Friday, December 31, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
Mark Fischer records whale sounds, and creates stunning high resolution images as an art form using Wavelets analysis
© 2007 AguaSonic Acoustics. Call from a Blue whale recorded off the coast of California
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The sacred geometry of chance, The hidden law of a probable outcome, and the numbers lead a dance
"Bayesians assign probabilities to any statement whatsoever, even when no random process is involved. Probability, for a Bayesian, is a way to represent an individual's degree of belief in a statement, or an objective degree of rational belief [..]"
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Tensors VS Tension
Tullio Levi-Civita (29 March 1873 — 29 December 1941); was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity.He was a pupil of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, the inventor of tensor calculus
In 1900 he and Ricci-Curbastro published the theory of tensors which Albert Einstein used as a resource to master the tensor calculus, a critical tool in Einstein's development of the theory of general relativity. Levi-Civita's series of papers were also discussed in his 1915–1917 correspondence with Einstein. The correspondence was initiated by Levi-Civita, as he found mathematical errors in Einstein's use of tensor calculus to explain theory of relativity. It's evident from these letters that, after numerous letters, the two men had grown to respect each other. In one of the letters, regarding Levi-Civita's new work,
Einstein wrote:
"I admire the elegance of your method of computation; it must be nice to ride through these fields upon the horse of true mathematics while the like of us have to make our way laboriously on foot".
C Cattani and M De Maria, Geniality and rigor: the Einstein – Levi-Civita correspondence (1915–1917), Riv. Stor. Sci. (2) 4 (1) (1996), 1–22; as cited in MacTutor archive..
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Political tourism in the Negev and Bedouin tribes
[..] Every foreign visitor relied implicitly on a specific fantasy of an "authentic voice" from the absent [Bedouin] local community. In this process, ordinary people from Bedouin towns, were fashioned by these various flows of political activist: once as an essential Bedouin, once as a heroic active anti-Israeli resister, once as the passive victim of a humanitarian case.... and, sometimes, as a bit of all these. Ali, a Bedouin truck driver, was not even aware of being so many things!
[..] all those claims are sometimes produced "outside" and projected on contingent situation which actually are used instrumentally. They may reflect a specific political agenda or some psychologic need of the "humanitarian" tourist visiting the Negev.
These claims, pre-packaged and then projected (or injected) into the local comunities created and amplified, by becoming increasingly dislocated into a global "infoscape", they enhance a meta-conflict where symbols tend to refer only to other symbols. Or, as Slavoj Zizek puts it, "reality is never directly itself".
Adapted from a seminar of Dr. Alexander Koensler
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Srping 2010
all the way into the rabbit hole..
something changes all the times,
and, luckily, something doesn't..
according to some wonderful
unknown rule
something changes all the times,
and, luckily, something doesn't..
according to some wonderful
unknown rule
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
About World Water Day
The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.
The United Nations General Assembly designated 22 March of each year as the World Day for Water by adopting a resolution.This world day for water was to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development contained in chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21.
States were invited to devote the Day to implement the UN recommendations and set up concrete activities as deemed appropriate in the national context.
The Subcommittee welcomes the assistance offered by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre to contribute to an information network centre in support of the observance of the Day by Governments, as required.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Positive economics
Positive economics is sometimes defined as the economics of "what is", whereas normative economics discusses "what ought to be". The distinction was exposited by John Neville Keynes (1891) and elaborated by Milton Friedman in an influential 1953 essay. Still, positive economics is commonly deemed necessary for the ranking of economic policies or outcomes as to acceptability (Wong, 1987, p. 921), which is normative economics.
