The efficiency of banks has a critical role in development of sound financial systems of countries. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has witnessed an increase in popularity for modeling the performance efficiency of banks. Such efficiency depends on the appropriate selection of input and output variables. In literature, no agreement exists on the selection of relevant variables. The disagreement has

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-04084-2

In many real-life scenarios, system failure depends on dynamic stress-strength interference, where strength degrades and stress accumulates concurrently over time. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding an optimal replacement strategy that balances the cost of replacement with the cost of failure and results in the minimum expected cost per unit time under cumulative damage model with strength

This paper examines the effect of geopolitical risk (GPR) on return and volatility dynamics in Middle East and North African (MENA) countries by using an ADCC-GARCH model and a spillover approach. Unlike previous studies, we include the GPR index to capture risk associated with wars, terrorist acts, and political tensions. Moreover, we test for both static and dynamic analysis using a rolling window

Production-Inventory settings with heterogeneous agents appear frequently in the study of supply chain management. For instance, there are Production-Inventory situations in which certain agents are essential as they can reduce the costs of other agents (followers) when they cooperate with each other. The study of such a cooperation can be modelled by means of a cooperative game and studied finding

This paper aims to study the determinants of the Lean Service System (LSS) on the Operational Performance (OP) of India's mail service in the National Sorting Hub (NSH), Mangaluru, Karnataka, the southern part of India. Measuring the OP in mail service is a big challenge in the postal service industry. Hence, we have conducted a survey, and 150 usable data has measured the impact of Lean Service Practices

Lead users are the group of most valuable users in product innovation and new product development for a certain firm. Based on web mining methods on user innovation communities, this paper presents quantitative methodology to evaluate the contributions and values of online community users to identify lead users. Firstly, we analyze user behaviors and calculate the user interest index (UII) of posts

A contract farming arrangement between a firm and a farmer is an important mechanism for development in the agribusiness sector. Among the major challenges of these arrangements are the violations of the contract by the parties under conditions of extreme market price fluctuations. To address this issue, we propose a violent market price (VMP) contract, which incentivises the firm and the farmer to

With the increasingly wide use of sensor-embedded smartphones, we envision that there will be many crowdsourced logistic companies to acquire logistics service from a large population of carriers. They form a two-side competition market, where crowdsources compete for the limited logistics service and carriers compete for the compensation from crowdsourced logistic company. Each crowdsourced logistic

We propose a clustering method for large dimensional data to classify the 365 largest euro area financial institutions according to their business model. The proposed clustering approach is applied to granular supervisory data on banks’ activities and combines also dimensionality reduction and outlier detection. We identify four business models, namely wholesale funded, securities holding, traditional

Under a technology based on the generalized mean of inputs and outputs with constant returns to scale (CRS), the firms have incentive to merge (in a firm game) in order to improve their technical efficiency. A directional complementarity property in inputs and in outputs is introduced. It is shown that the core of the firm game is non-void whenever the aggregate technology of each coalition exhibits

The redundancy allocation problem (RAP) is an intriguing area in the field of reliability optimization to which a lot of research has been devoted in recent years. In this paper, a bi-objective model is developed for RAP with a heterogeneous backup scheme and a mixed redundancy strategy. Elimination of the lower bound estimation and the exact calculation of the reliability of the mixed strategy forms

Digital assistant is a recent advancement benefited through data-driven innovation. Though digital assistants have become an integral member of user conversations, but there is no theory that relates user perception towards this AI powered technology. The purpose of the research is to investigate the role of technology attitude and AI attributes in enhancing purchase intention through digital assistants

The majority of data envelopment analysis (DEA) models can be linearized via the classical Charnes–Cooper transformation. Nevertheless, this transformation does not apply to sum-of-fractional DEA efficiencies models, such as the secondary goal I (SG-I) cross efficiency model and the arithmetic mean two-stage network DEA model. To solve a sum-of-fractional DEA efficiencies model, we convert it into

This paper investigates the variation in nonperforming loans over the economic cycle and the effect of past returns based on a nonparametric quantile analysis of the largest Islamic banks in the United Kingdom and Turkey from 2010 to 2019. The findings show a weak variation in nonperforming loans that increases with an increasing return on assets and a decreasing return on equity and decreases in an

