Cooperation in manure-based biogas production networks: An agent-based modeling approach

Biogas production from manure has been proposed as a partial solution to energy and environmental concerns. However, manure markets face distortions caused by considerable unbalance between supply and demand and environmental regulations imposed for soil and water protection. Such market distortions influence the cooperation between animal farmers, biogas producers and arable land owners causing fluctuations in manure prices paid (or incurred) by animal farmers. This paper adopts an agent-based modeling approach to investigate the interactions between manure suppliers, i.e., animal farmers, and biogas producers in an industrial symbiosis case example consisting of 19 municipalities in the Overijssel region (eastern Netherlands). To find the manure price for successful cooperation schemes, we measure the impact of manure discharge cost, dimension and dispersion of animal farms, incentives provided by the government for bioenergy production, and the investment costs of biogas plants for different scales on the economic returns for both actor types and favorable market conditions. Findings show that manure exchange prices may vary between −3.33 €/t manure (i.e., animal farmer pays to biogas producer) and 7.03 €/t manure (i.e., biogas producer pays to animal farmer) and thanks to cooperation, actors can create a total economic value added between 3.73 €/t manure and 39.37 €/t manure. Hence, there are cases in which animal farmers can profitably be paid, but the presence of a supply surplus not met by demand provides an advantage to arable land owners and biogas producers in the price contracting phase in the current situation in the Netherlands

Adaptive Investment Strategies For Periodic Environments

In this paper, we present an adaptive investment strategy for environments with periodic returns on investment. In our approach, we consider an investment model where the agent decides at every time step the proportion of wealth to invest in a risky asset, keeping the rest of the budget in a risk-free asset. Every investment is evaluated in the market via a stylized return on investment function (RoI), which is modeled by a stochastic process with unknown periodicities and levels of noise. For comparison reasons, we present two reference strategies which represent the case of agents with zero-knowledge and complete-knowledge of the dynamics of the returns. We consider also an investment strategy based on technical analysis to forecast the next return by fitting a trend line to previous received returns. To account for the performance of the different strategies, we perform some computer experiments to calculate the average budget that can be obtained with them over a certain number of time steps. To assure for fair comparisons, we first tune the parameters of each strategy. Afterwards, we compare the performance of these strategies for RoIs with different periodicities and levels of noise.Comment: Paper submitted to Advances in Complex Systems (November, 2007) 22 pages, 9 figure

The measurement of aggregate market risk

Preface This volume contains papers produced for the Euro-currency Standing Committee in a joint effort by researchers at several central banks. The papers address measurement of market risk, market dynamics, market liquidity, and the role that information plays in determining market outcomes in unsettled circumstances. The Committee believes that the research undertaken will be of interest to a wider audience, including market participants and the academic community. In publishing the papers, the Committee hopes to stimulate further research in these areas. The papers represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the central banks with which they are affiliated nor that of the Euro-currency Standing Committee. In July 1996, the BIS published a report of a working group of the Committee, chaired by Shinichi Yoshikuni of the Bank of Japan, which recommended the establishment of a reporting system on activities in global derivatives markets. That reporting system is to be implemented in 1998. The Report recognised that data on derivatives positions, while indispensable for tracking changes in the size and structure of derivatives markets over time, would shed limited light on how overall portfolio values and market conditions might change in the face of price shocks. The behaviour of markets in the face of shocks has long been an area of fundamental central bank interest and responsibility. When the papers in this volume were discussed by the Committee in May 1997, the Committee accepted the researchers' conclusion that this research did not establish an adequate technical basis or adequate justification for collecting aggregate market risk data. However, the Committee decided to encourage continuing work on other aspects of market behaviour addressed in these papers. In particular, in line with its mandate to monitor sources of potential instability in financial markets, the Committee will continue to encourage and review research on market functioning and price dynamics under stress. Toshihiko Fukui, Chairman, Euro-currency Standing Committee Senior Deputy Governor, Bank of Japan

A decision support methodology to enhance the competitiveness of the Turkish automotive industry

This is the post-print (final draft post-refereeing) version of the article. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Three levels of competitiveness affect the success of business enterprises in a globally competitive environment: the competitiveness of the company, the competitiveness of the industry in which the company operates and the competitiveness of the country where the business is located. This study analyses the competitiveness of the automotive industry in association with the national competitiveness perspective using a methodology based on Bayesian Causal Networks. First, we structure the competitiveness problem of the automotive industry through a synthesis of expert knowledge in the light of the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness indicators. Second, we model the relationships among the variables identified in the problem structuring stage and analyse these relationships using a Bayesian Causal Network. Third, we develop policy suggestions under various scenarios to enhance the national competitive advantages of the automotive industry. We present an analysis of the Turkish automotive industry as a case study. It is possible to generalise the policy suggestions developed for the case of Turkish automotive industry to the automotive industries in other developing countries where country and industry competitiveness levels are similar to those of Turkey

Сryptocurrency and Internet of Things: Problems of Implementation and Realization

IoT (Internet of Things) requires the implementation of digital encryption of information, transaction support and recording of all events for security. It can provide cryptocurrencies protocols with adding an additional possibility of payments. This opportunity is not so much demanded at the hardware level as in the software implementation. We have discovered that IoT devices are widely used for illegal purposes for trusts or network consolidated attacks, and virtually no legal and useful ways of using their hardware-distributed capabilities. Standardization and compatibility in IOT network should become the main tools for the possibility of introducing new solutions, testing their utility, performance and safety. The standardization of a new approach to interactive protocols in the IOT network and the Internet with a finance approach is now inevitable. We need new IEEE standards for cryptocurrencies and IoT functioning. They must include standards for protocol functioning, transaction validation and saving, privacy and security support. Cryptocurrencies and IoT interaction diagram were proposed. The IoT network devices technology will be in the future instance of the smart class of digital-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart homes, intelligent transportation systems, smart cities etc. The financial aspect for purchasing software, services, solutions and sales of the resulting benefits will complement this network with additional capabilities. The development of standards for the financial level of functioning is also necessary.IoT (Internet of Things) requires the implementation of digital encryption of information, transaction support and recording of all events for security. It can provide cryptocurrencies protocols with adding an additional possibility of payments. This opportunity is not so much demanded at the hardware level as in the software implementation. We have discovered that IoT devices are widely used for illegal purposes for trusts or network consolidated attacks, and virtually no legal and useful ways of using their hardware-distributed capabilities. Standardization and compatibility in IOT network should become the main tools for the possibility of introducing new solutions, testing their utility, performance and safety. The standardization of a new approach to interactive protocols in the IOT network and the Internet with a finance approach is now inevitable. We need new IEEE standards for cryptocurrencies and IoT functioning. They must include standards for protocol functioning, transaction validation and saving, privacy and security support. Cryptocurrencies and IoT interaction diagram were proposed. The IoT network devices technology will be in the future instance of the smart class of digital-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart homes, intelligent transportation systems, smart cities etc. The financial aspect for purchasing software, services, solutions and sales of the resulting benefits will complement this network with additional capabilities. The development of standards for the financial level of functioning is also necessary

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications