Interdependent Systems Research Articles

Local machine learning model-based multi-objective optimization for managing system interdependencies in production: A case study from the ironmaking industry

Modeling interdependencies in a production process is a vital aspect of process engineering. Being built on the fundamental understanding of the process and capturing underlying physical and chemical mechanisms, this task is traditionally carried out through first-principle modeling. However, due to various assumptions and parameter approximation, such approach sometimes struggles to accurately model process dynamics. This is partially due to the requirements for process stability in mission-critical scenarios, where it is not viable to conduct extensive experiments that would enable the development of comprehensive models, and hence, the process control is still partially dependent on the experience of the process operator. In this paper, a data-driven approach based on production data is introduced to address the challenge of discovering, understanding, and modeling interdependencies in a production process by constructing a constrained multi-objective optimization problem. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a case study in the ironmaking industry, whereby a set of Machine Learning and causality-based methods is provided while highlighting the significance of transparency and use of domain knowledge in the development of data-driven models. Based on the real data from a Sintering plant, interdependencies are quantified between five key process parameters, which, when supplemented with other control parameters, result in a higher overall process output leading to reductions in operational costs and environmental impact. Such approach shows potential for applications in a broader context across other fields of science and engineering, where it can be used to improve the discovery of interdependencies in complex real-world industrial settings.

Credible and comprehensive? Comparing policy mixes for Local Energy Systems in England, Scotland and Wales

Integrated Local Energy Systems (LES) are being pursued internationally as a component of net zero, with additional benefits to regions and communities. This paper develops and tests a policy mixes approach to examine differential development of LES policies over 11 years in the three political jurisdictions (England, Scotland and Wales) which comprise Great Britain's (GB) single energy market. The analysis contributes to knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of the policy mixes concept as an analytical tool for exploring divergence in devolved governments. It also considers the likely effectiveness of these policy mixes for stimulating LES developments in practice. Analysis of over 50 policy strategies and 105 policy instruments is used to evaluate the credibility of the policy mixes, ie. whether these are believable and reliable, and their comprehensiveness, ie. whether all market, system and institutional failures are addressed. The policy mix in England exhibits fluctuation and short-termism, making it the least credible. Strategies in Scotland and Wales demonstrate a more credible and ambitious policy mix for LES, including long term policies and new instruments added over time. However, limited political powers mean that the policy mixes in Scotland and Wales are less comprehensive than in England, making the realisation of LES uncertain. Further, none of the policies are designed to challenge systemic interdependencies of GB's liberalised and largely centralised energy system. This ultimately limits capacity to deliver LES and highlights the need for policy development, in GB and elsewhere, to encompass regulatory and institutional innovation to realise LES benefits.

Challenges Ahead for Sustainable Cities: An Urban Form and Transport System Review

This article reviews the critical issues surrounding the development of sustainable urban environments, focusing on the impact of transport and urban form on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art on the subject and to unravel what directions the literature suggests for sustainable urban planning. Current research and practices are synthesized, highlighting the interdependence of urban design and transportation systems in achieving sustainability goals. Important dimensions and practices of city planning and transport policies are explored, including urban form, urban sprawl, mixed land use, densification and infill, and urban public spaces, and how these directly influence transport dynamics, including modal choices and energy consumption. Innovative approaches in urban planning, such as transit-oriented development, and technological advancements, such as electric mobility, are also examined and their potential roles in sustainable urban transport. The conclusion underscores the urgency of adopting holistic and adaptable strategies to foster sustainable urban environments, calling for concerted efforts from policymakers, urban planners, and communities. Awareness of the conclusions can help municipal decision-makers in planning their cities for a sustainable future. Finally, the authors analyze important directions for future research and practical applications towards developing cities that are environmentally sound, socially equitable, and economically viable.

