Large-scale Socio-technical Systems Research Articles

Structural Analysis of Large-Scale Socio-Technical Systems Based on the Concept of Influence

Abstract The paper is devoted to studying the stability of complex systems, which include diversified and heterogeneous elements. In order to analyze the stability of such systems, it is proposed to develop the process of dynamic determination of the main factors. For this purpose, this paper uses a variant of cognitive modeling based on the concept of “influence”. The proposed approach implies, in a sense, a broader view of the concept of the “fuzzy cognitive map” introduced by B. Kosko. “Influence” does not mean “causality”, allows a broader interpretation range, and is calculated in a special way that makes it possible to prove rigorous theorems. A complex system is represented as a digraph, and the selection of the main factors is proposed to be based on the concept of “influence”, which is introduced as follows. All nodes of the graph are assigned an abstract property “significance”, which allows you to compare heterogeneous factors, and a particular computational procedure is introduced that allows this “significance” to be calculated. The “influence” of factors on each other is defined as a mathematically formalized response in accordance with the introduced computational procedure of the “significance” of the studied factor to the variation in the “significance” of input factors. For example, the analysis of the sustainability of a large-scale model of the Russian economy in terms of the strength of the “influence” is provided.

The Socio-politics of the urbanization - transportation nexus: infrastructural projects in the department of Antioquia in Colombia through the lens of technological politics and institutional dynamics

ABSTRACT Development of transportation infrastructure has long been seen as a fundamental tool in shaping cities, and vice versa. However, moving beyond the discussion on the causalities of transportation infrastructure and urbanization, various authors have criticized infrastructural projects for promoting injustice and reinforcing social and spatial polarization by supporting profit-oriented developments. Contributing to this line of thought, this study examines the wider Socio-politics of the transportation – urbanization nexus in infrastructural projects associated with urban development in the department of Antioquia in Colombia. It focuses on the relationships between these projects and urban development approaches and policies, addressing the socio-political benefits and profit-oriented interests of hegemonic groups, and how infrastructures embody specific forms of power and authority of these groups. The analysis mobilizes a combination of the theory of technological politics and a strategic-relational institutionalist approach, which draws attention to the momentum of large-scale sociotechnical systems, and to the response of modern societies to specific technological imperatives.

Sociotechnical System Safety: Hierarchical Control versus Mindfulness

Both the hierarchical control model of organizational processes in a sociotechnical system and organizational mindfulness have been promoted, largely through independent lines of argument, as having potential to improve safety in large-scale sociotechnical systems. We review the arguments to assess the confidence we might place in these claims and to assess whether these views are necessarily incompatible or could be complementary. Our analysis reveals a lack of consistency in the arguments for hierarchical control. It remains unclear whether application of this model to sociotechnical system design will enhance safety or will even degrade it by promoting micromanagement. We conclude that the type of mindfulness that bolsters important safety-related cognitive processes is just what is missing from the hierarchical control model. The safety of large-scale sociotechnical systems with catastrophic potential poses an enormous challenge. A functional model with some hierarchical properties, when complemented with insights relating to organizational mindfulness, offers an innovative way of working toward resolving that challenge.

Fundamental Limits of Data Analytics in Sociotechnical Systems

In the Big Data era, informational systems involving humans and machines are being deployed in multifarious societal settings. Many use data analytics as subcomponents for descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive tasks, often trained using machine learning. Yet when analytics components are placed in large-scale sociotechnical systems, it is often difficult to characterize how well the systems will act, measured with criteria relevant in the world. Here, we propose a system modeling technique that treats data analytics components as `noisy black boxes' or stochastic kernels, which together with elementary stochastic analysis provides insight into fundamental performance limits. An example application is helping prioritize people's limited attention, where learning algorithms rank tasks using noisy features and people sequentially select from the ranked list. This paper demonstrates the general technique by developing a stochastic model of analytics-enabled sequential selection, derives fundamental limits using concomitants of order statistics, and assesses limits in terms of system-wide performance metrics like screening cost and value of objects selected. Connections to sample complexity for bipartite ranking are also made.

