Essays that pay tribute to the wide-ranging influence of the late Herbert Simon, by friends and colleagues. Herbert Simon (1916-2001), in the course of a long and distinguished career in the social and behavioral sciences, made lasting contributions to many disciplines, including economics, psychology, computer science, and artificial intelligence. In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his research into the decision-making process within economic organizations. His well-known book The Sciences of the Artificial addresses the implications of the decision-making and problem-solving processes for the social sciences. This book (the title is a variation on the title of Simon's autobiography, Models of My Life) is a collection of short essays, all original, by colleagues from many fields who felt Simon's influence and mourn his loss. Mixing reminiscence and analysis, the book represents "a small acknowledgment of a large debt." Each of the more than forty contributors was asked to write about the one work by Simon that he or she had found most influential. The editors then grouped the essays into four sections: "Modeling Man," "Organizations and Administration," "Modeling Systems," and "Minds and Machines." The contributors include such prominent figures as Kenneth Arrow, William Baumol, William Cooper, Gerd Gigerenzer, Daniel Kahneman, David Klahr, Franco Modigliani, Paul Samuelson, and Vernon Smith. Although they consider topics as disparate as "Is Bounded Rationality Unboundedly Rational?" and "Personal Recollections from 15 Years of Monthly Meetings," each essay is a testament to the legacy of Herbert Simon—to see the unity rather than the divergences among disciplines.

This book is a collection of specially-commissioned chapters from philosophers, economists, political and behavioral economists, cognitive and organizational psychologists, computer scientists, sociologists and permutations thereof as befits the polymathic subject of this book: Herbert Simon. The tripartite of the title, Minds, Models and Milieux, connotes the three inextricably linked areas to which Herbert Simon made the most distinguished of contributions. 'Minds' connotes Simon's abiding interest in theorizing human behavior, rationality, and decision-making; 'Models' connotes his extensive computer simulation work in the service of his interest in understanding minds, but also in the service of minds that are situated in a complex social 'Milieux'. This collection while intended to commemorate the centenary of Simon's birth simultaneously offers a timely reassessment of some of his central insights and illustrates the exponentially growing interest in Simon's work from beyond the usual disciplines and constituencies.

In this candid and witty autobiography, Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon looks at his distinguished and varied career, continually asking himself whether (and how) what he learned as a scientist helps to explain other aspects of his life. A brilliant polymath in an age of increasing specialization, Simon is one of those rare scholars whose work defines fields of inquiry. Crossing disciplinary lines in half a dozen fields, Simon's story encompasses an explosion in the information sciences, the transformation of psychology by the information-processing paradigm, and the use of computer simulation for modeling the behavior of highly complex systems. Simon's theory of bounded rationality led to a Nobel Prize in economics, and his work on building machines that think—based on the notion that human intelligence is the rule-governed manipulation of symbols—laid conceptual foundations for the new cognitive science. Subsequently, contrasting metaphors of the maze (Simon's view) and of the mind (neural nets) have dominated the artificial intelligence debate. There is also a warm account of his successful marriage and of an unconsummated love affair, letters to his children, columns, a short story, and political and personal intrigue in academe.

This book gives a comprehensive description of macroeconometric modeling and its development over time. The first part depicts the history of macroeconometric model building, starting with Jan Tinbergen's and Lawrence R. Klein's contributions. It is unique in summarizing the development and specific structure of macroeconometric models built in North America, Europe, and various other parts of the world. The work thus offers an extensive source for researchers in the field. The second part of the book covers the systematic characteristics of macroeconometric models. It includes the household and enterprise sectors, disequilibria, financial flows, and money market sectors.

