Management Of Complex Systems Research Articles

Parallel Control: A Method for Data-Driven and Computational Control

摘要: 本文简述平行控制的理念、概念及基本方法与应用, 主要强调虚实互动的平行扩展方式与同时计算的并行划分方式的不同之处. 平行控制方法是ACP理论在控制领域中的具体应用, 其核心是利用人工系统进行建模和表示、通过计算实验进行分析和评估、最后借助平行执行实现对复杂系统的控制和管理. 这一控制方法是反馈控制, 特别是自适应控制方法向复杂系统问题扩展的自然结果, 是一种迈向数据驱动控制和计算控制的必然且有效途径. 关键词: 平行控制 / 复杂系统 / ACP方法 / 自适应控制 / 计算控制 / 数据驱动

The problems of technical-organizational complex systems management in crisis situations

The topical problems and the key tasks of technical-organizational complex systems management in crisis situations are formulated. The theory of technical-organizational complex systems management in crisis situations and the methodology of XXI century situational centers development are substantiated.

What are the right policies for electricity supply in Middle East? A regional dynamic integrated electricity model for the province of Yazd in Iran

Energy planning techniques are essential tools in the management of new complex energy systems. Among different techniques, System Dynamics is an appropriate technique for the simulation of complex energy systems and the analysis of their dynamism. In this paper, a regional dynamic integrated electricity model (RDIEM) is developed for a regulated electricity supply system in order to analyze the results of different scenarios and policies and find the right policies for the electricity generation. The results of model are validated with a real case in the province of Yazd in Iran. The results show that the balanced growth and the environment-oriented policies have the best results among different policies. Although the application is related to the Iranian case, the implications are much wider, especially in the Middle East.

Fuzzy least squares support vector machine soft measurement model based on adaptive mutative scale chaos immune algorithm

In order to enhance measuring precision of the real complex electromechanical system, complex industrial system and complex ecological & management system with characteristics of multi-variable, non-liner, strong coupling and large time-delay, in terms of the fuzzy character of this real complex system, a fuzzy least squares support vector machine (FLS-SVM) soft measurement model was established and its parameters were optimized by using adaptive mutative scale chaos immune algorithm. The simulation results reveal that fuzzy least squares support vector machines soft measurement model is of better approximation accuracy and robustness. And application results show that the relative errors of the soft measurement model are less than 3.34%.

Tracking socioeconomic vulnerability using network analysis: insights from an avian influenza outbreak in an ostrich production network.

BackgroundThe focus of management in many complex systems is shifting towards facilitation, adaptation, building resilience, and reducing vulnerability. Resilience management requires the development and application of general heuristics and methods for tracking changes in both resilience and vulnerability. We explored the emergence of vulnerability in the South African domestic ostrich industry, an animal production system which typically involves 3–4 movements of each bird during its lifetime. This system has experienced several disease outbreaks, and the aim of this study was to investigate whether these movements have contributed to the vulnerability of this system to large disease outbreaks.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe ostrich production system requires numerous movements of birds between different farm types associated with growth (i.e. Hatchery to juvenile rearing farm to adult rearing farm). We used 5 years of movement records between 2005 and 2011 prior to an outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N2). These data were analyzed using a network analysis in which the farms were represented as nodes and the movements of birds as links. We tested the hypothesis that increasing economic efficiency in the domestic ostrich industry in South Africa made the system more vulnerable to outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N2). Our results indicated that as time progressed, the network became increasingly vulnerable to pathogen outbreaks. The farms that became infected during the outbreak displayed network qualities, such as significantly higher connectivity and centrality, which predisposed them to be more vulnerable to disease outbreak.Conclusions/SignificanceTaken in the context of previous research, our results provide strong support for the application of network analysis to track vulnerability, while also providing useful practical implications for system monitoring and management.

Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) in complex systems: Cultural adaptation and safety impacts in healthcare

In complex systems, such as hospitals or air traffic control operations, critical incidents (CIs) are unavoidable. These incidents can not only become critical for victims but also for professionals working at the “sharp end” who may have to deal with critical incident stress (CIS) reactions that may be severe and impede emotional, physical, cognitive and social functioning. These CIS reactions may occur not only under exceptional conditions but also during every-day work and become an important safety issue. In contrast to air traffic management (ATM) operations in Europe, which have readily adopted critical incident stress management (CISM), most hospitals have not yet implemented comprehensive peer support programs. This survey was conducted in 2010 at the only European general hospital setting which implemented CISM program since 2004. The aim of the article is to describe possible contribution of CISM in hospital settings framed from the perspective of organizational safety and individual health for healthcare professionals. Findings affirm that daily work related incidents also can become critical for healthcare professionals. Program efficiency appears to be influenced by the professional culture, as well as organizational structure and policies. Overall, findings demonstrate that the adaptation of the CISM program in general hospitals takes time but, once established, it may serve as a mechanism for changing professional culture, thereby permitting the framing of even small incidents or near misses as an opportunity to provide valuable feedback to the system.

Hypocrites of old or water carriers of new era and their invisible victims: Rethinking corporate social responsibility

Modern business results indicate more clearly the increasing negative effects which corporation business strategies, exclusively oriented to making profit, have on population and the planet. Corporative social responsibility (CSR) as a complex system of business and management that balances among the economic, social and ecological objectives of stakeholders is increasingly recommended as an alternative or integral part of modern business and development strategies. The role and effectiveness of CSR is becoming the subject of intense debate between all those who interpret it as hypocritical mercy of employers and those who see it as a possible paradigm shift in thinking about more effective social and business development strategies. In this paper the role of CSR is discussed from the perspectives of Feminist development economics and Another development strategies, primarily in relation to the safety of employees and the population. The aim of this paper is to recognise the role of CSR in reproducing the increasing number of, from the neo-liberal discourse, still insufficiently visible victims of neoliberal capitalism using comparative theoretical analysis. The paper further aims to emphasise the need to redefine the action, evaluation and measurement of CSR in terms of New economy 2 and Another development.

The State Key Laboratory of Management and Control for Complex Systems - A Brief Introduction [ITS Research Lab

The State Key Laboratory of Management and Control for Complex Systems - A Brief Introduction [ITS Research Lab

Opposing risk management theories: the context of large-scale projects

The normal accidents and high reliability organisations theories are widely known as presenting the intellectual discourse between two opposing schools of thought for risk management of complex systems as the first is tagged as pessimistic while the latter is labelled as optimistic. Due to high level of complexity and riskiness that is associated with large-scale project, discussing these two theories in this context is of high relevance. The context of developing countries was selected as investments in these countries are generally risky due to the high level of instability. This research showed that NAT and HRO are complementary rather than contradictory in such context.

Effects of a special solar collector greenhouse on water balance, fruit quantity and fruit quality of tomatoes

Based on the fact that several regions worldwide and even in Germany are affected by water deficit problems, a new agronomic approach was developed to produce tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in a sustainable way. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of a special solar collector greenhouse consisting of finned tube heat exchangers on the quantity and quality of fruit, water use efficiency and water balance. Changing microclimatic conditions in this system positively affected plant physiological processes, resulting in an increased total yield of up to 31.8% and a decreased total water uptake within the crop of up to 29% when compared with a commercial greenhouse. These conditions led not only to a reduction in the amount of nutrient solution (NS) consisting of valuable fresh water but also to increased water use efficiency (+81%). Furthermore, it was found that the finned tube heat exchangers can be considered as a complex water management system, which can be used to collect high quantities of condensation water. It was calculated that a fresh water supplementation used to mix the NS can be completely omitted when the captured rain and condensation water is reused under the conditions in the solar collector greenhouse. In order to test to what extent the collected condensation water was suitable for irrigation, the effects of condensate-containing NS with a higher Zn concentration (1.74mgL−1) were examined regarding yield and the ingredients in tomatoes. Compared with an applied NS supplemented with 0.2mg ZnL−1, condensate-containing NS increased fruit quantity (+39%) and quality, e.g., contents of lycopene (+15%), β-carotene (+13%) and phenolic compounds (+12%). Based on the above-mentioned results, it was concluded that a collector greenhouse can be regarded as a useful tool to increase the yield as well as to reduce amounts of fresh water, and the condensation water can safely be reused in hydroponic systems.