Environmental economics is needed to include ecological resources into the economic analysis, in order to correct markets failures, and pursue optimal allocation of resources. By the way, conditions for perfeGenerally, a perfectly competitive market exists when every participant is a "price taker," and no participant influences the price of the product it buys or sells. Specific characteristics may include:• Infinite Buyers/Infinite Sellers • Zero Entry/Exit Barriers • Perfect Information • Transactions are Costless • Firms Aim to Maximize Profits • Homogeneous Products
The market does not lead to efficient solutions because of various types of market failures:- Negative externalities- Public goods- Imperfect information- Participatory and Empowerment Failures- Missing markets: open access to resources
Environmental economics is needed to include ecological resources into the economic analysis, in order to correct markets failures, and pursue optimal allocation of resources. By the way, conditions for perfeGenerally, a perfectly competitive market exists when every participant is a "price taker," and no participant influences the price of the product it buys or sells. Specific characteristics may include:• Infinite Buyers/Infinite Sellers • Zero Entry/Exit Barriers • Perfect Information • Transactions are Costless • Firms Aim to Maximize Profits • Homogeneous Products
The market does not lead to efficient solutions because of various types of market failures:- Negative externalities- Public goods- Imperfect information- Participatory and Empowerment Failures- Missing markets: open access to resources
Monday, February 15, 2010
Summing up the lesson of Hardin
1) Common goods tend to be overexploited;
2) Appealing to morality and coscience to prevent overexplotation does not work (he sayd that: it is psycologically pathogenic)
2b) on the countrary it focuss attention to social and personal anxiety (etc etc)
He suggest:
3) he suggest clear rules that he cals: mutual coercion mutually agreed upon
2) Appealing to morality and coscience to prevent overexplotation does not work (he sayd that: it is psycologically pathogenic)
2b) on the countrary it focuss attention to social and personal anxiety (etc etc)
He suggest:
3) he suggest clear rules that he cals: mutual coercion mutually agreed upon
This is funny - Something more from this Dr. Hardin
Pathogenic Effects of Conscience
The long-term disadvantage of an appeal to conscience should be enough to condemn it; but has serious short-term disadvantages as well. If we ask a man who is exploiting a commons to desist "in the name of conscience," what are we saying to him? What does he hear? --not only at the moment but also in the wee small hours of the night when, half asleep, he remembers not merely the words we used but also the nonverbal communication cues we gave him unawares? Sooner or later, consciously or subconsciously, he senses that he has received two communications, and that they are contradictory: (i) (intended communication) "If you don't do as we ask, we will openly condemn you for not acting like a responsible citizen"; (ii) (the unintended communication) "If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the commons."
….
To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond the legal limits. Leaders at the highest level succumb to this temptation. Has any President during the past generation failed to call on labor unions to moderate voluntarily their demands for higher wages, or to steel companies to honor voluntary guidelines on prices? I can recall none. The rhetoric used on such occasions is designed to produce feelings of guilt in noncooperators.
For centuries it was assumed without proof that guilt was a valuable, perhaps even an indispensable, ingredient of the civilized life. Now, in this post-Freudian world, we doubt it.
Paul Goodman speaks from the modern point of view when he says: "No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties" (18).
….
One does not have to be a professional psychiatrist to see the consequences of anxiety. We in the Western world are just emerging from a dreadful two-centuries-long Dark Ages of Eros that was sustained partly by prohibition laws, but perhaps more effectively by the anxiety-generating mechanism of education. Alex Comfort has told the story well in The Anxiety Makers (19); it is not a pretty one.
Since proof is difficult, we may even concede that the results of anxiety may sometimes, from certain points of view, be desirable. The larger question we should ask is whether, as a matter of policy, we should ever encourage the use of a technique the tendency (if not the intention) of which is psychologically pathogenic. We hear much talk these days of responsible parenthood; the coupled words are incorporated into the titles of some organizations devoted to birth control. Some people have proposed massive propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's (or the world's) breeders. But what is the meaning of the word responsibility in this context? Is it not merely a synonym for the word conscience?
Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed upon
The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort. Consider bank-robbing. The man who takes money from a bank acts as if the bank were a commons. How do we prevent such action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a verbal appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the definite social arrangements that will keep it from becoming a commons.
The long-term disadvantage of an appeal to conscience should be enough to condemn it; but has serious short-term disadvantages as well. If we ask a man who is exploiting a commons to desist "in the name of conscience," what are we saying to him? What does he hear? --not only at the moment but also in the wee small hours of the night when, half asleep, he remembers not merely the words we used but also the nonverbal communication cues we gave him unawares? Sooner or later, consciously or subconsciously, he senses that he has received two communications, and that they are contradictory: (i) (intended communication) "If you don't do as we ask, we will openly condemn you for not acting like a responsible citizen"; (ii) (the unintended communication) "If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the commons."
….
