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In recent years, practitioners and academics have argued that traditional discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation models do not adequately capture the value of managerial flexibility to delay, grow, scale down or abandon projects. The insight is that a business investment opportunity can be conceptually compared to a financial option. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model based on option pricing theory to value managerial flexibility arising in stock for stock exchanges. The paper shows how a mergers and acquisition (M&A) deal may be optimally structured as a real options swap by including managerial flexibility of both the acquiring and target firms when stock prices are volatile. Using a recent acquisition case example from US banking industry the paper illustrates how the proposed exchange ratio swap optimize deal value and avoids earnings per share (EPS) dilution to both parties. Appropriate valuation of managerial flexibility is important given the historical premiums paid in takeovers. While the fact that such premiums exist lends some credibility to the idea that at least implicitly managerial flexibility is valued, the real options approach allows for more explicit valuation of such flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to study the profit optimization of manufacturers who provide personalized products to customers, thus avoiding additional operational costs and response times in the production process of personalized product design.

First, the authors present an integrated model for optimizing profit where the design and production of personalized products are both considered. The authors propose the concept of personalization level and four cases of personalization level are considered including top, high, medium and low levels. Polynomial-time optimal rules are provided for each level by analyzing 17 subcases where all possible personalized products are considered. Then, the authors compare the obtained profit of personalized products with the optimal profit of standardized products.

At low and high levels of personalization, personalized manufacturing is more profitable for specific products with specific characteristics. At the top and middle level of individuation, assuming that the product has certain characteristics, whether the best choice to produce personalized products depends on the level of individuation chosen by customers.

An important decision issue for manufacturers is whether to produce personalized or standardized products. In this study, the authors consider this decision problem and analyze the operational functions of personalized products. The authors hope to provide theoretical support in the operational management of manufacturers offering personalized products.

This work presents a novel approach by considering teaching learning based optimization (TLBO) and radial basis function neural networks (RBFNs) for building a classifier for the databases with missing values and irrelevant features. The least square estimator and relief algorithm have been used for imputing the database and evaluating the relevance of features, respectively. The preprocessed dataset is used for developing a classifier based on TLBO trained RBFNs for generating a concise and meaningful description for each class that can be used to classify subsequent instances with no known class label. The method is evaluated extensively through a few bench-mark datasets obtained from UCI repository. The experimental results confirm that our approach can be a promising tool towards constructing a classifier from the databases with missing values and irrelevant attributes.

This article is written from the viewpoint of a structures engineer who has to make the best use of the materials available, rather than that of the metallurgist who aids their production or development.

The loading and power variations in the power system, especially for the peak hours have abundant concussion on the loading patterns of the open access transmission system. During such unconditional state of loading the transmission line parameters and the line voltages show a substandard profile, which depicts exaction of congestion management of the power line in such events. The purpose of this paper is to present an uncomplicated and economical model for congestion management using flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices.

The approach desires a two-step procedure, first by optimal placement of thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) and static VAR compensator (SVC) as FACTS devices in the network; second tuning the control parameters to their optimized values. The optimal location and tuning of TCSC and SVC represents a hectic optimization problem, due to its multi-objective and constrained nature. Hence, a reassuring heuristic optimization algorithm inspired by behavior of cat and firefly is employed to find the optimal placement and tuning of TCSC and SVC.

The effectiveness of the proposed model is tested through simulation on standard IEEE 14-bus system. The proposed approach proves to be better than the earlier existing approaches in the literature.

With the completed simulation and results, it is proved that the proposed scheme has reduced the congestion in line, thereby increasing the voltage stability along with improved loading capability for the congested lines.

The usefulness of the proposed scheme is justified with the computed results, giving convenience for implementation to any practical transmission network.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study exaction of congestion management of the power line.

Mid-level executives are confronted with many dilemma situations, in which they are forced to decide between conflicting options, none of them leading to the desired result. If they fail to cope with them constructively, their individual risk for mental strains increases (Gerlmaier and Latniak, 2013). Initial findings focusing on executives in industry (Bossmann, 2020) show that fostering effective dilemma management in executives is a preventive factor against stress-related diseases. Yet, there is little empirical research that evaluates the contribution of dilemma management training on leadership’s mental health prevention in hospitals. This study aims to examine whether such a training program, adapted to current working conditions in German hospitals, promotes mid-level executives’ mental health.

A 10-month training program was administered to N = 69 senior physicians, senior nurses and senior service and administrative staff in four hospitals. To evaluate training effects on perceived stress reactivity, on cognitive and emotional irritation over time as well as the effects of the training dose on these results, participants’ self-reported measures were collected at four points in time: before (t0), during (t1), immediately after (t2) and three months after the intervention (t3).

Overall, participants showed less cognitive irritation and perceived stress reactivity over time. However, their emotional irritation did not change significantly. The dose of training participation did not moderate these results.

This paper contributes to the prevention of stress-related diseases and the promotion of sensemaking in mid-level executives’ dilemma management routine in the face of increasingly aggravating working conditions due to financial restrictions in the German health-care system. Findings of this study are explained in greater depth using previously reported qualitative data from the same research project.

The direct comparison of similar polymers was achieved by a technique of differential GPC which, according to Runyon provided a simple yet sensitive technique that was relatively insensitive to operational variables. In this procedure the ‘standard’ polymer was dissolved in THF or an alternative suitable solvent, and the solution was used as the eluent in the GPC.

Dr Taguchi is a Japanese engineer and an international quality consultant who has made breakthrough improvements in product and process quality through the use of statistical design of experiments (SDOE). The Taguchi method became popular in the West in the 1980s as a means to design robust products and processes. Although many companies and industries have used the method with success, the real benefits of the approach were not realised and fully understood in many cases. This lack of success could be attributed to a number of factors, but mainly because the experiments were treated in isolation and not integrated into a continuous improvement strategy. This paper briefly presents the results of the application of the Taguchi methodology in the UK industry. The paper also illustrates the application of the Taguchi method for optimising the production process of retaining a metal ring in a plastic body in a braking system.

The purpose of this paper is to describe examples of service user involvement to demonstrate how they can significantly enhance service provision for people with mental health, substance misuse, and co‐existing mental health and substance misuse problems (dual diagnosis), and in so doing, enhance their own recovery.

The personal story of one service user illustrates a range of involvement activities: membership of service user panels, development of an anti‐stigma campaign, mentorship of trust staff, and employment as a peer support worker in both mental health and substance misuse services.

Service provision in mental health and substance misuse services has been enhanced through the genuine involvement of service users. This involvement has been an important factor in building the confidence and skills of service users and supporting them in their own recovery.

The paper describes several innovative involvement initiatives and highlights the dual benefits of these roles to services and the service users employed in them.