Literatura académica sobre el tema "Structural simplification"

Since the 1990s, governance and anti-corruption have become preoccupations of the international development and research communities, leading to the proliferation of sophisticated measures, which, while a critical starting point, have not had significant impact at the country level. This chapter examines approaches to reducing corruption, including structural state reform, simplification and reduction of administrative discretion, transparency and accountability, international agreements and conventions, and anti-corruption bodies. While some approaches have produced results in specific areas, their impact has been limited. The chapter argues that we should think about corruption differently, not as a market distortion or unethical behaviour but as a misallocation of power. To address corruption requires interventions that reallocate power among stakeholders. The limited success in addressing corruption suggests that policy-makers and the international community have not been able to reallocate power, mostly due to lack of political leverage to discipline entrenched local actors.

Rural areas are subject to constant structural, spatial and economic transformations. The main purpose of this monograph was to present a new concept of shaping of rural land arrangement that takes into account the land value. The presented optimization methodology of shaping of the rural areas has a general range of application, not being limited by time or place. of the location of the consolidation object. The only condition for its use is the availability of a specific set of output data enabling the necessary calculations for the implementation of consolidation works. The described method has been successfully applied to the research object of the Mściowojów village, in a registry area located in the Dolnośląkie voivodeship, in the Jaworski district, providing with the assumed effects. In order to meet the research objectives, the shaping of rural land arrangement was conducted according to five models. The original arrangement of existing land division in a given village is considered as the 1st model. The 2nd model uses a rather accurate description of the locations of the lands in the village. To define this feature the location of farm parcels had to be determined. This model is the most accurate, but also the most labor-intensive of all. In the 3rd model, a fundamental simplification of the land arrangement was adopted, limiting the distance matrix to its measurement to the entry points from the settlements into the complexes. This simplification means that the location of parcels in the complex does not affect the average distance to the land in the whole village. On the basis of simplifications applied in the 3rd model allowing a significant reduction of the distance matrix the 4th model which uses a linear programming to minimize the distance to a parcel was developed. Introducing into the linear model an additional condition that eliminates distance growth in farms in relation to the initial state was important for the research. This was implemented in the 5th model and had a positive impact on the obtained results. The 6th model was developed by including the landowners' wants into the 5th model. These had to be taken into account so that the research/the new land arrangement did not cause complaints. The wants could not be fully included due to their inherently contradictory nature. The wants for having the parcel in a given arrangement was replaced with a guarantee of division, after which landowner receives no smaller share than the prior one. As demonstrated in the work, the solutions of the developed models allowed obtaining land arrangements close to the optimal in terms of distance to land and the shape of parcels and farms with regard to land specifics. The presented results allow to draw a conclusion that the methods and analyses applied in the research can have a wide range of application in shaping of rural land arrangement. Developing the most socially accepted optimization of parcel division in the process of land consolidation is important due to the actual needs for the implementation of the rural land arrangement research. This may also have influence on better use of the EU's financial resources for the consolidation of agricultural lands.

The role of recursion in language is universal and unique. It is universal because the (Specifier)-Head-Complement(s) geometry is the type of structuring that all phrases and all languages unequivocally adhere to, and complexes of such phrases constitute a general recursive structure. It is unique because the asymmetric nature of [(Specifier)-[Head-Complement(s)]] structures is unattested in other domains of human cognition or in the cognition of other animal species. The common claim that not all languages manifest recursive structures is usually couched in terms of self-embedded sentences, a particular sub-type of the (Specifier)-Head-Complement(s) geometry. The increasingly common claim that certain representations in human general cognition or in the animal kingdom are isomorphic to language’s recursive structures is the result of great simplification of the representations under comparison, which undercuts the force of the argument. Linguistic structures in the form of bundles of (Specifier)-Head-Complement(s) remain quirky through and through—and universal in language.

