1,456 research outputs found
Description by author Alex Irvine of his recent participation in the San Diego C
No full textDescription by author Alex Irvine of his recent participation in the San Diego Comic-Con, one of the largest conferences of comic/media/book producers and consumers. Irvine was there to promote his new fiction book, One King, One Soldier, published by Del Rey
Chronicles of the Cariboo: Dunlevy's Discovery of Gold on the Horsefly:
No full textwritten by Alex P. McInnes.Being a true story of the first discovery of gold in the Cariboo District on the Horsefly River by Peter C. Dunlevey
Infrastructure bottlenecks, private provision, and industrial productivity : a study of Indonesian and Thai cities
No full textThis research project followed an earlier similar project on Nigeria, applying the same methods. A sample of manufacturers was surveyed to document their responses to infrastructure deficiencies in electricity, water, transport, telecommunications, and waste disposal. They found the manufacturers undertook significant expenditures to offset deficiencies in publicly provided infrastructure services, and that changing public policy toward privately supplied infrastructure and changing the pricing of public infrastructure could yield significant savings in social costs. Thailand and Indonesia have made significant strides in following the policies for private sector participation in infrastructure provision. Nigeria, where public infrastructure monopolies still dominate, lags behind, yet stands to benefit most from such policy reform. Government policy toward the industrial organization and pricing of infrastructure sectors can significantly help a developing economy realize the benefits of private sector participation in the provision of infrastructure services.Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Public Sector Economics&Finance
Substantial Differences in Crop Yield Sensitivities Between Models Call for Functionality‐Based Model Evaluation
No full textAbstract
Crop models are often used to project future crop yield under climate and global change and typically show a broad range of outcomes. To understand differences in modeled responses, we analyzed modeled crop yield response types using impact response surfaces along four drivers of crop yield: carbon dioxide (C), temperature (T), water (W), and nitrogen (N). Crop yield response types help to understand differences in simulated responses per driver and their combinations rather than aggregated changes in yields as the result of simultaneous changes in various drivers. We find that models' sensitivities to the individual drivers are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response types across models and their configurations suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model evaluation based on emergent functionality not only against historical yield observations but also against dedicated experiments across different drivers to analyze emergent functional patterns of crop models.Plain Language Summary
Crop models are widely used to compute crop yields under future climate change. Yields are determined by many interacting processes. Simulated future crop yields often show a broad uncertainty range. We investigate the sensitivity of nine different crop models to individual model inputs (carbon dioxide, temperature, water, nitrogen) in a very large simulation data set and find that there are substantial differences. We conclude that crop model evaluation needs to include analyses of functional properties to avoid that very diverse model responses to drivers are not tracked if interacting processes cancel out in the historical evaluation period but not in future scenarios, leading to large differences between models.Key Points
Crop models show strong differences in input sensitivities
Standardized modeling experiments reveal differences in emergent functional relationships
New standards in model evaluation are neededAbstract
Crop models are often used to project future crop yield under climate and global change and typically show a broad range of outcomes. To understand differences in modeled responses, we analyzed modeled crop yield response types using impact response surfaces along four drivers of crop yield: carbon dioxide (C), temperature (T), water (W), and nitrogen (N). Crop yield response types help to understand differences in simulated responses per driver and their combinations rather than aggregated changes in yields as the result of simultaneous changes in various drivers. We find that models' sensitivities to the individual drivers are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response types across models and their configurations suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model evaluation based on emergent functionality not only against historical yield observations but also against dedicated experiments across different drivers to analyze emergent functional patterns of crop models.Plain Language Summary
Crop models are widely used to compute crop yields under future climate change. Yields are determined by many interacting processes. Simulated future crop yields often show a broad uncertainty range. We investigate the sensitivity of nine different crop models to individual model inputs (carbon dioxide, temperature, water, nitrogen) in a very large simulation data set and find that there are substantial differences. We conclude that crop model evaluation needs to include analyses of functional properties to avoid that very diverse model responses to drivers are not tracked if interacting processes cancel out in the historical evaluation period but not in future scenarios, leading to large differences between models.Key Points
Crop models show strong differences in input sensitivities
Standardized modeling experiments reveal differences in emergent functional relationships
New standards in model evaluation are neededAbstract
Crop models are often used to project future crop yield under climate and global change and typically show a broad range of outcomes. To understand differences in modeled responses, we analyzed modeled crop yield response types using impact response surfaces along four drivers of crop yield: carbon dioxide (C), temperature (T), water (W), and nitrogen (N). Crop yield response types help to understand differences in simulated responses per driver and their combinations rather than aggregated changes in yields as the result of simultaneous changes in various drivers. We find that models' sensitivities to the individual drivers are substantially different and often more different across models than across regions. There is some agreement across models with respect to the spatial patterns of response types but strong differences in the distribution of response types across models and their configurations suggests that models need to undergo further scrutiny. We suggest establishing standards in model evaluation based on emergent functionality not only against historical yield observations but also against dedicated experiments across different drivers to analyze emergent functional patterns of crop models.Plain Language Summary
Crop models are widely used to compute crop yields under future climate change. Yields are determined by many interacting processes. Simulated future crop yields often show a broad uncertainty range. We investigate the sensitivity of nine different crop models to individual model inputs (carbon dioxide, temperature, water, nitrogen) in a very large simulation data set and find that there are substantial differences. We conclude that crop model evaluation needs to include analyses of functional properties to avoid that very diverse model responses to drivers are not tracked if interacting processes cancel out in the historical evaluation period but not in future scenarios, leading to large differences between models.Key Points
