Online Content
« Previous |
1 - 10 of 113
|
Next »
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- One of the most difficult tasks facing highway administrators is how to efficiently manage the allocation of road funds. In this paper a comprehensible, easy-to-use, highway management tool is presented. This tool takes the form of a computer simulation model which is intended to assist managers of a network of highways to make better decisions concerning the allocation of scarce funds. It mainly simulates the effects of different investment strategies and maintenance options on the road network. This is done by tracing the life-cycle costs of the major activities of providing and maintaining the road system, and by considering the effects that these activities have on the state and performance of the road network.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- :Since the development of System Dynamics, it has been applied successfully to a range of complex problems in different areas. However, relatively little use of the methodology has been made in the field of transportation. This paper attempts to review and evaluate the utility of the System Dynamics methodology for transportation studies, showing that it is well suited to the needs of various analytical problems in transportation. In fact, System Dynamics offers a potential way forward for transportation planning in general. The focus of this paper is on appreciating the strengths and weakness of the methodology of System Dynamics as an aid to reach a better understanding and appreciation of the dynamic, feedback relationships between the transport system and the other major sectors contributing to the development of a new city in the Egyptian desert.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- :The advent of the micro-computer revolution brings about the potential for people to increase their understanding of our environment. Technologies are becoming available that enable people to become more active learners about their environment. Along with technological advance, system dynamics modelers are paying more attention to gaming environments as a means to increase the interactions that a wide variety of game-players or audiences have with system dynamics models. That is, by creating easy to use and graphical gaming interfaces, users are able to interact directly with a model with little or no prior training. Throughout the iterative gaming processes, they can learn not only the system under investigation, but also the relations that give rise to the phenomenon of interest: “Learning by playing around.”However, it is difficult to find general guidelines on how to create computer-based games, or, how to design gaming screens. Many researchers wishing to move into the area of gaming can look at existing gaming situations and attempt to emulate the best features of existing games. Although the “How to” depends upon the research purpose, the researchers and the game-player’s interests, the time frame of game, etc., general principles for designing games would reduce the ambiguity and the uncertainty in designing games in new areas, and heighten the utility and the applicability of the state of the art. This research proposes to advance our understanding of how to create gaming screens to support simulation-based games such as one linked to the STELLA software package. The research will document the experience of two teams of experts – one system dynamics modeling team and the other team of psychologists expert in human judgment and decision making – as they interact to create an interactive gaming simulation. In other words, the main purpose of the research is to examine issues that will be of use to modelers who are beginning the process of building system dynamics-based games. These issues will both reflect on “best practice” and attempt to articulate unresolved issues based upon interactions with the two expert teams.The case chosen for study will be the financing of solid waste disposal in New York State, focusing on the mutual responses of the state and local governments in the presence of a waste crisis. The research proceeds by documenting the various versions of the gaming screens that have been developed during several iteration of the development process. After this history of the project is given, reactions and suggestions from both system dynamics and judgment experts are summarized into a series of issues. These reflections are based upon a research journal that documents how and why various versions of the gaming interfaces were developed.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- :The primary focus of the research reported in this paper was on the measurement of the value of information in the business firm. It involved development of a system dynamic model of a typical business firm and calibration of the model to an average firm in the can industry in the United States. The model has the five sectors of marketing, finance, production, research and development, and personnel. Data to calibrate the model came primarily from the Industrial Compustat data base. The model was used to test several propositions about the economic value of management information. This topic has been addressed by Morecroft (1977, 1979), Jones (1981) and others. The research extends work by them as well as demonstrating the multidimensional nature of information using the Gorry and Scott-Morton framework of typical information structure. A framework in which to assess information value is developed and discussed.The performance of the firm was assessed using cost, profitability and efficiency measures under various values for the information attributes of accuracy, timeliness, relevance and reliability at the strategic, managerial and operational levels of the firm. Several propositions about information value are offered given the results of the testing.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- This paper attempts to asses the impact of past and presently contemplated policies to maintain food self-sufficiency in a centrally-planned economy. The case of Vietnam is used as an illustration. Experimentation with a system dynamics model of the food production system incorporating relationships concerning soil ecology and agricultural land management policy serves as a basis for this assessment. Short-run policies to increase production are detrimental to maintaining food self-sufficiency in the long-run. A sustainable food production policy must incorporate soil conservation and improvement, control of population and possibly, finding food sources alternative to grain. Although difficult to implement in a market system, such a policy agenda may be feasible in a centrally-planned economy.