Free entry in infrastructure

With a policy of free entry, individuals, firms, or community groups who wish to supply power, water, and sanitation services can do so with minimal legal restrictions. Free entry is the opposite of"exclusivity"or"legal monopoly". Free entry is allowed in most industries, but governments usually allow only one provider of power, water, and sanitation in any given area. This is supposed to prevent wasteful duplication and ensure a supply of essential services to poor and marginal areas. But monopoly water and power utilities often operate at high cost, lack funds to invest, and provide low-quality, unreliable service. Worse, poor and marginal areas are often unserved. When the monopoly model doesn't work, it is time to look at alternatives. The authors provide examples of alternative solutions in developing countries: *In Karachi, Pakistan, the Orangi Pilot Project provides sanitation in an unplanned settlement. Roughly 800,000 working class people lived in an area where sanitary conditions were medievaland a long-hoped-for sewerage system never came. Starting in 1980, a charitable group developed a low-cost approach to piped sanitation, explained the technology to the community, and catalyzed community action. Householders and neighborhoods funded the construction of household pourflush latrines and sewerage lines. * In Paraguay, 300 to 400 private individuals and aguateros supply good quality piped water to areas unserved by the public water company. Unlike the public company, the aguateros allow payment of connection fees on installment, making it easier for low-income consumers to connect. * In Yemen, small-scale electricity providers innovatively meet the rural and village demand for electricity that the public utility does not meet. These entrants seldom duplicate investments, although some government intervention to ensure interconnection could improve efficiency. Limitations on entry may sometimes be justified for environmental reasons or to promote private sector investment, but those cases are rare. Legalizing alternative providers will allow them to expand and meet new needs. Limits on their entry may be needed sometimes, but limits should be the exception, not the rule, the authors argue. Generally, free entry should be allowed in power, water, and sanitation.Health Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research

Economic issues in distributed computing

textOn the Internet, one of the essential characteristics of electronic commerce is the integration of large-scale computer networks and business practices. Commercial servers are connected through open and complex communication technologies, and online consumers access the services with virtually unpredictable behavior. Both of them as well as the e-Commerce infrastructure are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Among the various network security problems, the Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is a unique example to illustrate the risk of commercial network applications. Using a massive junk traffic, literally anyone on the Internet can launch a DDoS attack to flood and shutdown an eCommerce website. Cooperative technological solutions for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are already available, yet organizations in the best position to implement them lack incentive to do so, and the victims of DDoS attacks cannot find effective methods to motivate the organizations. Chapter 1 discusses two components of the technological solutions to DDoS attacks: cooperative filtering and cooperative traffic smoothing by caching, and then analyzes the broken incentive chain in each of these technological solutions. As a remedy, I propose usage-based pricing and Capacity Provision Networks, which enable victims to disseminate enough incentive along attack paths to stimulate cooperation against DDoS attacks. Chapter 2 addresses possible Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks toward the wireless Internet including the Wireless Extended Internet, the Wireless Portal Network, and the Wireless Ad Hoc network. I propose a conceptual model for defending against DDoS attacks on the wireless Internet, which incorporates both cooperative technological solutions and economic incentive mechanisms built on usage-based fees. Cost-effectiveness is also addressed through an illustrative implementation scheme using Policy Based Networking (PBN). By investigating both technological and economic difficulties in defense of DDoS attacks which have plagued the wired Internet, our aim here is to foster further development of wireless Internet infrastructure as a more secure and efficient platform for mobile commerce. To avoid centralized resources and performance bottlenecks, online peer-to-peer communities and online social network have become increasingly popular. In particular, the recent boost of online peer-to-peer communities has led to exponential growth in sharing of user-contributed content which has brought profound changes to business and economic practices. Understanding the dynamics and sustainability of such peer-to-peer communities has important implications for business managers. In Chapter 3, I explore the structure of online sharing communities from a dynamic process perspective. I build an evolutionary game model to capture the dynamics of online peer-to-peer communities. Using online music sharing data collected from one of the IRC Channels for over five years, I empirically investigate the model which underlies the dynamics of the music sharing community. Our empirical results show strong support for the evolutionary process of the community. I find that the two major parties in the community, namely sharers and downloaders, are influencing each other in their dynamics of evolvement in the community. These dynamics reveal the mechanism through which peer-to-peer communities sustain and thrive in a constant changing environment.Information, Risk, and Operations Management (IROM

