Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"This research attempts to provide fundamental understanding into the relationship between perceived sustainability of mineral projects and community acceptance. The main objective is to apply agent-based modeling (ABM) and discrete choice modeling to understand changes in community acceptance over time due to changes in community demographics and perceptions. This objective focuses on: 1) formulating agent utility functions for ABM, based on discrete choice theory; 2) applying ABM to account for the effect of information diffusion on community acceptance; and 3) explaining the relationship between initial conditions, topology, and rate of interactions, on one hand, and community acceptance on the other hand.

To achieve this objective, the research relies on discrete choice theory, agent-based modeling, innovation and diffusion theory, and stochastic processes. Discrete choice models of individual preferences of mining projects were used to formulate utility functions for this research. To account for the effect of information diffusion on community acceptance, an agent-based model was developed to describe changes in community acceptance over time, as a function of changing demographics and perceived sustainability impacts. The model was validated with discrete choice experimental data on acceptance of mining in Salt Lake City, Utah. The validated model was used in simulation experiments to explain the model's sensitivity to initial conditions, topology, and rate of interactions. The research shows that the model, with the base case social network, is more sensitive to homophily and number of early adopters than average degree (number of friends). Also, the dynamics of information diffusion are sensitive to differences in clustering in the social networks. Though the research examined the effect of three networks that differ due to the type of homophily, it is their differences in clustering due to homophily that was correlated to information diffusion dynamics"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Awuah-Offei, Kwame, 1975-

Committee Member(s)

Frimpong, Samuel
Aouad, Nassib
Askari-Nasab, Hooman
Wen, Xuerong Meggie

Department(s)

Mining Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Mining Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Summer 2017

Pagination

xiv, 173 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographic references (pages 149-172).

Rights

© 2017 Mark Kofi Boateng, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Thesis Number

T 11159

Electronic OCLC #

1003043366

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