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- A system dynamics model of food grain storage, government procurement and release, and import in Bangladesh is presented. The simulation results of the model for govt. procurement and release, and import policies are also presented. Finally, the policy implications of the model are discussed.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- Initial testing is now complete on the TEMS instrument, the Technical Education Modeling and Simulation system. This research in the Industrial Education Department at Clemson University is a three phased project. The phases include developing an instrument (TEMS) similar to DYNAMO II (Pugh, 1970) for the modeling of socio-econ-educational systems, reducing world model concepts to a regional model for the state of South Carolina, and integrating technical education attributes and effects into the classical capital sector for this regional model.The TEMS system is developed in dBASE IV and ’C’. It has all the model definition building features and run characteristics of DYNAMO II. Written for an IBM AT class of equipment, TEMS will replicate the WORLD2 model (Forrester, 1971) results in 40 minutes for a 100 year run. TEMS supports both the real time graphic mappings of selected variables and post analysis graphics. It has both an integrated statistical interface to SPSS statistics and a reporting system for model runs, definitions, user created functions and run time statistics.Experimentation is in progress to calculate a CHAOS mapping for the class of level variable equations. Using this Verhulst equation mapping, TEMS should then dampen any wild ramping and explosiveness for these selected variables during the simulation.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- Planning of rural development in developing countries requires participation and integration of various disciplines, such as economics, sociology, agriculture and health. Very often not all relevant disciplines participate and if they do, they analyze, plan and implement their programs separately. This paper presents an example of how simulation modeling can be helpful for interdisciplinary analysis of rural areas in the Third World. The analysis of the Bor District, an area in Southern Sudan, serves as an example.First a general verbal and graphical overview of the situation in the rural area of the Bor District is provided. This is followed by a more detailed analysis regarding the population, the food consumption, the agricultural production and the livestock production of the area.Due to lack of data, a common problem in remote areas in the Third World, many parameters has to be derived from studies of other, but to some extent similar, areas. Validation was therefore carried out by means of a sensitivity analysis and by comparing the model results with development in other areas. Experiments have been carried out by simulating the effects of one or more interventions, such as improvement of health services, veterinary services, the availability of water and schools, employment opportunity and the quantity of imported food, and the introduction of improved agricultural methods. The results indicate, that several interventions that initially seem to benefit the development of the area, prove to be disastrous after a number of years. In addition to that, some processes, that are unimportant in periods of stability, appear to become important when the system becomes unstable.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- The normative view of rationality has been used for many years as the principal framework from which to analyze performance outcomes. Analyses of managerial behavior from this essentially reductionist view contain the argument that decision makers often fail to “correctly” observe and act upon the situations they face. A growing number of behavioral decision theorists, however, argue that the conclusions about behavior which have been derived from the normative view are misleading because they may be artifacts of the theoretical assumptions or empirical approaches used by analysts. The questions that this distinction raises are particularly important to systems scientists because they bear directly on whether powerful reductionist models of inquiry and evaluation, firmly entrenched in traditional scientific norms, will or should continue to dominate holistic perspectives for thinking about behavior in complex systems. The purpose of this paper is thus to review and explore differences that exist between the normative and non-normative views, and to use this synthesis as a framework for understanding the relative importance of the viewpoints as they relate to evaluating managerial performance.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1990
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, e3ebd4855fa658877b17f518e29a6ac9, and 386b7d5fcd17a644199db727913a7a7a
- Description:
- A new Fernbank Museum of National History, to be located in Atlanta, is in the planning stage. A major series of exhibits is entitled “A Walk Through Time.” The walk culminates in exhibits which address the future. The museum planners wish to introduce the museum audience to computer modeling as an increasingly powerful tool with which to address societal problems. One exhibit is to present an exemplary computer model whose role is primarily tutorial. The model will treat limited facets of an urban system. The exhibit will present the model at two, or perhaps three, tiers of sophistication. The simplest presentation will utilize stored computer output in order to demonstrate model structure, interactions within the system, and some behavior patterns. Another presentation, also utilizing stored computer output, will allow audience participation in a restricted choice of model parameters. There may be a third exhibit tier in which less restricted parameter changes can be made in an interactive model.