Crop models show strong differences in input sensitivities
Standardized modeling experiments reveal differences in emergent functional relationships
New standards in model evaluation are neededNational Science Board https://doi.org/10.13039/10000571
Sustainability and Bioethics
No full textGreen Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Ethics & Philosophy of Technolog
Multi-Objective Calibration For Agent-Based Models
No full textAgent-based modelling is already proving to be an immensely useful tool for scientific and industrial modelling applications. Whilst the building of such models will always be something between an art and a science, once a detailed model has been built, the process of parameter calibration should be performed as precisely as possible. This task is often made difficult by the proliferation of model parameters with non-linear interactions. In addition to this, these models generate a large number of outputs, and their ‘accuracy’ can be measured by many different, often conflicting, criteria. In this paper we demonstrate the use of multi-objective optimisation tools to calibrate just such an agent-based model. We use an agent-based model of a financial market as an exemplar and calibrate the model using a multi-objective genetic algorithm. The technique is automated and requires no explicit weighting of criteria prior to calibration. The final choice of parameter set can be made after calibration with the additional input of the domain expert
Climate Shifts Within Major Agricultural Seasons for +1.5 and +2.0 C Worlds: HAPPI Projections and AgMIP Modeling Scenarios
No full textThis study compares climate changes in major agricultural regions and current agricultural seasons associated with global warming of +1.5 or +2.0 C above pre-industrial conditions. It describes the generation of climate scenarios for agricultural modeling applications conducted as part of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Coordinated Global and Regional Assessments. Climate scenarios from the Half a degree Additional warming, Projections, Prognosis and Impacts project (HAPPI) are largely consistent with transient scenarios extracted from RCP4.5 simulations of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). Focusing on food and agricultural systems and top-producing breadbaskets in particular, we distinguish maize, rice, wheat, and soy season changes from global annual mean climate changes. Many agricultural regions warm at a rate that is faster than the global mean surface temperature (including oceans) but slower than the mean land surface temperature, leading to regional warming that exceeds 0.5 C between the +1.5 and +2.0 C Worlds. Agricultural growing seasons warm at a pace slightly behind the annual temperature trends in most regions, while precipitation increases slightly ahead of the annual rate. Rice cultivation regions show reduced warming as they are concentrated where monsoon rainfall is projected to intensify, although projections are influenced by Asian aerosol loading in climate mitigation scenarios. Compared to CMIP5, HAPPI slightly underestimates the CO2 concentration that corresponds to the +1.5 C World but overestimates the CO2 concentration for the +2.0 C World, which means that HAPPI scenarios may also lead to an overestimate in the beneficial effects of CO2 on crops in the +2.0 C World. HAPPI enables detailed analysis of the shifting distribution of extreme growing season temperatures and precipitation, highlighting widespread increases in extreme heat seasons and heightened skewness toward hot seasons in the tropics. Shifts in the probability of extreme drought seasons generally tracked median precipitation changes; however, some regions skewed toward drought conditions even where median precipitation changes were small. Together, these findings highlight unique seasonal and agricultural region changes in the +1.5 C and +2.0 C worlds for adaptation planning in these climate stabilization targets
Exploring climate change impacts and adaptation options for maize production in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia using different climate change scenarios and crop models
No full text201
Methodology of Provable Events in Distributed Socio-Technical Systems (UTE / TCR / TLI / GLOW)
No full textA hierarchical publication package for authorship priority claim. Universal Theory of Events (UTE) — ontological foundation defining event as triple e=(A,C,X). Theory of Converging Realities (TCR) — epistemological extension with polyvector convergence model. Theory of Labor Infrastructure (TLI) — domain application for human, algorithmic, and robotic labor. Mathematical Appendix — formal proofs including Stability Phase Boundary theorem, Hoeffding/Bernstein concentration bounds, adversarial breakdown analysis, and K-class extension. GLOW — global infrastructure vision. Bilingual (Russian/English). Author: Song Dal No (Alex Noh, 노송달). December 2025 — February 2026
Development of the Zimbabwe family planning program
No full textFamily planning was introduced in Zimbabwe as a voluntary movement in the 1950s. Volunteers formed a Family Planning Association in the mid-1960s. The government became interested in family planning in the late 1960s after analysis of the 1961 population census. It gave the Family Planning Association an annual grant, allowed contraceptives to be available through Ministry of Health facilities, and allowed nonmedical personnel to initiate and resupply family planning clients with condoms and pills. But before Zimbabwe achieved independence in 1980, family planning was viewed with great suspicion by the black majority, so the program's effectiveness was limited to the urban few. A new era began after independence. The new government took over theFamily Planning Association and changed its outlook completely. Through government and international donor support, the family planning program was restructured and expanded. The number of family planning personnel more than doubled in some units. More service delivery points were set up - particularly in rural areas. And the information, education, and communication and evaluation and research units were established. Through a World Bank-assisted project (with grant funding from Norway and Denmark), the Ministry of Health began strengthening its family planning capabilities. These efforts helped increase the contraceptive prevalence rate from about 14 percent in 1982 to 43 percent in 1988. But the program's growth is beginning to stall. More effort and resources are needed if the program is to grow or even maintain its present status. Particularly important are the following: designing innovative strategies to reach hard-to-reach populations; giving more emphasis to information, education, and communication, especially for men and youths, using multimedia; involving other sectors in the delivery of family planning services; broadening the mix of contraceptive methods (especially promoting long-term and permanent methods); making use of alternative family planning delivery systems, such as the use of depot holders, volunteers, and government extension workers; establishing a national population policy; and considering cost recovery and other measures for self-sustainment and program growth.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,ICT Policy and Strategies,Gender and Health,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health
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