Bi-objective decision support system for routing and scheduling of hazardous materials

This paper presents a Pareto-based bi-objective optimization of hazardous materials vehicle routing and scheduling problem with time windows and shows its application to a realistic hazardous material logistics instance. A meta-heuristic solution algorithm is also proposed, which returns a set of routing solutions that approximate the frontier of the Pareto optimal solutions based on total scheduled travel time and total risk of whole transportation process. It works in a single-step fashion simultaneously constructing the vehicle route and selecting the optimal paths connecting the routed locations from a set of non-dominated paths obtained in terms of travel time and risk value.     

Development and validation of a situational judgement test of Japanese leadership knowledge

ABSTRACT

Leadership research has accumulated a wealth of empirical findings about what leadership behaviours are effective in various business environments. We took advantage of these empirical findings to develop a situational judgement test (SJT) of leadership knowledge with correct answers. The SJT contains four leadership dimensions: task-focused, relationship-focused, transformational, and developmental leadership. Item response theory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the psychometric properties of the SJT, based on a sample of 658 Japanese college students. Ultimately, we confirmed a four-factor model and retained 21 of 53 situation questions for the final SJT.     

Control variate method for stationary processes

The sample mean is one of the most natural estimators of the population mean based on independent identically distributed sample. However, if some control variate is available, it is known that the control variate method reduces the variance of the sample mean. The control variate method often assumes that the variable of interest and the control variable are i.i.d. Here we assume that these variables are stationary processes with spectral density matrices, i.e. dependent. Then we propose an estimator of the mean of the stationary process of interest by using control variate method based on nonparametric spectral estimator. It is shown that this estimator improves the sample mean in the sense of mean square error. Also this analysis is extended to the case when the mean dynamics is of the form of regression. Then we propose a control variate estimator for the regression coefficients which improves the least squares estimator (LSE). Numerical studies will be given to see how our estimator improves the LSE.     

The Confucian Roots of Business Kyosei

Kyosei, a traditional Japanese concept, has been applied to a variety subjects, from biology to business. It has more recently become synonymous with the concepts of corporate responsibility, ethical decision making, stakeholder maximization, and responsible reciprocity. The purpose of this paper is to trace kyosei's modern business application back to ancient Confucian thought. The ideals associated with Confucianism were instrumental in the creation of Japanese business codes of ethics during the early part of the seventeenth century. A short history of this period is presented to provide a contextual framework for understanding these codes. A specific code of ethics, called the shuchu kiyaku, is presented for the first time in English and shown to have direct roots in Confucian writings. Statements from modern company codes and from modern Japanese and American businessmen are presented to reflect the philosophy of business embodied in that ancient code of ethics.     

The effects of Bank of Japan’s liquidity provision on the year-end premium

The premium on interbank money market rates arises over year-end periods as a result of the Japanese business practice of periodic settlement. This paper examines to what extent the Bank of Japan’s liquidity provision reduced the year-end premium in Japan. We find that the funds-supplying operations over the year-end and the fiscal year-end of 2008 had the largest effects during the period from 2006 to 2008, reflecting the fact that the Bank of Japan significantly expanded liquidity provision in response to the decrease in market liquidity under the financial turmoil.     

Input-Output Decomposition Analysis of Sectoral Price Gaps between Japan and China

Sectoral price gaps that were observed in 1990 between Japan and China are studied in this paper by using a decomposition procedure within the input-output framework. The empirical results show that Japan exhibited producer prices that were higher than those observed in China mainly because it registered higher wages that were only partially offset by higher productivity. The effects on output cost gaps of primaryinput price differences and relative productivity levels are analysed. The effects arising from the use of direct inputs as well as the indirect effects that are incorporated into the difference of intermediate-input prices are accounted for by means of an input-output decomposition technique.     

Effects of Price Regulations and Dark Pools on Financial Market Stability: An Investigation by Multiagent Simulations

We built an artificial market model and investigated the impact of large erroneous orders on financial market price formations. Comparing the case of consented large erroneous orders in the short term with that of continuous small erroneous orders in the long term, if amounts of orders are the same, we found that the orders induced almost the same price fall range. We also analysed effects of price variation limits for erroneous orders and found that price variation limits that employ a limitation term shorter than the time erroneous orders exist effectively prevent large price fluctuations. We also investigated effects of up-tick rules, adopting the trigger method that the Japan Financial Services Agency adopted in November 2013. We also investigated whether dark pools that never provide any order books stabilize markets or not using the model including one lit market, which provides all order books to investors, and one dark pool. We found that markets become more stable as the dark pool is increasingly used. We also found that using the dark pool more reduces the market impacts. However, if other investors’ usage rates of dark pools become too large, investors must use the dark pool more than other investors to avoid market impacts. When a tick size of a lit market is larger, dark pools are more useful to avoid market impacts. These results suggest that dark pools stabilize markets when the usage rate is under some threshold and negatively affect the market when the usage rate is over that threshold. Our simulation results suggest the threshold might be much larger than the usage rate in present real financial markets. This study is the first to discuss whether or not several concrete and actually adoptable regulations, including those that have never been employed (e.g. price variation limits with various parameters), could prevent large fluctuations of market prices, including those beyond our experience, using artificial market simulations, and to discuss quantitatively how spreading of dark pools beyond our experience could affect market price formations using the artificial market simulations. In short, this study is the first study to comprehensively discuss how regulations and financial systems beyond our experience could affect price formations using the artificial market simulations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.