• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.2377-2381
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• 2007

Solvolyses of 3,4-dimethoxybenzenesulfonyl chloride (DSC) in water, D2O, CH3OD, and in aqueous binary mixtures of acetone, acetonitrile, 1,4-dioxane, ethanol, methanol, and 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE) have been investigated at 25.0 oC. Kinetic solvent isotope effects (KSIE) in water and in methanol and product selectivities in alcohol-water mixtures are also reported. The Grunwald-Winstein plot of first-order rate constants for the solvolyic reaction of DSC with YCl shows marked dispersions into separated lines for various aqueous mixtures. With use of the extended Grunwald-Winstein equation, the l and m values obtained are 1.12 and 0.58 respectively for the solvolyses of DSC. The relatively large magnitude of l is consistent with substantial nucleophilic solvent assistance. From Grunwald-Winstein plots the rate data are dissected approximately into contributions from two competing reaction channels. This interpretation is supported for alcohol-water mixtures by the trends of product selectivities, which show a maximum for ethanol-water mixtures. From the KSIE of 1.45 in methanol, it is proposed that the reaction channel favored in methanolwater mixtures and in all less polar media is general-base catalysed and/or is possibly (but less likely) an addition-elimination pathway. Also, the KISE value of 1.35 for DSC in water is expected for SN2-SN1 processes, with minimal general base catalysis, and this mechanism is proposed for solvolyses in the most polar media.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.3-49
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• 1990

This paper analyzes U.S. demand for imports from Asian NIEs and Japan, utilizing the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) developed by Deaton and Muellbauer, with an emphasis on the effect of changes in the exchange rate. The empirical model assumes a two-stage budgeting process in which the first stage represents the allocation of total U.S. demand among three groups: the Asian NIEs and Japan, six Western developed countries, and the U.S. domestic non-tradables and import competing sector. The second stage represents the allocation of total U.S. imports from the Asian NIEs and Japan among them, by country. According to the AIDS model, the share equation for the Asia NIEs and Japan in U.S. nominal GNP is estimated as a single equation for the first stage. The share equations for those five countries in total U.S. imports are estimated as a system with the general demand restrictions of homogeneity, symmetry and adding-up, together with polynomially distributed lag restrictions. The negativity condition is also satisfied for all cases. The overall results of these complicated estimations, using quarterly data from the first quarter of 1972 to the fourth quarter of 1989, are quite promising in terms of the significance of individual estimators and other statistics. The conclusions drawn from the estimation results and the derived demand elasticities can be summarized as follows: First, the exports of each Asian NIE to the U.S. are competitive with (substitutes for) Japan's exports, while complementary to the exports of fellow NIEs, with the exception of the competitive relation between Hong Kong and Singapore. Second, the exports of each Asian NIE and of Japan to the U.S. are competitive with those of Western developed countries' to the U.S, while they are complementary to the U.S.' non-tradables and import-competing sector. Third, as far as both the first and second stages of budgeting are coneidered, the imports from each Asian NIE and Japan are luxuries in total U.S. consumption. However, when only the second budgeting stage is considered, the imports from Japan and Singapore are luxuries in U.S. imports from the NIEs and Japan, while those of Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are necessities. Fourth, the above results may be evidenced more concretely in their implied exchange rate effects. It appears that, in general, a change in the yen-dollar exchange rate will have at least as great an impact, on an NIE's share and volume of exports to the U.S. though in the opposite direction, as a change in the exchange rate of the NIE's own currency $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the dollar. Asian NIEs, therefore, should counteract yen-dollar movements in order to stabilize their exports to the U.S.. More specifically, Korea should depreciate the value of the won relative to the dollar by approximately the same proportion as the depreciation rate of the yen $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the dollar, in order to maintain the volume of Korean exports to the U.S.. In the worst case scenario, Korea should devalue the won by three times the maguitude of the yen's depreciation rate, in order to keep market share in the aforementioned five countries' total exports to the U.S.. Finally, this study provides additional information which may support empirical findings on the competitive relations among the Asian NIEs and Japan. The correlation matrices among the strutures of those five countries' exports to the U.S.. during the 1970s and 1980s were estimated, with the export structure constructed as the shares of each of the 29 industrial sectors' exports as defined by the 3 digit KSIC in total exports to the U.S. from each individual country. In general, the correlation between each of the four Asian NIEs and Japan, and that between Hong Kong and Singapore, are all far below .5, while the ones among the Asian NIEs themselves (except for the one between Hong Kong and Singapore) all greatly exceed .5. If there exists a tendency on the part of the U.S. to import goods in each specific sector from different countries in a relatively constant proportion, the export structures of those countries will probably exhibit a high correlation. To take this hypothesis to the extreme, if the U.S. maintained an absolutely fixed ratio between its imports from any two countries for each of the 29 sectors, the correlation between the export structures of these two countries would be perfect. Therefore, since any two goods purchased in a fixed proportion could be classified as close complements, a high correlation between export structures will imply a complementary relationship between them. Conversely, low correlation would imply a competitive relationship. According to this interpretation, the pattern formed by the correlation coefficients among the five countries' export structures to the U.S. are consistent with the empirical findings of the regression analysis.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-46
