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We explore the driving forces behind the channel choices of the manufacturer and the platform by considering asymmetric selling cost and demand information.

This paper develops game-theoretical models to study different channel strategies for an E-commerce supply chain, in which a manufacturer distributes products through a platform that may operate in either the marketplace channel or the reseller channel.

Three primary models are built and analyzed. The comparison results show that the platform would share demand information in the reseller channel only if the service cost performance is relatively high. Besides, with an increasing selling cost, the equilibrium channel might shift from the marketplace to the reseller. With increasing information accuracy, the manufacturer tends to select the marketplace channel, while the platform tends to select the reseller channel if the service cost performance is low and tends to select the marketplace channel otherwise.

All these results have been numerically verified in the experiments. At last, we also resort to numerical study and find that as the service cost performance increases, the equilibrium channel may shift from the reseller channel to the marketplace channel. These results provide managerial guidance to online platforms and manufacturers regarding strategic decisions on channel management.

Although prior research has paid extensive attention to the driving forces behind the online channel choice between marketplace and reseller, there is at present few study considering the case where a manufacturer selling through an online platform faces a demand information disadvantage in the reseller channel and sales inefficiency in the marketplace channel. To fill this research gap, our work illustrates the interaction between demand information asymmetry and selling cost asymmetry to identify the equilibrium channel strategy and provides useful managerial guidelines for both online platforms and manufacturers.

Previous studies have rarely integrated the financing modes of a capital-constrained manufacturer with the choices of online sales strategies. To address this gap, the authors study how a manufacturer selects optimal financing modes under different sales strategies in three dual-channel supply chains.

This paper considers three sales strategies, namely, combining a traditional retailer channel with one of the direct selling, reselling and agency selling channels, and two common financing modes, namely, bank financing and retailer financing. The authors obtain equilibrium outcomes of the manufacturer and traditional retailer and then provide the conditions for them to select optimal financing modes under three sales strategies.

The results indicate that the manufacturer’s financing decisions rely on the initial capital and interest rates, and the manufacturer selects retailer financing only if the initial capital is relatively larger. In terms of financing mode options, the retailer financing mode is more beneficial for the manufacturer under the three sales strategies. From the perspective of sales strategies, the direct selling model is more beneficial. In addition, the higher the consumer acceptance of the online channel, the more profits the manufacturer obtains.

This paper provides suggestions on how the capital-constrained manufacturer chooses financing modes and sales strategies.

This paper integrates the financing mode and different sales strategies to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal operational decisions. These sales strategies allow us to investigate the manufacturer’s optimal financing modes in the presence of both different financing modes and sales strategies.

Assessing project criticality in a project portfolio (PP) is of great practical significance to improve robustness from damage. While project criticality assessment has increased diversity in approaches, the understanding of vulnerable project impacts is still limited. To promote a better understanding of assessing project criticality, a vulnerability measurement model is constructed.

First, integrating the tasks, projects and corresponding relationships among them, a project portfolio network (PPN) is constructed. Second, the project's vulnerability is measured by combining the topological structure and functional attributes. Third, project criticality is assessed by the vulnerability measurement results. Lastly, the proposed model is applied in a numerical example to illustrate its suitability and effectiveness.

For academia, this study provides a novel perspective on project vulnerability measurement and expands project criticality assessment tools. For practitioners, the straightforward model provides an effective tool for assessing project criticality and contributes to enhancing project portfolio management (PPM).

The impact of the task on the project is considered in this study. Topological structure and functional attributes are also integrated for measuring project vulnerability due to the impact of random attacks in an uncertain environment, providing a new perspective on the requirements of project criticality assessment and the measurement of project vulnerability.

Our purpose is to reconnect memetics to information, a persistent and unclear association. Information can contribute across a span of memetic research. Its obscurity restricts conversations about “information flow,” the connections between “form” and “content,” as well as many other topics. As information is involved in cultural activity, its clarification could focus memetic theories and applications.

Our design captures theoretical nuance in memetics by considering a long standing conceptual issue in memetics: information. A systematic review of memetics is provided by making use of the term information across literature. We additionally provide a citation analysis and close readings of what “information” means within the corpus.

