New Releases by Na An

The novel''s many plots are based on the true stories. It depicts the life and work of the migrant workers, females in particular, in Guangdong, China at the turn of the century. The novel is set in Gongbei, a place bordering Macau under the "one country, two systems" policy. Some female migrant workers hope to change their fate through cross-border marriage or acting as cross-border underground lovers. The author has come into contact with many migrant workers for years. It enables him to observe their life, work, love, marriage and inner world with a keen eye. The novel reflects several important social issues concerning women rights, environment, corruption, etc. The novel is not only for ordinary readers, but also for researchers, especially those of women studies, from sociological, psychological, and economic perspectives.

Korean American high school student Joyce Kim feels like a nonentity compared to her beautiful older sister, and when her aunt offers to pay for plastic surgery on her eyes, she jumps at the chance, thinking it will change her life for the better.

As her senior year in high school approaches, Mina yearns to find her own path in life but working at the family business, taking care of her little sister, and dealing with her mother''s impossible expectations are as stifling as the southern Califor

This thesis includes three self-contained projects: In the first project "Bidding strategies and their impact on the auctioneer''s revenue in combinatorial auctions," focusing on combinatorial auctions, we propose a simple and efficient model for evaluating the value of any bundle given limited information, design bidding strategies that efficiently select desirable bundles, and evaluate the performance of different bundling strategies under various market settings. In the second project "Retailer shelf-space management with promotion effects," promotional investment effects are integrated with retail store assortment decisions and shelf space allocation. An optimization model for the category shelf-space allocation incorporating promotion effects is presented. Based on the proposed model, a category shelf space allocation framework with trade allowances is presented where a multi-player Retailer Stackelberg game is introduced to model the interactions between retailer and manufacturers. In the third project "Supply-chain oriented robust parameter design," we introduce the game theoretical method, commonly used in supply-chain analysis to solve potential conflicts between manufacturers at various stages. These manufacturing chain partners collaboratively decide parameter design settings of the controllable factors to make the product less sensitive to process variations.

A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English and adjust to life in America.