This paper presents a review on design and control of automated guided vehicle systems. We address most key related issues including guide-path design, estimating the number of vehicles, vehicle scheduling, idle-vehicle positioning, battery management, vehicle routing, and conflict resolution. We discuss and classify important models and results from key publications in literature on automated ...

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of board size, the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) duality, and corporate liquidity on the profitability of Canadian service firms. This study also seeks to extend the findings of Kajola [1] and Gill [2]. A sample of 75 Canadian service firms listed on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) for a period of 3 years (from 2008-2010) was selected. This study ...

This paper compares the characteristics of M&A in 1991-2005 across five countries: Japan, France, Germany, the UK and USA. We ask what factors explain the growth of M&A markets across these countries, and what similarities and differences exist in the ways the M&A market operates. We find that the growth of M&A reflects a rather similar combination of sectoral, international, and financial fact...

This paper focuses on the development of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) after a management buy-out (MBO) and on the role played by venture capital firms in enhancing EO. It presents results of two exploratory case studies of divisional buy-outs with regard to their EO and the areas where the venture capital firm (VC) has been of greatest help. We discuss their contribution to elements of the ...

In contrast to findings in other countries, and surprisingly in view of the literature, high tech economic activity in the Netherlands is not spread geographically according to either relevant labour market characteristics or because of localized agglomeration effects. Instead, statistical analysis shows that the Netherlands is an urban field, and that the knowledge infrastructure is the only v...

This paper examines the relation between cash-flow availability and investment spending in the Netherlands. In particular, we are interested whether managerial discretion and/or asymmetric information drive the positive relation between cash-flow and investment spending. This relation is positive for both firms with low and high investment opportunities. It is however significantly larger for f...

Proofs from complexity theory as well as computational experiments indicate that most lot sizing problems are hard to solve. Because these problems are so difficult, various solution techniques have been proposed to solve them. In the past decade, meta-heuristics such as tabu search, genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, have become popular and efficient tools for solving hard combination...

This paper discusses statistical inference on the second-order stochastic dominance (SSD) efficiency of a given portfolio relative to all portfolios formed from a set of assets. We derive the asymptotic sampling distribution of the Post test statistic for SSD efficiency. Unfortunately, a test procedure based on this distribution involves low power in small samples. Bootstrapping is a more power...

This paper provides a brief technical survey of the historical national accounts of Iran. Gaining access to longer-term time series in compliance with concepts, classifications and standards comparable to the present one help fulfill quantitative studies in the area of business cycles. Despite the shortage of reliable, standardized and classified information, the methodology applied in thi...

The recent micro economic literature concerning exports has highlighted the importance of firms characteristics and trade costs for export decisions. Although the presence of trade costs (i.e. sunk and variable costs) are essential to describe the different export choices firms with different level of productivity make, little is known about them. The previous literature has concentrated mainly...