Towards engineering ontologies for cognitive profiling of agents on the semantic web

Research shows that most agent-based collaborations suffer from lack of flexibility. This is due to the fact that most agent-based applications assume pre-defined knowledge of agents’ capabilities and/or neglect basic cognitive and interactional requirements in multi-agent collaboration. The highlight of this paper is that it brings cognitive models (inspired from cognitive sciences and HCI) proposing architectural and knowledge-based requirements for agents to structure ontological models for cognitive profiling in order to increase cognitive awareness between themselves, which in turn promotes flexibility, reusability and predictability of agent behavior; thus contributing towards minimizing cognitive overload incurred on humans. The semantic web is used as an action mediating space, where shared knowledge base in the form of ontological models provides affordances for improving cognitive awareness

PARETO-IMPROVING WATER MANAGEMENT OVER SPACE AND TIME

Proposals for marginal cost water pricing have often been found to be politically infeasible because current users will have to pay a higher price even though future users will be better off. We show how efficiency pricing can be rendered Pareto-improving, and thus politically feasible, by compensating the users suffering a loss due to higher prices. We also provide a method for determining efficient spatial and inter-temporal water management for a system with consumption at significantly different elevations supplied from a renewable coastal aquifer, which is subject to salinity if over-extracted.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Integrated Prevention and Control of Invasive Species

An emerging problem for environmental policy is how to design efficient strategies for the prevention and control of invasive species. However, the literature has mostly focused either on pre-introduction prevention or post-introduction control of an invasive. The benefits of prevention cannot be understood or estimated without knowing the costs of post-introduction control. This paper provides an integrated framework where optimal prevention is combined with optimal pest removal.Environmental Economics and Policy,

WATERSHED CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENT GROUNDWATER PRICING

Conserving the watershed can help to preserve the groundwater supplies by avoiding loss of recharge. Preventing overuse of available water through pricing reforms can also substantially increase benefits from groundwater stock. Since efficiency prices are generally higher than the inefficient, status quo prices, efficiency pricing may be politically infeasible and watershed conservation may be considered as an alternative. Using Pearl Harbor water district as an example, we find that pricing reform yields large welfare improvement (about $900 million) and is welfare-superior to watershed conservation unless the latter prevents over 10% loss of recharge. In addition, watershed conservation is more valuable at efficiency pricing than at the status quo prices.watershed conservation, water pricing, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, D62, H21, H23,

EFFICIENT GROUNDWATER PRICING AND WATERSHED CONSERVATION FINANCE: THE HONOLULU CASE

Several studies have documented that intertemporal water allocation in Hawaii (as elsewhere) is inefficient (see e.g., Moncur et. al., 1998). The result is widely expected to be early depletion of groundwater resources and the resulting need for using expensive and exotic technologies such as desalination. The problem is further complicated by the presence of saltwater underneath most of the freshwater lenses in Hawaii. Increasing groundwater extraction over time will drive the freshwater head levels lower until the existing well installations will start to pump out saltwater. Once the wells become saline, it is very hard to reverse the process. The consequences of these conditions, in terms of the economic value of waste, are unknown. Moreover, recharge of groundwater aquifer is affected by the condition of forested watersheds. Amount and nature of vegetation cover affects the rate of recharge and the amount of groundwater stored in an aquifer available for pumping. Many communities have given watersheds a practice of protective zoning that eliminated the worst threats, including road construction and subsequent urbanization that significantly reduce permeability and recharge rates. Zoning alone may no longer be sufficient for meeting the increasing demand for fresh water, however. Increasing threats to forest quality, including change in forest composition due to the rapidly growing problem of invasive species, may justify significant conservation expenditures. Maintenance of watersheds needs to be considered in an integrated framework in order to assess the size of the problem and the potential gains from policy reforms. The overall objective of this paper is to combine existing hydrological, engineering, and economic knowledge in order to estimate efficient water use in the Honolulu aquifer zone on Oahu, HI. We compare welfare gains under efficient pricing and usage with welfare under current pricing and usage. In addition, we incorporate the effects of watershed conservation in the form of probabilistic changes in recharge. We then compare the welfare gains from efficient pricing without water conservation to that with watershed conservation. Finally, we articulate practical pricing schemes (particularly block pricing) for achieving efficient use with return of water pricing revenue back to the consumers. We derive efficient water use and prices over time for the study area with and without the watershed conservation plan proposed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resource (DLNR). Present values of status-quo (pricing-at-cost), efficiency pricing alone, and efficiency pricing with additional conservation spending are compared. We show that efficiency pricing alone provides substantial welfare gains over status-quo. Efficiency pricing combined with watershed conservation improves the welfare further. Under plausible parameter values, the fall in efficiency prices afforded by conservation is more than enough to finance the conservation expenditures. This is a 'win-win-win' for water consumers, taxpayers, and environment.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Optimal Green Taxation with Both Emission and Commodity Taxes