Planning law is one of the most fast moving legal areas, with major structural changes to the planning system occurring since 2014 . Despite these attempts at simplification, it remains one of the most complex fields for both students and practitioners to navigate. In this continually evolving arena the fourteenth edition of A Practical Approach to Planning Law is an authoritative and reliable resource for all those working in the area, providing a comprehensive and systematic account of the principles and practice of planning law. The text guides the reader through each stage of the planning process, from permission applications through to disputes and appeals in a clear and accessible style. Containing coverage of all recent cases as well as important legislative and policy developments since the publication of the previous edition, particularly those arising out of the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017, the Housing and Planning Act 2016, the Infrastructure Act 2015, and the Deregulation Act 2015, this new edition provides an invaluable introduction to the subject for professionals and students alike. The A Practical Approach series is the perfect partner for practice work. Each title provides a comprehensive overview of the subject together with clear, practical advice and tips on issues likely to arise in practice. The books are also an excellent resource for those new to the field, where the expert overview and clear layout promote clarity and ease of understanding.

While Roman law knew various different forms of control, differentiating meticulously between dominium, possessio and detentio, provincial practice was very different, and evidently conformed to the Roman concepts to only a limited degree. The most detailed information on the condition of property in the provinces of the Imperium Romanum, and the way Rome handled the legal structures and concepts encountered in each case, is without a doubt to be obtained from Aegyptus, on account of the wealth of evidence which has come down to us on papyrus. These sources show that although the Romans respected existing constructs, they nonetheless shoehorned them into their own system, which fundamentally differentiated between ager publicus and ager privatus. This brought with it simplifications with regard to administration. These are outlined in this chapter.

The evolution of surgery for epilepsy in the late nineteenth century was partly the consequence of new ideas about the localisation of function in the brain and advances in the understanding of the physiological nature of epilepsy. This was an exciting time of discovery, and really fundamental and novel principles were enunciated which have stood the test of time. New techniques of investigation, including electroencephalography or magnetic resonance imaging, have since led to more accurate ‘targeting’, allowing the elucidation of the anatomical underpinning of epilepsy to be based, not only on semiology as in the earlier years, but also on more objective structural and functional measures. However, the fact remains that most surgery is based on the concept that resecting ‘bad’ tissue, and thus removing the ‘focus’ of epilepsy, will cure the condition—a postulation which has not changed since the time of Jackson (and which has its roots in earlier superstition). Such theories of epilepsy are surely gross simplifications, and the absence of any subsequent paradigm shift is why surgery has really not advanced conceptually much in the last 50 years. Technique and technology have profoundly changed, but the theoretical basis, generally speaking, has not.

Long-term planning for many sectors of society—including infrastructure, human health, agriculture, food security, water supply, insurance, conflict, and migration—requires an assessment of the range of possible futures which the planet might experience. Unlike short-term forecasts for which validation data exists for comparing forecast to observation, long-term forecasts have almost no validation data. As a result, researchers must rely on supporting evidence to make their projections. A review of methods for quantifying the uncertainty of climate predictions is given. The primary tool for quantifying these uncertainties are climate models, which attempt to model all the relevant processes that are important in climate change. However, neither the construction nor calibration of climate models is perfect, and therefore the uncertainties due to model errors must also be taken into account in the uncertainty quantification.Typically, prediction uncertainty is quantified by generating ensembles of solutions from climate models to span possible futures. For instance, initial condition uncertainty is quantified by generating an ensemble of initial states that are consistent with available observations and then integrating the climate model starting from each initial condition. A climate model is itself subject to uncertain choices in modeling certain physical processes. Some of these choices can be sampled using so-called perturbed physics ensembles, whereby uncertain parameters or structural switches are perturbed within a single climate model framework. For a variety of reasons, there is a strong reliance on so-called ensembles of opportunity, which are multi-model ensembles (MMEs) formed by collecting predictions from different climate modeling centers, each using a potentially different framework to represent relevant processes for climate change. The most extensive collection of these MMEs is associated with the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). However, the component models have biases, simplifications, and interdependencies that must be taken into account when making formal risk assessments. Techniques and concepts for integrating model projections in MMEs are reviewed, including differing paradigms of ensembles and how they relate to observations and reality. Aspects of these conceptual issues then inform the more practical matters of how to combine and weight model projections to best represent the uncertainties associated with projected climate change.

