic and imported chicken were studied using a choice based conjoint analysis. A total of 138 respondents who were directly purchasing broiler products were drawn randomly from both traditional and modern markets for inclusion into a revealed preference data collection. A conditional logistic regression model was used to estimate the part-worth of …

The Price Sensitivity Of Medicare Beneficiaries: A Regression Discontinuity Approach., Thomas Buchmueller, Kyle Grazier, Richard Hirth, Edward Okeke

Edward Okeke

We use 4 years of data from the retiree health benefits program of the University of Michigan to estimate the effect of price on the health plan choices of Medicare beneficiaries. During the period of our analysis, changes in the University's premium contribution rules led to substantial price changes. A key feature of this ‘natural experiment’ is that individuals who had retired before a certain date were exempted from having to pay any premium contributions. This ‘grandfathering’ creates quasi-experimental variation that is ideal for estimating the effect of price. Using regression discontinuity methods, we compare the plan choices of individuals …

What Is The Price Of Prevention? New Evidence From A Field Experiment., Edward Okeke, Akinfolarin Adepiti, Kayode Ajenifuja

Edward Okeke

The Demand For State And Local Government Employees, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The primary purpose of this paper is to present empirical estimates of the wage elasticities of demand for different categories of state and local government employees. The employment demand equations that are estimated are derived from a utility maximization model of state and local government behavior. After presenting this model in the first section, we next briefly discuss the data used in the study. The structural system of demand equations is then estimated using pooled time-series and cross-section information, with annual individual state data as the units of observation. A number of alternative estimation methods are used in the …

Workers On The Margin: Who Drops Health Coverage When Prices Rise?, Edward Okeke, Richard Hirth, Kyle Grazier

Edward Okeke

We revisit the question of price elasticity of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) take-up by directly examining changes in the take-up of ESI at a large firm in response to exogenous changes in employee premium contributions. We find that, on average, a 10% increase in the employee’s out-of-pocket premium increases the probability of dropping coverage by approximately 1%. More importantly, we find heterogeneous impacts: married workers are much more price-sensitive than single employees, and lower-paid workers are disproportionately more likely to drop coverage than higher-paid workers. Elasticity estimates for employees below the 25th percentile of salary distribution in our sample are nearly …

Insurer Competitive Strategy And Enrollment In Newly Offered Preferred Provider Organizations (Ppo), Richard Hirth, Kyle Grazier, Michael Chernew, Edward Okeke

Edward Okeke

While early PPO growth coincided with growth of managed care generally, recent growth has come primarily at the expense of other managed care plans. Little is known about the micro behavior underlying these trends. In 2005, University of Michigan employees were offered PPOs for the first time by vendors who also offered other plans. PPOs helped the offering vendors maintain or grow their total enrollment share. PPOs were most attractive to workers who had previously chosen less managed plans. Because PPOs drew few enrollees from HMOs, there was little evidence of a backlash against managed care in the context of …

Demand And Innovation In European Industries, Mario Pianta, Francesco Crespi

Mario Pianta

After the decade-old debate between demand-pull and technology-push perspectives, demand seems to have fallen out of fashion. In this paper two models are proposed on the determinants of general innovative activities and on the market impact of product innovations. The models combine the supply and demand engines of innovation, and qualify the type of innovative efforts, distinguishing between those oriented towards cost reductions or towards technological competitiveness. The models are tested at the industry level for 22 manufacturing sectors and 17 services sectors in six European countries. The results show that efforts at technological competitiveness, product oriented strategies and the …

Demand And Supply Curves: Rotations Versus Shifts, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.

Demand And Supply Curves: Rotations Versus Shifts, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.

Demand And Supply Curves: Rotations Versus Shifts, Philip E. Graves, Robert L. Sexton

PHILIP E GRAVES

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.

Expert On Sex Trafficking Contributes To Passage Of Historic New Law

Donna M. Hughes

No abstract provided.

Best Practices To Address The Demand Side Of Sex Trafficking, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Each year, hundreds of thousands of women and children around the world become victims of the global sex trade. They are recruited into prostitution, often using tactics involving force, fraud, or coercion. Criminals working in organized networks treat the victims like commodities, buying and selling them for profit. This modern-day form of slavery is called sex trafficking.

This report will describe efforts to address the demand side of sex trafficking. It will define the demand and describe its different components. It will describe laws, policies, and programs aimed at reducing the demand for prostitution in communities and entire countries. It …

Incorporating Inventories Into Supply And Demand Analysis, Robert L. Sexton, Robert W. Clower, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.

Incorporating Inventories Into Supply And Demand Analysis, Robert L. Sexton, Robert W. Clower, Philip E. Graves, Dwight R. Lee

Robert L Sexton

There is no abstract for this brief contribution.