To conjure up a conscience in others is tempting to anyone who wishes to extend his control beyond the legal limits. Leaders at the highest level succumb to this temptation. Has any President during the past generation failed to call on labor unions to moderate voluntarily their demands for higher wages, or to steel companies to honor voluntary guidelines on prices? I can recall none. The rhetoric used on such occasions is designed to produce feelings of guilt in noncooperators.
For centuries it was assumed without proof that guilt was a valuable, perhaps even an indispensable, ingredient of the civilized life. Now, in this post-Freudian world, we doubt it.
Paul Goodman speaks from the modern point of view when he says: "No good has ever come from feeling guilty, neither intelligence, policy, nor compassion. The guilty do not pay attention to the object but only to themselves, and not even to their own interests, which might make sense, but to their anxieties" (18).
….
One does not have to be a professional psychiatrist to see the consequences of anxiety. We in the Western world are just emerging from a dreadful two-centuries-long Dark Ages of Eros that was sustained partly by prohibition laws, but perhaps more effectively by the anxiety-generating mechanism of education. Alex Comfort has told the story well in The Anxiety Makers (19); it is not a pretty one.
Since proof is difficult, we may even concede that the results of anxiety may sometimes, from certain points of view, be desirable. The larger question we should ask is whether, as a matter of policy, we should ever encourage the use of a technique the tendency (if not the intention) of which is psychologically pathogenic. We hear much talk these days of responsible parenthood; the coupled words are incorporated into the titles of some organizations devoted to birth control. Some people have proposed massive propaganda campaigns to instill responsibility into the nation's (or the world's) breeders. But what is the meaning of the word responsibility in this context? Is it not merely a synonym for the word conscience?
Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed upon
The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort. Consider bank-robbing. The man who takes money from a bank acts as if the bank were a commons. How do we prevent such action? Certainly not by trying to control his behavior solely by a verbal appeal to his sense of responsibility. Rather than rely on propaganda we follow Frankel's lead and insist that a bank is not a commons; we seek the definite social arrangements that will keep it from becoming a commons.
Garrett James Hardin (21 April 1915 – 14 September 2003) was a leading and controversial ecologist
Garrett James Hardin (21 April 1915 – 14 September 2003) was a leading and controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas, who was most well known for his 1968 paper, The Tragedy of the Commons.
Some quotations:
Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons
“At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.
As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.
2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of 1.
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. “
Pollution
In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in--sewage, or chemical, radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air, and distracting and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.
Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable
Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations. In late 1967, some 30 nations agreed to the following (14):
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
Some quotations:
Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons
“At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.
As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.
2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of 1.
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. “
Pollution
In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in--sewage, or chemical, radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air, and distracting and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them.
Freedom To Breed Is Intolerable
Unfortunately this is just the course of action that is being pursued by the United Nations. In late 1967, some 30 nations agreed to the following (14):
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Pubblic VS Private responsability
Carbon intensity quotas
Carbon emission trading
Carbon sequestration
International negotiations
International agreements
Kyoto Protocol
Rio de Janeiro Declaration
Environmental policies
Energy efficiency
Renewable energies
Research & Developments
Eco-labelling
Eco-auditing
Ethical investments
If you only think about that.. it is quite surprising how corporate business, international institutions, big and small Governments have been charging on themselves appointments, targets, restrictions, fees, incentives and so on..
I am used to look at corporate business and government suspiciously, I don’t trust them completely when it comes to natural environment… but … but... I have to re-examine my judgement. It is surprising how much has been done and how much has been discussed by people that we often regard as greedy and power-seekers only.
This is a surprising spark of trust that I’m gaining in decision makers. It is surprising how many responsibilities they already took on themselves, especially when compared to the amount of responsibilities that citizen are taking on themselves. We, citizens... in Italy
People in the streets, NGOs and so on are screening loud for “more environment” but what do we really ask for?
Most of the time, basically, we are just pushing for holding on on our old consumption habits. Yes, I can see, I feel that people just wants the same things, the same consumerism, but clean (and not everybody). The responsibility is on the system. The system has to find the way to save my consumption and save the planet as well.
Is it really possible?
And what is it the, implicit, answer of the system? Well, business and government would never ask for some serious shift in our lazy habits. If they react, they only know sanction language, they just charge something more for the same things.
Same habits.. just more expensive. That’s the big mistake of decision makers.
So my question is: who is really performing? Who is not?
Citizen are not; Corporate business is trying to comply; Governments are mild. They are not even thinking to question citizen's addictive and toxic habits.
