Design Implications of Model-Generated Urban Data

Published by the Architectural Research Centers Consortium under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.The staggering complexity of urban environment and long timescales in the causal mechanisms prevent designers to fully understand the implications of their design interventions. In order to investigate these causal mechanisms and provide measurable trends, a model that partially replicates urban complexity has been developed. Using a cellular automata approach to model land use types and markets for products, services, labour and property, the model has enabled numerical experiments to be carried out. The results revealed causal mechanisms and performance metrics obtained in a much shorter timescale than the real-life processes, pointing to a number of design implications for urban environments.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Налоговое или монетарное стимулирование? Эволюционные аргументы в пользу налоговых реформ

Статья посвящена исследованию проблемы обоснования мер регулирования развития эмерджентной экономики - фискальных и (или) монетарных, с использованием методов эволюционного моделирования. Для этого была построена экономико-математическая модель, имитирующая процессы коэволюции развитой и развивающейся стран, связанных через глобальные цепочки создания стоимости. В этой модели каждая из стран характеризуется собственной исходной структурой экономических субъектов, определяемой соотношением предприятий-эгоистов (предрасположенных к консервативному поведению) и предприятий-альтруистов (предрасположенных к инновационному поведению), а также специфическим населением и демографическими процессами. Результаты вычислительных экспериментов показали, что успех того или иного способа экономического регулирования принципиально зависит от особенностей исходного состояния институциональной среды хозяйствования. В институциональной среде с «прозрачными» длинными правилами игры и, соответственно, длинным горизонтом хозяйственного планирования наилучший результат в виде высоких темпов роста производства в эмерджентной экономике дает политика дешевых денег в сочетании с высокими «европейскими» налогами. Иная ситуация наблюдается в более реалистичной ситуации с короткими правилами игры и, соответственно, коротким (не более 5 лет) горизонтом хозяйственного планирования. В этом случае любая налоговая политика (низкие или высокие налоги) в сочетании любыми деньгами (дешевыми или дорогими), в определенном смысле теряет значение, поскольку изначально отсталая инновационная система не позволяет быстро получать высокие результаты, а преимущества экономического роста в отделенном будущем не принимаются во внимание. Вместе с тем, для постепенного формирования лучшей инновационной системы низкие налоги и дешевые деньги имеют важное значение, поскольку создают лучшие условия для выживания предприятийальтруистов, облегчая им инвестиционную деятельность, способную принести многократный прирост технической производительности и экономической эффективности. В любом случае, в контексте эволюционной экономической теории, исходя из проведенных вычислительных экспериментов, налоговая политика в условиях эмерджентных рынков сохраняет свой регуляторный потенциал, и, таким образом, требует дальнейшего реформирования в контексте «новой реальности», основанной на глобальных цепочках создания стоимости.The article deals with the problem of substantiation of the emergent economies development regulatory measures (fiscal and / or monetary), using the evolutionary modelling methods. For this purpose, the mathematical model was constructed that simulates the co-evolution process of the advanced and developing countries, linked by global value chains. In this model, each country is characterized by its original structure of economic entities, defined by the ratio of the egoistic enterprises (predisposed to conservative behaviour) to the altruistic enterprises (predisposed to innovation), as well as by specific population and demographic processes. The results of the computational experiments have shown that the success of economic regulation fundamentally depends on the peculiarities of the initial state of the institutional environment. In the institutional environment with the «transparent» long behaviour and, accordingly, a long economic planning horizon, the best result in the form of average annual production growth rate of the emergent economies is provided by the cheap money policy combined with the high European taxes. A different situation is observed in more realistic short behaviour and, accordingly, short (under 5 years) economic planning horizon. In this case, any tax policy (neither low nor high taxes) together with any money (neither cheap nor expensive), to a certain extent loses its significance, as the initially backward innovative system does not allow to quickly get good results, and the long-term benefits of the potential economic growth are not taken into consideration. However, low taxes and cheap money are important as they create better conditions for survival of the altruistic enterprises, facilitating their investment activities, which can multiply increase their technical performance and economic efficiency. Still, in the context of the evolutionary economics and following the conducted computational experiments, the fiscal policy in terms of emerging markets retains its regulatory capacity, and therefore requires further reforms in the context of the «new reality» based on the global value chains