Our initial corpus is narrowed to 128 pivotal memetic publications. From these publications, we provide a citation analysis of memetic studies. Theoretical directions of memetics in the informational context are outlined and developed. We outline two main discussion spaces, survey theoretical interests and describe where and when information is important to memetic discussion. We also find that there are continuities in goals which connect Dawkins’s meme with internet meme studies.

To our knowledge, this is the broadest, most inclusive review of memetics conducted, making use of a unique approach to studying information-oriented discourse across a corpus. In doing so, we provide information researchers areas in which they might contribute theoretical clarity in diverse memetic approaches. Additionally, we borrow the notion of “conceptual troublemakers” to contribute a corpus collection strategy which might be valuable for future literature reviews with conceptual difficulties arising from interdisciplinary study.

Blockchain for energy trading is a trending research area in the current context. However, a noticeable gap exists in the review articles focussing on solar energy trading with blockchain technology. Thus, this study aims to systematically examine and synthesise the existing research on implementing blockchain technology in sustainable solar energy trading.

The study pursued a systematic literature review to achieve its aim. The data extraction process focussed on the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, yielding an initial set of 129 articles. Subsequent screening and removal of duplicates led to 87 articles for bibliometric analysis, utilising VOSviewer software to discern evolutionary progress in the field. Following the establishment of inclusion and exclusion criteria, a manual content analysis was conducted on a subset of 19 articles.

The results indicated a rising interest in publications on solar energy trading with blockchain technology. Some studies are exploring the integration of new technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence in this domain. However, challenges and limitations were identified, such as the absence of real-world solar energy trading projects.

This study offers a distinctive approach by integrating bibliometric and manual content analyses, a methodology seldom explored. It provides valuable recommendations for academia and industry, influencing future research and industry practices. Insights include integrating blockchain into solar energy trading and addressing knowledge gaps. These findings advance societal goals, such as transitioning to renewable energy sources (RES) and mitigating carbon emissions, fostering a sustainable future.

The purpose of this paper is to study the aerodynamic characteristics of Ahmed body in longitudinal and lateral platoons under crosswind by computational fluid dynamics simulation. It helps to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles by providing theoretical basis and engineering direction for the development and progress of intelligent transportation.

A two-car platoon model is used to compare with the experiment to prove the accuracy of the simulation method. The simplified Ahmed body model and the Reynolds Averaged N-S equation method are used to study the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles at different distances under cross-winds.

When the longitudinal distance x/L = 0.25, the drag coefficients of the middle and trailing cars at β = 30° are improved by about 272% and 160% compared with β = 10°. The side force coefficients of the middle and trailing cars are increased by 50% and 62%. When the lateral distance y/W = 0.25, the side force coefficients of left and middle cars at β = 30° are reduced by 38% and 37.5% compared with β = 10°. However, the side force coefficient of the right car are increased by about 84.3%.

Most of the researches focus on the overtaking process, and there are few researches on the neat lateral platoon. The innovation of this paper is that in addition to studying the aerodynamic characteristics of longitudinal driving, the aerodynamic characteristics of neat lateral driving are also studied, and crosswind conditions are added. The authors hope to contribute to the development of intelligent transportation.

In this paper, the authors study the entry and outsourcing strategies of manufacturer while considering the brand spillover effect resulting from outsourcing. The supply chain comprises two manufacturers: one being the entrant with a strong brand, and the other as the incumbent with a weak brand. The entrant decides whether and how to enter the market.

Stackelberg game is applied to study the optimal strategies for the manufacturers. This paper conducts a comparative analysis on four situations, yielding conclusions and managerial insights.

The results show that, for the entrant, there is no need to worry about the brand spillover effect in the outsourcing process, which is very interesting and counterintuitive. To get further, the authors find the reason: The spillover effect causes the entrant’s equilibrium retail price to grow faster than the wholesale price. They also prove that a stronger brand effect empowers the entrant to challenge industry barriers, while the impact of the brand spillover effect is the opposite. For the incumbent who acts as the weak party in this issue, it is demonstrated that the optimal choice is to continue selling when facing the encroachment and outsourcing call from the entrant.

Differing from previous studies, the authors notice the brand spillover effect caused by outsourcing when studying company’s entry strategy. They further divide the brand effect into two parts, one of which does not exhibit a spillover.

