Agent-based integrated assessment modelling: the example of climate change

Current approaches to deal with the socio-economic implications of climate change rely heavily on economic models that compare costs and benefits of different measures. We show that the theoretical foundations underpinning current approaches to economic modelling of climate change are inappropriate for the type of questions that are being asked. We argue therefore that another tradition of modelling, social simulation, is more appropriate in dealing with the complex environmental problems we face today.     

Effects of observability and complexity on farmers’ adoption of environmental practices

The ability of both regulators and farmers themselves to monitor the impact of environmental practices may be an issue with nonpoint source pollution. Effects that can be perceived via direct sensory evidence provide information at low cost. Results from a survey of livestock farmers suggest that a practice that has more obvious effects on water quality, manure application setbacks, is more likely to be adopted than a more complicated one with less visible effects, manure testing. Farmers’ perceptions of the profitability of the two practices were similar. The importance of observability and complexity has implications for educational programs.     

环境NGO介入环境公益诉讼的必要性和复杂性研究

环境NGO在环保活动中已成为不可忽视的重要力量.随着2015年中国新环保法的颁布,环境NGO已经具备发起环境公益诉讼的主体资格,但由于中国环境NGO自身能力不足,完成诉讼仍存在困难.文章以环境NGO介入环境公益诉讼活动为研究对象,研究了现有环保NGO介入环境公益诉讼的现模式,并分析了环保NGO介入环境公益诉讼的必要性与复杂性,指出要提升NGO介入环境公益诉讼的能力,必须从培育环境公益诉讼意识、加强自身能力改造及破解资金难题等方面着手.     

Definitions and organizational practice of sustainability in the for-profit sector of Nova Scotia

The term “sustainability” has been a part of local, national, and international environmental discussions for well over a decade. First legitimized by the United Nations in 1987 with the release of the Brundtland Commission and Our Common Future (WCED, 1987), the term “sustainability” is now often used in more mainstream contexts. However, given our continued global ecological decline (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), the question remains: do decision makers within organizations really have a clear idea of what sustainability is? Further, are they able to communicate that vision in such a way as it can be operationalized within their organizations?Organizations are faced with a high degree of uncertainty when attempting to move towards sustainability. The immense amount of literature and information available about the concept is daunting, especially for harried managers of small businesses who must respond to many competing needs and interests. Although many concepts, frameworks, and tools are available for business executives to use, there have been relatively less attempts to develop a rigorous, applied definition of sustainability that can be clearly understood, implemented, and measured within and across organizations. Given the abundance of concepts, frameworks, and tools, with the corresponding dearth of overarching frameworks, one may wonder what are executives learning from all this literature, and how it is being diffused into strategy, planning, and operations? This study aims to gain insight into executives’ thinking around definitions and the implementation of sustainability practices in Nova Scotia. The findings of this study indicate that there are three key relationships of significance in this area including: type of definition and ease of articulation; type of definition and type of experience; and type of definition, type of experience, and integration of strategic and operational planning.     

Local Institutional Development and Organizational Change for Advancing Sustainable Urban Water Futures

This paper presents the local institutional and organizational development insights from a five-year ongoing interdisciplinary research project focused on advancing the implementation of sustainable urban water management. While it is broadly acknowledged that the inertia associated with administrative systems is possibly the most significant obstacle to advancing sustainable urban water management, contemporary research still largely prioritizes investigations at the technological level. This research is explicitly concerned with critically informing the design of methodologies for mobilizing and overcoming the administrative inertia of traditional urban water management practice. The results of fourteen in-depth case studies of local government organizations across Metropolitan Sydney primarily reveal that (i) the political institutionalization of environmental concern and (ii) the commitment to local leadership and organizational learning are key corporate attributes for enabling sustainable management. A typology of five organizational development phases has been proposed as both a heuristic and capacity benchmarking tool for urban water strategists, policy makers, and decision makers that are focused on improving the level of local implementation of sustainable urban water management activity. While this investigation has focused on local government, these findings do provide guideposts for assessing the development needs of future capacity building programs across a range of different institutional contexts.     

