Similarities are more important than differences. The importance of these common components is set forth by the commonality hypothesis: schemata common to aboveaverage solutions are above average. This hypothesis is corroborated by the isolation of commonality-based selection. It follows that uncommon components should be below average (relative to their parents). In genetic algorithms, the tra...

During the last decades, the production enterprises have gone through a strong global change in terms of shorter product life cycles, fluctuations in the order income and increased demand of customized products. Basically, a company needs to develop appealing products in terms of cost and quality that are brought to the market in timely manner. As many studies show that over 70% of the total li...

We consider a firm that produces multiple variants of a product. Products are assembled using a combination of common and dedicated components. We characterize the optimal assortment and derive the optimal inventory levels for the common and dedicated components under various bill-ofmaterial configurations. We investigate the effect of commonality on product variety and compare its benefits und...

We study banks’ profitability in the US economy by means of dynamic factor models. Our results emphasize importance a few common cyclical market factors that greatly determine banking profitability. conduct exhaustive regressions big data set macroeconomic variables aiming to gain interpretability our statistical factors. This allows us identify three main underlying profitability: financial bu...

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 468 I. A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WAL-MART STORES, INC. V. DUKES .............. 471 II. STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY AND GROSS DISPARITIES OF DISCRIMINATION ........................................................................ 474 A. Commonality and Its Intricate Relationship with Sampling...