Several authors have argued that the second-best environmental tax on a "dirty good" is less than the marginal emission damage associated with its consumption. These studies limit their analysis to cases in which emissions can only be reduced by a proportional reduction of the "dirty" good. With a more general specification of technology that allows emissions to be directly as well as indirectly taxed, we show that the direct emission tax cannot be less than its marginal emission damage, regardless of the normalization.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Integrated management of multiple aquifers with subsurface flows and inter-district water transport

Many places, including the island of Oahu in Hawaii, have a number of groundwater aquifers. Consumers located in one aquifer area can be supplied from water extracted and transported from another aquifer if this results in cost savings over local extraction. Incorporating such interdistrict transport is necessary for a fully efficient allocation framework. We derive efficient water management and pricing plans for two of the four aquifer zones in the Central Oahu corridor, taking into account the possibility of inter-district water trade. Efficient management requires not only intertemporal efficiency within zones but also spatial efficiency between zones, where water is transferred from one zone to the next if, without the transfer, the intertemporal efficiency price in the receiving zone is greater than the efficiency price in the source zone plus the cost of transfer.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

PRICING RESOURCE EXTRACTION WITH STOCK EXTERNALITIES

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Pareto-Improving Water Management over Space and Time: The Honolulu Case

Despite a voluminous literature on groundwater management, proposals to induce efficient use through pricing or quantity regulations have often been politically infeasible. The common problem with these proposals is that current users are called on to sacrifice in order that future users will be better off. Although total welfare gains are greater than losses, present users are politically more influential than future users (some of whom are unborn) and are therefore able to block reforms. To avoid this problem of political infeasibility, a mechanism for compensating those who lose welfare due to efficient management can be provided. Compensation possibilities to enhance political feasibility have been discussed in general but have not been explicitly developed in an inter-temporal framework. Using the urban Honolulu water district, our objectives are to: 1) compute the efficient allocation of water across time and across locations, 2) compute efficiency prices needed at the margin to support the efficient allocation as a decentralized equilibrium, 3) simulate the effects of the status quo policy of pricing water at average cost of extraction and distribution, 4) estimate the topographic and temporal distribution of welfare gain/loss to users by switching from the status quo to efficiency pricing, and 5) define a lump sum compensation scheme such that the switch to efficiency pricing causes no user to be a net loser

Free-Range Farming and the Optimal Public and Private Responses to a Possible Epidemic

We develop an optimizing model of a farm that is subject to invasion by an infectious disease such as bird flu, where the probability of invasion depends on the degree of free- ranging on the farm and post-invasion rate of spread on the farm depends on the farm size, the farmer\u27s surveillance efforts, and the degree of free-ranging. We examine optimal policies for the farm and for the government, and analyze how these policies are affected by the degree of free-ranging. We find, inter alia, that when the farm size is endogenous fining an infected farm is superior as an instrument than providing it a rebate on costs, but when the farm size is exogenous the two instruments are equivalent. We also find that optimal surveillance effort, farm size, and fines are smaller for free-range farms when costs are sensitive to the degree of free-ranging