Managing TFT-LCDs under uncertainty: When crystal cycles meet business cycles

Understanding the correlation between the crystal cycle and the business cycle is important, because it can help managers to anticipate change, reduce environmental uncertainty, and formulate operational objectives. To this end, we focused on China and the U.S. in our analysis. We found that the economic indicators that were the most relevant in the characterization of China's huge and burgeoning TFT-LCD market are gross domestic production and industrial production. We complemented this finding by conducting similar analyses in the U.S. market using a more comprehensive list of economic indicators.     

The state of research on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets: A multidisciplinary literature review

The objective of this research work is to study the progress of research on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets and outline and identify the key disciplines, journals, articles and authors. For this the author studied the existing literature from the various fields in which technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets research work have been published using ISI Web of Knowledge database. The paper finds that there is increasing research work on technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets and the bibliographical search resulted in ninety-one documents written by one-hundred-sixty-one authors in eighty-four journals in seventy-two disciplines. The five major disciplines and their underlying journals are business and economics, agriculture, psychology, public administration, and environmental sciences and ecology accounting for majority of publications. In journals the most prolific, measured by number of articles published are Harvard Business Review, Social Science and Medicine, World Development, and Higher Education; and most influential, measured by the global citation received, are Harvard Business Review, Social Science and Medicine and Sociological Review. The top 10% of the journals are responsible for 23% of all publications but 85% of all global citations received. This highlights that despite the high, diverse and increasing number of journals; only few are dominating and shaping the research arena of technological uncertainties, social uncertainties and emerging markets. Further, in the ten most cited articles, no author appears more than once.     

Forecasting of electricity costs based on an enhanced gray-based learning model: A case study of renewable energy in Taiwan

This work presents a novel gray-based cost efficiency (GCE) model that integrates the gray forecasting model into a two-factor cost efficiency curve model for renewable energy (RE) technologies and identifies the optimal forecasting model for power generation cost of RE technologies. The analytical framework of proposed GCE model improves short-term prediction of power generation cost, and can be applied during the early developmental stages for RE technologies. Empirical analysis is based on wind power data for Taiwan. Time lag of knowledge stock was simulated to represent the actual relationship between R&D expenditures and cost reductions in power generation by knowledge stock. Analytical results demonstrate the GCE model is a useful tool to quantify the influences of cost reductions in power generation. The implications of analytical results are that institutional policy instruments play an important role in RE technologies achieving cost reductions and market adoption. The proposed GCE model can be applied to all high-technology cases, and particularly to RE technologies. The study concludes by outlining the limitations of the proposed GCE model and directions for further research.     

A grey decision and prediction model for investment in the core competitiveness of product development

Because enterprises do not disclose their internal specific cost information to the public and, moreover, every firm has its own product character and financial constitutions, it is difficult to offer fixed guidelines for investment decisions. Thus, an enterprise may be uncertain when required to choose the most promising set of possible investments.The goal of this research is to use a grey relation analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to probe the core product development and competitiveness of an enterprise from limited data and, furthermore, by constructing the grey model, GM(1,1), to validate the feasibility of this assessment of the core competitiveness and investment strategy. In this study, a precision mechanical manufacturer is taken as an example, and the forecast estimate from this method is compared to those of a linear regression and the actual values to demonstrate the feasibility of applying this methodology to investment decision making, hence, demonstrating the value of this research.     

随机折现因子方法与CAPM关于风险溢价的实证比较

本文根据随机折现因子方法的基本理论，结合广义矩阵法和蒙特卡罗模拟，对随机折现因子方法和传统的CAPM对风险溢价的计算进行实证比较研究。实证结果表明，对于中小样本，随机折现因子方法比传统的CAPM方法优越。估计量较为精确，误差小；对于大容量样本，这两种方法性能接近。另外，随机折现因子方法得到Jensen＇sα均值比CAPM方法得到Jensen＇sα均值小，而且标准偏差明显较小，也从另一角度说明了随机折现因子方法的优越性。     

城市群网络的物质内容与整体经济增长——我国14个主要城市群的实证研究

本文以我国14个主要城市群的数据为样本,以网络组织理论为基础,实证分析了城市群网络状况的物质内容对其整体经济增长的影响.本文分别从成员城市的独立性和自学习性、城市群网络整体的动态性和开放性以及网络内部的连通性五个维度来度量网络状况的物质内容.结果表明,除了成员城市的独立性妨碍城市群整体经济增长,其他四个因素都促进经济增长.     

实施旅游产品创新战略的研究

本文主要研究在我国旅游业快速发展，国内旅游需求日益增强的情况下，旅游产品创新对改善我国旅游环境，引导旅游者消费，促进旅游业可持续发展等方面所产生的重要影响；提出了旅游经营者在知识经济时代进行旅游产品创新时应该坚持的战略，积极开发时涉及的领域，并对保证旅游产品创新顺利实施的支持系统进行了探讨。     

The contribution of vacations to quality of life

The contribution of vacations to people’s life satisfaction and Quality of Life (QOL) has recently attracted substantial attention among tourism researchers. Yet, most QOL scales do not include vacations: 7% explicitly measure vacations whereas 42% only include items relating to vacations within the broader Leisure domain. Leisure and vacations, however, differ substantially in nature with leisure referring to regular home-based activities and vacations being infrequent leisure activities away from home. As a consequence of the common amalgamation of vacations with leisure, there is limited knowledge about the specific contribution of vacations to people’s QOL. The present study (1) presents empirical evidence for the contribution of vacations to QOL, (2) determines the extent of this contribution, and (3) investigates variation in the extent to which vacations contribute to the QOL of different people. Results indicate that vacations contribute to the QOL of the majority of people, are as important a QOL domain as Leisure and People, and that QOL means different things to different people at different points in their life, representing an individual and dynamic concept.     

A preliminary study on customer expectations of hotel hospitality: Influences of personal and hotel factors

This study attempts to explain the influence of personal and hotel factors on the expectation level of hotel hospitality as well as to propose a scale to measure commercial hospitality for hotel services. A total of 101 local and international hotel guests were involved in the study. The results revealed that the expectations of hotel hospitality are influenced by personal factors such as gender, purpose of stay, nationality, and private domain of hospitality. The hotel's star rating is the only hotel factor that might have strong association with hotel hospitality.     

一种新型环境友好污水处理工艺——蚯蚓生态滤池

蚯蚓生态滤池将蚯蚓创造性地引入到污水处理系统中,延长和扩展了微生物代谢链,强化了生态系统富集与扩散、合成与分解、拮抗与协同等多种自然调控作用,实现了污水污泥的同步高效处理。滤池出水可用作绿化和农田灌溉,蚓粪污泥含水率低,减量化稳定化效果显著,较好地解决了剩余污泥的处置问题。蚯蚓生态滤池工艺高效节能,具有鲜明的"生态平衡"和"环境友好"技术特色,符合可持续发展的理念,具有技术经济竞争优势,环境效益比较显著,具有良好的实际应用前景。