Application of Relationship Investment Model in Predicting Student Engagement towards HEIs

Using the Relationship Investment Model, this study examines the effects of satisfaction, relationship investment dimensions, and alternative attractiveness on student commitment and, consequently, on student engagement towards higher education institutions (HEIs). This research adopts the positivism, quantitative, and deductive approaches. Data were gathered from a sample of 250 students through the street-intercept systematic sampling and were analyzed using structural equation modelling. The findings reveal that satisfaction and student direct investment significantly affect student commitment, which in turn influences student engagement towards HEIs. While the findings provide guidance to HEIs in designing an effective engagement program that will ensure their relevance in the competitive educational world, this research is limited by several factors, which will require refinement and replication in future research.     

Factors affecting international event visitors’ behavioral intentions: the moderating role of attachment avoidance

ABSTRACT

This study developed and tested a theoretical framework of event quality, motivation, value, and destination image in order to investigate visitors’ behavioral intentions to revisit an international event, along with the moderating role of attachment avoidance. Results revealed that the relationships among event quality, motivation, value, image, and behavioral intentions were highly significant. Attachment avoidance was additionally found to moderate the relationships between quality and value, motivation and value, value and destination image, and value and behavioral intentions. Findings further provide specific implications for both theoretical insight and marketing practice in the context of annual and international events.     

Navigating through the complex transport system: A heuristic approach for city tourism recommendation

The fast development of machine learning and artificial intelligence has led to a great improvement of the smart tourism recommendation system, however many problems associated with the choice of transport modes in city tourism have yet to be solved. This research attempts to address this issue by proposing a model of customized day itineraries with consideration of transport mode choice. With improved particle swarm optimization and differential evolution algorithm, a nondominated sorting heuristic approach was devised. A case study was carried out in Chengdu, China to examine the performance of our approach. The results show that compared with extant methods, our approach achieves better performance. In addition, our approach can create more sensible, multifarious, and customized itineraries than previous methods. Tourism organizations and mobile map app providers could integrate our proposed model into their existing smart service systems, as part of their e-business or digital strategy for enhancing tourist experience.     

A credibility-based multi-objective temporary logistics hub location-allocation model for relief supply and distribution under uncertainty

Disaster response operations revolve around uncertainties. While uncertainties arising due to randomness can be avoided for post-disaster location problem, those arising because of impreciseness may persist long after the disaster's occurrence. Despite the uncertainties and lack of sufficient information about the extent of the damage, disaster response facilities must be established quickly after the occurrence of the disaster. Moreover, the decisions of whether to open, where to locate, and when to open disaster response facilities are based on the amount and quality of information available during the decision-making period. To address these issues, we develop a multi-objective location-allocation model for relief supply and distribution that accounts for the imprecise and time-varying nature of different parameters and time-varying coverage, while also accommodating the subjective attributes necessary to enable establishment and operation of the temporary logistics hubs (TLHs). A credibility-based fuzzy chance-constrained programming model is employed to account for the impreciseness inherent in predicting parameter values during disaster response. The results show where, when, and how many TLHs to open and how to allocate relief supplies. Meanwhile, the sensitivity analysis provides a broader understanding of the impact of limiting the number of TLHs as well as the confidence level and the spread of the symmetric triangular fuzzy numbers on the attainment of the model objectives.     

Improving Order Fulfillment Performance through Integrated Inventory Management in a Multi-Item Finished Goods System

Effective inventory management is fundamental to order fulfillment excellence and supply chain success. In this paper, we develop a strategic inventory management decision tool that integrates inventory classification and inventory control policy decisions for maximizing order fulfillment performance, while accounting for a constraint on inventory budget and the profit expectation of a firm. This inventory solution tool provides critical enhancements to current inventory planning software, which is developed upon the traditional inventory classification scheme and where practitioners have to balance service levels and safety stock decisions through trial-and-error. The model allows firms to assess whether the current inventory performance is Pareto optimal, quantify the trade-offs between various performance measures, and identify the right inventory level according to the firms' strategic goals. In computational results, we demonstrate the trade-off and positive relationships between key item- and order-based inventory performance measures and short-term profitability under different levels of inventory budget in a multi-item finished goods inventory system.     

Expectile CAPM

Conventional wisdom suggests that the uncertainty of uninformed noise-traders’ sentiment deters rational traders’ arbitrage activities. However, nowadays, social media have made the public sentiment highly predictable, whereas the CAPM-motivated beta-return relation still does not hold in practice. This study advances an argument that the sentiment can also be brought about by rational, sophisticated investors’ use of psychological insight; resultantly, the arbitrage activities are demotivated by their own sentiment, rather than deterred by noise-traders’ sentiment risk. The proposed expectile CAPM provides a parsimonious way to account for this claim, and leads to a sentiment-based functional form of pricing kernel.     

新形势下优化工程施工企业财务管理的对策分析

伴随着我国社会经济的发展和城市化进程的加快,越来越多的建筑工程项目投入施工建设。当前工程施工企业在进行财务管理时还存在一定的问题和不足,尤其是在新收入准则颁布和实施之后,对工程施工企业财务管理提出了新的要求,需要规范收入管理。论文主要针对工程施工企业财务管理的现状,着重探讨新准则模式下优化工程施工企业财务管理的对策。     

生育、劳动人口福利与机制设计

通过建立动态优化模型，进行模拟发现：在没有配套性政策下按照政策生育会降低劳动人 口的福利水平。这意味着，如果自愿进行生育，全面二孩政策下民众很可能不会有效地响应政策。 进一步模拟发现：养老制度转轨和降低生育成本的政策，如果与生育政策调整同时进行，可以增 加社会资源，补偿生育对劳动人口福利的挤占，但是政策具有生育效应的关键在于转轨带来社会 资源增量须用于生育支持，降低家庭生育成本的关键在于提高社会照看与提供孩子产品和服务企 业的社会生产率。政策启示在于，尽快出台与生育政策配套性的措施，特别是生育支持性政策。     

Procurement as innovation policy and its distinguishing effects on innovative efforts of the Brazilian oil and gas suppliers

This paper aims to assess the effect of public procurement for innovation (PPI) in the Brazilian oil and gas sector on the innovative behavior of suppliers. It emphasizes the role PPI may play in developing countries due to its ability to target a wide range of firm sizes and to contribute to a more even diffusion of technical progress. Using microdata from RAIS and coarsened exact matching, results show that treated firms present on average a higher intensity of innovative efforts than the control sample. In small firms, PPI has a positive effect on the probability of carrying out innovative activities. Once small firms have decided to carry out these activities, treated and control samples have similar innovative effort intensities. The treatment’s effect on large firms’ probability of performing innovative activities is positive but lower than small firms. Nonetheless, there is a significant and positive effect on the intensity of these efforts. The paper suggests that, due to its effects over a wide range of firm sizes, PPI may be a worthwhile policy to implement for the reduction of structural heterogeneity present in developing countries.     

浅析建筑工程造价的影响因素及优化措施

建筑企业进行建筑工程项目建设的最终目的是保证建筑工程项目质量的前提下实现经济效益的最大化。因此,对建筑工程项目的造价管理必须要给予高度的重视。工程造价控制是保证工程项目成本投入得到有效管理的最佳途径,其直接关系到建筑工程的质量和工程的经济利润。因此,必须要明确影响建筑工程造价的因素,并采取科学的优化措施进行工程造价的合理控制。论文首先阐述建筑工程造价管理的必要性,再分析影响建筑工程造价的因素,最后提出一些优化措施上的建议。