• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제10권10호
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• pp.4748-4765
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• 2016

We consider a virtualized cognitive radio (CR) network, where multiple virtual network operators (VNOs) who own different virtual cognitive base stations (VCBSs) share the same physical CBS (PCBS) which is owned by an infrastructure provider (InP), sharing the spectrum with the primary user (PU). The uplink scenario is considered where the secondary users (SUs) transmit to the VCBSs. The PU is protected by constraining the interference power from the SUs. Such constraint is applied by the InP through pricing the interference. A Stackelberg game is formulated to jointly maximize the revenue of the InP and the individual utilities of the VNOs, and then the Stackelberg equilibrium is investigated. Specifically, the optimal interference price and channel allocation for the VNOs to maximize the revenue of the InP and the optimal power allocation for the SUs to maximize the individual utilities of the VNOs are derived. In addition, a low‐complexity ±‐optimal solution is also proposed for obtaining the interference price and channel allocation for the VNOs. Simulations are provided to verify the proposed strategies. It is shown that the proposed strategies are effective in resource allocation and the ±‐optimal strategy achieves practically the same performance as the optimal strategy can achieve. It is also shown that the InP will not benefit from a large interference power limit, and selecting VNOs with higher unit rate utility gain to share the resources of the InP is beneficial to both the InP and the VNOs.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• 제12권3호
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• pp.264-273
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• 2013

Credit option is a policy that has been studied by many researchers in the area of supply chain management. This policy has been applied in practice to improve the profits of supply chain members. Usually, a credit option policy is proposed by the seller, and often under a symmetric information environment where members have complete information on each others' operations. In this paper, we investigate two scenarios: firstly, the seller offers a credit option to the buyer, and secondly, the buyer attempts to stretch the length of the credit period offered by the seller. The proposed model in both scenarios will be investigated under an asymmetric information structure where some information are private and are only known to the individual who has knowledge of this information. The interactions between buyer and seller will be modeled by non-cooperative Stackelberg games where the buyer and seller take turn as leader and follower. Among some of the numerical results obtained, the seller and buyer's profits obtained from symmetric information games are larger than those obtained from an asymmetric information game in both scenarios. Furthermore, both buyer and seller's profit in the second scenario are better than in the first scenario.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.97-106
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• 2010

Can eBay.com's fee structure coordinate the channel? It's a critical strategic problem in e-commerce operations and an interesting research hypothesis as well. eBay's fees include three parts: monthly subscription fee, insertion fee, and final value fee (i.e., a revenue sharing portion), which represent a generic form of revenue sharing fee structure between the retailer and the vendor in a supply chain. This research deals with such a channel consisting of a price-setting vendor who sells products through eBay's marketplace exclusively to the end customers. The up- and down-stream channel relationship is consignment-based revenue sharing. We use a game-theoretic approach with assumption of the retailer (i.e., eBay.com) being a Stackelberg-leader and the vendor being a follower. The Stackelberg-leader decides on the terms of revenue sharing contract (i.e., fee structure), and the follower (vendor) decides on how many units to sell and the items' selling price. This study formulates several profit-maximization models by considering the effects of the retail price on the demand function. Under such settings, we show that eBay's fee structure can improve the channel efficiency; yet it cannot coordinate the channel optimally.

• ETRI Journal
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.61-71
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• 2018

In this study, we developed hybrid control algorithms in smart base stations (SBSs) along with devised communication, caching, and computing techniques. In the proposed scheme, SBSs are equipped with computing power and data storage to collectively offload the computation from mobile user equipment and to cache the data from clouds. To combine in a refined manner the communication, caching, and computing algorithms, game theory is adopted to characterize competitive and cooperative interactions. The main contribution of our proposed scheme is to illuminate the ultimate synergy behind a fully integrated approach, while providing excellent adaptability and flexibility to satisfy the different performance requirements. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach can outperform existing schemes by approximately 5% to 15% in terms of bandwidth utilization, access delay, and system throughput.

• 산업경영시스템학회지
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• 제34권3호
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• pp.41-48
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• 2011

Recently, the increasing power of distributors has given them the opportunity of introducing private brand (PB) products. Based on the game theory, this study analyzes the decision making of a distributor regarding the optimal pricing and quality strategies for the PB product. By analyzing the game model, it is shown that the pricing mechanism heavily depends not only on the market power of the distributor but on the quality of the PB product. It is also shown that, counter intuitively, as the market power of the distributor increases, the optimal quality of the PB product should be decreased.

