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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Creators: Abbot, Joshua K
- Creators: Akis, Richard
Description
This research presents an analysis of the main institutions and economic incentives that drive farmers behaviors on water use in the Chancay-Lambayeque basin, located in Lambayeque (Peru), a semi arid area of great agricultural importance. I focus my research on identifying the underlying causes of non-collaborative behaviors in regard to water appropriation and infrastructure provisioning decision that generates violent conflicts between users. Since there is not an agreed and concrete criteria to assess "sustainability" I used economic efficiency as my evaluative criteria because, even though this is not a sufficient condition to achieve sustainability it is a necessary one, and thus achieving economic efficiency is moving towards sustainable outcomes. Water management in the basin is far from being economic efficient which means that there is some room for improving social welfare. Previous studies of the region have successfully described the symptoms of this problem; however, they did not focus their study on identifying the causes of the problem. In this study, I describe and analyze how different rules and norms (institutions) define farmers behaviors related to water use. For this, I use the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and a dynamic game theory model to analyze how biophysical attributes, community attributes and rules of the system combined with other factors, can affect farmers actions in regard to water use and affect the sustainability of water resources. Results show that water rights are the factor that is fundamental to the problem. Then, I present an outline for policy recommendation, which includes a revision of water rights and related rules and policies that could increase the social benefits with the use of compensation mechanisms to reach economic efficiency. Results also show that commonly proposed solutions, as switch to less water intensive and more added value crops, improvement in the agronomic and entrepreneurial knowledge, or increases in water tariffs, can mitigate or exacerbate the loss of benefits that come from the poor incentives in the system; but they do not change the nature of the outcome.
ContributorsRubinos, Cathy (Author) / Eakin, Hallie (Committee member) / Abbot, Joshua K (Committee member) / York, Abigail (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
What can classical chaos do to quantum systems is a fundamental issue highly relevant to a number of branches in physics. The field of quantum chaos has been active for three decades, where the focus was on non-relativistic quantumsystems described by the Schr¨odinger equation. By developing an efficient method to solve the Dirac equation in the setting where relativistic particles can tunnel between two symmetric cavities through a potential barrier, chaotic cavities are found to suppress the spread in the tunneling rate. Tunneling rate for any given energy assumes a wide range that increases with the energy for integrable classical dynamics. However, for chaotic underlying dynamics, the spread is greatly reduced. A remarkable feature, which is a consequence of Klein tunneling, arise only in relativistc quantum systems that substantial tunneling exists even for particle energy approaching zero. Similar results are found in graphene tunneling devices, implying high relevance of relativistic quantum chaos to the development of such devices. Wave propagation through random media occurs in many physical systems, where interesting phenomena such as branched, fracal-like wave patterns can arise. The generic origin of these wave structures is currently a matter of active debate. It is of fundamental interest to develop a minimal, paradigmaticmodel that can generate robust branched wave structures. In so doing, a general observation in all situations where branched structures emerge is non-Gaussian statistics of wave intensity with an algebraic tail in the probability density function. Thus, a universal algebraic wave-intensity distribution becomes the criterion for the validity of any minimal model of branched wave patterns. Coexistence of competing species in spatially extended ecosystems is key to biodiversity in nature. Understanding the dynamical mechanisms of coexistence is a fundamental problem of continuous interest not only in evolutionary biology but also in nonlinear science. A continuous model is proposed for cyclically competing species and the effect of the interplay between the interaction range and mobility on coexistence is investigated. A transition from coexistence to extinction is uncovered with a non-monotonic behavior in the coexistence probability and switches between spiral and plane-wave patterns arise. Strong mobility can either promote or hamper coexistence, while absent in lattice-based models, can be explained in terms of nonlinear partial differential equations.
