The paper will review representations of regional development models in terms of their assumptions (peeled away like an onion) and in terms of their level of complexity, very much in the tradition of Peter Allen's classification system. Some applied models of regional economic development in Asia will be presented in more detail and compared to each other in terms of their ability to understand development and to gain knowledge about real world problem solutions. Understanding reality and gaining knowledge about a problem require us to reduce the real complexity of any particular situation to a simpler, more understandable system by making specific simplifying assumptions. It is shown that there exist representations that, while being sufficiently simple to be understood, remain sufficiently representative of reality and yield significant power to make a big difference to regional economic development in Asia when compared to other, less useful representations. For instance, what is important to be explained in dynamic socio-economic systems is the structural change in terms of degree of heterogeneity of agent populations in space, the modularity and hierarchy of a system, and similar aspects of composite structural existence.
The events in the energy sector which are evolving globally put more and more emphasis on renewables, through the use of which it is possible to reduce not only impacts on climate change but also to place a more gradually decline of expendable fossil fuels. Countries more and more are placing importance on development strategies and applying the principles of greening the environment.
To ensure implementation of requirements of EU Directive 2006/32/EC on energy end-use efficiency and energy services in Latvia First National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (EEAP) 2008 2010 is approved where the goal is established to reduce energy consumption by 3483 GWh by 2016. The greatest energy savings 77% or 2701 GWh are planned in the residential sector as it is the major energy end user in the country. The largest part of it is multifamily buildings with every flat owned by individual owner.
This paper builds on previous research in stock-flow experiments. 168 participants were asked to recommend a hiring percentage of female professors they thought necessary to reach gender balance in an unbalanced personnel situation. They were also asked to estimate the timeframe needed to reach this. Additionally, participants were asked to write down a justification for their choices. These justifications provide insight into the reasoning people use in stock-flow tasks. The experiment confirmed that people have difficulties understanding the distinction between stock and flows, and in particular underestimate the effect of average delays. Moreover it showed that not only cognitive bias, but also political considerations play a role in reasoning on this task. Further research is needed to examine the interplay between these two.
In this paper, I present a model of the articulations between the formal and informal mechanisms of housing production with the objective to analyze the causes of the rise and persistence of informal settlements in the developing world. The model is based on System Dynamics, a method of simulation that deals with complex systems characterized by dynamic behavior, and is tested using the case of Bogotá, Colombia, a city known by the prevalence of informal housing markets and its rich experience in the implementation of public policies to address informality. The final results and policy experiments show that informality arises from the inadequacy of a system of infrastructure financing based on tariffs and cross-subsidization and from the unintended consequences of classic interventions to deal with this problem such as settlement up-grading and the provision of public housing. A preventive policy based on dismantling these interventions and increasing the supply of land with urban services through a change in the system of infrastructure funding shifting the source of financing from cross-subsidies to property taxation is proven to be a more cost-effective method to mitigate the negative consequences of informality.
Political dynamics often arise from within a political system, but can also be affected by outside forces. In order to understand the potential effects of these forces, we created a model to simulate political dynamics in a society under different internal and external conditions. The system dynamics model uses a cognitive modeling framework to determine human behavior. We present the results of the model under four different scenarios, including a base case, a case where an outside government provides support for the opposition, an information operations case, and a show of force case. The model shows that there is potential for these different conditions to have significant effects, including higher-order effects that may be unanticipated if a systems perspective is not taken.
Human and social models are an important capability of system dynamics, and sensitivity analysis can be used to strengthen and better understand these models. To learn about which sensitivity analysis techniques are most suitable for models of human behavior, different promising methods were applied to an example system dynamics model, tested, and compared. The example model simulates cognitive, behavioral, and social processes and interactions, and involves substantial nonlinearity, uncertainty, and variability. Results showed that some sensitivity analysis methods create similar results, and can thus be considered redundant. However, other methods, such as global methods that consider interactions between inputs, can generate insight not gained from traditional methods.
Critical decisions need to be made to face global crises. Modeling and simulation can help to make these decisions effective and shared. Ethical issues are involved in this process and should be included for better quality decisions. Looking at the past helps us to cast light on how ethical choices can be important in resolving critical situations. The ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta show opposed paradigms in policies and life-style, but only one proves itself stable and lasting. Surprisingly, its not the city-state we all would had lived in. Human activities in both city-states cause, in time, internal instabilities. Crises that will be solved through expansionist policies, migrations and colonies settlement. Athens faced seven migrations in less than five centuries. Instead, Sparta, after its first (and only) dramatic migration event, introduced corrective actions to contrast instabilities. The change is ascribed to the mythical lawgiver Lycurgus, but it could likely be the consequence of a shared vision. A simulation model fitting the two city-states behavior has been developed and its structure comprises seven interconnected sectors. The paper includes model description and its interpretation, a brief overview on ethics in modeling, and a note on our project ethics in the evolution of societies.
The water management system for the Washington Metropolitan Area (WMA), like many other public utilities, is reaching its maximum service potential in the face of this rapid growth and climate change. Frequent droughts have not only prompted pricy withdrawals from reserve water supplies more than once, fall of 2010 being the latest case of such water releases, but also have generated varied responses from different local governments that make up the WMA, reflecting lack of cooperation. This also reflects that WMA water supply system is not adequate enough to meet daily demand using only Potomac, Patuxent and Occoquan resources. Prior information about time and volume of releases will not only help in the efficient allocation of water but it will also help in well-informed decision making. Therefore, this paper does the following: 1) Model the demand and supply dynamics for the WMA; 2) Analyze the impact of historical droughts on water availability; and 3) Assesses the performance of the system under various demand scenarios and drought conditions. Finally, the paper concludes that WMA water supply system is susceptible to shortages in future and performance of the system is expected to deteriorate in the coming years with recurrence of historical droughts.
Las Vegas is faced with three important challenges: promoting sustainability, quality of life and resilience. Sustainability is the ability of Las Vegas residents to meet current needs without compromising the ability of future residents to do the same. Quality of life (QOL) is the level of satisfaction of those residents needs and personal preferences. Resilience is a measure of how the city responds to disturbance. A strong city needs a high degree of all three.