Now… the good news. Half of the job has been already done, the supply side is active and ready. The demand is lazy. Just demanding for the same standard of life, its drugs, its cholesterol, its poisons, its microwaves, its dose of carbon, its private transportation and so on..
I do be live that it is time to enforce carbon quota, emission quota, and restriction on pollution potential of citizens, only then it will be possible to create a virtuous loop, where supply will be really pushed to a “green direction”.
Can you imagine when, when you as well as any billionaire on this planet will have the same right to pollute.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The point of view of farmer .
Conversation with: Tanino Campisi,
Key words: water, aquifer, production quality, commercial activities
Several aspects of water management and agricultural production have been discussed during a conversation with Mr. Tanino Campisi on
What follows are just opinions, bust substantiated by 2 generations long experience on the agricultural sector on a industrial scale.
Siracusa is provided with favourable conditions, the land is perceived to be generous, it offers optimal conditions for lemon production, Lentini and Palagonia are optimal for oranges, the southern zones of Avola is optimal for almonds. The area of
The area of Siracusa is perceived to be reach of water; 200 l/s of production from local wells are common. No water scarcity has been ever recorded there. Consortiums of irrigation are not in place, therefore only private wells are operational nevertheless, wells, not officially registered are common too. When registered, wells are registered at the Genio Civile that should check the meters. Water quality decreases going from the mountain plain to the seashore, (parameter are needed). Sea water intrusion is happening in the costal plane.
Farmers in these areas are small and medium size and are not organized in consortiums.
The commercial side, the entire production cycle depends on the farmer, research is not done, and universities are far away. How farmers develop innovation? Innovation would be very much welcome, Tanino says, and it is needed but none of that is done in-house. Relations with universities and research institutions are not common and although needed.
Bottom line innovation is difficult to be implemented because a certain scepticism. Basically researchers and consultants are not trusted and farmers of long traditions believe of having a better understanding of local conditions. In reality the easy environmental conditions, which are in place in the province, create a sense of overconfidence in the farmers and there is no tradition or reliance on external consultancy because actually external competences were never needed. Farmers easily succeeded in the production with such a fertile soil.
Well, on the other hands countries with more difficult conditions have been accustomed, have been forced by circumstances, to closer contacts with technicians and researchers, so that it became an habit and nowadays farmers are more open to scientific cooperation.
Given that, in Siracusa, water and natural resources are not limiting factors of production (that’s disputable) the real problems are related to: cost of working power, costs of fertilizers and weak position of farmers in front of big distribution.
In few words:
Water is not a limiting factor of production (is it true?);
Water quality is excellent if extracted far from the costal area;
The agricultural conditions are particularly favourable because of fertile soil and mild weather;
Favourable conditions generate certain overconfidence in the farmers that never needed external consultancy (they never asked and actually they don’t know who to ask to);
Universities and farmers do not know each other and do not cooperate;
The agricultural association is not active and does not promote innovation in this area;
Now, it is believed that in regions with much more difficult conditions, agriculture is based on scientific studies and proper calibrations, therefore, relations with technician and researcher are part of the tradition.
That’s it, a point of view of an industrial farmer in the geographic area of Siracua.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
On the ancient Venecian Hydrography
Extracted from: Antonio Averone, Ing. Capo del Genio Civile, Magistrato per le acque delle province Venete e di Mantova (1911) Sull’antica Idrogrfia veneta.
There were huge floods and damages in Veneto On May 1905. On the same year On. Fortis, the President of the Italian Cabinet, called for the creation of a unifying authority in charge for the water management of the area. Whit a specific legislation on
Ing. Averone was appointed the first Magistrato of the modern time. He started with the collection of all possible information, maps, documents and material about the Lagoon and its surrounding rivers. These were located in several archives and they documented the continual evolution of the ever changing lagoon.
From the ages of
The natural environment of the lagoon and
Averone started looking back into the past and reconstruct the evolution, let say the genealogy of the current hydro-geological and topographical setting. Useful sources were found in Plinio and Strabone in his Geografia, Marco Cornaro (1440) and Professor Schiapparelli in the 19th century.
The streets of ancient Roman construction can bring useful information, for that reason they were searched all along the centuries and many are still visible today. The general assumption is that Romans would not build on wetlands so that those street can mark a first geographical border. The places where cities and military rocks were built can give to the modern researcher an idea of the dimension of the lagoon in the ancient time.
