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Exploring pricing strategy and remanufacturing mode in trade-in scheme under carbon cap-and-trade regulation
No full textRemanufacturing, owing to its advantages in resource recycling and carbon emission reduction, has evolved into a critical strategy for accelerating the achievement of net-zero emission targets. With market opportunities driven by trade-in programs that encourage consumer participation in recycling and boost the intent to buy remanufactured products, it is imperative to determine which remanufacturing models can effectively balance emission reduction costs and economic benefits under carbon cap-and-trade regulation (CATR). To tackle this issue, considering a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) under trade-in scenarios within CATR framework, this study tries to explore the pricing strategies for three remanufacturing modes (autonomous, authorization, and outsourcing remanufacturing mode) by formulating three Stackelberg game models, facilitating to discover the best selection strategy based on the comparison of optimal decisions and profits under these three modes. Research findings show that under autonomous and authorization remanufacturing mode, excessively high collection quality may lead to a decline in remanufactured product sales. However, within the outsourcing remanufacturing mode, improvements in collection quality can continuously increase the sales volume of remanufactured products. Notably, regardless of fluctuations in collection quality, carbon trading prices, and consumer acceptance of remanufactured products (CARP), the autonomous and outsourcing remanufacturing modes have consistently demonstrated superior performance compared to authorization remanufacturing mode for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retailers. Furthermore, an increase in carbon trading price encourages OEMs to transition from outsourcing remanufacturing mode to autonomous remanufacturing mode
Climate change exposure and mutual fund ownership
No full textUsing a sample of U.S. firms and a text-based measure of managerial and analyst attention to climate change issues during earnings calls, we document a negative association between firms’ climate change exposure and changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership, suggesting U.S. mutual funds’ cautious investment approach to climate change. We further provide causal evidence for this relation using the staggered adoptions of state-level climate change adaptation plans and renewable portfolio standards. Additional analyses show that our finding is driven by climate-related opportunities and regulatory risks, rather than physical risks. Changes in U.S. mutual fund ownership reflect concerns over firms’ transition risks and stock performance pressures. Extending the analysis to non-U.S. mutual funds, we find similar results among funds domiciled in countries with strong environmental norms
GazeBlend: exploring paired gaze-based input techniques for navigation and selection tasks on mobile devices
No full textThe potential of gaze for hands-free mobile interaction is increasingly evident. While each gaze input technique presents distinct advantages and limitations, a combination can amplify strengths and mitigate challenges. We report on the results of a user study (N = 24), in which we compared the usability and performance of pairing three popular gaze input techniques: Dwell Time, Pursuits, and Gaze Gestures, for navigation and selection tasks while sitting and walking. Results show that pairing gestures for navigation with either Dwell time or Pursuits for selection improves task completion time and rate compared to using either individually. We discuss the implications of pairing gaze input techniques, such as how Pursuits may negatively impact other techniques, likely due to the visual clutter it adds, how integrating gestures for navigation reduces the chances of unintentional selections, and the impact of motor activity on performance. Our findings provide insights for effective gaze-enabled interfaces
Course Allocation with Credits via Stable Matching
No full textIn the Course Allocation problem, there are a set of students and a set of courses at a given university. University courses may have different numbers of credits, typically related to different numbers of learning hours, and there may be other constraints such as courses running concurrently. Our goal is to allocate the students to the courses such that the resulting matching is stable, which means that no student and course(s) have an incentive to break away from the matching and become assigned to one another. We study several definitions of stability and for each we give a mixture of polynomial-time algorithms and hardness results for problems involving verifying the stability of a matching, finding a stable matching or determining that none exists, and finding a maximum size stable matching. We also study variants of the problem with master lists of students, and lower quotas on the number of students allocated to a course, establishing additional complexity results in these settings
Cloth as Human Experience: Looping, Furs and Twining in the Mesolithic of Northwest Europe
Get PDFThis paper provides a novel insight into cloth-type materials of late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher societies of North-west Europe by combining archaeological evidence and person-derived sensory descriptions. Cloth-type materials are flexible, thin sheets that can be wrapped, folded, and shaped with the potential to be used to cover people and things. This definition includes fabrics made from interlaced yarns and animal skins. The archaeological evidence preserved for Mesolithic cloth-type materials includes organic looped and twined fabrics made with plant fibre, as well as archaeozoological remains indicating the use of leather and fur. Evidence focuses on the Late Ertebølle culture of southern Scandinavia c. 5400–3950 BC in its wider geographical and chronological setting.
The second aspect of this paper explores these unfamiliar materials through an innovative methodology. Groups of participants were asked to physically engage with a replica Mesolithic cloth assemblage and respond to a questionnaire asking them to describe each one according to its texture,
appearance, smell, and sound. Philosophically, this approach is based on the cultural significance of sensation and perception. The sensory description of the cloth types through the handling experiment reframes the standard technical analysis of raw material and identification of fabric structure. It provides a novel understanding of these materials as used by people
Perspectives, Needs and Challenges for Sustainable Software Engineering Teams: A FinServ Case Study
No full textBackground: Sustainable Software Engineering (SSE) is slowly becoming an industry need. While general perspectives of SSE have been studied, little is known about the context-specific sustainability needs and constraints of sectors like financial services, which are highly regulated, data-intensive, and handle millions of transactions daily.
Aim: To address this gap, our research focuses on a financial services company (FinServCo) that invited us to investigate perspectives on sustainability in their IT function: how it could be put into practice, who is responsible for it, and what the challenges are.
Method: We conducted an exploratory qualitative case study using interviews and a focus group with six higher management employees and 16 software engineers comprising various experience levels from junior developers to team leaders.
Results: We found a clear divergence in how sustainability is perceived across organisational levels. Higher management focused on technical and economic aspects, such as cloud migration and business continuity through data availability, while developers emphasised human-centric concerns like workload and stress. Some developers were sceptical of organisational motives, viewing initiatives as PR-driven. Key challenges included knowledge gaps, cultural resistance, legacy systems, and limited client demand. Many participants favoured a dedicated sustainability team, often drawing comparisons to established security governance structures.
Conclusions: SSE is shaped by organisational roles, cultural dynamics, and sector-specific constraints. The disconnect between organisational goals and individual developer needs highlights the importance of context-sensitive, co-designed interventions. Study material containing codebook and the interview questions file: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1635959
Improved scheme of asymmetrically clipped optical-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ACO-OFDM) for wireless IM/DD optical systems
No full textVisible light communication (VLC) systems that employ optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) face a critical challenge in the form of a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), which limits transmission efficiency and system reliability. This study proposes and evaluates a set of hybrid techniques aimed at mitigating PAPR while simultaneously enhancing bit error rate (BER) performance. The approach integrates nonlinear companding transformations with various precoding methods, specifically tailored for asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM), a promising scheme for VLC due to its unipolar signal structure and resilience to nonlinear distortions. In addition, a dedicated noise cancellation (N.C.) model is introduced to further improve BER performance by suppressing channel and clipping noise. Simulation results demonstrate significant improvements, with PAPR reductions reaching up to 6.329 dB, 7.123 dB, and 7.549 dB, and corresponding Eb/N0 differences of -0.727 dB, 1.435 dB, and 1.799 dB with respect to conventional ACO-OFDM. These outcomes highlight the efficacy of the proposed hybrid methods and their practical suitability for real-world VLC systems, offering a balanced trade-off between power efficiency and signal fidelity
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