Twisting the Toll: Electric Vehicles and Information Provision

The transportation sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, which concerns governments and communities worldwide. Electric vehicles (EVs) are believed to be the future. Various incentives have been provided to further broaden their acceptance and accelerate their adoption, including toll-exemption programs for EVs. At the same time, an individual’s driving behaviors are largely shaped by navigation applications that provide real-time traffic conditions. In this paper, we aim to understand how information provision affects the optimal structure of the EV-exempt toll. By analyzing a Bayesian routing game, we illustrate the optimality of a non-monotonic tolling strategy as a function of the EV adoption rate. For policymakers, our finding reveals the importance of understanding how the IT-enabled information provision has altered individual drivers\u27 behavior. In addition, the results uncover the general impact of IT, which expands the action space of individuals and the effective regimes of policies

Special Topics in Information Technology

This open access book presents thirteen outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteen best theses defended in 2019-20 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists

Models in evolutionary economics and environmental policy: Towards an evolutionary environmental economics

In this paper we review evolutionary economic modelling in relation to environmental policy. We discuss three areas in which evolutionary economic models have a particularly high added value for environmental policy-making: the double externality problem, technological transitions and consumer demand. We explore the possibilities to apply evolutionary economic models in environmental policy assessment, including the opportunities for making policy-making endogenous to environmental innovation. We end with a critical discussion of the challenges that remain.

Passengers as Drivers of Innovation in Public Transport Planning? Conceptual Issue and Experiences

According to economic theory, market forces guarantee efficiency and customer orientation. But in public transport, such a market often does not exist, given that most services are provided under licenses which guarantee the operator an exclusive right to provide the service, thus evidently limiting customer choice. Public transport services are also subject to intense political influences. The paper examines the position of passengers as stakeholders in transport planning and policy. After the introduction, the main elements of the passengers’ interests are presented. The main part discusses the role and scope of citizens’ participation in urban and transport planning. A series of case studies illustrates different, more or less formalised, approaches to participation as well as typical planning issues for public transport development. In the Italian context, the Carta dei Servizi and the activities of consumer associations and civic action committees are the most noteworthy forms of involvement. The examples demonstrate that different methods can be used to permit a greater role of the citizens in planning. An unbalanced approach, one which takes place at the wrong time or is not respected by the other stakeholders, however, is likely to be seen as an obstacle and cause for frustration. Well-designed participation can, on the other hand, lead to better and more accepted planning schemes. To achieve this, it is necessary to choose the necessary methods with caution, considering the topic, environment and the setting of the scheme in the wider planning and decision-making process.Public transport, participation, civic involvement, consumer organisations, user representation, transport planning, transport policy, timetable procedure, Carta dei Servizi, Citizens Jury, consultative forum, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom

A case study in user support for managing OpenSim based multi user learning environments

This research was supported by the Commonwealth Scholarship Programme (UK) and the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA).Immersive 3D Multi User Learning Environments (MULE) have shown sufficient success to warrant their consideration as a mainstream educational paradigm. These are based on 3D Multi User Virtual Environment platforms (MUVE), and although they have been used for various innovative educational projects their complex permission systems and large numbers of functions can make their management potentially challenging. It follows that an inadequately managed MULE can be ineffective with respect to intended learning outcomes. The purpose of this research was to determine how management challenges manifest themselves and how to support educators in learning and applying MULE management skills. We utilized the popular OpenSim platform for this study. First, a survey of the need for user support (N=43) is described. Next, the design and evaluation of a guidance tool using graph topologic visualization of OpenSim functions is presented (N=211). The tool is further evaluated in the delivery of a course module. The analysis and user feedback indicated that the tool provides accurate information and helpful support for MULE management. As the final phase of the research, training environments were developed for both basic and advanced OpenSim MULE management. Evaluations of their usability and perceived educational value were carried out with participants (N=68); the outcomes suggest that training for advanced MULE management is more useful for all users, without requiring more time or effort, regardless of the degree of complexity of the MULE being designed.PostprintPeer reviewe