Robustness of interdependent hypergraphs: A bipartite network framework

In this paper, we develop a bipartite network framework to study the robustness of interdependent hypergraphs. From such a perspective, nodes and hyperedges of a hypergraph are equivalent to each other, a property that largely simplifies their mathematical treatment. We develop a general percolation theory based on this representation and apply it to study the robustness of interdependent hypergraphs against random damage, which we verify with numerical simulations. We analyze a variety of interacting patterns, from heterogeneous to correlated hyperstructures, and from full- to partial-dependency couplings between an arbitrary number of hypergraphs, and characterize their structural stability via their phase diagrams. Given its generality, we expect that our framework will provide useful insights for the development of more realistic venues to characterize cascading failures in interdependent higher-order systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Indirect intervention with staff to support a male with mild learning disability navigate the community setting: A clinical case study

AbstractBackgroundPeople with learning disabilities following a long‐term stay in forensic settings may experience difficulties reintegrating in the wider community. Indirect interventions can be helpful for care providers and family members to reflect on their practices and improve the quality of life of people with learning disabilities. Although indirect interventions are being implemented in learning disability settings, research is limited.MethodsThis clinical case study recounts an indirect intervention with care providers of a male with mild learning disability.FindingsWe recount the referral and assessment processes, the initial hypotheses and formulation of the service users' presenting difficulties. We demonstrate how a systemically informed indirect intervention with staff can be used to improve the living conditions of a man with mild learning disability and provide reflections on working with multiple interdependent systems surrounding vulnerable individuals in a specialist learning disability setting.ConclusionIndirect interventions with the care networks supporting an individual with a learning disability can be a useful way to conceptualise the barriers and facilitators for community integration. Indirect interventions can also offer a reflective space for staff to share their own difficulties and prevent burnout.

Resilience-driven post-disaster restoration of interdependent infrastructure systems under different decision-making environments

Resilience-driven post-disaster restoration of interdependent infrastructure systems under different decision-making environments

Peace education for an equitable and sustainable world

Peace is not only the epicenter of the global geopolitics but it has also been one of the most consistent and cherished desires of mankind in every époque. Violence as a discursive method and a mouthpiece of antagonistic epistemologies and hierarchies of value, from youth/gender violence to international warfare, designates peace an imperative task for today’s education. With the aim to synthesize an interpretive instrument for a co-existing, interdependent, and complex system of peace concepts, this paper (1) models an ecology of four peace conceptualizations: Negative peace, Positive peace, Homeostatic peace, Futuristic peace; (2) situates these conceptualizations within peace education and SDGs discourses; and (3) provides theoretical structure for integrating peace and peace education studies in the fields of comparative-international and sustainability education. This theoretical analysis is based on the premise that the purpose, content and scope of peace education for an equitable and sustainable world greatly depend on a concept of peace in the minds of education stakeholders.

‘잊혀진 곶(Cabo Esquecido)’, 카보 델가도(Cabo Delgado) 테러에 관한 다차원적 접근

Situated along the Indian Ocean coast, Cabo Delgado province in northern area of Mozambique, is rich in natural resources, particularly natural gas. Recent efforts by the international community to secure energy supplies and achieve carbon neutrality have led to active natural gas development projects in this region. However, since 2017, a persistent armed terrorist threat has jeopardized the safety of locals and foreign investors. The terrorism in this area began with a small local extremist Islamic group, but factors beyond religious motivations, such as political and economic inequalities and connections with international extremist elements, have contributed to its complexity, exacerbating the reach and influence of terrorism. Consequently, these terrorist activities not only pose a significant security challenge to Mozambique but also threaten global security. South Korea's participation, for instance, in Mozambique’s natural gas development projects further exposes it to direct and indirect terrorism threats. However, research on the local security situation is scarce both domestically and internationally. Therefore, this study undertakes a multidimensional analysis of the causes and impacts of terrorism in Cabo Delgado. In the meantime, the study identifies the primary drivers of terrorism in this region as local grievances, state vulnerabilities, and the interdependence of the international system. Consequently, the study suggests the ‘3S(society-state-system) model’ as an analytic framework to understand the complex changes and development of terrorism in Cabo Delgado.

Ride comfort oriented integrated design of preview active suspension control and longitudinal velocity planning

Aiming for further improvement in ride comfort, a novel integrated system combining preview active suspension control with longitudinal velocity planning based on road height information is proposed. From the suspension control side, the presented semi-EMPC (Explicit Model Predictive Control)-based controller, which is augmented with preview road information, can make up for the shortcomings of traditional implicit MPC and explicit MPC, and achieve a balance between computational burden and memory usage, thus enhancing the practicality of implementing preview suspension in real-world applications. Adopting dynamic programming and quadratic programming algorithms, a longitudinal velocity planning method based on preview information is provided to overcome the vibration that cannot be effectively suppressed by single suspension control, thus expanding the dimension of ride comfort improvement from the original vertical dimension alone to both longitudinal and vertical dimensions. Throughout the design process, the transformation of pavement information among spatial, time, and frequency domains has been regarded as a bridge to combine two systems, thus handling the complex coupling between above two highly interdependent systems. Experiments in the Quanser active suspension plant have been conducted to verify the superiority of semi-EMPC with preview. The integrated approach is simulated in Carsim and shows a significant improvement over single suspension control.

