Towards modeling civilian behavior during a natural disaster

This work presents a literature review on civilian evacuation behavior and agent based modeling for disaster planning. The aim is to understand a regional response to a natural disaster. We propose a study to investigate our study area's disaster plan and civilian response at large during such an event. The implications of our proposed work include improved disaster planning and a framework for modeling civilian response to real government disaster plans

Understanding landmarks in spatial information: Does sentiment provide enough context?

This literature review focuses on combining spatial information communicated about a landmark and sentiment analysis techniques. In spatial information processing literature, the definition of a landmark remains elusive. We propose to have a study apply sentiment labeling models to landmark definition. However, instead of seeking an umbrella definition for the intangible landmark, it may be more relevant to classify individual landmarks re-cursively, using a methodology that accounts for its subjectivity. A goal to apply sentiment labeling models to the landmark definition

Is Blockchain the Next Step in the Evolution Chain of [Market] Intermediaries?

The blockchain is a decentralized solution for handling transactions where we are concerned (among other aspects) with the accuracy and verification of transactions. One of its main promises is to eliminate the need for centralized entities or intermediaries and legal enforcement. Rather than trusting self-interested human intermediaries, the blockchain provides an alternative that relies on transparent computational protocols (Werbach 2018).In this paper, we delve into this broker-less claim and analyze whether the blockchain needs an intermediary to allow for widespread access to its functionality and whether the blockchain itself is an intermediary. The latter would turn the blockchain into a new type of middleperson that constitutes a shift in trust from humans or traditional agents to computer code. In other words, the next step in the evolution chain of intermediaries from humans to machines.The overall goal of this paper is to get the discussion started on the relationship between the blockchain and intermediaries so that we can think of plausible policy, governance, and regulatory measures to address the shortcomings and increase the opportunities for the widespread adoption of the blockchain technology in its different areas of impact. We begin by providing an overview of the workings of the blockchain before shifting our focus to an economic analysis of blockchain, where we argue that the economics literature has yet to explicitly consider blockchain as a transformative intermediary. We then explore situations in which the blockchain acts as a middleperson, as well as those where it requires an intermediary. We conclude by reflecting on the different issues that the blockchain-intermediary link entails in the policy domain

Ostrom Amongst the Machines: Blockchain as a Knowledge Commons

Blockchains are distributed ledger technologies that allow the recording of any data structure, including money, property titles, and contracts. In this paper, we suggest that Hayekian political economy is especially well suited to explain how blockchain emerged, but that Elinor Ostrom’s approach to commons governance is particularly useful to understand why blockchain anarchy is successful. Our central conclusions are that the blockchain can be thought of as a spontaneous order, as Hayek anticipated, as well as a knowledge commons, as Ostrom’s studies of self-governance anticipated