The escalating use of artificial intelligence in marketing significantly impacts all aspects of consumer life. This research, grounded in attribution theory and S-O-R theory, employs scenario-based experimental methods to simulate two distinct purchasing contexts. The aim is to investigate consumers\' psychological and behavioral responses to AI-initiated pricing. Through SPSS analysis of variance and Bootstrap analysis, the mechanisms of influence of AI-initiated pricing on consumer behavior are tested, revealing the mediating variables of mind perception and consumer perceived ethicality, as well as the mediating variables of perceived enterprise control. Data were collected from Chinese customers to test the model of this study. A total of 841 valid questionnaires were analyzed using ANOVA and Bootstrap analysis with SPSS. The results show that: (1) Consumers exhibit higher repurchase and word-of-mouth recommendation behaviors and lower complaint and switching behaviors for AI-initiated pricing compared to marketers; (2) AI-initiated pricing leads to diminished mind perceptions and augmented ethical perceptions among consumers. Ethical perceptions serve as a complete mediator, while mind perceptions play a less significant mediating role; (3) Perceived enterprise control plays a moderating role in the impact of AI-initiated pricing on consumer behavior. That is, when consumers know that the enterprise can control pricing agents, AI-initiated pricing leads to lower repurchase and word-of-mouth recommendation behaviors, and higher instances of complaining and switching behaviors than humans.

UNASSIGNED: China\'s National Health Service Items Standard (NHSIS) establishes a relative value system and plays an important role in pricing. However, there are few empirical evaluations of the objectivity of the NHSIS-estimated relative value.
UNASSIGNED: This paper presents a comparison between physician work relative value units (wRVUs) estimates for 70 common surgical procedures from NHSIS and those from the U.S. Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). We defined the ratio of the wRVUs for sample procedures to the benchmark procedure (inguinal hernia repair) as a standardized relative value unit (SRVU), which was used to standardize the data for both schedules. We examined the variances in the ranking and quantification of SRVUs across specialties and procedures, as well as how SRVUs impact procedure reimbursement prices between the two schedules.
UNASSIGNED: There was no systematic difference between MHSIS-estimated SRVUs and MPFS-estimated, but the dispersion of MPFS-estimated SRVU was greater than that of MHSIS-estimated, and the discrepancies increased with surgical risk and technical complexity. The discrepancies of SRVUs were significant in cardiothoracic procedures. Additionally, whether SRVUs were based on MPFS or MHSIS, there was a positive association between them and payment prices. However, in terms of the impact of SRVUs on payment pricing, the NHSIS system was lower than the MPFS system.
UNASSIGNED: China has made incremental progress in estimating the relative value of healthcare services, but there are shortcomings in valuation methods and their impact on pricing. The modular assessment method should be considered as a component to optimize reform.

With the rapid advancement of electric vehicles (EVs), the burgeoning increase in used power batteries necessitates the development of efficient battery recycling e-platforms. A key challenge in this field is the mismatch between supply and demand. In response, a dynamic optimization model is proposed to capture the non-equalizing supply-demand relationship and its linkage over continuous periods to enable dynamic simulations and predictions of transaction volume changes. Meanwhile, pricing and commission-setting strategies are optimized based on the objectives of maximizing social welfare and platform revenue. The result shows that due to the lower recycling volumes that result, increasing the recycling price usually increases platform revenues, exacerbates environmental costs, and leads to lower social welfare. Moreover, platform revenues are more sensitive to commission rates than social welfare, which is more vulnerable to recycling prices. Furthermore, prioritizing social welfare leads to a higher recycling volume compared to prioritizing revenue, but it also creates an imbalance between supply and demand, destabilizing the recycling market. With the dynamic pricing and commission strategies, this study enriches the literature in the third-party recycling mode for power batteries, offering a novel perspective that is more aligned with real-world operational conditions. Our findings help platforms clarify the impact of pricing and commission decisions on platform revenue and social welfare and thereby provide support for their decision optimization.