Degradation Data Analysis Using Wiener Processes With Measurement Errors

Degradation signals that reflect a system's health state are important for diagnostics and health management of complex systems. However, degradation signals are often compounded and contaminated by measurement errors, making data analysis a difficult task. Motivated by the wear problem of magnetic heads used in hard disk drives (HDDs), this paper investigates Wiener processes with measurement errors. We explore the traditional Wiener process with positive drifts compounded with i.i.d. Gaussian noises, and improve its estimation efficiency compared with the existing inference procedure. Furthermore, to capture the possible heterogeneity in a population, we develop a mixed effects model with measurement errors. Statistical inferences of this model are discussed. The mixed effects model subsumes several existing Wiener processes as its limiting cases, and thus it is useful for suggesting an appropriate Wiener process model for a specific dataset. The developed methodologies are then applied to the wear problem of magnetic heads of HDDs, and a light intensity degradation problem of light-emitting diodes.

Optimal training design for procedural motor skills: a review and application to laparoscopic surgery

This literature review covers the choices to consider in training complex procedural, perceptual and motor skills. In particular, we focus on laparoscopic surgery. An overview is provided of important training factors modulating the acquisition, durability, transfer, and efficiency of trained skills. We summarize empirical studies and their theoretical background on the topic of training complex cognitive and motor skills that are pertinent to proficiency in laparoscopic surgery. The overview pertains to surgical simulation training for laparoscopy, but also to training in other demanding procedural and dexterous tasks, such as aviation, managing complex systems and sports. Evidence-based recommendations are provided for facilitating efficiency in laparoscopic motor skill training such as session spacing, adaptive training, task variability, part-task training, mental imagery and deliberate practice.

Scenarios analysis through a futures performance framework

Determining an urban environment's built form, whilst engineering the underlying infrastructure upon which it depends, has all too often been predicated on historical trends, legacies and hindsight. In the 21st century increased interconnectivity and interdependence requires management of complex systems (i.e. coupled human, natural and technological systems) where decision making and planning for the future are far from straightforward. Moreover, a greater awareness of sustainability and resiliency issues (e.g. engineering within resource constraints and climate change such that engineering solutions continue to deliver their intended benefits in the face of change) now requires consideration of a range of possible city changes and assessment of their short- and long-term impacts. Decision making in the face of such uncertainty requires interdisciplinary foresight tools that facilitate understanding and communication between diverse ranges of stakeholders. To facilitate this process, a newly developed future performance framework (FPF) is proposed. When used in conjunction with the long-term future scenario-based urban futures (UF) methodology and the UF (Excel-based) tool, the FPF demonstrates how to embed futures thinking within an earth systems engineering framework.

The method of terms transformation of linguistic variables in decision-making analysis and information security risk assessment

One of the stages to develop a complex data protection system and Information Security Management System (ISMS) is provided by implementing the process of analysis and risk assessment. In relevant systems, when assessing die fuzzy conditions to interpret a natural language descriptions the linguistic variables with a certain number of terms that appear fuzzy numbers are used. In practical use of mentioned systems, there are situations when it is convenient for analysis and risk assessment, to apply standards with die ability to vary the number of terms. For this purpose the redefinition of die specified standards without participation of experts is necessary. A solution for this task is the offered method which provides an analytical function and enables to transform (die equivalent conversion) more terms of linguistic variables to less. Such approach will enhance die flexibility of developed assessment techniques based on die logical and linguistic approach and use to describe die linguistic variable die trapezoid and triangular fuzzy numbers.

Performance Analysis of a Southern Mediterranean Seaport via Discrete-Event Simulation

Modeling & Simulation (M&S) has proved to be a day-to-day highly indispensable tool for complex systems design, management and monitoring. Therefore, the proposed research study aims to develop a simulation model to recreate the complexity of a medium-sized Mediterranean seaport and analyse the performance evolution of such system with particular reference to the ship turnaround time. After the input data analysis, simulation model development, verification and validation, a design of experiments (according to a 24 factorial experimental design) was carried out in order to evaluate how some critical factors (i.e. inter-arrival times, loading/unloading times, number of cars and trucks to be unloaded/loaded) may affect the seaport’s performance. To this end an analysis of variance is performed and an analytical input-output meta-model was created to evaluate the system’s performance.