Cluttered habitats reduce wing asymmetry and increase flight performance in European starlings

Fluctuating asymmetry is a measure of developmental instability and results from both genomic and environmental influences. Levels of asymmetry are (in part) influenced by mechanical constraints, as asymmetry is believed to reduce efficiency. Here we have investigated the influence of habitat structure (“open” and “cluttered” environments) on primary flight feather asymmetry and flight performance in European starlings. Our findings indicate that the increased flight demands of cluttered habitats act to reduce primary asymmetry and increase flight performance. These data are discussed in terms of the influence of asymmetry on flight performance and the mechanisms that give rise to asymmetry. This study also presents a novel method, i.e., examining within-individual changes in asymmetry, by which the detrimental and positive influence of the environment could be studied in subsequent field and laboratory studies without confounding environmental effects with genomic influences. Received: 16 June 1997 / Accepted after revision: 28 December 1997     

Blood on the coal: The effect of organizational size and differentiation on coal mine accidents

Introduction

Each year, there are at least 100,000,000 occupational accidents and 100,000 occupational deaths in the world. In the United States, one of the safest countries in the world in which to work, there were more than 5,400 workplace fatalities and 5.9 million workplace injuries in 2007. The cost to American industry and taxpayers is estimated to be at least $170 billion per year. Further, as illustrated by accidents such as Three Mile Island and Bhopal, industrial accidents potentially impact a much wider sphere than that of the injured worker and his or her employer. As the repercussions of organizational accidents reverberate through organizations and are felt from human resources to accounting, firms are beginning to incorporate messages of safety in their missions and strategies. As firms organize to achieve safer work environments, they are faced with decisions on how to structure their activities in terms of, among other things, size and differentiation.

Method

This paper explores the impact on accident rates of size and differentiation at the corporate and mine levels of mining companies in an effort to create a framework for thinking about organizational accidents from a structural perspective.

Results

The results suggest that larger mines are safer than smaller mines, and that mines with less task diversity are safer than mines with greater task diversity. The results also suggest that at the corporate level, task diversity decreases mine accidents. These results may help mining executives and engineers structure their corporate activities and individual mines more effectively to help reduce accidents.     

基于农业用地和地形约束的陇南山区适宜人口规模估算

陇南山区地形复杂，耕地不足，经济贫困，人口对资源环境的压力较大。研究适度人口容量对于地震灾后重建、缓解贫困以及保护长江上游的生态安全具有重要意义。以人均粮食和经济水平两个指标来估算温饱、宽裕和小康3个水平上的人口承载量，测度人口和农业资源的关系。并基于地形复杂度计算劳动用工及可抚养人口。结果表明：目前陇南10县(区)的人口在温饱生活水平下尚有超载。以小康生活为标准，适宜人口规模约为135万。经营现有的农耕地和林地需要100.81万劳动力，可抚养人口191.54万人，加上城镇人口总人口为 231.03万。这个人口规模实现温饱有余而宽裕不足，难达小康目标。“人口 农业用地 劳动力”之间形成了一个怪圈，决定了陇南山区农村实现小康目标的艰巨性和复杂性。为此，陇南山区的灾后重建和区域可持续发展需要创新思路，多方并举.     

光纤电力通信系统故障诊断方法及应用实践

在综合分析、比较了最新发展的光纤通信网络的4种故障诊断方法的计算复杂度、平均检测次数,结合江西省电力通信网络的具体情况的基础上,提出了一套故障诊断的改进方案。该方案将该电力通信网络简化为一个有向图,并考虑电力通信网络的单故障边失效和单故障节点失效两种情形。基于该电力通信的网络拓扑分析、权衡故障诊断时间及故障诊断精确度表明,边概率失效的故障诊断方法适用于单故障边失效情形,而对于单故障节点失效情形,基于图论的系统模型、网络模型以及改进的反向检测模型的性能相当。该方案将对提高江西省电力通信网络系统的诊断效率以及可靠性具有借鉴和参考作用。