A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems

The growth in the interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems requires the development of tools and techniques to aid in the formulation of better policies. The efforts of this research focus towards developing methodologies and support tools for better policy design and formulation....

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Main Author: Taeihagh, A
Other Authors: Bañares-Alcántara, R
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2011
Subjects:
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author Taeihagh, A
author2 Bañares-Alcántara, R
author_facet Bañares-Alcántara, R
Taeihagh, A
author_sort Taeihagh, A
collection OXFORD
description The growth in the interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems requires the development of tools and techniques to aid in the formulation of better policies. The efforts of this research focus towards developing methodologies and support tools for better policy design and formulation. In this thesis, a new framework and a systematic approach for the formulation of policies are proposed. Focus has been directed to the interactions between policy measures, inspired by concepts in process design and network analysis. Furthermore, we have developed an agent-based approach to create a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages and test the effects of changes and uncertainties while formulating policies. By developing systematic approaches for the formulation and analysis of policies it is possible to analyse different configuration alternatives in greater depth, examine more alternatives and decrease the time required for the overall analysis. Moreover, it is possible to provide real-time assessment and feedback to the domain experts on the effect of changes in the configurations. These efforts ultimately help in forming more effective policies with synergistic and reinforcing attributes while avoiding internal contradictions. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies. The results from this research also demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policies. As a proof of concept, the proposed framework and methodologies have been applied to the formulation of policies that deal with transportation issues and emission reduction, but can be extended to other domains.
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spelling oxford-uuid:0183f800-51bf-4e4d-abba-cd91b7bf48f02024-12-01T08:58:02ZA novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systemsThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:0183f800-51bf-4e4d-abba-cd91b7bf48f0EnvironmentChemical and process engineeringDecision scienceOperations research,mathematical programmingClimate systems and policyPublic policyApplications and algorithmsTransportEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2011Taeihagh, ABañares-Alcántara, RThe growth in the interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems requires the development of tools and techniques to aid in the formulation of better policies. The efforts of this research focus towards developing methodologies and support tools for better policy design and formulation. In this thesis, a new framework and a systematic approach for the formulation of policies are proposed. Focus has been directed to the interactions between policy measures, inspired by concepts in process design and network analysis. Furthermore, we have developed an agent-based approach to create a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages and test the effects of changes and uncertainties while formulating policies. By developing systematic approaches for the formulation and analysis of policies it is possible to analyse different configuration alternatives in greater depth, examine more alternatives and decrease the time required for the overall analysis. Moreover, it is possible to provide real-time assessment and feedback to the domain experts on the effect of changes in the configurations. These efforts ultimately help in forming more effective policies with synergistic and reinforcing attributes while avoiding internal contradictions. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies. The results from this research also demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policies. As a proof of concept, the proposed framework and methodologies have been applied to the formulation of policies that deal with transportation issues and emission reduction, but can be extended to other domains.
spellingShingle Environment
Chemical and process engineering
Decision science
Operations research,mathematical programming
Climate systems and policy
Public policy
Applications and algorithms
Transport
Taeihagh, A
A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title_full A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title_fullStr A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title_full_unstemmed A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title_short A novel approach for the development of policies for socio-technical systems
title_sort novel approach for the development of policies for socio technical systems
topic Environment
Chemical and process engineering
Decision science
Operations research,mathematical programming
Climate systems and policy
Public policy
Applications and algorithms
Transport
work_keys_str_mv AT taeihagha anovelapproachforthedevelopmentofpoliciesforsociotechnicalsystems
AT taeihagha novelapproachforthedevelopmentofpoliciesforsociotechnicalsystems