Indication-specific value-based pricing (ISVBP) is a mechanism that allows the prices of multi-indication drugs to vary across indications by aligning the drug prices with value. However, the overall impact of ISVBP on patients across indications is uncertain. This study examines the theoretical welfare effects of ISVBP for multi-indication drugs and compares consumer surplus under ISVBP and single pricing, the latter of which is based on the weighted average value.
We considered a healthcare system with government-negotiated drug prices based on the value of drugs. We assumed a drug with 2 indications and 1 relevant comparator for each indication. The value of the drug was uniformly distributed among the patients of each indication in the base case. We also considered alternative scenarios with exponentially and Pareto distributed drug values. Numerical simulations were conducted to explore potential settings where ISVBP was welfare-improving for patients compared with single pricing.
The theoretical analysis showed that the consumer surplus change was strictly non-positive from single pricing to ISVBP. Therefore, it was not welfare-improving for patients in the settings of interest. Numerical simulations confirmed this result across various scenarios of value distributions.
This study provides insights into the patient welfare implications of ISVBP for multi-indication drugs. We did not identify conditions under which ISVBP can enhance overall patient well-being, suggesting that it should be implemented cautiously. Future research should examine dynamic welfare implications related to innovation incentives because they may significantly affect population health in the future.

OBJECTIVE: An increasing number of commercial deep learning computer-aided detection (DL-CAD) systems are available but their cost-saving potential is largely unknown. This study aimed to gain insight into appropriate pricing for DL-CAD in different reading modes to be cost-saving and to determine the potentially most cost-effective reading mode for lung cancer screening.
METHODS: In three representative settings, DL-CAD was evaluated as a concurrent, pre-screening, and second reader. Scoping review was performed to estimate radiologist reading time with and without DL-CAD. Hourly cost of radiologist time was collected for the USA (€196), UK (€127), and Poland (€45), and monetary equivalence of saved time was calculated. The minimum number of screening CTs to reach break-even was calculated for one-time investment of €51,616 for DL-CAD.
RESULTS: Mean reading time was 162 (95% CI: 111-212) seconds per case without DL-CAD, which decreased by 77 (95% CI: 47-107) and 104 (95% CI: 71-136) seconds for DL-CAD as concurrent and pre-screening reader, respectively, and increased by 33-41 s for DL-CAD as second reader. This translates into €1.0-4.3 per-case cost for concurrent reading and €0.8-5.7 for pre-screening reading in the USA, UK, and Poland. To achieve break-even with a one-time investment, the minimum number of CT scans was 12,300-53,600 for concurrent reader, and 9400-65,000 for pre-screening reader in the three countries.
CONCLUSIONS: Given current pricing, DL-CAD must be priced substantially below €6 in a pay-per-case setting or used in a high-workload environment to reach break-even in lung cancer screening. DL-CAD as pre-screening reader shows the largest potential to be cost-saving.
UNASSIGNED: Deep-learning computer-aided lung nodule detection (DL-CAD) software must be priced substantially below 6 euro in a pay-per-case setting or must be used in high-workload environments with one-time investment in order to achieve break-even. DL-CAD as a pre-screening reader has the greatest cost savings potential.
CONCLUSIONS: • DL-CAD must be substantially below €6 in a pay-per-case setting to reach break-even. • DL-CAD must be used in a high-workload screening environment to achieve break-even. • DL-CAD as a pre-screening reader shows the largest potential to be cost-saving.

OBJECTIVE: Multiple reforms aimed at improving the Chinese population\'s health have been introduced in recent years, including several designed to improve access to innovative drugs. We sought to review current factors affecting access to innovative drugs in China and to anticipate future trends.
METHODS: Targeted reviews of published literature and statistics on the Chinese healthcare system, medical insurance and reimbursement processes were conducted, as well as interviews with five Chinese experts involved in the reimbursement of innovative drugs.
RESULTS: Drug reimbursement in China is becoming increasingly centralized due to the removal of provincial pathways, the establishment of the National Healthcare Security Administration and the implementation of the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), which is now the main route for drug reimbursement in China. There is also an increasing number of other channels via which patients may access innovative treatments, including various types of commercial insurance and special access. Health technology assessment (HTA) and health economic evidence are becoming pivotal elements of the NRDL decision-making process. Alongside the optimization of HTA decision making, innovative risk-sharing agreements are anticipated to be increasingly leveraged in the future to optimize access to highly specialized technologies and encourage innovation while safeguarding limited healthcare funds.
CONCLUSIONS: Drug public reimbursement in China continues to align more closely with approaches widely used in Europe in terms of HTA, health economics and pricing. Centralization of decision-making processes for public reimbursement of innovative drugs allows consistency in assessment and access, which optimizes the improvement of the Chinese population\'s health.