Scholars who have investigated the history of Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania German) have come to the unanimous consensus that the language most closely resembles the German dialects of the Palatinate region (Pfalz). This is not surprising, since the majority of the German-speaking immigrants to colonial Pennsylvania came from that area. Aiming to identify the precise European origins of Pennsylvania Dutch, researchers found that in its core structural features and lexicon, the language is not identical to any one variety of Palatine German. Pennsylvania Dutch must therefore have been subject to mixing and leveling of input dialects and independent development during the earliest generations. In this article I situate the history of Pennsylvania Dutch in the literature on koineization and new dialect formation, focusing on the most striking structural differences between Pennsylvania Dutch and Palatine German, the lowering of high and mid vowels in closed syllables before tautosyllabic /r/ and the subsequent simplification of /r/ + C clusters through either /r/-deletion or vowel epenthesis.

Abstract The lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot is a type of robot that can assist patients with motor dysfunction caused by stroke in limb movement and rehabilitation training. In response to the limited applicability and low flexibility of current lower limb exoskeleton robots, this paper designs a highly adaptable lower limb exoskeleton robot through Solidworks, which has the characteristics of continuous leg length adjustment and structural simplification. The robot has a single lower limb with 3 degrees of freedom, using only the minimum but necessary degrees of freedom to achieve walking motion, thereby reducing the complexity of the mechanism. In addition, the design also avoids the negative impact of joint size on human health and foot movement, and introduces a waist width adjustment mechanism to adapt to users of different body types. Finally, using Ansys Workbench finite element analysis software, static and modal analyses were conducted on different stages of robot motion. The experimental results showed that this design scheme can achieve effective force distribution throughout the entire walking cycle, verifying the feasibility of the structural design.

AbstractTraveling on a mountainous road is attractive but questionable under aggressive climatic conditions such as extreme rainstorms. Roads are often designed in different geological complexity overlaying upper and lower terrains. The complexity of slope geometries, potential deformities, ground discontinuities, soil-rock composite nature, factors incorporated in structural integrity, the complexity associated with infrastructure developments, and unstable landform have long been causes of the increasing cost of road constructions in hills. In many instances, landform geometries and the natures of slope observed in-situ allow us to understand many salient features that we need to know in the design to mitigate landslide threats. The extent to which we make the collective effort to gather many features of landforms and their static representations concludes its validity. Findings are more forced to be based on geometrical evidence of slopes and cross-checked with an appropriate design criterion. A provision should describe a design or construction method that is deemed to comply with the site-specific conditions. Such an approach will save the enormous cost of investigations, design, and simplification for numerical evaluations, and also contribute to an indirect approach to road restoration and improve an appropriate approach for resilience to landslide hazards.

AbstractUnderstanding structurally complex boreal stands is crucial for designing ecosystem management strategies that promote forest resilience under global change. However, current management practices lead to the homogenization and simplification of forest structures in the boreal biome. In this chapter, we illustrate two options for managing productive and resilient forests: (1) the managing of two-aged mixed-species forests; and (2) the managing of multi-aged, structurally complex stands. Results demonstrate that multi-aged and mixed stand management are powerful silvicultural tools to promote the resilience of boreal forests under global change.

The constant, undisturbed rotor hub rotational speed is a commonly applied boundary condition and simplification in computational analyses of helicopter rotors. Revoking this simplification and considering rotor-drivetrain interactions in the hub's rotational degree of freedom can - but doesn't necessarily - improve the predictions of structural blade loads, especially in the lead-lag direction. To estimate the drivetrain's potential to influence the lead-lag loads, this paper proposes the systematic evaluation of the modified collective lead-lag modes. These eigenmodes, as well as the resulting modification of lead-lag loads in the aeromechanic simulation, are presented and compared for the rotordrivetrain configurations of the Eurocopter Bo105 and the Sikorsky UH-60A. The study focuses on understanding the drivetrain's influence rather than on making high fidelity predictions. In the Bo105 case, the drivetrain impact on the lead-lag moments is significantly more pronounced than for the UH-60A. The discussion of this difference includes the assessment of the blade passage frequency magnitudes (4/rev for a number of nb = 4 rotor blades) and their sensitivity to the modified collective second lead-lag eigenfrequency, which in turn is changed by a varying drivetrain stiffness. While a very stiff drivetrain causes an eigenfrequency of 4/rev with high-magnitude resonance for the Bo105, the UH-60A configuration maintains an eigenfrequency above 4/rev for the whole range of applied stiffness values. For rotor-drivetrain systems, especially near resonance, the nb/rev magnitudes of the lead-lag loads are very sensitive to changes in the drivetrain properties as well as changes in the nb/rev excitations. The accurate modeling of these nb/rev excitations, e. g. by airloads, is essential to capture changes in the nb/rev dynamic response that are caused by the drivetrain. Therefore, including the drivetrain in the structural model may only be useful if the fidelity of other models is increased simultaneously.

