From Conventional to Knowledge Based Geographical Information Systems

Artificial intelligence (Al) has received an explosion of interest during the last five years in various fields. There is no longer any question that expert systems and neural networks will be of central importance for developing the next generation of more intelligent geographic information systems. Such knowledge based geographic information systems will especially play a key role in spatial decision and policy analysis related to issues such as environmental monitoring and management, land use planning, motor vehicle navigation and distribution logistics. This paper sketches briefly the major characteristics of conventional geographic information systems, and then looks at some of the potentials of Al principles and techniques in a GIS environment where emphasis is laid on expert systems and artificial neural networks technologies and techniques. (author's abstract)Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScienc

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Reference Models and Incentive Regulation of Electricity Distribution Networks: An Evaluation of Sweden’s Network Performance Assessment Model (NPAM)

The world-wide electricity sector reforms have led to a search for alternative and innovative approaches to regulation to promote efficiency improvement in the natural monopoly electricity networks. A number of countries have used incentive regulation models based on efficiency benchmarking of the electricity network utilities. While most regulators have opted adopted parametric and non-parametric frontier-based methods of benchmarking some have used engineering designed ‘reference firm’ or ‘norm’ models for the purpose. This paper examines the incentive properties and other related aspects of the norm model NPAM used in regulation of distribution networks in Sweden and compares these with those of frontier-based benchmarking methods. We identify a number of important differences between the two approaches to regulation benchmarking that are not readily apparent and discuss their ramifications for the regulatory objectives and process

Complex networks and public funding: the case of the 2007-2013 Italian program

In this paper we apply techniques of complex network analysis to data sources representing public funding programs and discuss the importance of the considered indicators for program evaluation. Starting from the Open Data repository of the 2007-2013 Italian Program Programma Operativo Nazionale 'Ricerca e Competitivit\`a' (PON R&C), we build a set of data models and perform network analysis over them. We discuss the obtained experimental results outlining interesting new perspectives that emerge from the application of the proposed methods to the socio-economical evaluation of funded programs.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

Spatial interactions in agent-based modeling

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) has become a widespread approach to model complex interactions. In this chapter after briefly summarizing some features of ABM the different approaches in modeling spatial interactions are discussed. It is stressed that agents can interact either indirectly through a shared environment and/or directly with each other. In such an approach, higher-order variables such as commodity prices, population dynamics or even institutions, are not exogenously specified but instead are seen as the results of interactions. It is highlighted in the chapter that the understanding of patterns emerging from such spatial interaction between agents is a key problem as much as their description through analytical or simulation means. The chapter reviews different approaches for modeling agents' behavior, taking into account either explicit spatial (lattice based) structures or networks. Some emphasis is placed on recent ABM as applied to the description of the dynamics of the geographical distribution of economic activities, - out of equilibrium. The Eurace@Unibi Model, an agent-based macroeconomic model with spatial structure, is used to illustrate the potential of such an approach for spatial policy analysis.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 105 references; a chapter prepared for the book "Complexity and Geographical Economics - Topics and Tools", P. Commendatore, S.S. Kayam and I. Kubin, Eds. (Springer, in press, 2014