Simulating impacts of water trading in an institutional perspective

Water availability in outback Australia is defined by the occurrence of large rainfall events, and changes often from a situation of scarcity to temporary abundance. Informal institutions are often able to translate such dynamics into sustainable water-use rules. Policy interventions are mainly focused on changing access rules to avoid over-use or inefficiencies. Such formal institutional changes can lead to unexpected unsustainable outcomes; outcomes that are often captured in the ‘story’ behind informal arrangements.This paper analyses one case study on water access in outback Australia and translates field work results into an agent-based model. The agent-based model is calibrated based on data from experiments conducted with actual farmers from the case study region. In order to project unintended outcomes of institutional changes, interventions in water access is explored in an applied context. The core focus of the modelling exercise is the treatment of newcomers on a newly created trading scheme for water access rights. Simulation results show that total water extraction is significantly lower if the burden of water restrictions is limited to newcomers while the regional economic performance is not statistically different from a case in which the burden is carried by all irrigators. Interview data documents that currently extraction levels are regulated by informal processes as community members communicate observations on river health to irrigators who adjust accordingly, which indicates perceived personal responsibility. Overall, the environmental and economic performance of a water trading scheme that will replace this informal self-regulating system depends on how water restrictions are implemented and how valid the overall cap of 20% outtake is, which is not widely accepted throughout the community.     

Electronic trading and the process of globalization in traditional futures exchanges: a temporal perspective

This paper develops a temporal perspective to examine information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption and processes of globalization. The foundations of our theoretical approach explicitly draw upon three intersecting planes of temporality implicit in structuration; namely reversibility, irreversibility and institutionalization. We further develop our theoretical perspective by extending the scope of structuration to incorporate temporal features of Adam's social theory on ‘global time’. We then use this temporal perspective to examine the emergence of electronic trading and the process of globalization across London and Chicago futures exchanges. Our analysis provides insights into the IT-enabled reconfiguration of these exchanges during processes of reproduction and change associated with globalization. We conclude with some key implications for e-trading strategy and consider changes in trader work life associated with the adoption of e-trading.     

Computational gene identification: an open problem

As the Human Genome Project enters the large-scale sequencing phase, computational gene identification methods are becoming essential for the automatic analysis and annotation of large uncharacterized genomic sequences. Currently available computer programs relying mainly on sequence coding statistics are of great use in pin-pointing regions in genomic sequences containing exons. Such programs perform rather poorly, however, when the problem is to fully elucidate gene structure. For this problem, the DNA sequence signals involved in the specification of the genes—start sites and splice sites—carry a lot of information, and simple methods relying on such information can predict gene structure with an accuracy to some extent comparable to that of other more sophisticated computational methods.     

The optimal process mean problem: Integrating predictability and profitability into an experimental factor space

For complex manufacturing systems, process or product optimization can be instrumental in achieving a significant economic advantage. To reduce costs associated with product non-conformance or excessive waste, engineers often identify the most critical quality characteristics and then use methods to obtain their ideal parameter settings. The optimal process mean problem is one such statistical method; it begins with the assumption of the characteristic parameters, whereby the ideal settings are determined based upon the tradeoff among various processing costs. Unfortunately, however, the ideal parameter settings for a characteristic mean can be unpredictable, as it is directly influenced by changes in the process variability, tolerance, and cost structure. In this paper, a method is proposed that relates the optimal process mean to the ideal settings through experimental design. With the method, one may gain greater predictability of the new optimal process mean when the process conditions are altered. The methodology is illustrated for a process with multiple mixed quality characteristics; such an optimal process mean problem is seldom treated in the literature.     

Warning research: an integrative perspective

We developed an integrative perspective on the empirical evidence supporting the influence of particular variables on the warning process based on a broad review of the warning literature. The warning process is described in terms of the following four components: notice, encode, comprehend, and comply. Relevant variables are classified as person variables (characteristics of the individual interacting with the warning) and warning variables (characteristics of the warning itself or the context in which the warning appears). This integrative perspective yields general principles about the variables that influence the warning process and serves as a resource for warning developers and as a guide to facilitate effective analysis of warnings. We also identify aspects of the warning process that are not well understood, directions for effective methods of intervention, and a research agenda for future efforts. Actual or potential applications of this research include improving the design of warnings.     

