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Abstract: Understanding how the various factors in a supply chain contribute to the overall performance of its operation has become an important topic in management science research nowadays. In this paper, we propose and apply a two-stage methodology to an industrial survey data set to investigate relations among the key factors in a supply chain model. Precisely, we use the PC-algorithm to discover the connectivity relation among the factors of interest in the supply chain model. Critical factors in the model are then identified, and we then utilize the neural network to quantify the relative importance of some of the factors in predicting the critical factors. An advantage of our proposed method is that it frees up the researcher from making subjective decisions in his or her analysis, for example, from the needs of specifying plausible initial path models required in a structural equation modeling analysis (which is usually used in business and management research) and of selecting factors for the subsequent predictive modeling. We envision that the analysis results can aid a decision maker in optimizing the system performance by suggesting to the decision maker which ones of the factors are the important ones that he or she should devote more resources and efforts on. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes a credit risk evaluation system that uses supervised neural network models based on the back propagation learning algorithm. We train and implement three neural networks to decide whether to approve or reject a credit application. Credit scoring and evaluation is one of the key analytical techniques in credit risk evaluation which has been an active research area in financial risk management. The neural networks are trained using real world credit application cases from the German credit approval datasets which has 1000 cases; each case with 24 numerical attributes; based on which an application is accepted or rejected. Nine learning schemes with different training-to-validation data ratios have been investigated, and a comparison between their implementation results has been provided. Experimental results will suggest which neural network model, and under which learning scheme, can the proposed credit risk evaluation system deliver optimum performance; where it may be used efficiently, and quickly in automatic processing of credit applications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Pyrometallurgy is often used in the industrial process for treating gold-bearing slime. Slag compositions have remarkable influences on the recovery of gold and the gold content in slag. A method for determining optimum flux compounding with neural networks is studied in this paper, and the neural network model for estimating the gold contents with different slag compositions is presented. On the basis of the neural network model, an algorithm for searching the optimum flux compounding in the gold-slime smelting process is proposed, and the optimum flux compositions are obtained accordingly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]