Reports Bound Ed

Offering alternative models based on such concepts as satisficing (acceptance of viable choices that may not be the undiscoverable optimum) and bouded rationality (the limited extent to which rational calculation can direct human behaviour), Simon shows why more empirical research based on experiments and direct observation, rather than just statistical analysis of economic aggregates, is needed.

The opening chapter provides background information on the basic functional setting, semi-groups and the abstract wave equation, almost periodicity and the wave equation, and technical tools. Succeeding chapters cover the initial value problem, asymptotics in autonomous cases, non-resonance in the purely dissipative case, stability of periodic and almost-periodic solutions, oscillation properties in the conservative case, and global properties of the full equation. Includes bibliographic references and indexes by author and subject.

Scholars of Latin American politics have been challenged to account for the varied outcomes of the transitions from authoritarian to democratic government that have occurred in many countries south of the border during the past two decades. What explains why some transitions were relatively smooth, with the military firmly in control of the process, while others witnessed substantial concessions by the military to civilian leaders, or even total military collapse? Rather than focus on causes external to the military, such as the previous legacy of democratic rule, severe economic crisis, or social protest, as other scholars have done, Craig Arceneaux draws attention to the important variables internal to the military, such as its unity or ability to coordinate strategy. Using this &"historical-institutionalist&" approach, he compares five different transitions in Brazil and three countries of the Southern Cone&—Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay&—to show what similarities and differences existed and how the differences may be attributed to variations in the internal institutional structure and operation of the military.

Herbert Simon’s renowned theory of bounded rationality is principally interested in cognitive constraints and environmental factors and influences which prevent people from thinking or behaving according to formal rationality. Simon’s theory has been expanded in numerous directions and taken up by various disciplines with an interest in how humans think and behave. This includes philosophy, psychology, neurocognitive sciences, economics, political science, sociology, management, and organization studies. The Routledge Handbook of Bounded Rationality draws together an international team of leading experts to survey the recent literature and the latest developments in these related fields. The chapters feature entries on key behavioural phenomena, including reasoning, judgement, decision making, uncertainty, risk, heuristics and biases, and fast and frugal heuristics. The text also examines current ideas such as fast and slow thinking, nudge, ecological rationality, evolutionary psychology, embodied cognition, and neurophilosophy. Overall, the volume serves to provide the most complete state-of-the-art collection on bounded rationality available. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of economics, psychology, neurocognitive sciences, political sciences, and philosophy.

This book examines how developing countries often sign up to highly potent rules underwriting economic globalisation without even realising it.

These days, the nature of services and the volume of demand in the telecommu nication industry is changing radically, with the replacement of analog transmis sion and traditional copper cables by digital technology and fiber optic transmis sion equipment. Moreover, we see an increasing competition among providers of telecommunication services, and the development of a broad range of new services for users, combining voice, data, graphics and video. Telecommunication network planning has thus become an important problem area for developing and applying optimization models. Telephone companies have initiated extensive modeling and planning efforts to expand and upgrade their transmission facilities, which are, for most national telecommunication networks, divided in three main levels (see Balakrishnan et al. [5]), namely, l. the long-distance or backbone network that typically connects city pairs through gateway nodes; 2. the inter-office or switching center network within each city, that interconnects switching centers in different subdivisions (clusters of customers) and provides access to the gateway(s) node(s); 1 2 DESIGN OF SURVNABLE NETWORKS WITH BOUNDED RINGS 3. the local access network that connects individual subscribers belonging to a cluster to the corresponding switching center. These three levels differ in several ways including their design criteria. Ideally, the design of a telecommunication network should simultaneously account for these three levels. However, to simplify the planning task, the overall planning problem is decomposed by considering each level separately.

Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate "monks" awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives—and sometimes their very lives—to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970s and 1980s, Janja Lalich gives us a rare insider's look at these two cults and advances a new theoretical framework that will reshape our understanding of those who join such groups. Lalich's fascinating discussion includes her in-depth interviews with cult devotees as well as reflections gained from her own experience as a high-ranking member of the Democratic Workers Party. Incorporating classical sociological concepts such as "charisma" and "commitment" with more recent work on the social psychology of influence and control, she develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. She shows how members are led into a state of "bounded choice," in which they make seemingly irrational decisions within a context that makes perfect sense to them and is, in fact, consistent with their highest aspirations. In addition to illuminating the cult phenomenon in the United States and around the world, this important book also addresses our pressing need to know more about the mentality of those true believers who take extreme or violent measures in the name of a cause.