Coordinating California’s efforts to promote waste to alcohol production

Alcohol fuels produced from biomass can improve air quality, enhance energy security, create employment opportunities, and reduce waste disposal problems. Opportunities in California exist to produce alcohols from waste streams from various sectors of the economy. Government agencies have promoted waste-to-alcohol activities, but efforts have been inconsistent and intermittent. Often these efforts have been hindered by contradictory but mandate-driven policies. A prudent approach to coordinate statewide efforts includes the development of an integrated statewide policy to examine barriers that impede private sector business efforts to produce alcohols from biomass. A multi-agency task force to promote research, development, commercialization, and marketing efforts for biomass-produced alcohols is desirable. The views and opinions contained in this document do not necessarily reflect those of the California Energy Commission, its staff, management, or the State of California.     

军民融合背景下地方政府支持与民企参军行为的演化博弈研究

民参军是军民融合的重要组成内容,政府支持对于民参军的顺利进行发挥着关键作用。本文通过建立军民融合背景下的地方政府支持与民企参军行为的演化博弈模型,考察了参与者的决策演化过程,分析了参与者的进化稳定策略及影响因素。研究表明,增加地方政府对民企的资金奖励、加大民企参军税收优惠、民企资金收益率的提升,以及积极参军成本的降低,会使民企策略选择向积极参军方向演化,但却使地方政府行为向弱力度支持策略演化;而提升中央政府对地方政府的资金补助,降低地方政府支持民企积极参军的服务成本,不仅促使民企选择积极参军策略,还能促使地方政府选择强力度支持策略。最后,对模型结果进行算例分析,验证了结论的合理性。研究结果可以为当前民参军实践提供一定的理论指导。     

政府奖励对报废汽车回收模式选择的作用机制研究——基于企业社会责任视角

随着我国报废汽车数量的增多,由其造成的交通隐患、环境污染和资源浪费已成为重要社会问题,而如何设计合理可行的回收模式成为解决问题的关键。以制造商主导为前提,提出了基于企业社会责任的报废汽车回收模型,构建了制造商回收、销售商回收和第三方回收模式下的回收流程和数学模型,通过实例对考虑和不考虑企业社会责任两种情况下的回收模型进行了分析,探讨了不同政府奖励下报废汽车回收模式的策略选择。通过研究发现:(1)不论是否考虑企业社会责任,随着政府奖励的增加,制造商最终都会选择由自己进行回收;(2)当考虑企业社会责任时,政府奖励和决策者经济责任偏好都会导致决策的改变,随着政府奖励和赋予经济责任权重的同步增加,制造商的决策由第三方企业回收模式或销售商回收模式变成了制造商回收模式,表明政府奖励和企业社会责任对报废汽车回收模式选择具有显著影响。     

Modeling the role of government efforts in controlling extremism in a society

People having extreme idealogies affect the process in a region using fear of terror acts, money power, and the word of mouth communication network to change individuals to their way of thinking. This forces government to divert its limited financial resources for controlling extremism and thus affecting development. In this paper, therefore, a nonlinear mathematical model is proposed to study the dynamics of extremism governed by four dependent variables, namely, number of people in the general population having no extreme ideology, number of extreme ideologists, number of isolated ideologists (prisoners), and the cumulative density of government efforts and their interactions. The model is analyzed using the stability theory of differential equations and computer simulation. The analysis shows that if appropriate level of government efforts is applied on extremists, the spread of their ideology can be controlled in the general population. A numerical study of the model is also carried out to investigate the effects of certain parameters on the spread of extremism confirming the analytical results.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An analysis of managerialism and performance in English and Welsh male prisons

This paper fills a noticeable gap in the current economic and penology literature by proposing new performance-enhancing policies based on an efficiency analysis of a sample of male prisons in England and Wales over the period 2009/10. In addition, we advance the empirical literature by integrating the managerialism of four strategic functions of prisons, employment and accommodation, capacity utilization, quality of life in prison and the rehabilitation and re-offending of prisoners. We find that by estimating multiple models focussing on these different areas some prisons are more efficient than other establishments. In terms of policy, it is therefore necessary to consider not just an overall performance metric for individual prisons, as currently undertaken annually by the UK Ministry of Justice, but to look into the administration and managerialism of their main functions in both a business and public policy perspective. Indeed, it is further necessary to view prisons together and not as single entities, so as to obtain a best practice frontier for the different operations that management undertakes in English and Welsh prisons.     

