Agent-Based Computational Economics

Agent-based computational economics (ACE) is the computational study of economies modeled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents. Starting from initial conditions, specified by the modeler, the computational economy evolves over time as its constituent agents repeatedly interact with each other and learn from these interactions. ACE is therefore a bottom-up culture-dish approach to the study of economic systems. This study discusses the key characteristics and goals of the ACE methodology. Eight currently active research areas are highlighted for concrete illustration. Potential advantages and disadvantages of the ACE methodology are considered, along with open questions and possible directions for future research.Agent-based computational economics; Autonomous agents; Interaction networks; Learning; Evolution; Mechanism design; Computational economics; Object-oriented programming.

SEPEC conference proceedings: Hypermedia and Information Reconstruction. Aerospace applications and research directions

Papers presented at the conference on hypermedia and information reconstruction are compiled. The following subject areas are covered: real-world hypermedia projects, aerospace applications, and future directions in hypermedia research and development

Developing spatial strategies for workplace change

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-135).This thesis lays out a framework to address issues of uncertainty and constant change facing organizations in today's unstable and turbulent business world. The framework structures the complex process of workplace change and sets up a mechanism by which an inquiry into the existing nature of work practice drives the process of change. Framing the process of inquiry in the context of workplace change, the thesis develops methods and techniques of evaluation that engage people in the organization in a collaborative process of investigation and inquiry into the nature of their work practice. These techniques analyze people's perceptions of their spatial environment to understand the nature of work practice. The techniques are applied at Swanson Roberts, an executive search firm, and the results are analyzed to explore the relationship between spatial inquiry and the nature of work practice. The thesis demonstrates that an inquiry into the spatial environment can lead to an understanding of existing work practices which in turn drives the process of change, thus establishing a dynamic coherence between the workplace, work practices and organizational change. The thesis finally explores methods to integrate perceptions of the spatial environment with patterns of work practice in order to sustain change in organizations, and develops simple strategies that take the first step in helping organizations "learn" to continuously respond and adapt to the changing business environment.by Rashmi Venkatesh.S.M

An Investigation into the Effect that Technology had on the Strategies of J. Sainsbury plc, Tesco plc and Safeway plc: With a Particular Focus on the Period 1980 to 1990

This research is focused on three food multiple retailers, Sainsbury plc, Tesco plc, and Safeway plc. The research is designed to explore the relationship between technology and strategy in these organisations. The currently held view among the researchers and managers of these organisations is that technology has a limited impact on the processes that formulate strategy, and as such may be regarded as having an enabling role. This thesis proposes that while this view may have been correct in the past it is so no longer, and that technology is not following strategy but leading strategy in the food retailers examined. In order to confirm this thesis the history, technical development and technical structure of the three retailers was investigated. The results of this research was subsequently analysed and the following conclusions were made: a. Technology has a much greater inq)act on the strategy of multiple food retailers than has been previously thought. Technology defines the boundaries of operational activities, and, through controlling a substantial proportion of the information that managers use in the strategy making process, technology de facto if not de jure greatly influences the retailers strategies, and in some cases may actually lead them. b. The food multiples, in not appreciating the extent to which their fate is tied up with the information technology they are using, are foiling to educate and train the general management of the organisations technologically. c. Technological progress is widening the gap between the general management and technical management, and in the long run this will cause serious strategic problems unless this gap is closed through positive action

The application of value stream management principles in a batch production environment

