Steven I. Gordon – författare

Effective use of microcomputers can greatly aid professional city planners and managers in the exacting duties they perform. Microcomputers are a low-cost, high-powered means of mechanizing both routine and sophisticated analytical operations. This text demonstrates how to incorporate microcomputer technology in a range of city planning problems and situations. The authors link a variety of methods and applications to concrete examples and exercises. Their hands-on approach is designed specifically for professional planners and managers in both the public and private sectors. It covers everything from inserting a floppy disk into the processing unit to producing typed copy of results from predictive modeling and forecasting future trends.The study begins with a basic introduction to the technical jargon associated with PCs and an explanation of the Input-Process-Output cycles. A series of chapters follow, explaining specific software packages and their functions and operations. Specific applications using spreadsheets, graphics, and database management schemes are extremely useful. Further chapters introduce graphics and database systems. The book's learn-by-example format will prove extremely useful to time-pressed practitioners and students in city planning and management, as well as students preparing to enter the field.

Introduction to Modeling and Simulation with MATLAB and Python is intended for students and professionals in science, social science, and engineering that wish to learn the principles of computer modeling, as well as basic programming skills. The book content focuses on meeting a set of basic modeling and simulation competencies that were developed as part of several National Science Foundation grants. Even though computer science students are much more expert programmers, they are not often given the opportunity to see how those skills are being applied to solve complex science and engineering problems and may also not be aware of the libraries used by scientists to create those models.The book interleaves chapters on modeling concepts and related exercises with programming concepts and exercises. The authors start with an introduction to modeling and its importance to current practices in the sciences and engineering. They introduce each of the programming environments and the syntax used to represent variables and compute mathematical equations and functions. As students gain more programming expertise, the authors return to modeling concepts, providing starting code for a variety of exercises where students add additional code to solve the problem and provide an analysis of the outcomes. In this way, the book builds both modeling and programming expertise with a "just-in-time" approach so that by the end of the book, students can take on relatively simple modeling example on their own.Each chapter is supplemented with references to additional reading, tutorials, and exercises that guide students to additional help and allows them to practice both their programming and analytical modeling skills. In addition, each of the programming related chapters is divided into two parts – one for MATLAB and one for Python. In these chapters, the authors also refer to additional online tutorials that students can use if they are having difficulty with any of the topics.The book culminates with a set of final project exercise suggestions that incorporate both the modeling and programming skills provided in the rest of the volume. Those projects could be undertaken by individuals or small groups of students.The companion website at http://www.intromodeling.com provides updates to instructions when there are substantial changes in software versions, as well as electronic copies of exercises and the related code. The website also offers a space where people can suggest additional projects they are willing to share as well as comments on the existing projects and exercises throughout the book. Solutions and lecture notes will also be available for qualifying instructors.

The purpose behind Computer Models in Environmental Planning is to provide a practical and applied guide to the use of these models in environmental planning and environmental impact analysis. Models concerning water quality, air quality, stormwater runoff, land capabil­ ity evaluationfland information systems, and hazardous waste dis­ posal are reviewed and critiqued. I have tried to emphasize the practical problems with data, computer capabilities, and other analyt­ ical questions that must be faced by the practitioner attempting to use these models. Thus, I do not delve too deeply into the theoretical underpinnings of the models, referring the reader instead to specialized references in this area. For each environmental area, I review the major models and methods, comparing their assumptions, ease of use, and other characteristics. Practical examples illustrate the benefits and problems of using each model. Computer models are increasingly being used by planning and engineering professionals for locating and planning public works, and industrial, commercial, and residential projects, while evaluating their environmental impacts. The requirements of the National Environ­ mental Policy Act and related state laws as well as separate state and federal laws concerning air and water quality, stormwater runoff, land use, and hazardous waste disposal have made the use of these methods mandatory in many circumstances. Yet, explanations of both the benefits and problems associated with supposedly easy-to-use com­ puter versions of these models and methods remain, at best, difficult to retrieve and, at worst, incomplete.