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In this paper, the authors study the effect of consumers' fairness preferences on dynamic pricing strategies adopted by platforms in a non-cooperative game.

This study applies fair game and repeated game theory.

This study reveals that, in a one-shot game, if consumers have fairness preferences, dynamic prices will slightly decline. In a repeated game, dynamic prices will be reduced even when consumers do not have fairness preferences. When fairness preferences and repeated game are considered simultaneously, dynamic prices are most likely to be set at fair prices. The authors also discuss the effect of platforms' discounting factors, the consumers' income and alternative choices of consumption on the dynamic prices.

The study findings illustrate the importance of incorporating behavioral elements in understanding and designing the dynamic pricing strategies for platforms and the implications on social welfare in general.

The authors developed a theoretical model to incorporate consumers' fairness preference into the decision-making process of platforms when they design the dynamic pricing strategies.

The successful application of robots in surgery and other medical fields prompts us that robots can also play an important role in oral restoration. The traditional way of complete denture manufacturing is manual and only high‐level dentists and skilled technicians can do this work well. But we believe that a robot can do this work better and more easily. Artificial teeth are very complicated in shape, and not easy to be grasped and manipulated accurately by a robot gripper. Aiming at improving our previous robot manufacturing system of complete dentures, we present a new method to perform teeth implanting. We improve the previous manufacturing procedure by adding several components in the operating process. By this method, the robot gripper only needs to grasp and implant intermediate blocks, which have very simple shapes and are easy to handle precisely. The 3D human‐machine tooth arrangement software performs the calculation of intermediate blocks’ positions and orientations. We perform the experiment of tooth arrangement for a patient, and obtain a pair of ideal tooth arches. A complete denture can be manufactured according to this result.

A cross-domain intelligent software-defined network (SDN) routing method based on a proposed multiagent deep reinforcement learning (MDRL) method is developed.

First, the network is divided into multiple subdomains managed by multiple local controllers, and the state information of each subdomain is flexibly obtained by the designed SDN multithreaded network measurement mechanism. Then, a cooperative communication module is designed to realize message transmission and message synchronization between the root and local controllers, and socket technology is used to ensure the reliability and stability of message transmission between multiple controllers to acquire global network state information in real time. Finally, after the optimal intradomain and interdomain routing paths are adaptively generated by the agents in the root and local controllers, a network traffic state prediction mechanism is designed to improve awareness of the cross-domain intelligent routing method and enable the generation of the optimal routing paths in the global network in real time.

Experimental results show that the proposed cross-domain intelligent routing method can significantly improve the network throughput and reduce the network delay and packet loss rate compared to those of the Dijkstra and open shortest path first (OSPF) routing methods.

Message transmission and message synchronization for multicontroller interdomain routing in SDN have long adaptation times and slow convergence speeds, coupled with the shortcomings of traditional interdomain routing methods, such as cumbersome configuration and inflexible acquisition of network state information. These drawbacks make it difficult to obtain global state information about the network, and the optimal routing decision cannot be made in real time, affecting network performance. This paper proposes a cross-domain intelligent SDN routing method based on a proposed MDRL method. First, the network is divided into multiple subdomains managed by multiple local controllers, and the state information of each subdomain is flexibly obtained by the designed SDN multithreaded network measurement mechanism. Then, a cooperative communication module is designed to realize message transmission and message synchronization between root and local controllers, and socket technology is used to ensure the reliability and stability of message transmission between multiple controllers to realize the real-time acquisition of global network state information. Finally, after the optimal intradomain and interdomain routing paths are adaptively generated by the agents in the root and local controllers, a prediction mechanism for the network traffic state is designed to improve awareness of the cross-domain intelligent routing method and enable the generation of the optimal routing paths in the global network in real time. Experimental results show that the proposed cross-domain intelligent routing method can significantly improve the network throughput and reduce the network delay and packet loss rate compared to those of the Dijkstra and OSPF routing methods.

The last decade witnessed the reform of China's financial sector, during which Chinese commercial banks’ ownership and operation had been significantly changed in order to improve efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigates whether these banks have improved their productivity efficiency during their rapid expansion and growth in the post reform era from 2004 to 2011.

Data envelopment analysis is used to investigate the production efficiency of Chinese commercial banks during 2004-2011. First, the technical efficiency (TE) score is constructed to evaluate bank productivity. The TE score is disintegrated into pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE) to examine the effects of technical factors and scale economies. Second, the Malmquist index is constructed to explore the year-by-year productivity. Lastly, regression analysis examines how bank characteristics and ownership structure affect productivity efficiency.

The Big Four banks are less efficient than other commercial banks, and public banks are less efficient than private banks. The low efficiency is primarily due to scale inefficiency, rather than PTE. In addition, ownership structure impacts production efficiency. Specifically, foreign ownership is related to high efficiency while state ownership is associated with lower productivity.

