This study is an evaluation of the environmental impacts of courtyard integration in midrise housing in the hot-arid climate of Dubai, The United Arab Emirates. Computer simulation is utilized to determine the overall energy consumption, energy savings potential and available daylight levels....

In this paper, we demonstrate some properties of Alpha-stable (stable) random variables and processes. It turns out that with the use of suitable statistical estimation techniques, computer simulation procedures and numerical discretization methods it is possible to construct approximations of...

Search tactics are cognitive processes, or decision mechanisms, that organisms use to locate available resources such as food, mates, refugia, and high-quality habitats. However, our knowledge of the actual tactics that animals use while searching for resources is limited, and very little...

We introduce Network Automata, a framework which couples the topological evolution of a network to its structure. To demonstrate its implementation we describe a simple model which exhibits behavior similar to the "Game of Life" before recasting some simple, well-known network models as Network...

Experimentation, a form of problem-solving, is a fundamental innovation activity and accounts for a significant part of total innovation cost and time. In many fields, the economics of experimentation are being radically affected by the use of new and greatly improved versions of methods such as...

Risk accompanies every economic decision. Investment decisions are burdened with particularly great risk. Quantification of risk belongs to most heaviest tasks in risk management of the investment project. Traditionally, probability distribution was being utilized for the description of the...

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the usefulness of Keynes' approach by modeling it using system dynamics. As this technique allows the researcher to place the analysis in time it is especially well suited to the task. It also allows us to see exactly which elements seem to create the...

This paper builds a system-dynamics model of the Mexican economy and tests several propositions regarding policy and income inequality. It concludes, among other things, that one of the most significant developments over the past twenty years has been the declining wage paid to those in the...

A dome-covered house is an example of designing sustainable buildings by learning from the optimized biological forms from the nature. The paper presents a 3-D thermal and air flow (3D-TAF) model that estimates the energy needs of a dome-covered house. The model is verified with CFD simulations...