More recent documents, from the time of the Serenissima, testify the great effort that have been done across centuries to divert rivers outside the lagoon. This was done to avoid submerging the free waters with sediment and therefore transforming a navigable sea in wetlands.
Many have been the theories and conjectures about a large amount of natural phenomena observed in this ever changing environment: the sea level oscillations, the origin and nature of the fresh waters in the middle of the sea, the natural shifting of the river path, and so on.
Professor Schiapparelli, in the 18th century solved on of the greatest mysteries. He proved that a measured rising of the water of about 10cm per hundred years can be attributed to the movement of the earth axis. In fact, even a small movement of the hearth axis northward will carry a consequent movement of the equatorial belt northward, and given that the heart is spherical a greater centrifugal force is applied at the lowest latitude where the heart radius is the larger, the sea water will tend to accumulate and rise. That’s why the water are rising of about 10cm verey 100 years.
Please notice that this is was a valid theory in the 1911 the year in which Avarrone is writing.
Something else can be extracted from this document, the ancient organization of the Magistrato delle acque. Meaning, how ancient people used to organize administrative function of the waters of the lagoon and how do they perceived and allocated the tasks and problems. Much more can be said about that, here I just mention that the Magistrato was supported by 3 consiglieri: one for the rivers; one for the arbores; and one for the costal lines.
That’s all for now, to be continued.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Lagrange Multiplier Problems in Economics
Lagrange Multiplier Problems in Economics
Several surprises are in store for the mathematics student who looks
for the first time at nontrivial constrained optimization problems in economics. The
usual constrained problem in a mathematics course has only one or two critical points
and the selection of the absolute maximum is clear from the geometric nature of the
problem. Mathematics texts often ignore sufficient conditions (involving bordered
Hessian determinants) for relative extrema and provide no interpretation of the Lagrange
multiplier leaving the student with the impression that has no significance beyond
providing an extra variable which magically transforms the constrained problem into an
unconstrained higher dimensional problem.
Several surprises are in store for the mathematics student who looks
for the first time at nontrivial constrained optimization problems in economics. The
usual constrained problem in a mathematics course has only one or two critical points
and the selection of the absolute maximum is clear from the geometric nature of the
problem. Mathematics texts often ignore sufficient conditions (involving bordered
Hessian determinants) for relative extrema and provide no interpretation of the Lagrange
multiplier leaving the student with the impression that has no significance beyond
providing an extra variable which magically transforms the constrained problem into an
unconstrained higher dimensional problem.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Is that a Problem? We need solutions
Solution comes with actions;
actions implies choices and decisions;
decisions need a rationale;
(anyway Gideon says: act immediately)
The first element of a Decision Problem are:
WHO, HOW, WHAT
Who takes decision
Who is involved in the decision process
Who is impacted by the decision
How decision are taken? (which criteria I’ll use)
What is the objective?
Sometime the objective and the method are clear (puzzle problem);
Sometime the objective is clear but the method is not (the problem);
Sometimes nothing is clear (meaning you look for trebles).
Depending on the situation we can have optimal solution (substantial rationality)
or just a satisfactory solution (Procedural rationality).
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916– February 9, 2001) is the father of decision making theory. Baruk abba chaver! He says: i.e. it is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
In decision-making, Simon believed that agents face uncertainty about the future and costs in acquiring information in the present. These factors limit the extent to which agents can make a fully rational decision, thus they possess only “bounded rationality” and must make decisions by “satisficing,” or choosing that which might not be optimal but which will make them happy enough
The task of rational decision making is to select the alternative that results in the more preferred set of all the possible consequences of actions. This task can be divided into three required steps: (1) the identification and listing of all the alternatives; (2) the determination of all the consequences resulting from each of the alternatives; and (3) the comparison of the accuracy and efficiency of each of these sets of consequences.
(decision, action, consequences).
The correctness of decisions is measured by two major criteria: (1) adequacy of achieving the desired objective; and (2) the efficiency with which the result was obtained. Many members of the organization may focus on adequacy, but the overall administrative management must pay particular attention to the efficiency with which the desired result was obtained.
Ok, that’s all about Simon
There are another couple of things to mention:
Getting information: be satisfied with the minimum, in this case! and think about Pareto.