E-commerce and corporate strategy: an executive perspective

Despite the recent downturn in Internet-based business, the dollar value of electronic commerce (EC) transactions is increasing at an astounding rate. In consumer-to-business applications, the amount of money spent by online shoppers is nearly doubling every year and is expected to approach US$ 100 billion by 2004 while business-to-business sales is expected to reach US$ 1.3 trillion by 2003. These opportunities, powered by the evolving computing and communication technologies, enable companies to gain tremendous operational efficiencies, personalization, and information based products and services. More and more conventional brick and mortar firms see e-commerce initiatives as offering strategic opportunities to transcend their normal operations. This study proposes that e-commerce initiatives are important strategic initiatives and that firms with a stronger EC market orientation will be more successful. Content analysis of CEO’s letter to shareholders of 145 Fortune 500 firms was conducted to evaluate the importance of EC and strategic orientation. The results provide support to the study’s propositions and indicate that EC must be pursued carefully as a strategic initiative rather than as an appendage to an existing organization.     

Adaptive sorting: an information theoretic perspective

We present two algorithms that are near optimal with respect to the number of inversions present in the input. One of the algorithms is a variation of insertion sort, and the other is a variation of merge sort. The number of comparisons performed by our algorithms, on an input sequence of length n that has I inversions, is at most . Moreover, both algorithms have implementations that run in time . All previously published algorithms require at least comparisons for some c > 1. M. L. Fredman was supported in part by NSF grant CCR-9732689.     

Teachers' computer anxiety: an international perspective

Computer anxiety was investigated among 308 teachers in Lebanese schools known to use computers in their regular educational programs using the Computer Anxiety Rating Scale. The scale's performance is discussed in light of the findings of other studies that used the same scale in international settings. Tendencies in teachers' anxiety are discussed in relation to teachers' educational attributes and their computer background.     

Multimodal hyperspectral remote sensing:an overview and perspective

Since the advent of hyperspectral remote sensing in the 1980s,it has made important achieve-ments in aerospace and aviation field and been applied in many field...     

IT-enabled change: evaluating an improvisational perspective

This paper presents an empirical study into a hierarchical organization's experience with the adoption and use of an adaptive information technology, in this case a workflow application. The paper takes an improvisational perspective on the change process and assesses it through a case study which examines the organization's experiences in terms of anticipated, opportunity-based and emergent changes to their processes, structure and culture that were enabled by the introduction of the workflow application. The findings build upon Orlikowski and Hofman's improvisational change model by evaluating the model in a different organizational context to that of the original study. The findings reveal that ongoing improvisational changes can occur in hierarchical organizations and that improvisations and adaptations can occur in organizations which adopt adaptive IT provided that ongoing support for change management is forthcoming. The findings also suggest that there is a correlation between the level of customer dissatisfaction and the emergence of any local improvisations regardless of the organization type. This implies that an improvisational perspective may be useful for hierarchical organizations which introduce new technology as the local improvisations which can occur may be leveraged for advantage. The study also raises important questions about the categorisation of technologies as adaptive and critically reflects on this aspect of the improvisational change model.     

Computers and curriculum change: an action research perspective

Abstract This paper raises general issues about the way computer systems are developed and relates them to education, in particular the role of teachers in research into classroom applications. The views expressed arise from research into the use of wordprocessors in secondary schools. The broad framework of the research work undertaken has been the relationship between the introduction of computers, the perception of users and the conditions for genuine change in practice. Curriculum research is a necessary part of the process of change but it must address the practical context through those most directly involved in it. The introduction of computers across the curriculum has raised questions about their impact on learning and teaching. The key question is how teachers might be active participants in such a process. Using a simplified representation of the innovation process, issues are raised about the development and evaluation of computer systems, the context into which they are introduced, the people who use them and the interrelationship between those elements.     

Algorithmic trading system: design and applications

This paper provides an overview of research and development in algorithmic trading and discusses key issues involved in the current effort on its improvement, which would be of great value to traders and investors. Some current systems for algorithmic trading are introduced, together with some illustrations of their functionalities. We then present our platform named FiSim and discuss its overall design as well as some experimental results in user strategy comparisons.     

Algorithmic trading system:design and applications

This paper provides an overview of research and development in algorithmic trading and discusses key issues involved in the current effort on its improvement, which would be of great value to traders and investors. Some current systems for algorithmic trading are introduced, together with some illustrations of their functionalities. We then present our platform named FiSimn and discuss its overall design as well as some experimental results in user strategy comparisons.     

Computational thinking and tinkering: Exploration of an early childhood robotics curriculum

By engaging in construction-based robotics activities, children as young as four can play to learn a range of concepts. The TangibleK Robotics Program paired developmentally appropriate computer programming and robotics tools with a constructionist curriculum designed to engage kindergarten children in learning computational thinking, robotics, programming, and problem-solving. This paper documents three kindergarten classrooms' exposure to computer programming concepts and explores learning outcomes. Results point to strengths of the curriculum and areas where further redesign of the curriculum and technologies would be appropriate. Overall, the study demonstrates that kindergartners were both interested in and able to learn many aspects of robotics, programming, and computational thinking with the TangibleK curriculum design.     