Enlightened by popular online business practices emerging in recent years, we aim to investigate a problem involving a flipped procedure in contrast with traditional advance selling, which is referred to as \"reverse advance selling\" (RAS) in this paper. We consider competition and information asymmetry in the market and discuss how they affect the decisions in reverse advance selling. We propose two models to evaluate the benefits of RAS and to characterize the conditions that optimize the pricing and ordering policies for retailers under competition. Furthermore, we examine the impact of factors such as market share, online review, and waiting time and provide insights for retailers to make decisions. The results demonstrate the advantage of adopting RAS when retailers or customers face uncertainty and it is beneficial to update review information. This paper also finds that market share positively affects the profit as well as the ordering quantities of the retailer, while online reviews have opposite impacts on its discount and ordering decisions. The results can guide retailers to make flexible ordering plans that better cater to market demand.

Considering the competition of informal recycling enterprises in the waste and old product recycling market, this paper analyzes the trade-in strategy of manufacturers and discusses the effect of implementing trade-in on the competition in the recycling market by comparing changes in recycling market shares, recycling prices, and profits before and after the implementation of a trade-in program. Without a trade-in program, manufacturers are always in an inferior position in the competition with informal recycling enterprises in the recycling market. With the implementation of a trade-in program, the recycling prices provided by manufacturers and shares of recycling market of manufacturers not only increase with the earnings of processing a unit old product, but also increase with the total profit margin of sales of new products and recycling of old products. The implementation of a trade-in program can enhance the competitiveness of manufacturers in their competition with informal recycling enterprises, causing manufacturers to obtain more shares and profits in the recycling market, and promoting the healthy and sustainable development of manufacturers in the sale of new products and the recycling of old products.

Environmental pollution liability insurance is becoming increasingly important for China to achieve its emission reduction targets. Insurance pricing is a crucial factor restricting the market share of environment pollution liability insurance, from the perspective of the Black-Scholes pricing model, which in turn has influenced the solvency of insurance companies in China. Firstly, this study analyzes the problems existing in compulsory liability insurance for environmental pollution in China. It proceeds with analyzing the price of compulsory environmental pollution liability insurance using the Black-Scholes pricing model, and derives a high premium insurance rate of 2.44%. Moreover, it performs a multivariate regression analysis using the asset and liability data, taken from the annual report, to identify three key factors affecting the solvency adequacy ratio, namely, capital debt ratio, reflecting the company asset structure; net interest rate on assets, reflecting the asset scale with actual solvency; and claim ratio, reflecting the business quality. Based on the results of regression analysis and robustness test for the China Insurance Clauses (CIC) company, People\'s Insurance Company of China (PICC), and Asia-Pacific Property & Casualty Insurance (API) company, it is shown that the effect of total asset, total debt, capital debt ratio, claim ratio, and net interest rate on assets on the solvency adequacy ratio is significant, with respect to the size of the coefficients. Based on the Black-Scholes pricing model found in the previous cycle of liability insurance, and keeping in view the existing problems of environmental pollution liability insurance expenditure, this paper presents suggestions that are conducive to improving the solvency of insurance companies in China.

Omnichannel sales surge in the coronavirus pandemic. This paper establishes an analytical model to study when a firm can benefit from implementing the omnichannel strategy of buy-online and pick-up in-store (BOPS), where the market characteristics are captured by the two-dimensional heterogeneity of product valuation and online waiting cost. The increase in the store visiting cost will reduce BOPS consumers\' willingness to pay, but it will also strengthen the encroachment of BOPS on traditional dual-channel. The results show that the firm can benefit from the BOPS strategy when the store visiting cost is relatively high. This well explains the rapid development of the omnichannel with BOPS because of a high store visiting cost during COVID-19. Furthermore, sharply contrasting to the traditional dual-channel sales in which a higher store visiting cost always hurts the firm, the profit under BOPS can be nonmonotonic in the store visiting cost and the firm can benefit from a higher store visiting cost. Specifically, the combination of cross-selling effect, BOPS encroachment effect and BOPS expansion reduction effect associated with the store visiting cost can result in a U-shaped or inverse U-shaped BOPS profit. In addition, introducing BOPS motivates the firm to either increase or decrease the optimal price, conditional on the store visiting cost. For consumers, online and offline consumers can also indirectly benefit from the BOPS strategy, though they may not enjoy the BOPS service.