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Solid waste management is a significant issue for sustainable development that involves the technical, socioeconomic, legal, ecological, political, and even cultural components. For this reason, systems analysis has been uniquely providing interdisciplinary support for policy analysis and decision making in solid waste management for the last few decades. Considering these challenges and accomplishments retrospectively, this paper presents a thorough literature review and in-depth discussions of systems analysis models that are promising for providing forward-looking, cost-effective, risk-informed, and environmentally benign decisions for sustainable solid waste management. To simplify the discussion, the spectrum of these systems analysis models was divided into three broadly based domains associated with fourteen categories, although some of them may be intertwined with each other. The first domain comprises systems engineering models including cost-benefit analysis, forecasting analysis, simulation analysis, optimization analysis, and integrated modeling system; the second domain introduces systems analysis platforms, such as management information systems/decision support systems/expert systems; and the third domain introduces system assessment tools including scenario development, material flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, socioeconomic assessment, and sustainable assessment. While some models or tools may be elucidated with respect to multiple managerial purposes, such as integrated modeling system and sustainable assessment, others may cover extended foci of market-based instruments and regulatory requirements, such as socioeconomic assessment and environmental impact assessment. The authors use the term systems analysis as a placeholder for the disparate strands of research and practice at this intersection between environmental systems engineering and sustainability science. Given that the sustainable management is necessary at all phases of impact from the interactions among several prescribed paradigms, current and future solid waste management strategies in relation to systems analysis were particularly discussed. Such a critical review paper may aid the prediction of the possible challenges and the preparation of the appropriate tactics in dealing with large-scale complex solid waste management systems under normal operation and special conditions. It should lead the authors to echo some of their real world observational evidence in terms of cost-benefit-risk trade-off in decision analysis for solid waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inferential reasoning is an integral part of science and civic society, but research shows that it is a problematic domain for many people. One possibility for a more accessible approach to inferential reasoning is to use randomization tests via computer simulations. A case study was conducted with primary preservice teachers after they had passed a course module that introduced inferential reasoning with randomization tests. The study examines how three pairs of primary preservice teachers construct models in a randomization test task with both hands-on and computer-supported components. Our findings suggest that there is a common sequence in the model building process: planning, modeling the random assignment, setting sample size and replacement, and running the simulation. Our findings show in depth how TinkerPlots can be a supportive and constraining medium in the modeling process, building on experiences with physical simulations of a randomization test. These insights can be used for redesigning technology-supported learning trajectories for randomization tests. Together with other case studies our findings provide a good sense of university students' modeling processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]