Improving the estimation of probability of bidder participation in procurement auctions

Anticipating the number and identity of bidders has significant influence in many theoretical results of the auction itself and bidders' bidding behaviour. This is because when a bidder knows in advance which specific bidders are likely competitors, this knowledge gives a company a head start when setting the bid price. However, despite these competitive implications, most previous studies have focused almost entirely on forecasting the number of bidders and only a few authors have dealt with the identity dimension qualitatively. Using a case study with immediate real-life applications, this paper develops a method for estimating every potential bidder's probability of participating in a future auction as a function of the tender economic size removing the bias caused by the contract size opportunities distribution. This way, a bidder or auctioner will be able to estimate the likelihood of a specific group of key, previously identified bidders in a future tender.

Eddy current testing program with scanning probe head having parallel and normal sensing coils

An eddy current testing system consists of a multi-sensor probe, computer and a special expansion card and software for data collection and analysis. The probe incorporates an excitation coil, and sensor coils; at least one sensor coil is a lateral current-normal coil and at least one is a current perturbation coil.

Eddy current testing system with scanning probe head having parallel and normal sensing coils

An eddy current testing system consists of a multi-sensor probe, a computer and a special expansion card and software for data-collection and analysis. The probe incorporates an excitation coil, and sensor coils; at least one sensor coil is a lateral current-normal coil and at least one is a current perturbation coil.

Jpowder: a Java-based program for the display and examination of powder diffraction data

The ability to display and inspect powder diffraction data quickly and efficiently is a central part of the data analysis process. Whilst many computer programs are capable of displaying powder data, their focus is typically on advanced operations such as structure solution or Rietveld refinement. This article describes a lightweight software package, Jpowder, whose focus is fast and convenient visualization and comparison of powder data sets in a variety of formats from computers with network access. Jpowder is written in Java and uses its associated Web Start technology to allow ‘single-click deployment’ from a web page, http://www.jpowder.org. Jpowder is open source, free and available for use by anyone.