Major challenges of high quality requirements are associated with internal statistical variability, i.e., too severe gap between "as-designed" vs. "as-built" composite micro-structures. Therefore, the objective of this work is development of general physics-based methodology to correlate structural performance of RCS with inevitable variability of internal designs and demonstrate it on examples of representative composite sub-elements. Generated results can be used to provide guidance for simplifications and relaxation of existing quality requirements with obvious cost and availability improvement. Demonstration of implementation is shown on quantification of damage initiation in laminated structures under conditions of tension and bending.

Major challenges of high quality requirements are associated with internal statistical variability, i.e., too severe gap between "as-designed" vs. "as-built" composite micro-structures. Therefore, the objective of this work is development of general physics-based methodology to correlate structural performance of RCS with inevitable variability of internal designs and demonstrate it on examples of representative composite sub-elements. Generated results can be used to provide guidance for simplifications and relaxation of existing quality requirements with obvious cost and availability improvement. Demonstration of implementation is shown on quantification of damage initiation in laminated structures under conditions of tension and bending.

Previous work by the authors developed a junction-inactivity-based structural simplification technique for bondgraph models. The technique is highly sensitive to the orientation of the body coordinate frames in multibody systems: improper alignment of body coordinate frames may prohibit a significant simplification. This paper demonstrates how the Karhunen-Loe`ve expansion can be used to automatically detect the existence of and to find the transformation into body coordinate frames that render the bond-graph of a multibody system more conducive to simplification. The conclusion is that the Karhunen-Loe`ve expansion complements well the junction-inactivity-based structural simplification technique when multibody dynamics are involved in the system.

International organizations most often recommend a virtual one stop shop such as the Single Window for Foreign Trade (Spanish acronym: VUCE). This model is undoubtedly the most successful scheme available. This paper presents the general framework for trade facilitation and shows how VUCEs have triggered a new perspective of cohesiveness as countries seek to facilitate trade and influence competitiveness indexes. In addition, it assesses the current situation in countries of the Americas that are starting to or have already taken the first steps in developing a VUCE, such as Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, and Chile, and discusses the conditions required to implement a VUCE with the understanding that there is more than one possible model of implementation and every government must choose one that is suitable to its own institutional structure and technological progress. This paper was presented at the Fifth Americas Competiveness Forum for the Inter-American Development Bank and Compete Caribbean Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, October 5-7, 2011.