基于进化博弈视角的水源地与下游生态补偿合作演化分析

水源地与下游地方政府之间的协议合作可以协调流域上下游之间的矛盾和利益,是一种可实现流域生态保护良性循环的生态补偿尝试。本文应用进化博弈的双种群博弈理论,研究了水源地和下游地方政府之间博弈演化过程及影响因素。研究表明,流域上下游地方政府合作的演化方向主要受水源地不保护及下游不补偿受到的惩罚、下游对水源地的补偿额度、水源地和下游合作的初始成本、水源地生态保护的成本及收益等八个因素的影响。降低水源地的保护成本及水源地和下游合作的初始成本,提高水源地因保护而获得的综合效益、提高水源地不保护及下游不补偿受到的惩罚额度、合理确定下游对水源地的补偿额度将有利于水源地生态补偿机制向合作方向演进。     

The analysis of popular collective action

Most models of popular collective action treat it as the behavior of single social units having unitary dispositions that explain the behavior. Since in fact it consists largely of strategic interaction among several parties, activates and builds on existing social networks, and follows a dynamic that no single-actor model can represent, available models are inadequate. Through sustained discussion of the rural conflicts of 1830 in England, this paper illustrates the critique, sketches an alternative approach centering on the analysis of repertoires of contention, and describes techniques for standardizing narratives of contention that are compatible with the alternative approach.     

I.I. Rabi: The Two Cultures and the Universal Culture of Science

I set forth and discuss I.I. Rabis views on the nature of science and society, focusing specifically on Rabis views on science and government, science and education, and science and religion. I also explore the influence of Rabi and C.P. Snow on each other. In the 1960s, Rabi set forth his mature and boldest positions, advocating science as the center of education and science as the replacement for religion. His positions culminate in science as the universal culture. I highlight Rabi not only as a scientist and public servant, but also as a public intellectual actively engaged with and connected to major issues of his time.Michael A. Day is Professor of Physics at Lebanon Valley College. He holds doctorates in both physics and philosophy.     

Cooperation between scientists and the government in the US: benefits and problems

This paper discusses the importance of maintaining close working relations between scientists and their government. Several examples of this cooperation in the U.S. are presented to illustrate the benefits, as well as problems, that result from such cooperation, or lack thereof. These examples include government support of scientific research, as well as contributions by science to help governments understand both the possibilities and the limitations of science as they formulate national policy.     

A mixed integer linear programming model for optimal sovereign debt issuance

Governments borrow funds to finance the excess of cash payments or interest payments over receipts, usually by issuing fixed income debt and index-linked debt. The goal of this work is to propose a stochastic optimization-based approach to determine the composition of the portfolio issued over a series of government auctions for the fixed income debt, to minimize the cost of servicing debt while controlling risk and maintaining market liquidity. We show that this debt issuance problem can be modeled as a mixed integer linear programming problem with a receding horizon. The stochastic model for the interest rates is calibrated using a Kalman filter and the future interest rates are represented using a recombining trinomial lattice for the purpose of scenario-based optimization. The use of a latent factor interest rate model and a recombining lattice provides us with a realistic, yet very tractable scenario generator and allows us to do a multi-stage stochastic optimization involving integer variables on an ordinary desktop in a matter of seconds. This, in turn, facilitates frequent re-calibration of the interest rate model and re-optimization of the issuance throughout the budgetary year allows us to respond to the changes in the interest rate environment. We successfully demonstrate the utility of our approach by out-of-sample back-testing on the UK debt issuance data.