• 한국경영과학회지
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• 제35권4호
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• pp.55-79
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• 2010

This study deals with a model for platform competition in a two-sided market. We suppose there are both direct and indirect network externalities between suppliers and users of each platform. Moreover, we suppose that both users and suppliers are distributed in their relative affinity for each platform type. That is, each user [supplier] has his/her own preferential position toward each platform, and users [suppliers] are horizontally differentiated over [0, 1]. And for analytical tractability, some parameters like direct and indirect network externalities are the same across the markets. Given the parameters and the pricing profile, users and suppliers conduct subscription game, where participants select the platform that gives them the highest payoffs. This game proceeds according to a replicator dynamics of the evolutionary game, which is simplified by properly defining gains from participant's strategy in the subscription game. We find that depending on the strength of these network effects, there might either be multiple stable equilibria, at which users and suppliers distribute across both platforms, or one unstable interior equilibrium corresponding to the market tipping in favor of either platform. In both cases, we also consider the pricing power of competing platform providers under the framework of the Stackelberg game. In particular, our study examines the possible effects of the type of competition between platform providers, which may constrain the equilibrium selection in the subscription game.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제12권9호
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• pp.4166-4182
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• 2018

We consider the Device-to-Device (D2D) communications in cellular networks where each cellular user (CU) shares the same resource with multiple D2D users (DUs). In this paper, we aim to maximize the energy efficiency (EE) of the D2D networks, subject to an interference constraint required by the CU. Since the cellular and D2D communications belong to different networks, we consider to incentivize base station (BS) while assisting the DUs. To this end, we propose a Stackelberg game based interference pricing framework for the considered D2D communications in cellular networks. Unlike most of the existing methods, we use interference pricing framework to jointly address the EE resource allocation problem and the interference management in our networks rather than only improve the EE of the DUs or protect cellular networks. In particular, BS and all the users do not need all channel state information, which is more realistic in practice. In addition, two different pricing strategies are also proposed. Based on the two strategies, we analyze the equilibrium of the game. Moreover, in the first strategy, the upper and lower boundaries of the interference price are obtained. The closed-form expression is gained with a backward induction for the second strategy. Both offer valuable insights to the considered scenarios. Finally, compared with the existing work, the EE of the D2D communications is significantly improved. The advantageous performance of our scheme are demonstrated by the simulation results.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.589-599
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• 2016

Most existing resource management problem models arise from the original desire of allocating resources in either a user-centric or network-centric manner. The difference between their objectives is obvious: user-centric methods attempt to optimize the utility of individual users, whereas network-centric models intend to optimize the collective utilities of the entire network. In this paper, from the above two aspects, we analyze the robust power control problem in device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks, where two types of channel uncertainty set (e.g., ellipsoidal and column-wise) are considered. In the user-centric method, we formulate the problem into the form of a Stackelberg game, where the energy efficiency (EE) of each user is the ingredient of utility function. In order to protect the cellular user equipment's (CUE) uplink transmission, we introduce a price based cost function into the objectives of D2D user equipment (DUE). The existence and uniqueness of the game with the influence of channel uncertainty and price are discussed. In the network-centric method, we aim to maximize the collective EE of CUEs and DUEs. We show that by the appropriate mathematical transformation, the network-centric D2D power control problem has the identical local solution to that of a special case of the user-centric problem, where price plays a key role. Numerical results show the performance of the robust power control algorithms in the user-centric and network-centric models.

• 한국경영과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국경영과학회 2003년도 추계학술대회 및 정기총회
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• pp.329-333
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• 2003

This study presents supplier buyer models representing the interactions between supplier and buyer under a long-term replenishment contract in a supply chain system. We established the models according to the economic power of each party. Analysis based on Stackelberg game theoretic approach is tried for each model. We develop methods for each agent to follow to complete a contract for the best interest of each participant.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• 제8권4호
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• pp.221-227
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• 2009

There are customer services jointly provided by two facilities so that each customer will complete the course made up of both facilities' sub-services. The two facilities are assumed invested respectively by an infrastructure owner and one subordinate facility owner, whose partnership is built on their capital investments. This paper presents a mathematical model of Stackelberg competition between the two facility owners to derive their optimal Nash equilibrium. In this study, each facility owner's profit is consisted of fixed revenue fractions of sold services, operating costs (including depreciation cost) and maintenance costs of her facility. The maintenance costs of one facility are incurred both by failures and deterioration due to usage. Moreover, for both facilities, failures are rectified immediately by minimal repairs and preventive maintenance is carried out at a fixed time epoch. Additional assumptions are also employed to develop the model such as customer arrivals are manipulated to follow a Poisson process, and each facility's lifetime is independently Weibull-distributed. The Stackelberg game proceeds as follows. At the first stage of decision making process, the infrastructure owner (acting as a leader) decides the allocation of revenue shares based on her self-interest. After observing the allocation of revenue shares, the subordinate facility owner determines her own optimal price of services. This paper investigates actions and reactions of the two partners in the system. Then analytical conditions are proposed to achieve a unique optimal Nash equilibrium. Finally, some suggestions for further research are discussed.