Boundedly rational bidding decision for land auctions during the transformation of real estate markets.

Real estate developers in China exhibit different boundedly rational behaviors when bidding in different land auction formats, resulting in deviation from fully rational bidding, and the transformation of China's real estate industry has intensified this deviation. To address this problem, this study establishes a reference utility model and a subjective decision probability model under the framework of incomplete information game to characterize developers' utility distortion and winning probability distortion in open-bid auctions and sealed-bid auctions for land, respectively. The results show that the deviation between bounded rational bidding and fully rational bidding increases as developer competition intensifies. The equilibrium bidding of cost-disadvantaged developers in the boundedly rational model deviates less from the standard model. Moreover, in sealed-bid auctions, the "hiding degree" of cost-advantaged developers is greater, showing size effects, while the bids in open-bid auctions are more complex and affected by market conditions and developers' risk preferences. Thus, this study characterizes boundedly rational bidding in land auctions and interprets the deviation from fully rational bidding, which can provide a more real basis for land auction mechanism design.

Analysis on Recycling Channel Selection of Construction and Demolition Waste in China from the Perspective of Supply Chain.

Although construction and demolition waste (C&D waste) recycling has been widely regarded as an effective way to save resources, its selection of recycling channels has received little attention. In order to improve the recycling efficiency of C&D waste and promote the process of C&D waste management, we innovatively propose a dual-channel recycling problem of C&D waste from the perspective of supply-chain operation, aiming to study the impact of the selection of recycling channels and the government's economic intervention on pricing decisions. Specifically, we build in this paper a three-echelon construction material supply chain including a construction contractor, a professional recycling agency, and a building materials manufacturer, considering two modes: the construction contractor does the recycling job alone (as the direct channel) and the construction contractor entrusts the recycling job to the professional recycling agency (as the indirect channel). We use game theory to analyze the optimal decision strategies of the members with or without governmental intervention and the equilibrium strategies are obtained. At the same time, taking Chongqing city as an example, we apply the model to carry out numerical simulation, and the results reveal that greater recycling costs of C&D waste leads to lower profits for the members. When the market capacity of first-class renewable building materials increases, the recycler's recycling cost of C&D waste decreases, and the remanufacturing cost of recycled materials processed into first-class renewable building materials decreases, the supply-chain members will choose the indirect channel to perform the recycling job. In the case when government intervention exists, the recycling quantity of C&D waste increases, the price of the final products decreases, and both the total profit of the system and the profit of the supply-chain members increase; there is a positive correlation with the government subsidies. The study provides some insights on managerial significance to C&D waste recycling management.

A novel combination therapy for multidrug resistant pathogens using chitosan nanoparticles loaded with ß-lactam antibiotics and ß-lactamase inhibitors.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest global threats. Particularly, multidrug resistant extended-spectrum ß-lactamase (ESBL)-producing pathogens confer resistance to many commonly used medically important antibiotics, especially beta-lactam antibiotics. Here, we developed an innovative combination approach to therapy for multidrug resistant pathogens by encapsulating cephalosporin antibiotics and ß-lactamase inhibitors with chitosan nanoparticles (CNAIs). The four combinations of CNAIs including two cephalosporin antibiotics (cefotaxime and ceftiofur) with two ß-lactamase inhibitors (tazobactam and clavulanate) were engineered as water-oil-water emulsions. Four combinations of CNAIs showed efficient antimicrobial activity against multidrug resistant ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae. The CNAIs showed enhanced antimicrobial activity compared to naïve chitosan nanoparticles and to the combination of cephalosporin antibiotics and ß-lactamase inhibitors. Furthermore, CNAIs attached on the bacterial surface changed the permeability to the outer membrane, resulting in cell damage that leads to cell death. Taken together, CNAIs have provided promising potential for treatment of diseases caused by critically important ESBL-producing multidrug resistant pathogens.

Tuning the Structural Integrity and Mechanical Properties of Globular Protein Vesicles by Blending Crosslinkable and NonCrosslinkable Building Blocks.

Vesicles made from functionally folded, globular proteins that perform specific biological activities, such as catalysis, sensing, or therapeutics, show potential applications as artificial cells, microbioreactors, or protein drug delivery vehicles. The mechanical properties of vesicle membranes, including the elastic modulus and hardness, play a critical role in dictating the stability and shape transformation of the vesicles under external stimuli triggers. Herein, we have developed a strategy to tune the mechanical properties and integrity of globular protein vesicle (GPV) membranes of which building molecules are recombinant fusion protein complexes: a mCherry fused with an acidic leucine zipper (mCherry-ZE) and a basic leucine zipper fused with an elastin-like polypeptide (ZR-ELP). To control the mechanical properties of GPVs, we introduced a nonstandard amino acid (para-azidophenylalanine (pAzF)) into the ELP domains (ELP-X), which enabled the creation of crosslinked vesicles under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Crosslinked GPVs made from mCherry-ZE/ZR-ELP-X complexes presented higher stability than noncrosslinked GPVs under hypotonic osmotic stress. The degree of swelling of GPVs increased as less crosslinking was achieved in the vesicle membranes, which resulted in the disassembly of GPVs into membraneless coacervates. Nanoindentation by atomic force microscopy (AFM) confirmed that the stiffness and Young's elastic modulus of GPVs increase as the blending molar ratio of ZR-ELP-X to ZR-ELP increases to make vesicles. The results obtained in this study suggest a rational design to make GPVs with tunable mechanical properties for target applications by simply varying the blending ratio of ZR-ELP and ZR-ELP-X in the vesicle self-assembly.

Incentive Mechanism and Subsidy Design for Construction and Demolition Waste Recycling under Information Asymmetry with Reciprocal Behaviors.

To solve information asymmetry, we adopted the principal-agent framework to design the incentive mechanisms between the remanufacturer and the collector in the construction and demolition (C&D) waste-recycling industry. By using the model of reciprocity, we analyzed how the entities' behavioral motives affect their decisions in terms of the incentive mechanisms. The findings showed that the collector responds to their perception of the remanufacturer's intentions. If the perception is positive, they will make more effort in the collection work. If not, less effort will be put forth. Most importantly, we found that reciprocity helps to save the remanufacturer cost in the incentive mechanisms and makes the collector choose a higher effort level in the collection work. This finding showed that reciprocity serves to solve information asymmetry. By conducting a numerical simulation, we found that although a high subsidy policy can achieve rapid improvement of recycling-supply-chain performance, it is inefficient in maintaining friendly cooperation between the remanufacturer and the collector.

Pricing Strategy of Construction and Demolition Waste Considering Retailer Fairness Concerns under a Governmental Regulation Environment.

In order to investigate the issues of the recycling and remanufacturing of construction and demolition waste (C&D waste), this paper develops a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) consisting of a manufacturer, a retailer, and a recycler, considering both the retailer's fairness concern psychology and governmental regulations. Four mathematical models are developed for the calculations, and the models are solved through game theory. In both the decentralized and centralized scenarios, the members' strategies are discussed and the optimal values of decision variables are determined. A numerical study is carried out for sensitivity analyses to verify the accuracy of the theoretical conclusions. The results reveal that retailer fairness concerns lead to a decrease in the wholesale price of building materials and negatively affect manufacturers' profits. Additionally, governmental regulations can effectively increase the recycling amount and improve the utilization rate of C&D waste, and promote a virtuous cycle of the recycling and remanufacturing of C&D waste.