There were small observations of public banks in China. Thus, a more comprehensive test is impractical to explore whether or not annual changes in ownership structure improve their production efficiency. With more date, such a test will reveal further information about the relationship between ownership and productivity.

The authors are the first to assess the production efficiency of Chinese commercial banks after the recent financial reform during which Chinese commercial banks had undergone significant structural changes. The lower overall productivity of Big Four and public banks is a result of scale inefficiency, although these banks are better than their peers with respect to input-output transformation.

Although recent literature has examined diverse measures adopted by SMEs to navigate the COVID-19 turbulence, there is a shortage of evidence on how crisis-time strategy creation behaviour and digitalization activities increase (1) sales and (2) cash flow. Thus, predicated on a novel strategy creation perspective, this inquiry aims to investigate the crisis behaviour, sales and cash flow performance of 528 SMEs in Morocco.

Novel links between (1) aggregate wage cuts, (2) variable operating hours, (3) deferred payment to suppliers, (4) deferred payment to tax authorities and (5) sales performance are developed and tested. A further link between sales performance and cash flow is also examined and the analysis is conducted using a non-linear structural equation modelling technique.

While there is a significant association between strategy creation behaviours and sales performance, only variable operating hours have a positive effect. Also, sales performance increases cash flow and this relationship is substantially strengthened by e-commerce digitalization and innovation.

Theoretically, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first inquiries to espouse the strategy creation view to explain SMEs' crisis-time behaviour and digitalization. For practical purposes, to supplement Moroccan SMEs' propensity to seek tax deferrals, it is argued that debt and equity support measures are also needed to boost sales performance and cash flow.

This research aims to explore how consumers' local brand choices differ between air-polluted days and clean days, and why the difference occurs.

Two studies were conducted. Study 1 used the longitudinal consumption data of various yogurt brands and daily air quality indexes in 2014 and 2015. Study 2 conducted three rounds of surveys on a clean day, a general air-polluted day and a seriously air-polluted day.

The findings indicate that consumers show less tendency of attribution and compensatory consumption during air-polluted days, which in turn decrease their willingness to choose local brands.

Implications are provided for future research and marketing practice, especially for local companies that rely heavily on local consumers, and retailers in heavy air-polluted areas.

This paper is the first to illustrate the influence of air pollution on consumers' local brand choices, and it extends current understanding on air pollution and consumer choices by discovering psychological process underneath to explain the effect.

The purpose of this paper is to study how job flexibility influences job satisfaction among Mexican professionals, and focus on the role of key socio-cultural moderators relevant to Mexican society.

The paper explore how this relationship may be more important for women, employees with dependents such as children and elder parents and younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials).

The authors find that job flexibility is positively related to job satisfaction. This relationship is stronger for employees without dependents, as well as for younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials). Surprisingly, the relationship between job flexibility and job satisfaction does not differ by gender. The findings explain why job flexibility is more conductive to job satisfaction for employees without dependents, who tend to belong to younger generations.

Overall, the findings present important implications for managing job flexibility in Mexico and other Latin American countries, particularly for younger professionals.

Three test platforms for long-term continuous loading are adopted to test the actuator prototypes of the 500-meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST). However, the wire ropes that are the key components of these platforms often break during testing. The purpose of this paper is to present an effective dimension design method for these wire ropes. This method is based on fatigue reliability theory.

Three types of stresses are introduced into the total stress model of the wire rope according to the complicated stress conditions. The fatigue strength of the ropes is also discussed in this paper. Then, the total stress model and the results of fatigue strength analysis are applied to set the optimization function for these wire ropes. Subsequently, this optimization function is used to calculate the reliability of previously developed wire ropes in relation to the actuator test platform.

The wire rope is unreliable, which is a finding that corresponds to those of previous tests. Upon drawing the optimal curve from the optimization function (whose optimal objective is the wire diameter), a wire rope is optimized for the FAST actuator test platforms. Finally, this optimized rope is used on the new actuator test platform. No fracture phenomenon has been detected in tests conducted over the past six months.

The fatigue reliability theory-based optimization function for wire ropes can be adopted for the universal dimension design of other wire ropes.

In an integrated circuit (IC) substrate, more fillers, including talcum powder and aluminium hydroxide, are added, which leads to much higher rigidity and hardness compared with a traditional printed circuit board. However, the micro drilling of IC substrates is harder. This paper aims to test the drilling process of IC substrates to improve the drilling process and the micro hole quality.

Substrate drilling by a micro drill with 0.11-mm diameter was used under several drilling conditions. The influence of drilling conditions on the drilling process was observed. Drilling forces, drill wear and micro hole quality were also studied.

The deformation circle around holes, hole location accuracy, bugle hole and burrs were the major defects of micro holes that were observed during the drilling of the substrate. Reducing the drilling force and drill wear was the effective way to improve hole quality.

The technology and manufacturing of IC substrates has been little investigated. Research data on drilling IC substrates is lacking. The micro hole quality directly affects the reliability of IC substrates. Thus, improving the drilling technology of IC substrates is very important.