Agent-Based Modelling: The Next 15 Years

This short note makes recommendations for the future direction of research in agent-based modelling (ABM). It is a personal view based on my experience as a policy adviser who has recently come to ABM. I suggest that to promote the use of ABM, the ABM community needs demonstrate the value of modelling to other social scientists by showing-by-doing and offering training projects; and to produce tools, guidance on good-practice and basic building blocks. Then the policy contexts most likely to benefit from ABM need to be identified along with any new data requirements, so that the usefulness of ABM can be demonstrated to policy analysts. This is, in my view, the challenge facing the ABM community for the next 15 years.Agent-Based Modelling,, NetLogo, Policy Advice

W. Frank Steely Library Special Collections & Archives Sustainable Preservation Environment Planning Project

The W. Frank Steely Library, Eva G. Farris Special Collections & Schlachter University Archives (SC&A), at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) requests $40,000 plus an additional$10,000 for recommended activities for a National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections planning grant. This would fund the next phase of a comprehensive plan to create and maintain a sustainable preservation environment for the long term protection of its collections. This planning grant project would result in the evaluation of the SC&A’s existing environmental climate and performance characteristics and operational practices related to the current HVAC system servicing the Archives. The results would drive a plan to develop a sustainable preservation environment with specific steps for improved operation, effectiveness and energy efficiency. The project would be a collaborative effort of Steely SC&A personnel, NKU’s Facilities Management division, and preservation research experts from the Image Permanence Institute

Metropolitan Library Problems of the Los Angeles Area

published or submitted for publicatio

AGRICULTURE AND THE HOOVER COMMISSION

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Boydbolt, a positive-latch, simple-release fastener

Fastener /Boydbolt/ has recently been designed to furnish positive lock and release characteristics that positively prevent accidental adverse functions of lock or release

Massachusetts communities at risk: a report from the Municipal Finance Task Force

Results and recommendations from an analysis of municipal finances and local aid during the period 1981 to 2005.Municipal finance - Massachusetts

"Common Law Property Theory and Jurisprudence in Canada"

In recent years, property theorists have offered varying accounts as to what exactly ownership is, typically focusing on one or more key rights to the owned thing. However, most of these theories are articulated in the abstract and do not engage the jurisprudence. This article uses the jurisprudence concerning expropriation and adverse possession to show that Canadian courts have in fact developed their own definition of ownership—one that is not reflected in the property theory discourse. The author goes on to argue that this narrower definition of ownership—made up by the rights to exclude and to primary use—is preferable to those offered by the property theorists, as it better balances the competing interests of owners, non-owners and the state

Of Malls and Campuses: The Regulation of University Campuses and Section 2(b) of the Charter

There have been a number of recent cases from across Canada about whether the Charter applies to public universities. Courts in Alberta have suggested that the Charter will apply to public universities while courts in British Columbia and Ontario have refused to apply the Charter to such cases. In this article I focus on the cases that also involve a claim to use university space, that is, those cases where there is an argument that by failing to allow an event on campus the university has violated the free expression guarantee in the Charter. If the Charter does apply, and I argue that it does, this matters for how we conceive of university property. It is too simplistic to hold that university property is private and, as such, section 2(b) should grant a right of access to some instances of university property under certain circumstances

"The Alberta Liquor Control Board and the Question of Administrative Independence, 1924-1939”

This article discusses administrative independence by using Alberta’s first attempt at creating a Liquor Control Board as a case study. The article examines the relationships between the Board, the government, and the public in order to contribute to a more rigorous understanding of administrative independence that goes beyond the usual comparisons to judicial independence