A HISTORICAL-CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE ON GRANDPARENTS’ ACTIVITIES WITH GRANDCHILDREN

Abstract Grandparenting is one of the most positive roles for many older adults, yet there is limited understanding of what activities grandparents and grandchildren actually engage in together or how these may vary based on both context (e.g., residential grandparenthood, grandparents’ marriage) and historical events (e.g., COVID-19). Drawing from multiple theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, this symposium begins with Flood providing a broad view of time grandparents and grandchildren spend together using large-scale population-level data from IPUMS. Illustrating how such activities may vary based on context, Stephan and Chan provide insights into how activity engagement varies by caregiver status and whether activity engagement with grandchildren is related to grandparents’ perceived roles. Extending this examination of context to consider specific processes, Juris and Zvonkovic will then describe the process of family leisure among grandparent couples by examining how both individuals in a couple experience family leisure with their grandchildren. Providing a historical perspective on these experiences, Fruhauf and colleagues reveal the challenges of raising grandchildren in the context of COVID-19 and the importance of engaging in different and new activities with their grandchildren during this time. Finally, as discussant, Rauer will draw upon Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological framework to illustrate how grandparenting is situated within a complex network of interdependent systems and dynamic contexts. Together, this symposium will highlight the implications of grandparenting for catalyzing development and enhancing well-being across multiple generations.

미중경쟁과 동북아 지역질서 시나리오

How will the US-China competition reshape the regional order in Northeast Asia? This study analyzes scenarios of US-China competition, focusing on military and economic variables, and examines their implications for regional order. Economic interdependence and military deterrence are means of US-China competition. The balance of military deterrence will be the foremost factor defining the economic relationship between the US and China and neighboring countries. Under the condition of maintaining a deterrent balance, (1) if interdependence continues, competitive interdependence will be formed, but (2) the US or Chinese camp system can be structured along with decoupling. On the other hand, if the deterrent balance collapses, (3) conflictual readjustment of mutual dependence is inevitable, but (4) with decoupling, a Chinese sphere of influence may be formed. The scenario of the end state of the US-China competition provides two implications for Korea's national strategy as a middle country. A security strategy that contributes to the deterrence balance between the US and China is a key task for maintaining an uncomfortable peace. And in order to manage an interdependent system where competition and cooperation coexist, it is necessary to seek the role of a cooperation with in-between powers.

InfrastructureModels: Composable Multi-infrastructure Optimization in Julia

In recent years, there has been an increasing need to understand the complex interdependencies between critical infrastructure systems, for example, electric power, natural gas, and potable water. Whereas open-source and commercial tools for the independent simulation of these systems are well established, frameworks for cosimulation with other systems are nascent and tools for co-optimization are scarce—the major challenge being the hidden combinatorics that arise when connecting multiple-infrastructure system models. Building toward a comprehensive solution for modeling interdependent infrastructure systems, this work presents InfrastructureModels, an extensible, open-source mathematical programming framework for co-optimizing multiple interdependent infrastructures. This work provides new insights into methods and programming abstractions that make state-of-the-art independent infrastructure models composable with minimal additional effort. To that end, this paper presents the design of the InfrastructureModels framework, documents key components of the software’s implementation, and demonstrates its effectiveness with three case studies on canonical co-optimization tasks arising in interdependent infrastructure systems. History: Accepted by Ted Ralphs, Area Editor for Software Tools. Funding: The work was funded by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Directed Research and Development project “The Optimization of Machine Learning: Imposing Requirements on Artificial Intelligence” and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Advanced Grid Modeling projects “Joint Power System and Natural Gas Pipeline Optimal Expansion Planning” and “Coordinated Planning and Operation of Water and Power Infrastructures for Increased Resilience and Reliability.” This work was carried out under the U.S. DOE contract no. [DE-AC52-06NA25396]. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.0118 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2022.0118 ). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/ .