This book is a commendable source of reference for entrepreneurship researchers. It offers insight into a number of focused research accounts that may assist other researchers in their entrepreneurship research proposals and execution. . . the literature review section will be of particular value to such early scholars of the field. The book is highly recommended for postgraduate entrepreneurship students and would be worthy of filling a space on any active entrepreneurship researcher s bookshelf. David Douglas, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research Strategic choices made by entrepreneurs have major consequences for SME performance. This book explores the factors that influence entrepreneurial strategic decisions using a cognitive theoretical framework. The proposed model, based on a dual processing approach, integrates motivation, emotions and information processing modes and is tested in several empirical studies. The results show the model s potential for furthering interesting research agendas in entrepreneurial cognition research. The authors also reveal that entrepreneurial cognitions can be elicited and represented in the form of cognitive maps. The structural complexity of the cognitive maps (cognitive complexity) is an important prerequisite of effective strategic decisions and is a core concept for the advancement of our knowledge in entrepreneurial cognition. The book is an informed and interesting exploration of entrepreneurial cognition with both theoretical and methodological contributions to this field of research. Entrepreneurial Strategic Decision-Making will be of great interest to undergraduate students and academics in the field of entrepreneurship. Policymakers will learn from this book to understand the distinctions between various types of entrepreneurial decision-makers and the way they make strategic decisions.

Fluvial Geomorphology studies the biophysical processes acting in rivers, and the sediment patterns and landforms resulting from them. It is a discipline of synthesis, with roots in geology, geography, and river engineering, and with strong interactions with allied fields such as ecology, engineering and landscape architecture. This book comprehensively reviews tools used in fluvial geomorphology, at a level suitable to guide the selection of research methods for a given question. Presenting an integrated approach to the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, it provides guidance for researchers and professionals on the tools available to answer questions on river restoration and management. Thoroughly updated since the first edition in 2003 by experts in their subfields, the book presents state-of-the-art tools that have revolutionized fluvial geomorphology in recent decades, such as physical and numerical modelling, remote sensing and GIS, new field techniques, advances in dating, tracking and sourcing, statistical approaches as well as more traditional methods such as the systems framework, stratigraphic analysis, form and flow characterisation and historical analysis. This book: Covers five main types of geomorphological questions and their associated tools: historical framework; spatial framework; chemical, physical and biological methods; analysis of processes and forms; and future understanding framework. Provides guidance on advantages and limitations of different tools for different applications, data sources, equipment and supplies needed, and case studies illustrating their application in an integrated perspective. It is an essential resource for researchers and professional geomorphologists, hydrologists, geologists, engineers, planners, and ecologists concerned with river management, conservation and restoration. It is a useful supplementary textbook for upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in Geography, Geology, Environmental Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and interdisciplinary courses in river management and restoration.

This is the fourth report from the Treasury Committee (HCP 385, session 2010-11, ISBN 9780215554796), and looks at the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Office was established by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and given responsibility, as an independent body, for the Government's budget forecast. The Committee sets out a number of recommendations for the body to succeed in its' independent role, including: a) establishment of the OBR as an institution with its own legal personality; b) a requirement on the OBR to act transparently, objectively, and independently; c) a clear remit and set of core tasks; d) a requirement that the responsible select committee should have a veto over appointment or dismissal of the Chair; e) provision for a small group of non-executive directors to support the Budget Responsibility Committee; f) a requirement that government officials support the OBR when it is preparing forecasts; g) a requirement that the OBR has a right of access to the information it needs. The legislation establishing the OBR should not require future governments to use OBR forecasts. The Committee further states that a great deal will depend on matters which cannot be provided for directly in statute, in particular the calibre of the members of the Budgetary Responsibility Committee and of the non-executive directors. For the OBR to succeed, it is vital that it commands confidence across party boundaries and that the OBR's work should lead to greater public understanding of the purpose and limitations of the forecasting process, and realistic expectations of what it can deliver.