In this paper, we study the single allocation hub location problem with capacity selection in the presence of congestion at hubs. Accounting for congestion at hubs leads to a non-linear mixed integer program, for which we propose 18 alternate mixed integer second order conic program (MISOCP) based reformulations. Based on our computational studies, we identify the best MISOCP-based reformulation, which

Supply chain members’ reciprocal altruism and consumers’ quality and service reference effects are important behavioral factors that affect the decision-making of supply chain members. This article incorporates these factors into a product–service supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer in the online-to-offline (O2O) environment. Based on the inherent dynamics of the model, we construct

Tools established for managing information flow in supply chain management and logistics should match digital transformations. This issue is particularly salient for developing nations that hope to achieve sustainable development goals in a globalized era. Modern technologies are required to ensure a secure, transparent, and traceable path of information flow in global supply chains; however, it is

The environmental issue has attracted ever-increasing attention from governments and academics in recent years. Environmental performance analysis is widely considered a crucial and useful tool for effectively protecting the environment and developing a sustainable society. Many analytical techniques have been used to assess carbon emission performance, among which data envelopment analysis (DEA) is

In this paper, we consider inventory control problems for deteriorating items with maximum serviceable lifetime under mixed sales situation, both of the demand and the deterioration rate are depending on time. A model is presented to formulate the process of mixed sales that deteriorated items are sold to consumers together with serviceable items, where penalty cost for the sales of deteriorated products

As an advanced warning system, resource buffer can notify the use of resources and provide added protection to critical chain activities. However, most of the existing studies in the literature focus on locating actual time buffers at various locations. In this study, we locate bottleneck resource buffers along the critical chain and determines optimal time windows for the first time. Drawing on the

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enablers for the implementation of electronic traceability in agri-food supply chain in India. In several agri-food supply chains, the lack of any form of traceability or the presence of paper-based traceability impacts the trade of the concerned food product. Electronic traceability (e-traceability) will assist agri-food firms in improving their performance

In this paper, we consider a supply chain with a single manufacturer and two competing retailers. The manufacturer sells his digital goods, which may be pirated, to customers through a traditional and a digital retail channel. It is assumed that the manufacturer takes a leader role and the retailers follow it. We investigate the contracts that the manufacturer offers to the retailers and our goal is

Reverse supply chain (RSC) management can be implemented to ameliorate environmental and economic goals simultaneously. In 2020, the devastating influences generated by the COVID-19 global pandemic had established high uncertainty in the manufacturers' capacity, which can hinder the fulfillment of such goals. To address such a problem, in this research, we analyze a two-echelon RSC, including a re-manufacturer

Innovation in the context of humanitarian supply chain (HSC) is essential to meet the varying needs of beneficiaries around the world. Humanitarian organizations themselves do not possess all the necessary resources for new product innovation. Hence, suppliers working with them play a vital role in helping them deliver innovative products and services to the beneficiaries. This study examines the phenomenon

We consider a home health care routing problem with scarce resources which is a variation of the vehicle routing problem with resource constraints. In this problem, the services are provided by nurses and aids at patients’ homes. There are different types of patients that are categorized based on the services they demand and should be serviced by appropriate staff teams or single personnel where the

We consider a natural generalization of classical scheduling problems to a setting in which using a time unit for processing a job causes some time-dependent cost, the time-of-use tariff, which must be paid in addition to the standard scheduling cost. We focus on preemptive single-machine scheduling and two classical scheduling cost functions, the sum of (weighted) completion times and the maximum

As low-carbon products increasingly become popular among consumers, the manufacturers have begun to advocate low-carbon supply chain to meet consumers’ low-carbon preferences. However, low-carbon investments inevitably bring financing constraints to the supply chain. To provide a potential solution to relieve the financial constrain, we established a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a low-carbon

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has proven to be a powerful technique for performance evaluation since its inception. Since the traditional DEA approaches lack discrimination power among efficient decision-making units (DMUs), the cross efficiency method has been proposed for peer appraisal in the literature. However, the previous cross efficiency approaches imposed a single and identical evaluation

