34,168 research outputs found
Adaptation and Resilience of Interdependent Infrastructure Systems: a Complex Systems Perspective
The effects of disruption upon one or more components in interdependent infrastructure systems and the ability of
the system to return to normal operations, is investigated in this paper. This addresses the concept of resilience, and
examines the trade-off between redundancy and efficiency, as well as the adaptive ability of a system to respond to
disruptions and continue to operate, albeit not necessarily as it did initially
Urban heat stress vulnerability in the U.S. Southwest: The role of sociotechnical systems
Heat vulnerability of urban populations is becoming a major issue of concern with climate change, particularly in the cities of the Southwest United States. In this article we discuss the importance of understanding coupled social and technical systems, how they constitute one another, and how they form the conditions and circumstances in which people experience heat. We discuss the particular situation of Los Angeles and Maricopa Counties, their urban form and the electric grid. We show how vulnerable populations are created by virtue of the age and construction of buildings, the morphology of roads and distribution of buildings on the landscape. Further, the regulatory infrastructure of electricity generation and distribution also contributes to creating differential vulnerability. We contribute to a better understanding of the importance of sociotechnical systems. Social infrastructure includes codes, conventions, rules and regulations; technical systems are the hard systems of pipes, wires, buildings, roads, and power plants. These interact to create lock-in that is an obstacle to addressing issues such as urban heat stress in a novel and equitable manner
Research Agenda in Intelligent Infrastructure to Enhance Disaster Management, Community Resilience and Public Safety
Modern societies can be understood as the intersection of four interdependent
systems: (1) the natural environment of geography, climate and weather; (2) the
built environment of cities, engineered systems, and physical infrastructure;
(3) the social environment of human populations, communities and socio-economic
activities; and (4) an information ecosystem that overlays the other three
domains and provides the means for understanding, interacting with, and
managing the relationships between the natural, built, and human environments.
As the nation and its communities become more connected, networked and
technologically sophisticated, new challenges and opportunities arise that
demand a rethinking of current approaches to public safety and emergency
management. Addressing the current and future challenges requires an equally
sophisticated program of research, technology development, and strategic
planning. The design and integration of intelligent infrastructure-including
embedded sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), advanced wireless information
technologies, real-time data capture and analysis, and machine-learning-based
decision support-holds the potential to greatly enhance public safety,
emergency management, disaster recovery, and overall community resilience,
while addressing new and emerging threats to public safety and security.
Ultimately, the objective of this program of research and development is to
save lives, reduce risk and disaster impacts, permit efficient use of material
and social resources, and protect quality of life and economic stability across
entire regions.Comment: A Computing Community Consortium (CCC) white paper, 4 page
Icebergs in the Clouds: the Other Risks of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is appealing from management and efficiency perspectives, but
brings risks both known and unknown. Well-known and hotly-debated information
security risks, due to software vulnerabilities, insider attacks, and
side-channels for example, may be only the "tip of the iceberg." As diverse,
independently developed cloud services share ever more fluidly and aggressively
multiplexed hardware resource pools, unpredictable interactions between
load-balancing and other reactive mechanisms could lead to dynamic
instabilities or "meltdowns." Non-transparent layering structures, where
alternative cloud services may appear independent but share deep, hidden
resource dependencies, may create unexpected and potentially catastrophic
failure correlations, reminiscent of financial industry crashes. Finally, cloud
computing exacerbates already-difficult digital preservation challenges,
because only the provider of a cloud-based application or service can archive a
"live," functional copy of a cloud artifact and its data for long-term cultural
preservation. This paper explores these largely unrecognized risks, making the
case that we should study them before our socioeconomic fabric becomes
inextricably dependent on a convenient but potentially unstable computing
model.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
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