Management and Control of Domestic Smart Grid Technology

Emerging new technologies like distributed generation, distributed storage, and demand-side load management will change the way we consume and produce energy. These techniques enable the possibility to reduce the greenhouse effect and improve grid stability by optimizing energy streams. By smartly applying future energy production, consumption, and storage techniques, a more energy-efficient electricity supply chain can be achieved. In this paper a three-step control methodology is proposed to manage the cooperation between these technologies, focused on domestic energy streams. In this approach, (global) objectives like peak shaving or forming a virtual power plant can be achieved without harming the comfort of residents. As shown in this work, using good predictions, in advance planning and real-time control of domestic appliances, a better matching of demand and supply can be achieved.\ud \u

Supply chain implications of sustainable design strategies for electronics products

Increasing legislative and consumer pressures on manufacturers to improve sustainability necessitates that manufacturers consider the overall life cycle and not be scope restricted in creating products. Product strategies to improve sustainability have design implications as many of the decisions made during the design stage will then determine the environmental performance of the final product. Coordination across the supply chain is potentially beneficial as products with improved energy efficiency can be better realised. This paper examines traditional product provision and proposes a sustainable product design process using life cycle assessment (LCA) at key points, as these decision points can provide opportunities for environmental improvements of products. Case studies of consumer and industry products in the electronics sector are examined in terms of improving sustainability by reviewing product architecture and technology solutions. This paper proposes methods and analytical models to better understand sustainable design strategies for manufacturing firms and thus aid manufacturers during the earliest stages of product planning to consider alternative product development approaches which are more sustainable

Energy Release in Air Showers

A simulation study of the energy released in air due to the development of an extensive air shower has been carried out using the CORSIKA code. The contributions to the energy release from different particle species and energies as well as the typical particle densities are investigated. Special care is taken of particles falling below the energy threshold of the simulation which contribute about 10% to the total energy deposition. The dominant contribution to the total deposition stems from electrons and positrons from sub-MeV up to a few hundred MeV, with typical transverse distances between particles exceeding 1 mm for 10 EeV showers.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Astropart. Phys.; small content changes in final versio

Numerical product design: Springback prediction, compensation and optimization

Numerical simulations are being deployed widely for product design. However, the accuracy of the numerical tools is not yet always sufficiently accurate and reliable. This article focuses on the current state and recent developments in different stages of product design: springback prediction, springback compensation and optimization by finite element (FE) analysis. To improve the springback prediction by FE analysis, guidelines regarding the mesh discretization are provided and a new through-thickness integration scheme for shell elements is launched. In the next stage of virtual product design the product is compensated for springback. Currently, deformations due to springback are manually compensated in the industry. Here, a procedure to automatically compensate the tool geometry, including the CAD description, is presented and it is successfully applied to an industrial automotive part. The last stage in virtual product design comprises optimization. This article presents an optimization scheme which is capable of designing optimal and robust metal forming processes efficiently

Compensation of deep drawing tools for springback and tool-deformation

Manual tool reworking is one of the most time-consuming stages in the\ud preparation of a deep drawing process. Finite Elements (FE) analyses are now widely\ud applied to test the feasibility of the forming process, and with the increasing accuracy of the\ud results, even the springback of a blank can be predicted. In this paper, the results of an FE\ud analysis are used to carry out tool compensation for both springback and tool/press\ud deformations. Especially when high-strength steels are used, or when large body panels are\ud produced, tool compensation in the digital domain helps to reduce work and save time in the\ud press workshop. A successful compensation depends on accurate and efficient FE-prediction,\ud as well as a flexible and process-oriented compensation algorithm. This paper is divided in\ud two sections. The first section deals with efficient modeling of tool/press deformations, but\ud does not discuss compensation. The second section is focused on springback, but here the\ud focus is on the compensation algorithm instead of the springback phenomenon itself

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c