Evaluating the seismic performance of concrete dams requires nonlinear dynamic analysis of two- or three-dimensional dam–water–foundation rock systems that include all the factors known to be significant in the earthquake response of dams. Such analyses are greatly complicated by interaction between the structure, the impounded reservoir and the deformable foundation rock that supports it, and the fact that the fluid and foundation domains extend to large distances. Presented in this report is the development of a direct finite-element (FE) method for nonlinear earthquake analysis of two- and three-dimensional dam–water–foundation rock systems. The analysis procedure applies standard viscous-damper absorbing boundaries to model the semi-unbounded fluid and foundation domains, and specifies at these boundaries effective earthquake forces determined from a ground motion defined at a control point on the ground surface. This report is organized in three parts, with a common notation list, references, and appendices at the end of the report. Part I develops the direct FE method for 2D dam–water–foundation rock systems. The underlying analytical framework of treating dam–water–foundation rock interaction as a scattering problem, wherein the dam perturbs an assumed "free-field" state of the system, is presented, and by applying these concepts to a bounded FE model with viscous-damper boundaries to truncate the semi-unbounded domains, the analysis procedure is derived. Step-by-step procedures for computing effective earthquake forces from analysis of two 1D free-field systems are presented, and the procedure is validated by computing frequency response functions and transient response of an idealized dam–water–foundation rock system and comparing against independent benchmark results. This direct FE method is generalized to 3D systems in Part II of this report. While the fundamental concepts of treating interaction as a scattering problem are similar for 2D and 3D systems, the derivation and implementation of the method for 3D systems is much more involved. Effective earthquake forces must now be computed by analyzing a set of 1D and 2D systems derived from the boundaries of the free-field systems, which requires extensive book-keeping and data transfer for large 3D models. To reduce these requirements and facilitate implementation of the direct FE method for 3D systems, convenient simplifications of the procedure are proposed and their effectiveness demonstrated. Part III of the report proposes to use the direct FE method for conducting the large number of nonlinear response history analyses (RHAs) required for performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) of concrete dams, and discusses practical modeling considerations for two of the most influential aspects of these analyses: nonlinear mechanisms and energy dissipation (damping). The findings have broad implications for modeling of energy dissipation and calibration of damping values for concrete dam analyses. At the end of Part III, the direct FE method is implemented with a commercial FE program and used to compute the nonlinear response of an actual arch dam. These nonlinear results, although limited in their scope, demonstrate the capabilities and effectiveness of the direct FE method to compute the types of nonlinear engineering response quantities required for PBEE of concrete dams.