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• 2009

The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced in May 2008 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for 2006 reached $ 107 billion, up from $ 87 billion in 2005 - an increase of 22 percent. From 2001 to 2006, retail e-sales increased at an average annual growth rate of 25.4 percent. The explosive growth of E-Commerce has caused profound changes in marketing channel relationships and structures in many industries. Despite the great potential implications for both academicians and practitioners, there still exists a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the Internet channel introduction on distribution channel management. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the ownership of the new Internet channel affects the existing channel members and consumers. To explore the above research questions, this study conducts well-controlled mathematical experiments to isolate the impact of the Internet channel by comparing before and after the Internet channel entry. The model consists of a monopolist manufacturer selling its product through a channel system including one independent physical store before the entry of an Internet store. The addition of the Internet store to this channel system results in a mixed channel comprised of two different types of channels. The new Internet store can be launched by the independent physical store such as Bestbuy. In this case, the physical retailer coordinates the two types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the two stores. The Internet store also can be introduced by an independent Internet retailer such as Amazon. In this case, a retail level competition occurs between the two types of stores. Although the manufacturer sells only one product, consumers view each product-outlet pair as a unique offering. Thus, the introduction of the Internet channel provides two product offerings for consumers. The channel structures analyzed in this study are illustrated in Fig.1. It is assumed that the manufacturer plays as a Stackelberg leader maximizing its own profits with the foresight of the independent retailer's optimal responses as typically assumed in previous analytical channel studies. As a Stackelberg follower, the independent physical retailer or independent Internet retailer maximizes its own profits, conditional on the manufacturer's wholesale price. The price competition between two the independent retailers is assumed to be a Bertrand Nash game. For simplicity, the marginal cost is set at zero, as typically assumed in this type of study. In order to explore the research questions above, this study develops a game theoretic model that possesses the following three key characteristics. First, the model explicitly captures the fact that an Internet channel and a physical store exist in two independent dimensions (one in physical space and the other in cyber space). This enables this model to demonstrate that the effect of adding an Internet store is different from that of adding another physical store. Second, the model reflects the fact that consumers are heterogeneous in their preferences for using a physical store and for using an Internet channel. Third, the model captures the vertical strategic interactions between an upstream manufacturer and a downstream retailer, making it possible to analyze the channel structure issues discussed in this paper. Although numerous previous models capture this vertical dimension of marketing channels, none simultaneously incorporates the three characteristics reflected in this model. The analysis results are summarized in Table 1. When the new Internet channel is introduced by the existing physical retailer and the retailer coordinates both types of stores to maximize the joint profits from the both stores, retail prices increase due to a combination of the coordination of the retail prices and the wider market coverage. The quantity sold does not significantly increase despite the wider market coverage, because the excessively high retail prices alleviate the market coverage effect to a degree. Interestingly, the coordinated total retail profits are lower than the combined retail profits of two competing independent retailers. This implies that when a physical retailer opens an Internet channel, the retailers could be better off managing the two channels separately rather than coordinating them, unless they have the foresight of the manufacturer's pricing behavior. It is also found that the introduction of an Internet channel affects the power balance of the channel. The retail competition is strong when an independent Internet store joins a channel with an independent physical retailer. This implies that each retailer in this structure has weak channel power. Due to intense retail competition, the manufacturer uses its channel power to increase its wholesale price to extract more profits from the total channel profit. However, the retailers cannot increase retail prices accordingly because of the intense retail level competition, leading to lower channel power. In this case, consumer welfare increases due to the wider