Coordination in Large-Scale Socio-Technical Systems: Introduction to the Special Section

Most of the emerging software-intensive systems nowadays are very large-scale ones, and inherently socio-technical. In this introduction to the special section on “Coordination in Large-Scale Socio-Technical Systems” we argue that the peculiar features of such emerging systems (up to millions of interacting components, lacking central control, mixing humans and artificial components) call for novel approaches to coordinate the overall activities and functionalities. Accordingly, we discuss some key-challenges to be faced by research in coordination models and technologies, and introduce the three articles of the special section.

Safety, Security, Now Sustainability: The Nonfunctional Requirement for the 21st Century

Many software systems today control large-scale sociotechnical systems. These systems aren't just entangled with the environment but also with our dwindling resources and mostly unsustainable way of living, while the planet's population continues to grow. Dealing with sustainability requirements and systematically supporting their elicitation, analysis, and realization is a problem that has yet to be solved. Decades ago, the discipline of software engineering dealt with similar shortcomings in its processes by including safety and security as new system qualities. In light of the increasing consequences of inadequately addressing sustainability in developing software systems, software engineers must apply the lessons learned from these prior research efforts and identify the necessary research agenda. Considering sustainability in software engineering means more than energy efficiency and green IT, which are concerned with the first-order impacts of software systems. Software engineers must also take into account the second- and third-order impacts in the system context, even if they're hard to assess. By doing so, engineers have the potential to considerably improve civilization's sustainability. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/VC07j6a1XUw is a video in which author Birgit Penzenstadler talks about how software engineers can considerably improve civilization's sustainability by taking into account not just the first-order impacts of software systems but also their second- and third-order impacts.

Resilience and Cyberspace: Recognizing the Challenges of a Global Socio-Cyber Infrastructure (GSCI)

Cyberspace as a system has expanded exponentially across the globe as a massively complex universal substrate. It now demonstrates the surprises of large-scale socio-technical systems from electrical grids to just-in-time manufacturing supply chains, all of which increasingly support or are supported by cyberspace. These deeply linked, large-scale socio-technical systems (STSs) are creating nationally and globally interdependent “socio-cyber” systems (SCSs) by using cyberspace to improve efficiencies and lower costs. No longer can one assume a national infrastructure to be resilient when it is vulnerable to the four cumulating layers of surprises coming from a global socio-cyber infrastructure (GSCI). Critical research questions are posed for each of these layers of surprise as necessary for understanding conceptually and institutionally how to ensure resilience in any emergent GSCI that is fundamental to global security.

Environmental radiation: Risk benchmarks or benchmarking risk assessment

In the wake of the compound March 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan, international public dialogue has repeatedly turned to questions of the accuracy of current risk assessment processes to assess nuclear risks and the adequacy of existing regulatory risk thresholds to protect us from nuclear harm. We confront these issues with an emphasis on learning from the incident in Japan for future US policy discussions. Without delving into a broader philosophical discussion of the general social acceptance of the risk, the relative adequacy of existing US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) risk thresholds is assessed in comparison with the risk thresholds of federal agencies not currently under heightened public scrutiny. Existing NRC thresholds are found to be among the most conservative in the comparison, suggesting that the agency's current regulatory framework is consistent with larger societal ideals. In turning to risk assessment methodologies, the disaster in Japan does indicate room for growth. Emerging lessons seem to indicate an opportunity to enhance resilience through systemic levels of risk aggregation. Specifically, we believe bringing systemic reasoning to the risk management process requires a framework that (i) is able to represent risk-based knowledge and information about a panoply of threats; (ii) provides a systemic understanding (and representation) of the natural and built environments of interest and their dependencies; and (iii) allows for the rational and coherent valuation of a range of outcome variables of interest, both tangible and intangible. Rather than revisiting the thresholds themselves, we see the goal of future nuclear risk management in adopting and implementing risk assessment techniques that systemically evaluate large-scale socio-technical systems with a view toward enhancing resilience and minimizing the potential for surprise.