Systemic risks and solar climate engineering research. Integrating technology ethics into the governance of systemic risks

The paper explores how the framework of systemic risks can help govern the risks imposed through solar climate engineering research. The central argument is that a systemic perspective of risk is a useful tool for analysing and assessing the risks imposed through Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) research. SAI is a form of climate engineering that could cool the planet by enhancing its albedo through the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere. Researching such a technology creates systemic risks with a strong sociotechnical component. This component consists of the potential societal harm that a developing or new technology might cause to existing norms, values, institutions, and politics. The systemic risk framework is a valuable heuristic for this case, given the complex interdependencies of societal systems, infrastructures, markets, etc. At the same time, the systemic risk framework can be enhanced through the inclusion of a more robust and reflected ethical considerations on technological risks. Consequently, this article seeks to supplement the systemic risk governance framework with insights from technology ethics. Specifically, the paper offers an ethically reflective conception of societal value dynamism and stakeholder engagement and participation, tying it to existing systemic risk governance approaches.

Post-disaster restoration planning of interdependent infrastructure Systems: A framework to balance social and economic impacts

Hazard-induced service interruption of interdependent infrastructure systems (IISs) (e.g., electricity, water, gas, etc.) can lead to significant disruptions of social and economic functions of a modern society. An effective post-event restoration of the IISs is therefore of paramount importance to the overall recovery of a hazard-stricken community as a whole. As opposed to approaches with pure engineering perspectives, this study proposes an IISs restoration planning methodology aimed at balancing tradeoffs between the loss of social services (e.g., health care, food supply, etc.) and that of economic productions (e.g., construction, manufacturing, trade, etc.) throughout the IISs restoration process. The methodology is distinguished from previous researches with the following contributions: i) quantitatively relates the losses of various social services and economic productions to the service disruptions of IISs through the functionality loss of buildings; ii) the IISs disruption-induced overall losses of social services and economic productions accumulated throughout the whole recovery process is set as the bi-objective in formulating IISs restoration plans, and the Pareto optimal solutions are given to satisfy different decision preferences; iii) physics-based models capturing operational mechanisms of the IISs are embedded to provide realistic estimations of commodity supplies at each time step of the restoration optimization. The optimization is coupled with Monte Carlo simulation to uncover the impact of decision preference on community recovery from a statistical point of view. Testbed illustration shows that the decision preference makes significant impact on the recovery of the community as a whole and of different areas in the community with different socioeconomic characteristics.

Modeling the resilience of interdependent networks: The role of function dependency in metro and bus systems

Owing to the pervasive interdependency among networks and the great threat of various disasters, one of the most challenging issues is the resilience evaluation of interdependent networks. Existing studies have been conducted to analyze interdependent network resilience addressing unidirectional dependency, which triggers and propagates network failures. The loss and recovery of network functionality are complicated and important under such interdependency. Ignoring the interdependency nature of different networks would lead to incomplete or incorrect results in their resilience assessment. This paper developed a resilience assessment model for interdependent transit networks under failures. Taking the interdependency relations, network topology, flow characteristics, and demand distribution into account, the proposed methodology explicitly quantifies the impacts of varying network interdependency on the resilience of interdependent networks. The approach was applied to the interdependent metro and bus networks of Xi’an, China. Results show the resilience of interdependent networks is greatly affected by node degree heterogeneity in topology. The higher the heterogeneity of interdependent nodes, the larger the network resilience becomes. The bidirectional function dependency among networks demonstrates dominant effects on the resilience of interdependent networks if one network is disrupted. If interdependent networks have homogeneous function, the resilience of the networks would be significantly improved with the increase in interdependency. The degree of flow matching between both networks plays a particularly important role in network resilience enhancement. Findings of this study would provide practical implications for the design and planning of interdependent infrastructure systems under disasters.