ContributorsNi, Xuan (Author) / Lai, Ying-Cheng (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Liang (Committee member) / Yu, Hongbin (Committee member) / Akis, Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
One of the salient challenges of sustainability is the Tragedy of the Commons, where individuals acting independently and rationally deplete a common resource despite their understanding that it is not in the group's long term best interest to do so. Hardin presents this dilemma as nearly intractable and solvable only by drastic, government-mandated social reforms, while Ostrom's empirical work demonstrates that community-scale collaboration can circumvent tragedy without any elaborate outside intervention. Though more optimistic, Ostrom's work provides scant insight into larger-scale dilemmas such as climate change. Consequently, it remains unclear if the sustainable management of global resources is possible without significant government mediation. To investigate, we conducted two game theoretic experiments that challenged students in different countries to collaborate digitally and manage a hypothetical common resource. One experiment involved students attending Arizona State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US and Mountains of the Moon University in Uganda, while the other included students at Arizona State and the Management Development Institute in India. In both experiments, students were randomly assigned to one of three production roles: Luxury, Intermediate, and Subsistence. Students then made individual decisions about how many units of goods they wished to produce up to a set maximum per production class. Luxury players gain the most profit (i.e. grade points) per unit produced, but they also emit the most externalities, or social costs, which directly subtract from the profit of everybody else in the game; Intermediate players produce a medium amount of profit and externalities per unit, and Subsistence players produce a low amount of profit and externalities per unit. Variables influencing and/or inhibiting collaboration were studied using pre- and post-game surveys. This research sought to answer three questions: 1) Are international groups capable of self-organizing in a way that promotes sustainable resource management?, 2) What are the key factors that inhibit or foster collective action among international groups?, and 3) How well do Hardin's theories and Ostrom's empirical models predict the observed behavior of students in the game? The results of gameplay suggest that international cooperation is possible, though likely sub-optimal. Statistical analysis of survey data revealed that heterogeneity and levels of trust significantly influenced game behavior. Specific traits of heterogeneity among students found to be significant were income, education, assigned production role, number of people in one's household, college class, college major, and military service. Additionally, it was found that Ostrom's collective action framework was a better predictor of game outcome than Hardin's theories. Overall, this research lends credence to the plausibility of international cooperation in tragedy of the commons scenarios such as climate change, though much work remains to be done.
ContributorsStanton, Albert Grayson (Author) / Clark, Susan Spierre (Thesis director) / Seager, Thomas (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This paper uses network theory to simulate Nash equilibria for selfish travel within a traffic network. Specifically, it examines the phenomenon of Braess's Paradox, the counterintuitive occurrence in which adding capacity to a traffic network increases the social costs paid by travelers in a new Nash equilibrium. It also employs the measure of the price of anarchy, a ratio between the social cost of the Nash equilibrium flow through a network and the socially optimal cost of travel. These concepts are the basis of the theory behind undesirable selfish routing to identify problematic links and roads in existing metropolitan traffic networks (Youn et al., 2008), suggesting applicative potential behind the theoretical questions this paper attempts to answer. New topologies of networks which generate Braess's Paradox are found. In addition, the relationship between the number of nodes in a network and the number of occurrences of Braess's Paradox, and the relationship between the number of nodes in a network and a network's price of anarchy distribution are studied.
ContributorsChotras, Peter Louis (Author) / Armbruster, Dieter (Thesis director) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Penetration testing is regarded as the gold-standard for understanding how well an organization can withstand sophisticated cyber-attacks. However, the recent prevalence of markets specializing in zero-day exploits on the darknet make exploits widely available to potential attackers. The cost associated with these sophisticated kits generally precludes penetration testers from simply obtaining such exploits – so an alternative approach is needed to understand what exploits an attacker will most likely purchase and how to defend against them. In this paper, we introduce a data-driven security game framework to model an attacker and provide policy recommendations to the defender. In addition to providing a formal framework and algorithms to develop strategies, we present experimental results from applying our framework, for various system configurations, on real-world exploit market data actively mined from the darknet.
ContributorsRobertson, John James (Author) / Shakarian, Paulo (Thesis director) / Doupe, Adam (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
We develop a unique model for household preferences in a three good market of television content (cable), internet content (Netflix), and income spent on any other good or activity. Utility is a function of the time spent viewing television content, time spent viewing internet content, and income spent otherwise. Preferences are determined by the complementarity (or substitutability) of television and internet content, the complementarity of viewing content and spending income otherwise, and individual preference for income. Consumers maximize utility subject to time of viewership and budget constraints. We analyze the comparative statics of the model by varying the complementarity between television and internet content and the complementarity between viewing content and spending income otherwise. We develop a model of firms, in which there are two firms offering one product each who compete on price. They charge a flat-fee for their product (either television or internet content) and have a fixed cost. Their revenue is determined by the number of consumers who choose to purchase their product multiplied by the price they charge. We find a collusive outcome for the firms. We analyze the Nash Equilibrium of the model. We only found symmetric Mixed Action Nash Equilibria (MANE), with the following interesting feature: Bertrand Competition causes firms to choose low prices very often, but firms price significantly higher should the price drop too low. Thus, the MANE places high probability mass on the lowest and highest prices of each firm but has little mass elsewhere.