Entering the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on supply chains. Reacting to the pandemic and adaptation in the “new normal” have been challenging tasks. Exiting the pandemic can lead to some after-shock effects such as “disruption tails.” While the research community has undertaken considerable efforts to predict the pandemic’s impacts and examine supply chain adaptive behaviors during the pandemic

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-04044-w

We compute nonparametric and forward-looking option-implied quantile and expectile curves, and we study their properties on a 5-year dataset of weekly options written on the S&P 500 Index. After studying the dynamics of the single curves and their joint behaviour, we investigate the potentiality of these quantities for risk management and forecasting purposes. As an alternative form of variability

We study how the manufacturer and the supplier collaborate under various pricing and contracting scenarios. We characterize two downstream pricing strategies: (a) where the manufacturer announces the market price before the quality is determined, and (b) where the manufacturer decides the market price after the quality is determined. We also study three different contracting structures: (a) effort

We include the notion of uncertainty and incomplete information within the classical Merton’s portfolio model. Incomplete information on the set of preferences is interpreted by means of a set-valued utility function. The model is formulated as set-valued optimization problems by construction. We provide scalarization techniques and equivalent formulations to reduce the complexity. The proposed models

Humanitarian logistics is an integral part of disaster relief operations, which involves the phases of preparedness, disaster operations, and post-disaster operations. Integrating the planning and execution between phases minimizes the gaps in providing relief to the affected population. This paper presents a two-stage multi-objective mathematical model for integrated decision-making during the preparation

Overflow mechanisms can be found in a variety of queueing models. This paper studies a simple and generic overflow system that allows the service times to be both job type and station dependent. This system does not exhibit a product form. To justify simple product form computations, two product form modifications are given, as by a so-called call packing principle and by a stop protocol. The provided

Feature selection is a fundamental preprocessing step for many machine learning and pattern recognition systems. Notably, some mutual-information-based and correlation-based feature selection problems can be formulated as fractional programs with a single ratio of polynomial 0–1 functions. In this paper, we study approaches that ensure globally optimal solutions for these feature selection problems

Recently, many European local authorities have set up Urban Consolidation Centres (UCC) for dealing with challenges arising from the environmental and social impacts of logistical activities in urban contexts through shipment synchronisation and carrier coordination policies. However, the number of successful UCC projects led by local authorities in Europe is low, with most of the UCCs failing to achieve

This article proposes a new fuzzy time series model that can interpolate historical data, and forecast effectively for the future. It is combination of the improved steps from the existing models. There are problems to use the percentage variations of series between consecutive periods of time as a universal set, to divide the universal set into clusters by the automatic algorithm based on the similarity

Innovation contests have been an important tool used in product research and development for companies. In the innovation contest literature, most papers assume the homogenous innovation contest model or the all-pay auction model. In this paper, we consider the random trial contest model and study the optimal award scheme. We show that, in this contest model, risk types of contestants play important

Time decisions of capacity investment are critical for start-up third party remanufacturers (3PR), especially when they are involved in downstream competition from their original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Considering a two-period model, we analyze 3PRs’ capacity investment timing issues by assuming their objective to be the maximization of the probability of survival. 3PRs may invest early to enjoy

This paper investigates the selection of third-party logistics providers (3PLs) based on the best prices offered by them. The focus is on outbound logistics where 3PLs must have their own distribution centres for storage and picking activities. They must also have suitable trucks for distribution to different small-scale customers. The motivation for this paper is a case study from Germany in which

Online platforms provide sellers’ products on their websites and earn a commission fee for each unit sold. Recently, many platforms have tried to refer customers to their direct competitors. In this paper, we explain this counter-intuitive practice by developing a game-theoretic model where two competing platforms contracting with one common seller or two competing sellers. We first analyze a benchmark

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-03994-5

This article develops a game-theoretic model to value the bidirectional option in a one-manufacturer and one-component-supplier system. The production process of the supplier is subject to random yield. The manufacturer contracts the supplier with bidirectional options to obtain components, and assembles them into end products to meet a stochastic demand. In addition, both firms can sell or/and buy