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-95).The need for continuous improvement within a value stream is very necessary in today's business environment and can be one of the key sources of competitive advantage. As a company learns and implements the tools and practices of a Lean system, the underlying management and leadership methods become critical to sustaining fundamental operational change. A Value Stream Manager provides this leadership and is responsible for increasing the ratio of value to non-value by eliminating waste in the overall value chain from start to finish. The scope of the responsibilities of a value stream manager should cover at least two domains. First is the plant domain, that improves the value stream between the four walls of the plant; including the inbound and outbound logistics to/from the plant. The second domain is to consider the value stream at the enterprise-level. At the enterprise-level, the value stream manager is responsible for eliminating waste throughout the extended value stream, including channel partners such as suppliers and customers. This thesis will examine the operations of the ABB Wessel Cable plant in Longford, Ireland and analyze the application of Value Stream Management principles during a six and a half month internship period. By involving all the employees at ABB Wessel we were able to reduce WIP and Finished good levels down to historic lows holding scrap below 4% and increase overall equipment effectiveness by almost 30%. By concentrating on velocity of flow through the factory with reduced overtime, the business stopped losing money. In the proposed future state, additional performance enhancing changes are identified and discussed as a going forward plan for the future.Daniel J. Allison.S.M.M.B.A

Clerical Employment and Technological Change

Reviews 30 years of evidence of technological change on clerical employment, and projects no decline in the demand for these jobs as a result of new technologies.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1121/thumbnail.jp

Economic applications of nonparametric methods

This thesis deals with the subject of nonparametric methods, focusing on application to economic issues. Chapter 2 introduces the basic nonparametric methods underlying the applications in the subsequent chapters. In Chapter 3 we propose some basic standards to improve the use and reporting of nonparametric methods in the statistics and economics literature for the purpose of accuracy and reproducibility. We make recommendations on four aspects of the application of nonparametric methods: computational practice, published reporting, numerical accuracy, and visualization. In Chapter 4 we investigate the effect of life-cycle factors and other demographic characteristics on income inequality in the UK. Two conditional inequality measures are derived from estimating the cumulative distribution function of household income, conditional upon a broad set of explanatory variables. Estimation of the distribution is carried out using a semiparametric approach. The proposed inequality estimators are easily interpretable and are shown to be consistent. Our results indicate the importance of interfamily differences in the analysis of income distribution. In addition, our estimation procedure uncovers higher-order properties of the income distribution and non-linearities of its moments that cannot be captured by means of a "standard" parametric approach. Several features of the conditional distribution of income are highlighted. Chapter 5 we reexamine the relationship between openness to trade and the environment, controlling for economic development, in order to identify the presence of multiple regimes in the cross-country pollution-economic relationship. We first identify the presence of multiple regimes by using specification tests which entertain a single regime model as the null hypothesis. Then we develop an easily interpretable measure, based on an original application of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, of the impact on the environment due to differences in regimes. Finally we apply a nonparametric recursive partitioning algorithm to endogenously identify various regimes. Our conclusions are threefold. First, we reject the null hypothesis that all countries obey a common linear model. Second, we find that quantitatively regime differences can have a significant impact. Thirdly, by using regression tree analysis we find subsets of countries which appear to possess very different environmental/economic relationships. In Chapter 6 investigate the existence of the so called environmental kuznets curve (EKC), the inverted-U shaped relationship between income and pollution, using nonparametric regression and a threshold regression methods. We find support for threshold models that lead to different reduced-form relationships between environmental quality and economic activity when early stages of economic growth are contrasted with later stages, There is no evidence of a common inverted U-shaped environment/economy relationship that all country follow as they grow. We also find that changes that might benefit the environment occur at much higher levels of income than those implied by standard models. Our findings support models in which improvements are a consequence of the deliberate introduction of policies addressing environmental concerns. Moreover, we find evidence that countries with low-income levels have a far greater variability in emissions per capita than high-income countries. This has the implication that it may be more difficult to predict emission levels for low-income countries approaching the turning point. A summary of the main findings and further research directions are presented in Chapter 7 and in Chapter 8, respectively

2009-2010 Louisiana Tech University Catalogs

The Louisiana Tech University Catalog includes announcements and course descriptions for courses offered at Louisiana Tech University for the academic year of 2008-2009.https://digitalcommons.latech.edu/university-catalogs/1005/thumbnail.jp

2012-2013, University of Memphis bulletin

University of Memphis bulletin containing the undergraduate catalog for 2012-2013.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1453/thumbnail.jp