Topology and spectral interconnectivities of higher-order multilayer networks

Multilayer networks have permeated all areas of science as an abstraction for interdependent heterogeneous complex systems. However, describing such systems through a purely graph-theoretic formalism presupposes that the interactions that define the underlying infrastructures are only pairwise-based, a strong assumption likely leading to oversimplification. Most interdependent systems intrinsically involve higher-order intra- and inter-layer interactions. For instance, ecological systems involve interactions among groups within and in-between species, collaborations and citations link teams of coauthors to articles and vice versa, and interactions might exist among groups of friends from different social networks. Although higher-order interactions have been studied for monolayer systems through the language of simplicial complexes and hypergraphs, a systematic formalism incorporating them into the realm of multilayer systems is still lacking. Here, we introduce the concept of crossimplicial multicomplexes as a general formalism for modeling interdependent systems involving higher-order intra- and inter-layer connections. Subsequently, we introduce cross-homology and its spectral counterpart, the cross-Laplacian operators, to establish a rigorous mathematical framework for quantifying global and local intra- and inter-layer topological structures in such systems. Using synthetic and empirical datasets, we show that the spectra of the cross-Laplacians of a multilayer network detect different types of clusters in one layer that are controlled by hubs in another layer. We call such hubs spectral cross-hubs and define spectral persistence as a way to rank them, according to their emergence along the spectra. Our framework is broad and can especially be used to study structural and functional connectomes combining connectivities of different types and orders.

Challenging the protest paradigm and winning legitimacy. Analysis of the representation of the social movement against femicide in the mainstream media in Mexico

Previous studies found a tendency for negative representations of social movements in the media in the so-called ‘protest paradigm’. This work proposes a methodology using the paradigm as a framework and operationalizing its characteristics into neutral variables: emphasis, prominence, legitimacy, and tone. In addition, the political elite-media relationship is included as an analytical dimension to better understand the factors that produce media representations of social movements. The empirical focus is the representation of the movement against femicide in three Mexican national news outlets with different political leanings, from 2014 to 2017, gathering N = 865 news articles. The articles were coded using the qualitative content analysis technique. Each variable was coded to measure the representation of the movement and the authorities. The results show that the detriment to one actor’s legitimacy can benefit the other’s representation, suggesting an interdependent system formed by the political elite, the media, and the social movements.

School, family and the community in cooperation: the model of syneducation

School, family and the community constitute three distinct but at the same time interdependent systems. The ideas, notions and research which are related to the necessity of the functional communication of those systems have recently flourished internationally, creating a substantial “heritage” in principles, acceptances, theoretical models, application proposals, research programs as well as new orientations and perspectives. This paper proposes the model of syneducation. As syneducation (synergy + education) we define the acquisition of a common educational experience, simultaneously and in cooperation, of persons differing in age and cognitive infrastructure and often in social and cultural level. Syneducation is a new emerging research field. With its application, we aim at the change of attitudes and behaviours of the participants (parents, educators, students, policy makers and the representatives of the community) from an initial state of possible indifference- disinterest to an active and effective participation in common syneducational actions in order to face specific issues, and even further to being multipliers of the above mentioned actions. Furthermore, the application of this model creates, develops and accrues social capital.In this paper we will present certain research applications which took place according to the model of syneducation based on the methodology of collaborative action research (for example, a transdisciplinary research program, a research program in Literacy in Information Technology, a research program focusing on problem management within the family etc.) The research findings and the prospects of the syneducation model are still being discussed. This model is proposed as a realistic way of thought and action adapted to the contemporary conditions of our technological era and the foreseen needs of social computing.

Why is safety in intrapartum electronic fetal monitoring so hard? A qualitative study combining human factors/ergonomics and social science analysis

BackgroundProblems in intrapartum electronic fetal monitoring with cardiotocography (CTG) remain a major area of preventable harm. Poor understanding of the range of influences on safety may have hindered improvement. Taking...

Multi‐objective decision trees with fuzzy TOPSIS: Application to refugee resettlement planning

AbstractThis study combines the use of multi‐objective decision trees (MODT) and a fuzzy TOPSIS approach to cope with sequential decision‐making under uncertainty with multiple conflicting objectives. To this aim, the MODT generates a Pareto‐optimal frontier of solutions for competing objectives, while fuzzy TOPSIS helps assess the noninferior solutions and assign weights to the objectives by considering possible uncertainties in outcomes as well as potential linguistic expression. The proposed approach is illustrated with a temporal decision problem concerning climate‐driven refugee resettlement, taking into consideration the challenges of global warming and system interdependencies in an uncertain context. The fuzzy TOPSIS approach was illustrated using two different procedures, and the procedure based on vector normalisation graphically depicts the fuzzy triangular representation of the final ranking.