We identify that the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 7, 9, 12 pertaining to industry investment, innovation, affordability, clean product, and responsible consumption/production are relevant for the firms operating in closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) structures. We show how these goals can be implemented into a CLSC in which downstream manufacturer serves different types

We present a model based on trend filtering and regularization for performing factor analysis. Furthermore, the trend filtering method proposed in our model allows incorporating views represented as scenarios. Therefore, factor models can be optimized to explain not only trends of a given data series but also trends reflecting outlooks. As an application to finance, the proposed model constructs a

Understanding the data and reaching accurate conclusions are of paramount importance in the present era of big data. Machine learning and probability theory methods have been widely used for this purpose in various fields. One critically important yet less explored aspect is capturing and analyzing uncertainties in the data and model. Proper quantification of uncertainty helps to provide valuable information

In this paper, we consider standard as well as instrumental variables regression. Specification problems related to autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity, neglected non-linearity, unsatisfactory out-of-small performance and endogeneity can be addressed in the context of multi-criteria optimization. The new technique performs well, it minimizes all these problems simultaneously, and eliminates them for

A combination of sustainability-related regulations and increased demand from stakeholders has pressed firms to adequately address sustainability-related risks. This issue is particularly important, and challenging, for the freight transportation sector due to its exposure to a large number of inherent sustainability risks. Despite the growing significance of sustainability risks, there is a lack of

This paper attempts to examine whether the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is supported in MENA countries. We use, a novel RAM (range-adjusted measure)-based global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, accounting for slacks of inputs as well as desirable and undesirable outputs, to evaluate and decompose “green” productivity growth rates into technical change, pure efficiency change

In many management science or economic applications, it is common to represent the key uncertain inputs as continuous random variables. However, when analytic techniques fail to provide a closed-form solution to a problem or when one needs to reduce the computational load, it is often necessary to resort to some problem-specific approximation technique or approximate each given continuous probability

The rapid development of information technology has promoted the digital transformation of the service supply chain. Members can collect, store, and transform the value of data to gain profits. Due to the different roles during the service delivery, service integrators (SIs) and service providers (SPs) transform the data value from different sources, which leads to the demand and supply-driven data

We consider the problem of choosing design parameters to minimize the probability of an undesired rare event that is described through the average of n i.i.d. random variables. Since the probability of interest for near optimal design parameters is very small, one needs to develop suitable accelerated Monte-Carlo methods for estimating its value. One of the challenges in the study is that simulating

In this paper we provide a stock price model that explicitly incorporates credit risk, under a stochastic optimal control system. The stock price model also incorporates the managerial control of credit risk through a control policy in the stochastic system. We provide explicit conditions on the existence of optimal feedback controls for the stock price model with credit risk. We prove the continuity

Optimization of conflicting functions is of paramount importance in decision making, and real world applications frequently involve data that is uncertain or unknown, resulting in multi-objective optimization (MOO) problems of stochastic type. We study the stochastic multi-gradient (SMG) method, seen as an extension of the classical stochastic gradient method for single-objective optimization. At each

Recent research applies soft computing techniques to fit software reliability growth models. However, runtime performance and the distribution of the distance from an optimal solution over multiple runs must be explicitly considered to justify the practical utility of these approaches, promote comparison, and support reproducible research. This paper presents a meta-optimization framework to design

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-04009-z

In the aftermath of a hurricane, humanitarian logistics plays a critical role in delivering relief items to the affected areas in a timely fashion. This paper proposes a novel stochastic look-ahead framework that implements a two-stage stochastic programming model in a rolling horizon approach to address the evolving uncertain logistics system state during the post-hurricane humanitarian logistics

The context of this work is a voting scenario in which each voter expresses his/her level of affinity about a proposal, by choosing a value in the set \({\mathcal {J}}=\{-j,\dots ,-1,0,1,\dots ,j\}\), and these individual votes produce a collective result, in the same set \({\mathcal {J}}\), through a decision function. The simple majority, defined for \(j=1\), is a widely used example of such a decision