Computable General Equilibrium Analysis: Opening a Black Box

Computable general equilibrium models play an important role in applied economic research. These models accommodate the micro-consistent systematic analysis of complex economic problems where analytical solutions are either not available or do not provide adequate information. However, the computational approach to economic policy analysis also has severe shortcomings of its own. In general, scientific publications include a complete listing of neither the algebraic model underlying the numerical simulation nor the data used to calibrate model parameters. Even if the model algebra and the data were fully laid out, replication of results would still require specialized programming skills. As a consequence, CGE analyses are often perceived as a black box to non-expert readers. This article aims at lowering the barriers to numerical CGE analysis along two lines. First, we provide a compact introduction to recent methods of CGE model implementation that may substantially ease entry for potential modelers. Second, and equally important, we illustrate the non-technical access to CGE analysis by means of a user-friendly interface that allows non-modelers to test and develop their economic intuition on general equilibrium interactions without programming skills

Research and Development Workstation Environment: the new class of Current Research Information Systems

Against the backdrop of the development of modern technologies in the field of scientific research the new class of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and related intelligent information technologies has arisen. It was called - Research and Development Workstation Environment (RDWE) - the comprehensive problem-oriented information systems for scientific research and development lifecycle support. The given paper describes design and development fundamentals of the RDWE class systems. The RDWE class system's generalized information model is represented in the article as a three-tuple composite web service that include: a set of atomic web services, each of them can be designed and developed as a microservice or a desktop application, that allows them to be used as an independent software separately; a set of functions, the functional filling-up of the Research and Development Workstation Environment; a subset of atomic web services that are required to implement function of composite web service. In accordance with the fundamental information model of the RDWE class the system for supporting research in the field of ontology engineering - the automated building of applied ontology in an arbitrary domain area, scientific and technical creativity - the automated preparation of application documents for patenting inventions in Ukraine was developed. It was called - Personal Research Information System. A distinctive feature of such systems is the possibility of their problematic orientation to various types of scientific activities by combining on a variety of functional services and adding new ones within the cloud integrated environment. The main results of our work are focused on enhancing the effectiveness of the scientist's research and development lifecycle in the arbitrary domain area.Comment: In English, 13 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, added references in Russian. Published. Prepared for special issue (UkrPROG 2018 conference) of the scientific journal "Problems of programming" (Founder: National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Software Systems of NAS Ukraine

Geoscience after IT: Part L. Adjusting the emerging information system to new technology

Coherent development depends on following widely used standards that respect our vast legacy of existing entries in the geoscience record. Middleware ensures that we see a coherent view from our desktops of diverse sources of information. Developments specific to managing the written word, map content, and structured data come together in shared metadata linking topics and information types

eABC: scientific publications bibliografic archive

The paper intends to present eABC – Scientific Publications Bibliographic Archive of University of Aveiro’. It describes the motivation that induced its implementation, advantages for users and for all those whom the system serves. Some of the systems functionalities will be presented, along with a description on how to use them. Finally, the current status of the system - as it is being used by the University of Aveiro - will be presented, with the addition of an explanation on how this system helps in the creation of mechanisms that enable the adaptability and flexibility of systems to improve the scientific community dynamics

Development of Distributed Research Center for analysis of regional climatic and environmental changes

We present an approach and first results of a collaborative project being carried out by a joint team of researchers from the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Russia and Earth Systems Research Center UNH, USA. Its main objective is development of a hardware and software platform prototype of a Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes in the Northern extratropical areas. The DRC should provide the specialists working in climate related sciences and decision-makers with accurate and detailed climatic characteristics for the selected area and reliable and affordable tools for their in-depth statistical analysis and studies of the effects of climate change. Within the framework of the project, new approaches to cloud processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets (big geospatial data) inherent to climate change studies are developed and deployed on technical platforms of both institutions. We discuss here the state of the art in this domain, describe web based information-computational systems developed by the partners, justify the methods chosen to reach the project goal, and briefly list the results obtained so far

Submission of content to a digital object repository using a configurable workflow system

The prototype of a workflow system for the submission of content to a digital object repository is here presented. It is based entirely on open-source standard components and features a service-oriented architecture. The front-end consists of Java Business Process Management (jBPM), Java Server Faces (JSF), and Java Server Pages (JSP). A Fedora Repository and a mySQL data base management system serve as a back-end. The communication between front-end and back-end uses a SOAP minimal binding stub. We describe the design principles and the construction of the prototype and discuss the possibilities and limitations of work ow creation by administrators. The code of the prototype is open-source and can be retrieved in the project escipub at http://sourceforge.ne