Managing Fashion Goods Inventories: Dynamic Recourse for Retailers with Outlet Stores

The proliferation of both online and bricks and mortar outlet stores underscores the observation that secondary markets are readily accessible to retailers of short-life-cycle products. These secondary markets provide recourse channels for retailers to sell excess inventory of out-of-favor items at reduced prices when overstocking occurs in a primary market. We study the problem of determining when a retailer should terminate its primary selling season by selling remaining inventory on a secondary market. The retailer has a single opportunity to procure prior to a primary selling season consisting of multiple periods. Demand in each period is random, but correlated. At the end of each period, any remaining inventory incurs a holding cost. Then, based upon the current level of inventory and the cumulative demand-to-date, the retailer decides either to terminate the primary selling season by selling all or part of the remaining inventory on a secondary market, or to extend the current primary selling season by another period. We develop structural properties of the optimal policy for determining when to terminate the primary selling season, and we develop corresponding implications for procurement.     

Modeling of Diffusion in Capillary Porous Materials During the Drying Process

This paper presents a model of heterogenous diffusion in capillary porous materials during the process of drying. The governing heat and mass transfer equations have been established using the liquid as well as vapor flow. Two models have been presented. Model 1 does not consider the heat conduction while the model 2 has been established by considering the conduction. The developed models and the numerical solutions of the resulting differential equations can take into account the moisture and temperature dependent thermophysical properties of the product. All equations have been established in spherical coordinates but the programme written for the purpose of calculations can be used for other geometries also. Numerical calculations have been performed for gas concrete and tiles using model 1, while model 2 has been used for gas concrete only because of the lack of data for thermophysical properties of the tile. For gas concrete it was seen that conduction has only marginal effect on the drying process and the numerical predictions of the drying process were reasonably accurate.     

Charting of geoelectric potential signal dynamics via geometrical techniques and its possible relation to significant earthquakes in Western Greece

An exploratory data analysis (EDA) framework was developed in order to investigate the presence of possible correlations in the long-term geoelectric potential (LTGP) signal, prior to significant seismic events in Western Greece. Experimental data, which had been collected continuously within a 6-year period (1998–2003) at the earthquake signal-acquisition center of the University of Patras Seismological Laboratory (UPSL), were studied. The multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique was used to detect putative clustering tendencies in the ensemble of time-series (TS) segments that could indicate the existence of a possible correlation between the geoelectric signal structure and the impending seismic activity. The end result is a 2-dimensional point diagram with the geometry reflecting important signal characteristics, directly related with the underlying seismic events. In addition, the “appending technique”, a well-suited data analysis methodology was incorporated as a means of relating any other TS segment directly with the pre-computed, via the MDS, point diagram. Using the proposed EDA framework, we examined the presence of similar temporal patterns in the recorded geoelectric TS field, 10 days before the occurrence of the major earthquakes. The presented experimental results indicated clearly the validity of the introduced approach and, further, motivated the use of such advanced visualization schemes for charting precursor trends of significance seismicity.     

Recovery of water-soluble solvents from oilseeds

Water-soluble solvents such as ethanol and isopropanol are recovered from oilseeds in equipment similar to that used for recovering hexane, but the bases for design are considerably different. Present and future commercial processes employing aqueous solvents are described, and desolventizing extracted particulates from them examined, particularly as they are affected by the concentration of alcohol in the solvent.     

An alternative approach to weight function evaluation for an orthotropic crack

The use of the analytically decoupled near-tip displacement solutions as an alternative approach, is presented in this paper for the efficient finite element evaluation of the decoupled weight functions for an orthotropic 2-D crack. This alternative approach has been validated by directly comparing the prior weight function results with a symmetric mesh approach in the crack-tip neighborhood, and indirectly by comparing the calculated stress intensity factors (K_I(II)) values using the computed weight functions with available K_I(II) solutions of the 2-D mixed mode orthotropic cracks. In addition, this approach with analytically decoupled near-tip displacement solutions for calculating weight functions at all locations, can facilitate further extension of weight function evaluations to a more general 2-D anisotropic crack.