Executive Summary This report describes a series of experiments carried out by PRICE Lab, a research programme at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) jointly funded by the Central Bank of Ireland, the Commission for Energy Regulation, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Commission for Communications Regulation. The experiments were conducted with samples of Irish consumers aged 18-70 years and were designed to answer the following general research question: At what point do products become too complex for consumers to choose accurately between the good ones and the bad ones? BACKGROUND AND METHODS PRICE Lab represents a departure from traditional methods employed for economic research in Ireland. It belongs to the rapidly expanding area of ‘behavioural economics’, which is the application of psychological insights to economic analysis. In recent years, behavioural economics has developed novel methods and generated many new findings, especially in relation to the choices made by consumers. These scientific advances have implications both for economics and for policy. They suggest that consumers often do not make decisions in the way that economists have traditionally assumed. The findings show that consumers have limited capacity for attending to and processing information and that they are prone to systematic biases, all of which may lead to disadvantageous choices. In short, consumers may make costly mistakes. Research has indeed documented that in several key consumer markets, including financial services, utilities and telecommunications, many consumers struggle to choose the best products for themselves. It is often argued that these markets involve ‘complex’ products. The obvious question that arises is whether consumer policy can be used to help them to make better choices when faced with complex products. Policies are more likely to be successful where they are informed by an accurate understanding of how real consumers make decisions between products. To provide evidence for consumer policy, PRICE Lab has developed a method for measuring the accuracy with which consumers make choices, using techniques adapted from the scientific study of human perception. The method allows researchers to measure how reliably consumers can distinguish a good deal from a bad one. A good deal is defined here as one where the product is more valuable than the price paid. In other words, it offers good value for money or, in the jargon of economics, offers the consumer a ‘surplus’. Conversely, a bad deal offers poor value for money, providing no (or a negative) surplus. PRICE Lab’s main experimental method, which we call the ‘Surplus Identification’ (S-ID) task, allows researchers to measure how accurately consumers can spot a surplus and whether they are prone to systematic biases. Most importantly, the S-ID task can be used to study how the accuracy of consumers’ decisions changes as the type of product changes. For the experiments we report here, samples of consumers arrived at the ESRI one at a time and spent approximately one hour doing the S-ID task with different kinds of products, which were displayed on a computer screen. They had to learn to judge the value of one or more products against prices and were then tested for accuracy. As well as people’s intrinsic motivation to do well when their performance on a task like this is tested, we provided an incentive: one in every ten consumers who attended PRICE Lab won a prize, based on their performance. Across a series of these experiments, we were able to test how the accuracy of consumers’ decisions was affected by the number and nature of the product’s characteristics, or ‘attributes’, which they had to take into account in order to distinguish good deals from bad ones. In other words, we were able to study what exactly makes for a ‘complex’ product, in the sense that consumers find it difficult to choose good deals. FINDINGS Overall, across all ten experiments described in this report, we found that consumers’ judgements of the value of products against prices were surprisingly inaccurate. Even when the product was simple, meaning that it consisted of just one clearly perceptible attribute (e.g. the product was worth more when it was larger), consumers required a surplus of around 16-26 per cent of the total price range in order to be able to judge accurately that a deal was a good one rather than a bad one. Put another way, when most people have to map a characteristic of a product onto a range of prices, they are able to distinguish at best between five and seven levels of value (e.g. five levels might be thought of as equivalent to ‘very bad’, ‘bad’, ‘average’, ‘good’, ‘very good’). Furthermore, we found that judgements of products against prices were not only imprecise, but systematically biased. Consumers generally overestimated what products at the top end of the range were worth and underestimated what products at the bottom end of the range were worth, typically by as much as 10-15 per cent and sometimes more. We then systematically increased the complexity of the products, first by adding more attributes, so that the consumers had to take into account, two, three, then four different characteristics of the product simultaneously. One product might be good on attribute A, not so good on attribute B and available at just above the xii | PRICE Lab: An Investigation of Consumers’ Capabilities with Complex Products average price; another might be very good on A, middling on B, but relatively expensive. Each time the consumer’s task was to judge whether the deal was good or bad. We would then add complexity by introducing attribute C, then attribute D, and so on. Thus, consumers had to negotiate multiple trade-offs. Performance deteriorated quite rapidly once multiple attributes were in play. Even the best performers could not integrate all of the product information efficiently – they became substantially more likely to make mistakes. Once people had to consider four product characteristics simultaneously, all of which contributed equally to the monetary value of the product, a surplus of more than half the price range was required for them to identify a good deal reliably. This was a fundamental finding of the present experiments: once consumers had to take into account more than two or three different factors simultaneously their ability to distinguish good and bad deals became strikingly imprecise. This finding therefore offered a clear answer to our primary research question: a product might be considered ‘complex’ once consumers must take into account more than two or three factors simultaneously in order to judge whether a deal is good or bad. Most of the experiments conducted after we obtained these strong initial findings were designed to test whether consumers could improve on this level of performance, perhaps for certain types of products or with sufficient practice, or whether the performance limits uncovered were likely to apply across many different types of product. An examination of individual differences revealed that some people were significantly better than others at judging good deals from bad ones. However the differences were not large in comparison to the overall effects recorded; everyone tested struggled once there were more than two or three product attributes to contend with. People with high levels of numeracy and educational attainment performed slightly better than those without, but the improvement was small. We also found that both the high level of imprecision and systematic bias were not reduced substantially by giving people substantial practice and opportunities to learn – any improvements were slow and incremental. A series of experiments was also designed to test whether consumers’ capability was different depending on the type of product attribute. In our initial experiments the characteristics of the products were all visual (e.g., size, fineness of texture, etc.). We then performed similar experiments where the relevant product information was supplied as numbers (e.g., percentages, amounts) or in categories (e.g., Type A, Rating D, Brand X), to see whether performance might improve. This question is important, as most financial and contractual information is supplied to consumers in a numeric or categorical form. The results showed clearly that the type of product information did not matter for the level of imprecision and bias in consumers’ decisions – the results were essentially the same whether the product attributes were visual, numeric or categorical. What continued to drive performance was how many characteristics the consumer had to judge simultaneously. Thus, our findings