Risk Management in the Arctic Offshore: Wicked Problems Require New Paradigms

Recent project-management literature and high-profile disasters—the financial crisis, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Fukushima nuclear accident—illustrate the flaws of traditional risk models for complex projects. This research examines how various groups with interests in the Arctic offshore define risks. The findings link the wicked problem framework and the emerging paradigm of Project Management of the Second Order (PM-2). Wicked problems are problems that are unstructured, complex, irregular, interactive, adaptive, and novel. The authors synthesize literature on the topic to offer strategies for navigating wicked problems, provide new variables to deconstruct traditional risk models, and integrate objective and subjective schools of risk analysis

Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) Part III - Online Public Consultation Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) Part V - Online Facilitation Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu

Unified Behavior Framework for Reactive Robot Control in Real-Time Systems

Endeavors in mobile robotics focus on developing autonomous vehicles that operate in dynamic and uncertain environments. By reducing the need for human-in- the-loop control, unmanned vehicles are utilized to achieve tasks considered dull or dangerous by humans. Because unexpected latency can adversely affect the quality of an autonomous system\u27s operations, which in turn can affect lives and property in the real-world, their ability to detect and handle external events is paramount to providing safe and dependable operation. Behavior-based systems form the basis of autonomous control for many robots. This thesis presents the unified behavior framework, a new and novel approach which incorporates the critical ideas and concepts of the existing reactive controllers in an effort to simplify development without locking the system developer into using any single behavior system. The modular design of the framework is based on modern software engineering principles and only specifies a functional interface for components, leaving the implementation details to the developers. In addition to its use of industry standard techniques in the design of reactive controllers, the unified behavior framework guarantees the responsiveness of routines that are critical to the vehicle\u27s safe operation by allowing individual behaviors to be scheduled by a real-time process controller. The experiments in this thesis demonstrate the ability of the framework to: 1) interchange behavioral components during execution to generate various global behavior attributes; 2) apply genetic programming techniques to automate the discovery of effective structures for a domain that are up to 122 percent better than those crafted by an expert; and 3) leverage real-time scheduling technologies to guarantee the responsiveness of time critical routines regardless of the system\u27s computational load

Evaluating progress for the implementation of European Union nanotechnology strategies for safe design and responsible innovation of nanomaterials

This study examines the twin themes of risk governance and anticipatory governance to establish whether European Union (EU) risk governance instruments and others such as Responsible Research and Innovation( RRI ) are delivering on their promises for the safe and responsible development of nanomaterials(NM). This is an empirical study that conducts semi-structured interviews with cross-sectoral experts working within nanotechnologies to examine these issues. The main findings identify critical flaws in the principal chemical safety regulations(REACH) due to the lack of specificity for NM safety testing, and the scientifically contested EU definition for NM. Both of which undermine legal authority for enforcing regulatory compliance. Secondly, critical scientific gaps are evident that prevent comprehensive nano-risk analysis of the Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) implications of NM production. Thirdly, there are indications that the nano industry is seeking to avoid engaging with either product regulation (REACH) or the social-ethical appraisal of NM production. Finally, compounding these deficiencies, the EU does not provide a bespoke overarching EU risk governance framework to scrutinise either the EHS effects or the wider social implications of current and future nano-innovation pathways. In this study, I proposes a novel solution for such a framework centred on a ‘Safety by Social Design’ approach. Its purpose is to facilitate responsible innovation by the societal alignment of nano innovation within an adaptive and integrative risk governance framework. This will serve the purpose of progressing the EU towards a more anticipatory governance approach for nano innovation

Deliberative Public Engagement with Science: An Empirical Investigation

The purpose of this book is to share some results and the data from four studies in which we used experimental procedures to manipulate key features of deliberative public engagement to study the impacts in the context of deliberations about nanotechnology. In this chapter, we discuss the purpose of this book, which is to advance science of public engagement, and the overarching question motivating our research: What public engagement methods work for what purposes and why? We also briefly review existing prior work related to our overarching goal and question and introduce the contents of the rest of the book. Given the potential for negative—or at least controversial—effects of new technologies upon the societies in which various publics must live, what could be more democratic than promoting public involvement in decisions about those new technologies? Unless, of course, it turns out that public involvement, which can sometimes be costly, is ineffective, unnecessary, or actually makes things worse. Some have suggested this may be the case (e.g., Sunstein, 2000, 2002), but, for better or worse, public engagement with and about new technologies is happening all around us. Our interest in studying such public engagement—the topic of this book—is to learn how to design it for the better

Deliberative Public Engagement with Science: An Empirical Investigation

experimental manipulations of deliberative engagement; nanotechnology public policy issues; education-oriented communications; experimental social science; science, technology and society; innovation policy; cognitive-affective engagement; polarization of public attitude

Combining MAS and P2P Systems: The Agent Trees Multi-Agent System (ATMAS)

The seamless retrieval of information distributed across networks has been one of the key goals of many systems. Early solutions involved the use of single static agents which would retrieve the unfiltered data and then process it. However, this was deemed costly and inefficient in terms of the bandwidth since complete files need to be downloaded when only a single value is often all that is required. As a result, mobile agents were developed to filter the data in situ before returning it to the user. However, mobile agents have their own associated problems, namely security and control. The Agent Trees Multi-Agent System (AT-MAS) has been developed to provide the remote processing and filtering capabilities but without the need for mobile code. It is implemented as a Peer to Peer (P2P) network of static intelligent cooperating agents, each of which control one or more data sources. This dissertation describes the two key technologies have directly influenced the design of ATMAS, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems and Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). P2P systems are conceptually simple, but limited in power, whereas MAS are significantly more complex but correspondingly more powerful. The resulting system exhibits the power of traditional MAS systems while retaining the simplicity of P2P systems. The dissertation describes the system in detail and analyses its performance

A multi-attribute method for ranking the risks from multiple hazards in a small community

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, February 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-98).Natural hazards, human-induced accidents, and malicious acts have caused great losses and disruptions to society. After September 11, 2001, critical infrastructure protection has become a national focus in the United States and is likely to remain one for the foreseeable future. Damage to the infrastructures and assets could be mitigated through pre-disaster planning and actions. A systematic method has been developed to assess and rank the risks from these multiple hazards in a small community of 20,000 people. It is an interdisciplinary study that includes probabilistic risk assessment, decision analysis, and expert judgment. Scenarios are constructed to show how the initiating events evolve into undesirable consequences. A value tree, based on multi-attribute utility theory, is used to capture the decision maker's preferences about the impacts on the infrastructures and other assets. The risks from random failures are ranked according to their Expected Performance Index values, which is the product of frequency, probability, and consequence of a scenario. Risks from malicious acts are ranked according to their Performance Index values as the frequency of attack is not available. A deliberative process is used to capture the factors that could not be addressed in the analysis and to scrutinize the results. This method provides a framework for the development of a risk-informed decision strategy. Although this study uses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus as a test-bed, it is a general methodology that could be used by other similar communities and municipalities.by Hua Li.S.M