Schar School of Policy and Government
Permanent URI for this collection
This collection contains ETD documents from the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs.
Browse
Browsing Schar School of Policy and Government by Subject "Agent-based modeling"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Slumulation: An Integrated Simulation Framework to Explore Spatio‐Temporal Dynamics of Slum Formation in Ahmedabad, India(2012-08-27) Patel, Amit; Patel, Amit; Stough, Roger R.More than 900 million people or one third of world’s urban population live in either slum or squatter settlements. In the past decades, international, national and local development agencies have taken several policy actions to address this challenge. Despite these policy efforts, slum‐free cities remain a distant goal for many developing countries. It is thus important to investigate the empirical questions related to slum formation for informed policymaking: (i) how do slums form and expand? (ii) where and when are they formed? and (iii) what types of structural changes and/or policy interventions could improve housing conditions for urban poor? This dissertation integrates Discrete Event Simulation (DES), Agent‐Based Modeling (ABM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into a single simulation framework, named Slumulation, to explore slum formation dynamics. Slumulation is designed to serve as a decision support tool that could be useful for urban planners xiv and policymakers to experiment with new policy ideas ex‐ante in a simulated environment with minimal data requirement. The core of this framework is a linked dynamic model operating at both micro and macro geographical and demographic scales. Slumulation explores the collective effect of many interacting inhabitants of slums as well as non‐slums and how their interactions with the spatial environment of the city generate emergent structure of slums at the macro scale. Slumulation is tested with a case study of Ahmedabad, a sixth largest city of India with 41% of its population living in slums.Item The Adoption of Electronic Medical Records by U.S. Hospitals: An Exploration of Network Methods and ModelsHu, Yinyue; Hu, Yinyue; Schintler, LauraWhy do people adopt innovations at different rate? Studies from the diffusion of innovations and network models suggest that network structure and properties provide good explanations of the influence mechanism about how attitudes and behaviors change. This study investigates the adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) among U.S. hospitals with network methods and models. Three research questions are addressed. First, what is the structure of the networks among hospitals? Second, how does the presence of network contribute to the diffusion of EMR? And third, what network-based policies can accelerate the adoption? The study employs network analysis tools, event history models and agent based modeling to present the structure of the network, its role in the diffusion process and to test different policy scenarios.Item The Interdependent Nature of National Cyber Security: Motivating Private Action for a Public Good(2011-05-12) Hare, Forrest; Hare, Forrest; Sommer, RainerThe federal government relies largely on voluntary actions by the private firms that comprise the nation’s critical infrastructure to secure their operations. Several recent reports have highlighted the potential for cyber security externalities if IT and control systems are not more sufficiently secured. This research will employ a mixed methods approach in an effort to extend limited empirical research regarding the problem of national security in cyberspace. The first perspective will employ an agent-based model to analyze the cyber security investment decision in the defense industrial base. The second will be a case study of the information-sharing network between the electricity sector and the federal government.