Consensus Recovery from Intentional Attacks in Directed Nonlinear Multi-agent Systems

Abstract Resilience or recovery of multi-agent systems against attacks is believed to be one of the most important topics in control and management of complex systems. Previous studies have mainly focused on the random failure and intentional attack targeted on node degrees, whereas consensus recovery is much less investigated. In this paper, two kinds of targeted attacks are introduced and corresponding recovery strategies are proposed to address the consensus recovery of continuous-time nonlinear multi-agent systems under directed topologies against subsequent attacks. The cut-nodes and cut-edges are chosen as the targets of attack, and the multi-agent system becomes disconnected when they are deleted from the system. The neighbor nodes of the cut-node and end nodes of the cut-edge are used to recover the connectivity of the network. It is shown that our proposed strategies can significantly improve the convergence speed of reaching consensus of the resulting multi-agent systems. A cost function is also proposed to compare different recovery strategies.

Research on the Synergy of “Big Q” System

Big Q system of enterprise is a complex management system, which includes several sub-systems, and it suggests that the concept of “Big Q” should be formed in response to the needs of the growing situation through analyzing evolution in quality concept in this paper. Then, the intension and characteristics of big Q synergetic concept are proposed by analyzing the characteristics of the big Q system. Based on these studies, the relationship between the synergetic model of big Q and environment is explored, and the synergetic mechanism of the Big Q system is dissected by means of mathematical analysis. To be effective, the big quality system must be studied deeply. By applying the theory of self-organizing to study the big quality system, we can generalize features, characteristics and operation rules of the big quality system. So we can manage the big quality system scientifically and effectively to obtain an optimal function of the system.

Aztec period houses and terraces at Calixtlahuaca: The changing morphology of a Mesoamerican hilltop urban center

Calixtlahuaca, a Middle–Late Postclassic site in the Toluca Valley of central Mexico, was occupied ca. a.d. 1100–1530. Our excavations reveal some of the processes involved in the creation, functions, and decay of a large hilltop urban center. At its height, the majority of the site’s surface (264 ha) was covered with residential-agricultural terraces supported by a complex water management system. House construction techniques included the use of adobe brick, wattle-and-daub, and stone pavements. Our fieldwork contributes to a growing body of research on hilltop political capitals in Mesoamerica. Using a refined chronology, we illuminate the processes by which people constructed the residential zones of this ancient hilltop city.

A Mobile Agent Based Approach for Business Processes Automation

The paper addresses specification and development of large and complex management systems for business process based on a multi agent systems approach. A methodology for obtaining workflow specifications is presented; it is based on conceiving the management system as a mobile agent system in which mobile agents guide the workflow processes within the organization. The specification includes the work environment, the agent behavior, the process plans, the tasks, the resources, and the interaction protocols. The obtained descriptions are modular and hierarchal leading to clear and compact structuring of the distributed software. The design methodology includes a guideline for Java based coding. Finally, key issues for extending the agent based method to address inter-organizational workflow management are overviewed.

Towards adaptive and integrated management paradigms to meet the challenges of water governance

Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) aims at finding practical and sustainable solutions to water resource issues. Research and practice have shown that innovative methods and tools are not sufficient to implement IWRM - the concept needs to also be integrated in prevailing management paradigms and institutions. Water governance science addresses this human dimension by focusing on the analysis of regulatory processes that influence the behavior of actors in water management systems. This paper proposes a new methodology for the integrated analysis of water resources management and governance systems in order to elicit and analyze case-specific management paradigms. It builds on the Management and Transition Framework (MTF) that allows for the examination of structures and processes underlying water management and governance. The new methodology presented in this paper combines participatory modeling and analysis of the governance system by using the MTF to investigate case-specific management paradigms. The linking of participatory modeling and research on complex management and governance systems allows for the transfer of knowledge between scientific, policy, engineering and local communities. In this way, the proposed methodology facilitates assessment and implementation of transformation processes towards IWRM that require also the adoption of adaptive management principles. A case study on flood management in the Tisza River Basin in Hungary is provided to illustrate the application of the proposed methodology.