On the development of agent-based models for infrastructure evolution

Infrastructure systems for energy, water, transport, information, etc., are large-scale sociotechnical systems that are critical for achieving a sustainable world. They were not created at the current global scale at once but have slowly evolved from simple local systems through many social and technical decisions. If we are to understand them and manage them sustainably, we need to capture their full diversity and adaptivity in models that respect Ashby's law of requisite variety. Models of evolving complex systems must themselves be evolving complex systems that cannot be created from scratch but must be grown from simple to complex. This paper presents a sociotechnical evolutionary modelling process for creating evolving and complex Agent-Based Models (ABMs) for understanding the evolution of large-scale sociotechnical systems such as infrastructures. It involves the continuous coevolution and improvement of a social process for model specification, the technical design of a modular simulation engine, the encoding of formalised knowledge and the collection of relevant facts. In the paper, we introduce the process design, the requirements for guiding the evolution of the modelling process and illustrate the process for ABM development by showing a series of ever more complex models.

Implementing transition management as policy reforms: a case study of the Dutch energy sector

Proposals to alter large-scale socio-technical systems through government actions in order to promote goals such as sustainability are highly uncertain policy projects. What is being proposed is the replacement of specific elements of existing policy ‘mixes’—the goals and means—by others, in the expectation of avoiding counterproductive or sub-optimal policy outcomes. While laudable, such efforts are fraught with risks; including the possibility of the creation of sub-optimal policy mixes or of failed reform efforts with resulting poor outcomes. This article develops a model and typology of policy regime change processes and outcomes following Thelen and others in arguing that complex policy mixes typically emerge through one or more of four processes, ‘drift’, ‘conversion’, ‘layering’ and ‘replacement’, and that the expected outcomes of these different processes in terms of their ability to meet initial expectations are linked to the manner in which policy goals and means are (or are not) combined in a consistent, coherent and congruent fashion. This propensity is illustrated through examination of the case of energy transition management as practiced in the Netherlands.

Design in socio-technical system development: three angles in a common framework

Large-scale socio-technical systems, such as infrastructures for transport, energy and telecommunication, are not designed and then constructed according to plan. Rather, they develop over a long period of time as a result of countless changes. Nonetheless, most of these changes have been produced by design. Three types of designs - system design, decision process design, and institutional design - are identified as pertinent to large-scale socio-technical systems, and characterised by applying a generic conceptual framework to a fictitious case. This characterisation provides some insights into the variety of design problems that must be addressed in the context of socio-technical system development.

Work Centered Design of a Usaf Mission Planning System

In large-scale socio-technical systems such as military command and control, operators must work with complex and dynamic information from many diverse sources. For this project, we used the Cognitive Work Analysis and Ecological Interface Design frameworks to design a virtual workspace for the USAF work domain of Special Assignment Airlift Mission planning. Based on information made available through the analysis, we developed a workspace prototype in which multiple View-Ports house distinct functional requirements and in which options are made available to link various View-Port functionalities in the mission planning process. In this paper we illustrate how we bridged the gap between analysis and design by developing a link from the analytic products of our Cognitive Work Analysis to the design of the ecological workspace.

The computer revolution in science: steps towards the realization of computer-supported discovery environments

The tools that scientists use in their search processes together form so-called discovery environments. The promise of artificial intelligence and other branches of computer science is to radically transform conventional discovery environments by equipping scientists with a range of powerful computer tools including large-scale, shared knowledge bases and discovery programs. We will describe the future computer-supported discovery environments that may result, and illustrate by means of a realistic scenario how scientists come to new discoveries in these environments. In order to make the step from the current generation of discovery tools to computer-supported discovery environments like the one presented in the scenario, developers should realize that such environments are large-scale sociotechnical systems. They should not just focus on isolated computer programs, but also pay attention to the question how these programs will be used and maintained by scientists in research practices. In order to help developers of discovery programs in achieving the integration of their tools in discovery environments, we will formulate a set of guidelines that developers could follow.

HEURISTIC EXTRAPOLATION IN SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

AbstractIn this paper we consider heuristic methods for system architecture. System architecture problems are particularly open‐ended and ill‐structured and resistant to “rational” or “derivational” methods. The heuristic method, employing catalogs of heuristics, is one possible way to address the particular problems of system architecture. The heuristic catalog attempts to capture important and consistent structural elements of complex systems that strongly correlate with success or failure. Unfortunately, most heuristics gathered to date are primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive. This paper describes a method for developing context sensitive prescriptive heuristics as part of a design process that iteratively removes abstraction in the design representation. We call this process heuristic extrapolation. We illustrate the method by application to hardware/software partitioning and the Intelligent Vehicles and Highways System, a large scale sociotechnical system.