A clear and lucid bottom-up approach to the basic principles of evolutionary algorithms Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are a type of artificial intelligence. EAs are motivated by optimization processes that we observe in nature, such as natural selection, species migration, bird swarms, human culture, and ant colonies. This book discusses the theory, history, mathematics, and programming of evolutionary optimization algorithms. Featured algorithms include genetic algorithms, genetic programming, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, differential evolution, biogeography-based optimization, and many others. Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms: Provides a straightforward, bottom-up approach that assists the reader in obtaining a clear but theoretically rigorous understanding of evolutionary algorithms, with an emphasis on implementation Gives a careful treatment of recently developed EAs including opposition-based learning, artificial fish swarms, bacterial foraging, and many others and discusses their similarities and differences from more well-established EAs Includes chapter-end problems plus a solutions manual available online for instructors Offers simple examples that provide the reader with an intuitive understanding of the theory Features source code for the examples available on the author's website Provides advanced mathematical techniques for analyzing EAs, including Markov modeling and dynamic system modeling Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms: Biologically Inspired and Population-Based Approaches to Computer Intelligence is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals involved in engineering and computer science.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title Cybernetics—the science of communication and control as it applies to machines and to humans—originates from efforts during World War II to build automatic antiaircraft systems. Following the war, this science extended beyond military needs to examine all systems that rely on information and feedback, from the level of the cell to that of society. In The Cybernetics Moment, Ronald R. Kline, a senior historian of technology, examines the intellectual and cultural history of cybernetics and information theory, whose language of “information,” “feedback,” and “control” transformed the idiom of the sciences, hastened the development of information technologies, and laid the conceptual foundation for what we now call the Information Age. Kline argues that, for about twenty years after 1950, the growth of cybernetics and information theory and ever-more-powerful computers produced a utopian information narrative—an enthusiasm for information science that influenced natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, humanists, policymakers, public intellectuals, and journalists, all of whom struggled to come to grips with new relationships between humans and intelligent machines. Kline traces the relationship between the invention of computers and communication systems and the rise, decline, and transformation of cybernetics by analyzing the lives and work of such notables as Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon, Warren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Herbert Simon. Ultimately, he reveals the crucial role played by the cybernetics moment—when cybernetics and information theory were seen as universal sciences—in setting the stage for our current preoccupation with information technologies. "Nowhere in the burgeoning secondary literature on cybernetics in the last two decades is there a concise history of cybernetics, the science of communication and control that helped usher in the current information age in America. Nowhere, that is, until now . . . Readers have in The Cybernetics Moment the first authoritative history of American cybernetics."—Information & Culture "[A]n extremely interesting and stimulating history of the concepts of cybernetics . . . This is a book for everyone to read, relish, and think about."—Choice "As a whole, the book presents a comprehensive in-depth retrospective analysis of the contribution of the American scientific school to the making, formation, and development of cybernetics and information theory. An unquestionable advantage of the book is the skillful use of numerous bibliographic sources by the author that reflect the scientific, engineering, and social significance of the questions being considered, competition of ideas and developments, and also interrelations between scientists."—Cybernetics and System Analysis "Dr. Kline is perhaps uniquely situated to take on so large and complicated [a] topic as cybernetics . . . Readers unfamiliar with Wiener and his work are well advised to start with this well-written and thorough book. Those who are already familiar will still find much that is new and informative in the thorough research and reasoned interpretations."—IEEE History Center "The most comprehensive intellectual history of cybernetics in Cold War America."—Journal of American History "The book will be most valuable as historical background for the large number of disciplines that were involved in the cybernetics moment: computer science, communications engineering, information theory, and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology."—IEEE Technology and Society Magazine "Ronald Kline’s chronicle of cybernetics certainly does what an excellent history of science should do. It takes you there—to the golden age of a new, exciting field. You will almost smell that cigar."—Second-Order Cybernetics "Kline’s The Cybernetics Moment tracks the rise and fall of the cybernetics movement in more detail than any historical account to date."—Los Angeles Review of Books

The central goal of this volume is to bring the learning perspective into the discussion of intuition in judgment and decision making. The book gathers recent work on intuitive decision making that goes beyond the current dominant heuristic processing perspective. However, that does not mean that the book will strictly oppose this perspective. The unique perspective of this book will help to tie together these different conceptualizations of intuition and develop an integrative approach to the psychological understanding of intuition in judgment and decision making. Accordingly, some of the chapters reflect prior research from the heuristic processing perspective in the new light of the learning perspective. This book provides a representative overview of what we currently know about intuition in judgment and decision making. The authors provide latest theoretical developments, integrative frameworks and state-of-the-art reviews of research in the laboratory and in the field. Moreover, some chapters deal with applied topics. Intuition in Judgment and Decision Making aims not only at the interest of students and researchers of psychology, but also at scholars from neighboring social and behavioral sciences such as economy, sociology, political sciences, and neurosciences.