This paper presents the design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of a wireless biomedical implant platform exploiting the magnetoelectric effect for wireless power and bi-directional communication. As an emerging wireless power transfer method, magnetoelectric is promising for mm-scaled bio-implants because of its superior misalignment sensitivity, high efficiency, and low tissue absorption compared to other modalities [46, 59, 60]. Utilizing the same physical mechanism for power and communication is critical for implant miniaturization, but low-power magnetoelectric uplink communication has not been achieved yet. For the first time, we design and demonstrate near-zero power magnetoelectric backscatter from the mm-sized implants by exploiting the converse magnetostriction effects.

This paper studies optimal inventory rationing policies for a retailer of perishable products who sells through its own stores and third party Websites by an affiliate program. By posting on partners' Webpages, an affiliate program allows the retailer to attract more customers who otherwise would be missed. However, the retailer needs to pay out a commission for each sale originated from the Website operator that participates in the affiliate program. Thus, the net revenue of selling one unit of product to an online "referral" (online customer) is less profitable than that to a customer from a physical store. When the inventory at stores is running low, the retailer may further refer the online request to somebody else for fulfilling, which is equivalently to say that the retailer can reject online customer requests. Therefore, upon the arrival of any demand through the affiliate program, the retailer needs to decide whether or not to accept it; and if so, assign which of multiple outlets for the fulfillment. Based on a discrete-time dynamic programming model, the optimal admission policy of the retailer is analyzed in this paper, which is shown to be a two-dimensional threshold policy. The structural properties of the revenue function are analyzed, and numerical examples are given to show the revenue impact of optimal admission control.

This paper considers a horizontal market of multiple firms that face stochastic price-dependent demand. The firms make joint pricing/inventory decisions and use price to compete for market demand. With fairly general demand models that are price-dependent, stochastic, and substitutable among firms, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. The market at the equilibrium exhibits a bias toward under-pricing caused by competition; specifically, raising prices at any equilibrium of the game increases the total system profit, and at any joint-optimal set of pricing levels each self-interested firm has an incentive to lower its price. This result closely parallels that obtained in the inventory competition games in which prices are fixed and the bias is toward overstocking.