Going Stupid with EcoLab

In 2005, Railsback et al. proposed a very simple model ({\em Stupid Model}) that could be implemented within a couple of hours, and later extended to demonstrate the use of common ABM platform functionality. They provided implementations of the model in several agent based modelling platforms, and compared the platforms for ease of implementation of this simple model, and performance. In this paper, I implement Railsback et al's Stupid Model in the EcoLab simulation platform, a C++ based modelling platform, demonstrating that it is a feasible platform for these sorts of models, and compare the performance of the implementation with Repast, Mason and Swarm versions

A formula-driven scalable benchmark model for ABM, applied to FLAME GPU

Agent Based Modelling (ABM) systems have become a popular technique for describing complex and dynamic systems. ABM is the simulation of intelligent agents and how these agents communicate with each other within the model. The growing number of agent-based applications in the simulation and AI fields led to an increase in the number of studies that focused on evaluating modelling capabilities of these applications. Observing system performance and how applications behave during increases in population size is the main factor for benchmarking in most of these studies. System scalability is not the only issue that may affect the overall performance, but there are some issues that need to be dealt with to create a standard benchmark model that meets all ABM criteria. This paper presents a new benchmark model and benchmarks the performance characteristics of the FLAME GPU simulator as an example of a parallel framework for ABM. The aim of this model is to provide parameters to easily measure the following elements: system scalability, system homogeneity, and the ability to handle increases in the level of agent communications and model complexity. Results show that FLAME GPU demonstrates near linear scalability when increasing population size and when reducing homogeneity. The benchmark also shows a negative correlation between increasing the communication complexity between agents and execution time. The results create a baseline for improving the performance of FLAME GPU and allow the simulator to be contrasted with other multi-agent simulators

Symbolic Corporate Governance Politics

How are we to understand the persistent gap between rhetoric and reality that characterizes so much of corporate governance politics? In this Article, we show that the rhetoric around a variety of high profile corporate governance controversies (including shareholder proposals asking boards to redeem poison pills, proxy access, majority voting in director elections, and shareholder proposals to remove supermajority voting requirements) cannot be justified by the material interests at stake. At the same time, shareholder activists are oddly reluctant to pursue issues that may have a more material impact, such as anti-pill charter provisions or mandatory bylaw amendments. We consider a variety of explanations for this phenomenon including “public interest” analyses, “public choice” analyses, and the possibility that corporate governance politics has a substantial “symbolic” or “folkloristic” element. Elaborating on arguments made in Thurman Arnold’s The Folklore of Capitalism, we suggest that there is an analogous “Folklore of Corporate Governance” that serves to reconcile the gap between our idealized view of corporations as controlled by real-life shareholders and the inevitable reality that effective control largely resides in managements and in disembodied institutions. We consider some implications of the explanations we put forward

Interview with Rob Hauf

Rob Hauf talks about supplying food for Kenyon.https://digital.kenyon.edu/elfs_interviews/1071/thumbnail.jp

Becoming-rat: an examination of the politics of vermin

This Masters research is motivated by a twofold concern: to expand research into non-human animals in social and cultural geography, and to explore the possibilities of an anti-essentialist animal geography. Namely, this masters aims to use the Deleuzian tool of 'assemblage' as a means of understanding human and animal co-constitution. The focal point of this master's research is an exploration of the neglected politics of vermin, a markedly violent site of human- animal configuration. This is accessed in two ways: first through a cultural history of the rat, and then through studies of the use of different rat traps and devices used to kill, control or catch rats in Victorian and contemporary contexts. Moving from these devices, this masters demonstrates the different humans and rats constituted through the act of rat expurgation, and the way in which the act of rat transgression and eradication works to perform the boundaries of changing geographies

MLearning scaffolding model for undergraduate English language learning: bridging formal and informal learning

Learning using mobile devices also known as mLearning is the current buzz word in the present debates over the use of technology in education. Although mLearning has a high prospect for future education, it is yet to be incorporated widely in mainstream formal education. The lack of a contemporary theory of learning and model for the mobile era has been one of the main issues hindering the incorporation. Although past studies have discussed learning theories and models for mLearning at great length, there is a wide gap in the investigation of theory and model for language-learning in the mobile context. Hence, this paper aims to describe how learners could be assisted in language-learning via supportive scaffolding using mobile devices at the undergraduate level using Gilly Salmon’s five-stage scaffolding model. This model is supported by Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development as the basis of learning theory. A case study was conducted on undergraduate language learning in a private university in an attempt to seek how this model could be applied for mLearning. The results from the study revealed improvement in learners’ language performance but more importantly the results also suggested some adaptations to be made to the model in order to adapt it to language-learning in the mobile context. As mLearning should include informal learning, the key characteristic of the adapted model shows how formal learning and informal learning can be interwoven using mLearning

Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism

This paper analyses economic power, state power and ideological power in the age of Donald Trump with the help of critical theory. It applies the critical theory approaches of thinkers such as Franz Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. It analyses changes of US capitalism that have together with political anxiety and demagoguery brought about the rise of Donald Trump. This article draws attention to the importance of state theory for understanding Trump and the changes of politics that his rule may bring about. It is in this context important to see the complexity of the state, including the dynamic relationship between the state and the economy, the state and citizens, intra-state relations, inter-state relations, semiotic representations of and by the state, and ideology. Trumpism and its potential impacts are theorised along these dimensions. The ideology of Trump (Trumpology) has played an important role not just in his business and brand strategies, but also in his political rise. The (pseudo-)critical mainstream media have helped making Trump and Trumpology by providing platforms for populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences. By Trump making news in the media, the media make Trump. An empirical analysis of Trump’s rhetoric and the elimination discourses in his NBC show The Apprentice underpins the analysis of Trumpology. The combination of Trump’s actual power and Trump as spectacle, showman and brand makes his government’s concrete policies fairly unpredictable. An important question that arises is what social scientists’ role should be in the conjuncture that the world is experiencing

Shipping & Handling

M.A. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Teaching is like engineering: my living educational theory

The traditional view of scientific progress is that human understanding of the world is contiguous and cumulative, with both theories and concepts ‘improving’ incrementally through gradational change. Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions challenged this traditional view by arguing, on the contrary, that scientific progress is made through leaps and bounds, when “the earlier results of science [are] rejected, replaced, and reinterpreted by new theories and conceptual frameworks” (“Scientific Progress.”, 2020). Stated simply, scientific progress is revolutionary, not evolutionary. History is seemingly no different. Indeed, although it is often said that history is written by the victors, human understanding of the past is always under threat, as new data are revealed, for example, ideologies and cultural hegemonies change, or scientific developments in other academic disciplines emerge. [...] This context statement documents my historical journey through the Doctor of Professional Studies by Public Works process. The logic is largely chronological in nature, but doubtless some historical revisionism has crept into my narrative. [...

Information Outlook, May 2008

Volume 12, Issue 5https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2008/1004/thumbnail.jp