The impact of web-based electronic commerce on the process of disintermediation and re-intermediation has been extensively studied. Two major limitations of the existing work are the focus on a single economic measure (i.e., transaction cost minimization) and the examination of channel-structure decisions from only a single perspective (the seller’s). This paper introduces transactional value t...

Imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is a new socio-politically motivated global search strategy. The ICA is applied to hybrid composite laminates to obtain minimum weight and cost. The approach which is chosen for conducting the multi-objective optimization was the weighted sum method (WSM). The hybrid composite Laminates are made of glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy to combine the lightness and...

The discrete time –cost trade-off problem (DTCTP) is one of the main aspects of project scheduling. In DTCTP , we treat cost as a non-renewable resource and the availability of renewable resource per period has been neglected. It was recently suggested that the quality of project should also be taken into consideration. Therefore, when renewable resources and quality are considered, the traditi...

Research on a new metaheuristic for optimization is often initially focused on proof of concept applications. Time and cost are the most important factors to be considered in every construction project. Over the years, many research studies have been conducted to model the time-cost relationship. Construction planners often face the challenge of optimum resources utilization to compromise betwe...

Supermarket chains handle frequent deliveries of fresh food to the stores, which have led to the nonignorable high transportation cost. Then a question arises that is it possible to reduce cost by establishing more refrigerated distribution centers (DC)? To answer this question, on basis of data from a large supermarket chain in China, we analyze the decision making process to construct new sub...

A model is developed to minimize the life cycle cost of a system providing availability of services from a constellation of satellites. The model consists of a cost model, and a performance model. The cost model includes the cost of purchasing and maintaining an inventory of satellites and launch vehicles, launch operations, and on orbit operations. The performance model evaluates the availabil...

Using confidential firm level data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on activities of U.S. multinational corporations (MNCs) and their Canadian affiliates, we study the dramatic growth of intra-firm and arms-length U.S.-Canada trade over the 1984-1995 period. We find that the increase in trade occurred almost entirely on the intensive rather than the extensive margin. That is, MNC pare...

Abstract Drawing upon recent studies that empirically estimate both the benefits and costs of trade, this paper addresses a simple important question: By how much do increased global trade outweigh costs? To best our knowledge, is first attempt to answer question at World Bank income-grouping levels using estimated relationships from cost literature. Using structural gravity model, we simulate ...

We give improved trade-oo results on approximating general minimum cost scheduling problems.

This paper draws attention to project trade-offs significance in project management and critically reviews the current state of the knowledge on the elements to be considered and the methods to resolve trade-off decisions. Traditionally the elements to be considered in trade-offs are mainly limited to time and cost and to some extent quality or risk or the well-known Project Triangle. The trade...