were not the result of people failing to perceive or take in information accurately. Rather, the limiting factor in consumers’ capability was how many different factors they had to weigh against each other at the same time. In most of our experiments the characteristics of the product and its monetary value were related by a one-to-one mapping; each extra unit of an attribute added the same amount of monetary value. In other words, the relationships were all linear. Because other findings in behavioural economics suggest that consumers might struggle more with non-linear relationships, we designed experiments to test them. For example, the monetary value of a product might increase more when the amount of one attribute moves from very low to low, than when it moves from high to very high. We found that this made no difference to either the imprecision or bias in consumers’ decisions provided that the relationship was monotonic (i.e. the direction of the relationship was consistent, so that more or less of the attribute always meant more or less monetary value respectively). When the relationship involved a turning point (i.e. more of the attribute meant higher monetary value but only up to a certain point, after which more of the attribute meant less value) consumers’ judgements were more imprecise still. Finally, we tested whether familiarity with the type of product improved performance. In most of the experiments we intentionally used products that were new to the experimental participants. This was done to ensure experimental control and so that we could monitor learning. In the final experiment reported here, we used two familiar products (Dublin houses and residential broadband packages) and tested whether consumers could distinguish good deals from bad deals any better among these familiar products than they could among products that they had never seen before, but which had the same number and type of attributes and price range. We found that consumers’ performance was the same for these familiar products as for unfamiliar ones. Again, what primarily determined the amount of imprecision and bias in consumers’ judgments was the number of attributes that they had to balance against each other, regardless of whether these were familiar or novel. POLICY IMPLICATIONS There is a menu of consumer polices designed to assist consumers in negotiating complex products. A review, including international examples, is given in the main body of the report. The primary aim is often to simplify the consumer’s task. Potential policies, versions of which already exist in various forms and which cover a spectrum of interventionist strength, might include: the provision and endorsement of independent, transparent price comparison websites and other choice engines (e.g. mobile applications, decision software); the provision of high quality independent consumer advice; ‘mandated simplification’, whereby regulations stipulate that providers must present product information in a simplified and standardised format specifically determined by regulation; and more strident interventions such as devising and enforcing prescriptive rules and regulations in relation to permissible product descriptions, product features or price structures. The present findings have implications for such policies. However, while the experimental findings have implications for policy, it needs to be borne in mind that the evidence supplied here is only one factor in determining whether any given intervention in markets is likely to be beneficial. The findings imply that consumers are likely to struggle to choose well in markets with products consisting of multiple important attributes that must all be factored in when making a choice. Interventions that reduce this kind of complexity for consumers may therefore be beneficial, but nothing in the present research addresses the potential costs of such interventions, or how providers are likely to respond to them. The findings are also general in nature and are intended to give insights into consumer choices across markets. There are likely to be additional factors specific to certain markets that need to be considered in any analysis of the costs and benefits of a potential policy change. Most importantly, the policy implications discussed here are not specific to Ireland or to any particular product market. Furthermore, they should not be read as criticisms of existing regulatory regimes, which already go to some lengths in assisting consumers to deal with complex products. Ireland currently has extensive regulations designed to protect consumers, both in general and in specific markets, descriptions of which can be found in Section 9.1 of the main report. Nevertheless, the experiments described here do offer relevant guidance for future policy designs. For instance, they imply that while policies that make it easier for consumers to switch providers may be necessary to encourage active consumers, they may not be sufficient, especially in markets where products are complex. In order for consumers to benefit, policies that help them to identify better deals reliably may also be required, given the scale of inaccuracy in consumers’ decisions that we record in this report when products have multiple important attributes. Where policies are designed to assist consumer decisions, the present findings imply quite severe limits in relation to the volume of information consumers can simultaneously take into account. Good impartial Executive Summary | xv consumer advice may limit the volume of information and focus on ensuring that the most important product attributes are recognised by consumers. The findings also have implications for the role of competition. While consumers may obtain substantial potential benefits from competition, their capabilities when faced with more complex products are likely to reduce such benefits. Pressure from competition requires sufficient numbers of consumers to spot and exploit better value offerings. Given our results, providers with larger market shares may face incentives to increase the complexity of products in an effort to dampen competitive pressure and generate more market power. Where marketing or pricing practices result in prices or attributes with multiple components, our findings imply that consumer choices are likely to become less accurate. Policymakers must of course be careful in determining whether such practices amount to legitimate innovations with potential consumer benefit. Yet there is a genuine danger that spurious complexity can be generated that confuses consumers and protects market power. The results described here provide backing for the promotion and/or provision by policymakers of high-quality independent choice engines, including but not limited to price comparison sites, especially in circumstances where the number of relevant product attributes is high. A longer discussion of the potential benefits and caveats associated with such policies is contained in the main body of the report. Mandated simplification policies are gaining in popularity internationally. Examples include limiting the number of tariffs a single energy company can offer or standardising health insurance products, both of which are designed to simplify the comparisons between prices and/or product attributes. The present research has some implications for what might make a good mandate. Consumer decisions are likely to be improved where a mandate brings to the consumer’s attention the most important product attributes at the point of decision. The present results offer guidance with respect to how many key attributes consumers are able simultaneously to trade off, with implications for the design of standardised disclosures. While bearing in mind the potential for imposing costs, the results also suggest benefits to compulsory ‘meta-attributes’ (such as APRs, energy ratings, total costs, etc.), which may help consumers to integrate otherwise separate sources of information. FUTURE RESEARCH The experiments described here were designed to produce findings that generalise across multiple product markets. However, in addition to the results outlined in this report, the work has resulted in new experimental methods that can be applied to more specific consumer policy issues. This is possible because the methods generate experimental measures of the accuracy of consumers’ decision-making. As such, they can be adapted to assess the quality of consumers’ decisions in relation to specific products, pricing and marketing practices. Work is underway in PRICE Lab that applies these methods to issues in specific markets, including those for personal loans, energy and mobile phones.