Participatory approach: it helps to get better info about the problem and the possible solution
It makes the solution more acceptable by stakeholders.
There are risks
Decisions must be: Transparent; Explicit, Clear.
(anyway Gideon says: act immediately)
The first element of a Decision Problem are:
WHO, HOW, WHAT
Who takes decision
Who is involved in the decision process
Who is impacted by the decision
How decision are taken? (which criteria I’ll use)
What is the objective?
Sometime the objective and the method are clear (puzzle problem);
Sometime the objective is clear but the method is not (the problem);
Sometimes nothing is clear (meaning you look for trebles).
Depending on the situation we can have optimal solution (substantial rationality)
or just a satisfactory solution (Procedural rationality).
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916– February 9, 2001) is the father of decision making theory. Baruk abba chaver! He says: i.e. it is impossible to have perfect and complete information at any given time to make a decision.
In decision-making, Simon believed that agents face uncertainty about the future and costs in acquiring information in the present. These factors limit the extent to which agents can make a fully rational decision, thus they possess only “bounded rationality” and must make decisions by “satisficing,” or choosing that which might not be optimal but which will make them happy enough
The task of rational decision making is to select the alternative that results in the more preferred set of all the possible consequences of actions. This task can be divided into three required steps: (1) the identification and listing of all the alternatives; (2) the determination of all the consequences resulting from each of the alternatives; and (3) the comparison of the accuracy and efficiency of each of these sets of consequences.
(decision, action, consequences).
The correctness of decisions is measured by two major criteria: (1) adequacy of achieving the desired objective; and (2) the efficiency with which the result was obtained. Many members of the organization may focus on adequacy, but the overall administrative management must pay particular attention to the efficiency with which the desired result was obtained.
Ok, that’s all about Simon
There are another couple of things to mention:
Getting information: be satisfied with the minimum, in this case! and think about Pareto.
Participatory approach: it helps to get better info about the problem and the possible solution
It makes the solution more acceptable by stakeholders.
There are risks
Decisions must be: Transparent; Explicit, Clear.
Modelling what?
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Impact of climate change
Impact of adaptation strategies
Does not matter whether climate change is anthropogenic or not… it is a fact anyway. There are three ways to walk now: we adapt; we mitigate it; we ignore it.. (I’ll do them all together ;)
Business as usual does not require new thinking, but adaptation and mitigation strategies do and we may need modelling for that.What does a model do: it is a simplification of the system, it tells me how all the element of system moves together.
When there resources we are dealing with are scarce, that’s an economic model.
When there is a cost benefit analysis that’s an economic model.
When there are infinite resources to be allocate that’s not an economic model.
An ideal policy would combine both adaptation and mitigation.
Modelling stages:
10) measuring impact of CC on welfare;
20) measuring costs&benefits of different adaptation&mitigation strategies;
Strategies? How would you judge them?
10) effectiveness: ability to reach the goal (yes/no; %)
20) efficiency: ability to reach the goal at a minimal cost ($)
30) equity: related to resource allocation;
The chain of events in a CC model:
10) climate system dynamics or scenarios will impact on (20)
20) environmental dynamics will impact on (30)
30) social and economic dynamics will impact on (10)
apparently we always look at the changes in the system… the delta in the agricultural costs, delta in soil productivity, delta in water availability etc etc… mind the delta! Sure..
Rotmans and Dowlatabady 1995
Models have plenty of gaps, here they are in two macro groups:
10) incompleteness: we don’t know data or don’t understand relations (who doesn’t anyway?)
20) Probability: we are not certain of data and relation and there is a probability distribution attached to a certain event or estimation. Discount choice
We know a lot about costs of adaptation and mitigation we don’t know enough about their benefit. Benefits are probable, cost are certain….
Moreover many investments and many natural phenomena are not reversible, for example a dike cannot be dismantled and reused somewhere else (yet); a species extinction is even a more sad story.
Welfare measurement and redistribution always imply ethical judgement, and also decision about..
- Inter-generations distribution (temporal distribution)
- Infra-generations distribution (spatial distribution)
Moreover, it is possible to rank welfare level in a cardinal order but it is not possible to measure how much a person or a group is better well off the another.
The following are three possible objective functions, were:
W is welfare, a is a weight, α is the interest rate..
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