Health misinformation on social media threatens public health. A critical question that sheds light on the propagation of health misinformation across social media platforms revolves around identifying the specific types of social media users susceptible to this issue. This study provides an initial insight into this matter by examining the underlying psychological mechanism that renders users susceptible to health misinformation.

In this study, we developed an integrated model of susceptibility to health misinformation, drawing on the motivation-opportunity-ability theory and the elaboration likelihood model. We collected the data from a sample of 342 social media users in China. Furthermore, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was adopted to examine the proposed model and uncover the causal recipes associated with susceptibility to health misinformation.

The results indicated that there are three configural types of users that are susceptible to health misinformation: the health-consciousness core-driven type, the popularity-driven core type and the dual-driven type characterized by both high health consciousness and information popularity. Among these, high health-consciousness and the reliance on information popularity-based pathways emerge as pivotal factors influencing susceptibility to health misinformation.

This study contributes to the social media literature by identifying various psychological traits that lead to social media users’ susceptibility to health misinformation. Additionally, the study provides comprehensive guidance on how to mitigate the spread of health misinformation.

This paper aims to help understand how adopting risk allocation criteria impacts the delivery of public–private partnership (PPP) mass housing in Nigeria with the view of promoting the adoption of PPP housing scheme in Nigeria.

The research design adopts the census sampling approach by using well-structured questionnaires distributed to stakeholders involved in PPP-procured mass housing projects, i.e. consultants, in-house professionals, contractors and the organized private sector, registered with PPP departments in the Federal Capital Territory Development Authority, Abuja, Nigeria. Sixty-three risk factors, nine risk allocation criteria and nine project delivery indices were submitted for the respondents to rank on a Likert scale of 7. Two hypotheses were formulated to test whether the risk allocation criteria impacted PPP mass housing delivery or otherwise. The study adopts partial least square-structural equation modeling to model the effect of risk on risk allocation criteria on project delivery indices and risk severity.

The finding shows that project risk allocation criteria have less effect on project delivery indices than on risk severity. The study concludes that risk allocation principles do not directly affect the delivery of PPP-procured mass housing projects. This is evident by the path coefficient of 0.724 values, which is not statistically significant at a 5% alpha protection value. The study concludes that allocating critical risk factors influences the performance of PPP-procured mass housing projects, as the path coefficient of 0.360 is also not significantly far from 0 and at a 5% alpha protection value.

The study is one of the recent studies conducted in PPP-procured mass housing projects in Nigeria owing to the novelty of procurement option in the sector. It highlights the risk factors that can jeopardize the PPP-procured mass housing project objectives. The study is of immense value to PPP actors in the sector by providing the necessary information required to formulate risk response methods to minimize the impact of the risk factors in PPP mass housing projects.

Infrastructure financialization plays a critical role in infrastructure development and urban growth around the world. However, on the one hand, the existing research on the infrastructure financialization focuses on qualitative and lacks quantitative country-specific studies. On the other hand, the spatial heterogeneity and influencing factors of infrastructure financialization are ignored. This study takes China as a typical case to identify and analyze the spatial characteristics, development process and impact factors of infrastructure financialization.

To assess the development and characteristics of infrastructure financialization in China, this study constructs an evaluation index of infrastructure financialization based on the infrastructure financialization ratio (IFR). This study then analyzes the evolution process and spatial pattern of China's infrastructure financialization through the spatial analysis method. Furthermore, this study identifies and quantitatively analyzes the influencing factors of infrastructure financialization based on the spatial Dubin model. Finally, this study offers a policy suggestion as a governance response.

The results demonstrate that infrastructure financialization effectively promotes the development of infrastructure in China. Second, there are significant spatial differences in China’s infrastructure financialization. Third, many factors affect infrastructure financialization, with government participation having the greatest impact. In addition, over-financialization of infrastructure has the potential to lead to government debt risks, which is a critical challenge the Chinese Government must address. Finally, this study suggests that infrastructure financialization requires more detailed, tailored,and place-specific policy interventions by the government.

This study not only contributes to enriching the knowledge body of global financialization theory but also helps optimize infrastructure investment and financing policies in China and provides peer reference for other developing countries.