market coverage and lower retail prices caused by the retail competition. The model employed for this study is not designed to capture all the characteristics of the Internet channel. The theoretical model in this study can also be applied for any stores that are not geographically constrained such as TV home shopping or catalog sales via mail. The reasons the model in this study is names as "Internet" are as follows: first, the most representative example of the stores that are not geographically constrained is the Internet. Second, catalog sales usually determine the target markets using the pre-specified mailing lists. In this aspect, the model used in this study is closer to the Internet than catalog sales. However, it would be a desirable future research direction to mathematically and theoretically distinguish the core differences among the stores that are not geographically constrained. The model is simplified by a set of assumptions to obtain mathematical traceability. First, this study assumes the price is the only strategic tool for competition. In the real world, however, various marketing variables can be used for competition. Therefore, a more realistic model can be designed if a model incorporates other various marketing variables such as service levels or operation costs. Second, this study assumes the market with one monopoly manufacturer. Therefore, the results from this study should be carefully interpreted considering this limitation. Future research could extend this limitation by introducing manufacturer level competition. Finally, some of the results are drawn from the assumption that the monopoly manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader. Although this is a standard assumption among game theoretic studies of this kind, we could gain deeper understanding and generalize our findings beyond this assumption if the model is analyzed by different game rules.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.55-79
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) approach to effectively solve the reverse logistics network with centralized centers (RLNCC). For the proposed HGA approach, genetic algorithm (GA) is used as a main algorithm. For implementing GA, a new bit-string representation scheme using 0 and 1 values is suggested, which can easily make initial population of GA. As genetic operators, the elitist strategy in enlarged sampling space developed by Gen and Chang (1997), a new two-point crossover operator, and a new random mutation operator are used for selection, crossover and mutation, respectively. For hybrid concept of GA, an iterative hill climbing method (IHCM) developed by Michalewicz (1994) is inserted into HGA search loop. The IHCM is one of local search techniques and precisely explores the space converged by GA search. The RLNCC is composed of collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers, and secondary markets in reverse logistics networks. Of the centers and secondary markets, only one collection center, remanufacturing center, redistribution center, and secondary market should be opened in reverse logistics networks. Some assumptions are considered for effectively implementing the RLNCC The RLNCC is represented by a mixed integer programming (MIP) model using indexes, parameters and decision variables. The objective function of the MIP model is to minimize the total cost which is consisted of transportation cost, fixed cost, and handling cost. The transportation cost is obtained by transporting the returned products between each centers and secondary markets. The fixed cost is calculated by opening or closing decision at each center and secondary markets. That is, if there are three collection centers (the opening costs of collection center 1 2, and 3 are 10.5, 12.1, 8.9, respectively), and the collection center 1 is opened and the remainders are all closed, then the fixed cost is 10.5. The handling cost means the cost of treating the products returned from customers at each center and secondary markets which are opened at each RLNCC stage. The RLNCC is solved by the proposed HGA approach. In numerical experiment, the proposed HGA and a conventional competing approach is compared with each other using various measures of performance. For the conventional competing approach, the GA approach by Yun (2013) is used. The GA approach has not any local search technique such as the IHCM proposed the HGA approach. As measures of performance, CPU time, optimal solution, and optimal setting are used. Two types of the RLNCC with different numbers of customers, collection centers, remanufacturing centers, redistribution centers and secondary markets are presented for comparing the performances of the HGA and GA approaches. The MIP models using the two types of the RLNCC are programmed by Visual Basic Version 6.0, and the computer implementing environment is the IBM compatible PC with 3.06Ghz CPU speed and 1GB RAM on Windows XP. The parameters used in the HGA and GA approaches are that the total number of generations is 10,000, population size 20, crossover rate 0.5, mutation rate 0.1, and the search range for the IHCM is 2.0. Total 20 iterations are made for eliminating the randomness of the searches of the HGA and GA approaches. With performance comparisons, network representations by opening/closing decision, and convergence processes using two types of the RLNCCs, the experimental result shows that the HGA has significantly better performance in terms of the optimal solution than the GA, though the GA is slightly quicker than the HGA in terms of the CPU time. Finally, it has been proved that the proposed HGA approach is more efficient than conventional GA approach in two types of the RLNCC since the former has a GA search process as well as a local search process for additional search scheme, while the latter has a GA search process alone. For a future study, much more large-sized RLNCCs will be tested for robustness of our approach.