ContributorsWeser, Daniel James (Author) / Leiva Bertran, Fernando (Thesis director) / Mendez, Jose (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Since Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez’s influential paper in 2003 that
merges school choice and mechanism design, research in the rapidly
growing school choice literature has been mainly focused on the
design of mechanisms with desirable properties or more realistic
assumptions. However, lab experiments often show that subjects do
not report preferences according to the experimenters’ expectation,
and the experiments rarely provide an in-depth analysis of why the
subjects behave in such confounding ways. My thesis formulates
preference reporting in school choice as a game by incorporating a
payoff schedule and proposes mixed strategy Nash equilibrium as a
way to predict preference reporting.
merges school choice and mechanism design, research in the rapidly
growing school choice literature has been mainly focused on the
design of mechanisms with desirable properties or more realistic
assumptions. However, lab experiments often show that subjects do
not report preferences according to the experimenters’ expectation,
and the experiments rarely provide an in-depth analysis of why the
subjects behave in such confounding ways. My thesis formulates
preference reporting in school choice as a game by incorporating a
payoff schedule and proposes mixed strategy Nash equilibrium as a
way to predict preference reporting.
ContributorsHsieh, Yee-Yang (Author) / Foster, William (Thesis director) / Douglas, Kacey (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Game theory, the mathematical study of mathematical models and simulations that often play out like a game, is applicable to a plethora of disciplines, one of which is infrastructure security. This is a rather new and niche subject area, and our aim is to perform a bibliographic analysis to analyze the thematic makeup of a selected body of publications in this area, as well as analyze trends in paper publication, journal contributions, country contributions, and trends in the authorship of the publications.
ContributorsChandra, Varun (Author) / Jevtic, Petar (Thesis director) / Gall, Melanie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
In order to understand if and how strategic resource allocation can constrain the structure of pair-wise competition outcomes in competitive human competitions we introduce a new multiplayer resource allocation game, the Multiplayer Lotto Games. This new games allows agents to allocate their resources across a continuum of possible specializations. In order to explore the behavior of strategic agents of the Multiplayer Lotto game, we implement an agent-based model with replicator dynamics. The model simulation showed agent behavior different than what the Population Lotto Game would predict, and we propose the “small wave” hypothesis as the explanation. Namely, that “small battles” along the domain are beneficial to agents with lesser resources such that they perform better against richer agents than otherwise expected.
ContributorsArtiglio, Giovanni (Author) / Nishimura, Joel (Thesis director) / Zhao, Yunpeng (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
Nations censor specific information in accordance with their political, legal, and cultural standards. Each country adopts unique approaches and regulations for censorship, whether it involves moderating online content or prohibiting protests. This paper seeks to study the underlying motivations for the disparate behaviors exhibited by authorities and individuals. To achieve this, we develop a mathematical model designed to understand the dynamics between authority figures and individuals, analyzing their behaviors under various conditions. We argue that individuals essentially act in three phases - compliance, self-censoring, and defiance when faced with different situations under their own desires and the authority's parameters. We substantiate our findings by conducting different simulations on the model and visualizing the outcomes. Through these simulations, we realize why individuals exhibit behaviors falling into one of three categories, who are influenced by factors such as the level of surveillance imposed by the authority, the severity of punishments, the tolerance for dissent, or the individuals' boldness. This also helped us to understand why certain populations in a country exhibit defiance, self-censoring behavior, or compliance as they interact with each other and behave under specific conditions within a small network world.
ContributorsNahar, Anish Ashish (Author) / Daymude, Joshua (Thesis director) / Forrest, Stephanie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2024-05