Computational intelligence and visual computing: an emerging technology for software engineering

 The discipline of Software Engineering is abstract and complex with all its endeavors being cast in a knowledge-intensive environment. It is not surprising that there have been a number of important initiatives that have attempted to address a burning need for solid development tools and comprehensive environments supporting an in-depth analysis. The objective of this study is to discuss a role of Computational Intelligence (CI) and visual computing being viewed as a sound methodological and algorithmic environment for knowledge-oriented Software Engineering. The CI itself is regarded as a synergistic consortium of granular computing (including fuzzy sets) promoting abstraction, neurocomputing supporting various learning schemes and evolutionary computing providing important faculties of global optimization. By its very nature, CI embraces a diversity of design paradigms; in particular it promotes a top-down approach (when exploiting fuzzy sets first and afterwards working in the neural network environment) or bottom-up style (where these two technologies are used in a reverse order). Visual computing is inherently associated with CI: it is human-centric where fuzzy sets make visualization activities feasible. Fuzzy sets are treated as a graphic means of accepting information from users. They are regarded as a vehicle used to visualize results in a linguistic manner. Software Engineering and CI are highly compatible: they are knowledge-intensive, human-oriented, and have to deal with various manifestations of the abstract world of software constructs and thought processes. This multifaceted conceptual compatibility is a prerequisite for the development of vital synergistic links that bring the technology of CI into Software Engineering. The symbiosis accrues considerable benefits for both technologies by posing new categories of challenging and highly stimulating problems. The facet of visual computing is essential in handling of software processes and software products. The intent of this study is to provide a general overview of this new development in Software Engineering. In particular, we highlight a number of selected and most visible trends occurring at the junction of CI and Software Engineering. Furthermore we discuss several specific applications of the technology of CI to software cost estimation, analysis of software measures and neural models of software quality. Support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Alberta Software Engineering Research Consortium (ASERC) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Modeling and speed control design of an ethanol engine for variable speed gensets

This paper presents the development of a discrete dynamic mean value engine model (MVEM) suitable for the design of speed controllers of ethanol fueled internal combustion engines (ICE), to be used in variable speed gensets. Two MVEMs are developed for the ICE: the Time Based model and the Crank Based model. The speed controller design is held through the discretization and linearization of the Crank Based MVEM. This model is used due to the advantages over the time based MVEM especially with respect to the transport delay which becomes constant. Two approaches for the ICE speed control are investigated: (i) a single loop gain-scheduled proportional integral (PI) controller and (ii) a dual loop control based on an internal gain-scheduled Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) feedback loop and an outer loop composed of a gain-scheduled PI controller. The control design is developed in the frequency domain and its stability is ensured by the phase and gain margins. In addition, an integral anti-windup and a feed forward action are also proposed to improve the behavior during control law saturation, improve transient responses and disturbance rejection capability. Experimental results on a 50 kW generator set are provided to validate the controllers and to demonstrate the performance of the system.     

Determinants of business sustainability: an ergonomics perspective

There is a need to integrate both macro- and micro-ergonomic approaches for the effective implementation of interventions designed to improve the root causes of problems such as work safety, quality and productivity in the enterprise system. The objective of this study was to explore from an ergonomics perspective the concept of business sustainability through optimising the worker-work environment interface. The specific aims were: (a) to assess the working conditions of a production department work process with the goal to jointly optimise work safety, quality and quantity; (b) to evaluate the enterprise-wide work process at the system level as a social entity in an attempt to trace the root causes of ergonomic issues impacting employees throughout the work process. The Work Compatibility Model was deployed to examine the experiences of workers (that is, effort, perceived risk/benefit, performance and satisfaction/dissatisfaction or psychological impact) and their associations with the complex domains of the work environment (task content, physical and non-physical work environment and conditions for learning/growth/development). This was followed by assessment of the enterprise system through detailed interviews with department managers and lead workers. A system diagnostic instrument was also constructed from information derived from the published literature to evaluate the enterprise system performance. The investigation of the production department indicated that the stress and musculoskeletal pain experienced by workers (particularly on the day shift) were derived from sources elsewhere in the work process. The enterprise system evaluation and detailed interviews allowed the research team to chart the feed-forward and feedback stress propagation loops in the work system. System improvement strategies were extracted on the basis of tacit/explicit knowledge obtained from department managers and lead workers. In certain situations concerning workplace human performance issues, a combined macro-micro ergonomic methodology is essential to solve the productivity, quality and safety issues impacting employees along the trajectory or path of the enterprise-wide work process. In this study, the symptoms associated with human performance issues in one production department work process had root causes originating in the customer service department work process. In fact, the issues found in the customer service department caused performance problems elsewhere in the enterprise-wide work process such as the traffic department. Sustainable enterprise solutions for workplace human performance require the integration of macro- and micro-ergonomic approaches.