Prefabricated modular steel (PFMS) construction is a more efficient and safe method of constructing a high-quality building with less waste material and labour dependency than traditional steel construction. It is indeed critical to have a precise and valuable intermodular joining system that allows for efficient load transfer, safe handling, and optimal use of modular units' strength. Thus, the purpose of this study was to develop joints using tension bolts and solid tenons welded into the gusset plate (GP). These joints ensured rigid and secure connectivity in both horizontal and vertical directions for the modular units. Using the three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analysis software ABAQUS, the study investigated the nonlinear lateral structural performance of the joint and two-storey modular steel building (MSB). The solid element FE models of joints were then simplified by introducing connectors and beam elements to enhance computational efficiency. Numerous parameters indicated that column tenons were important in determining the joint's structural performance. Moreover, with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.025, the developed connectors and beam element models accurately predicted the structural behaviour of the joints. As a result of their simplification, these joints demonstrated effective load distribution, seismic performance, and ductility while reducing computational time, effort, and complexity. The validity of the FE analysis was then determined by comparing the results to the thirteen joint bending tests performed in the reference.

This study assessed the seismic performance and replaceability of steel frame structures incorporating replaceable beam segments. A reduced-beam-section beam-column joint featuring a replaceable energy dissipation beam segment was specifically designed for this purpose. The joint underwent quasi-static analysis subjected to low-cycle reciprocating loading. The study extended to a single-story, single-span plane steel frame, where reduced-beam-section beam-column joints with replaceable energy dissipation beam segments were analyzed for hysteretic and deformation behavior. Moreover, the exploration of parameters such as end-plate opening clearance and rotation deformation was undertaken to inform the simplification of the overall plane frame model. Meanwhile, multi-scale models were developed for an eight-story, four-span, reduced-beam-section steel frame (RBSSF) with a replaceable energy dissipation beam segment and a rigid steel frame (RSF). These models were employed to analyze the elastoplastic time-history characteristics and the replaceability of the beam segment. The results demonstrated that the reduced-beam-section beam-column joint with a replaceable energy dissipation beam segment exhibited a relatively full hysteresis curve, affirming high ductility, energy dissipation, and plastic deformation capacities. Notably, damage and plastic development in the steel beam primarily concentrated in the low-yield-point replaceable energy dissipation beam segment. The small end-plate opening clearance ensured cooperative deformation between the end plates facilitated by the bolts. Comparatively, the RBSSF structure displayed superior seismic performance to the RSF structure during earthquakes, with the replaceable energy dissipation beam segment satisfying replaceability requirements under moderate seismic conditions.