AGRICULTURAL PLANNING EXPERT: A MODEL OF FARM ENTERPRISE SELECTION

Agricultural Planning Expert is a software model designed for advising small-scale farmers in southern Maryland. Choosing farm enterprises is modelled as consisting of four activities: suggesting enterprises for consideration, investigating the suitability of enterprises, allocating resources to suitable enterprises, and controlling the overall direction of an advising session.Farm Management,

Evaluation of capacitors for space propulsion applications final progress report

Low inductance energy storage capacitors for space propulsion application

Washington START Transportation Model

The document describes the Washington START transportation simulation model. In particular, it provides information about the model structure, the equilibrium concept, and the data used to calibrate the model. It also briefly describes the reference scenario and the elasticity analysis. Finally, the document discusses past and potential future applications and possible directions for model extensions.transportation simulation, policy analysis, general equilibrium, travel demand, transportation network, mode of transportation

Differentiated Road Pricing, Express Lanes and Carpools: Exploiting Heterogeneous Preferences in Policy Design

In the face of rising congestion on the nation's road system, policymakers have explored ways to reduce travel delays. One approach has been to allocate reserved lanes, called high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes, to vehicles carrying two or more people. A recent innovation is to allow solo drivers to use the HOV lanes if they pay a toll. These so-called high-occupancy-toll (HOT) lanes can be found in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, and Minneapolis and are under consideration in several other urban areas. In this paper, we argue that HOV and HOT lanes sacrifice efficiency by failing to price all lanes.Moreover, we show that it is possible to set prices on all lanes that improve on the efficiency of HOV and HOT policies and by catering to motorists' varying preferences, can meet the test of political acceptability.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN CAUSES OF PHILIPPINE RESPONSES TO CHINA COERCION IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA?

In the past decade, the Philippines has reacted differently over time to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. This thesis aims to explain the most likely causes of Philippine behavior. Using five case studies from 2012–2021, this thesis examines how the following six factors influenced resistance or accommodating behavior in the two most recent presidential administrations: trust in the U.S.–Philippine alliance, policies to protect claims, strength of China’s military capabilities, diplomatic interests, political interests, and economic interests. The thesis finds that resistance behavior is more likely to occur when there is high trust in the U.S.–Philippine alliance, a strong policy to protect claims, weak Chinese military capabilities, decreased diplomatic interests, decreased political interests, and decreased economic interests. Conversely, accommodating behavior is more likely to occur when there is low trust in the U.S.–Philippine alliance, a weak policy to protect claims, strong Chinese military capabilities, increased diplomatic interests, increased political interests, and increased economic interests. Taking these factors into account, the thesis recommends that the United States increases security and economic ties to enhance the Philippines’ confidence to push back against an asymmetric threat while also reducing the likelihood of accommodating behavior by helping the Philippines to limit its economic dependencies on China.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited