This book provides advanced analytics and decision management techniques and tools for developing sustainable competitive advantages in the studied target context. In order to achieve sustainable economy, “the capacity to endure,” it is essential to understand and study the mechanisms for interactions and impact from and among these perspectives.
Recent advances in AI and Mechanism Design provide a vital tool for solving collective action problems, common in international relations. By using AI to optimize mechanisms for cooperation and coordination, we can better address issues such as climate change, trade, and security. Mechanism Design, Behavioral Science and Artificial Intelligence in International Relations shows readers how the intersection of Mechanism Design and Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the way we approach international relations. By using AI to optimize mechanisms, we can design better institutions, policies, and agreements that are more effective and efficient. Dr. Tshilidzi Marwala, United Nations University Rector and UN Under-Secretary General, presents the essential technologies used in Game Theory, Mechanism Design and AI and applies these to significant global issues such as interstate conflict, cybersecurity, and energy. International relations are a complex field, with many different actors and interests in play. By incorporating AI into our analysis and decision-making processes, we can better understand and predict the behavior of multiple actors and design mechanisms that take these behaviors into account, thereby producing more desirable and creative interdisciplinary approaches. The book presents real-world applications of these rapidly evolving technologies in crucial research fields such as Interstate Conflict, International Trade, Climate Change, Water management, Energy, cybersecurity, and global finance. - Provides insights for computer scientists, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers on how to develop practical tools to solve many complex problems in international relations, such as climate change, cybersecurity, and interstate conflict - Presents the necessary computer science, mathematical methods, and techniques in AI, game theory, mechanism design, and algorithm development - Includes real-world applications of AI and mechanism design in a wide variety of research topics, such as international conflict, international trade, climate change, water management, energy management, cybersecurity, and global finance
Methods in Sustainability Science: Assessment, Prioritization, Improvement, Design and Optimization presents cutting edge, detailed methodologies needed to create sustainable growth in any field or industry, including life cycle assessments, building design, and energy systems. The book utilized a systematic structured approach to each of the methodologies described in an interdisciplinary way to ensure the methodologies are applicable in the real world, including case studies to demonstrate the methods. The chapters are written by a global team of authors in a variety of sustainability related fields. Methods in Sustainability Science: Assessment, Prioritization, Improvement, Design and Optimization will provide academics, researchers and practitioners in sustainability, especially environmental science and environmental engineering, with the most recent methodologies needed to maintain a sustainable future. It is also a necessary read for postgraduates in sustainability, as well as academics and researchers in energy and chemical engineering who need to ensure their industrial methodologies are sustainable. - Provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent methodologies in sustainability assessment, prioritization, improvement, design and optimization - Sections are organized in a systematic and logical way to clearly present the most recent methodologies for sustainability and the chapters utilize an interdisciplinary approach that covers all considerations of sustainability - Includes detailed case studies demonstrating the efficacies of the described methods
A mechanism is a mathematical structure that models institutions through which economic activity is guided and coordinated. There are many such institutions; markets are the most familiar ones. Lawmakers, administrators and officers of private companies create institutions in order to achieve desired goals. They seek to do so in ways that economize on the resources needed to operate the institutions, and that provide incentives that induce the required behaviors. This book presents systematic procedures for designing mechanisms that achieve specified performance, and economize on the resources required to operate the mechanism. The systematic design procedures are algorithms for designing informationally efficient mechanisms. Most of the book deals with these procedures of design. When there are finitely many environments to be dealt with, and there is a Nash-implementing mechanism, our algorithms can be used to make that mechanism into an informationally efficient one. Informationally efficient dominant strategy implementation is also studied.
The developed world, increasingly aware of “inconvenient truths” about global warming and sustainability, is turning its attention to possible remedies—eco-efficiency, sustainable development, and corporate social responsibility, among others. But such measures are mere Band-Aids, and they may actually do more harm than good, says John Ehrenfeld, a pioneer in the field of industrial ecology. In this deeply considered book, Ehrenfeld challenges conventional understandings of “solving” environmental problems and offers a radically new set of strategies to attain sustainability. The book is founded upon this new definition: sustainability is the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever. There are obstacles to this hopeful vision, however, and overcoming them will require us to transform our behavior, both individually and collectively. Ehrenfeld identifies problematic cultural attributes—such as the unending consumption that characterizes modern life—and outlines practical steps toward developing sustainability as a mindset. By focusing on the “being” mode of human existence rather than on the unsustainable “having” mode we cling to now, he asserts, a sustainable world is within our reach.
This book discusses the most significant ways in which design has been applied to sustainability challenges using an evolutionary perspective. It puts forward an innovation framework that is capable of coherently integrating multiple design for sustainability (DfS) approaches developed so far. It is now widely understood that design can and must play a crucial role in the societal transformations towards sustainability. Design can in fact act as a catalyst to trigger and support innovation, and can help to shape the world at different levels: from materials to products, product–service systems, social organisations and socio-technical systems. This book offers a unique perspective on how DfS has evolved in the past decades across these innovation levels, and provides insights on its promising and necessary future development directions. For design scholars, this book will trigger and feed the academic debate on the evolution of DfS and its next research frontiers. For design educators, the book can be used as a supporting tool to design courses and programmes on DfS. For bachelor’s and master’s level design, engineering and management students, the book can be a general resource to provide an understanding of the historical evolution of DfS. For design practitioners and businesses, the book offers a rich set of practical examples, design methods and tools to apply the various DfS approaches in practice, and an innovation framework which can be used as a tool to support change in organisations that aim to integrate DfS in their strategy and processes.
This volume is a technical and operative contribution to the United Nations "Decade on Education for Sustainable Development" (2005-2014), aiding the development of a new generation of designers, responsible and able in the task of designing environmentally sustainable products. The book provides a comprehensive framework and a practical tool to support the design process. This is an important text for those interested in the product development processes.
This book, based on a huge European and Asian research project, is a state-of-the-art examination of the theory and practice of system innovation through Product-Service System (PSS) design for sustainability from a trans-cultural viewpoint. PSS design incorporates innovative strategies that shift businesses away from simply designing and selling physical products to developing integrated systems of products and services that satisfy human needs. The book provides background, advice and tools for designers interested in sustainable PSSs and has a wealth of case studies for practitioners to digest.
In the field of mechanism design, kinematic synthesis is a creative means to produce mechanism solutions. Combined with the emergence of powerful personal computers, mathematical analysis software and the development of quantitative methods for kinematic synthesis, there is an endless variety of possible mechanism solutions that users are free to e
This book discusses imaginary future generations and how current decision-making will influence those future generations. Markets and democracies focus on the present and therefore tend to make us forget that we are living in the present, with ancestors preceding and descendants succeeding us. Markets are excellent devices to equate supply and demand in the short term, but not for allocating resources between current and future generations, since future generations do not exist yet. Democracy is also not “applicable” for future generations, since citizens vote for candidates who will serve members of their, i.e., the current, generation. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the authors discusses imaginary future generations and future ministries in the context of current decision-making in fields such as the environment, urban management, forestry, water management, and finance. The idea of imaginary future generations comes from the Native American Iroquois, who had strong norms that compelled them to incorporate the interests of people seven generations ahead when making decisions.
