TOWARDS ADAPTIVE ENTERPRISES USING DIGITAL TWINS

Modern enterprises are large complex systems operating in highly dynamic environments thus requiring quick response to a variety of change drivers. Moreover, they are systems of systems wherein understanding is available in localized contexts only and that too is typically partial and uncertain. With the overall system behaviour hard to know a-priori and conventional techniques for system-wide analysis either lacking in rigour or defeated by the scale of the problem, the current practice often exclusively relies on human expertise for monitoring and adaptation. We present an approach that combines ideas from modeling & simulation, reinforcement learning and control theory to make enterprises adaptive. The approach hinges on the concept of Digital Twin - a set of relevant models that are amenable to analysis and simulation. The paper describes illustration of approach in two real world use cases

A model-based systems engineering methodology to make engineering analysis of discrete-event logistics systems more cost-accessible

This dissertation supports human decision-making with a Model-Based Systems Engineering methodology enabling engineering analysis, and in particular Operations Research analysis of discrete-event logistics systems, to be more widely used in a cost-effective and correct manner. A methodology is a collection of related processes, methods, and tools, and the process of interest is posing a question about a system model and then identifying and building answering analysis models. Methods and tools are the novelty of this dissertation, which when applied to the process will enable the dissertation's goal. One method which directly enables the goal is adding automation to analysis model-building. Another method is abstraction, to make explicit a frequently-used bridge to analysis and also expose analysis model-building repetition to justify automation. A third method is formalization, to capture knowledge for reuse and also enable automation without human interpreters. The methodology, which is itself a contribution, also includes two supporting tool contributions. A tool to support the abstraction method is a definition of a token-flow network, an abstract concept which generalizes many aspects of discrete-event logistics systems and underlies many analyses of them. Another tool to support the formalization method is a definition of a well-formed question, the result of an initial study of semantics, categories, and patterns in questions about models which induce engineering analysis. This is more general than queries about models in any specific modeling language, and also more general than queries answerable by navigating through a model and retrieving recorded information. A final contribution follows from investigating tools for the automation method. Analysis model-building is a model-to-model transformation, and languages and tools for model-to-model transformation already exist in Model-Driven Architecture of software. The contribution considers if and how these tools can be re-purposed by contrasting software object-oriented code generation and engineering analysis model-building. It is argued that both use cases share a common transformation paradigm but executed at different relative levels of abstraction, and the argument is supported by showing how several Operations Research analyses can be defined in an object-oriented way across multiple layered instance-of abstraction levels. Enabling Operations Research analysis of discrete-event logistics systems to be more widely used in a cost-effective and correct manner requires considering fundamental questions about what knowledge is required to answer a question about a system, how to formally capture that knowledge, and what that capture enables. Developments here are promising, but provide only limited answers and leave much room for future work.Ph.D

AI as a Material for Design

From Netflix recommendations to Amazon Echos sitting proudly on kitchen countertops, artificial intelligence (AI) has been inserted into the mundane settings of our everyday lives. These ‘smart’ devices and services have given rise to the collection of data and processing within everyday objects, accumulating new challenges, particularly in legibility, agency, and negotiability of interactions. The emerging field of Human Data Interaction (HDI) recognises that these challenges go on to influence security, privacy, and accessibility protocols, while also encompassing socio-technical implications. Furthermore, these objects challenge designers’ traditional conventions of neutral interactions, which only work as instructed. However, these smart objects go beyond typical human-object relationships functioning in new and unexpected ways, creeping in function, and existing within independent and interdependent assemblages of human and non-human actants—demanding alternative considerations and design practice. This thesis aims to question the traditional practice of considering and designing for AI technology by arguing for a post-anthropocentric perspective of things with agency, by adopting the philosophical approach of Object Orientated Ontology with design research. This research ultimately presents and builds (a currently) unorthodox design approach of Human-AI Kinship that contests the design orthodoxies of human-centred design. Conclusively, this research seeks to bring into being AI as a material for design and justify through the case study of AI legibility. A More than Human Centered Design approach is established through a transdisciplinary and iterative Research through Design methodology, resulting in the design of AI iconography that attempts to communicate and signify AI’s ontology to human users. This thesis is concluded by testing the legibility of the icons themselves and discussing philosophy as an asset for design research

Approaches to the mediated city

Digital mediation of urban spatial practice affects the way cities are planned, perceived and ‘performed’, as manifested in computer-supported urban planning and simulations, and also in the reconfiguration of patterns of urban behaviour and experience through day-to-day use of the Internet and cellular phone systems by urban citizens. I conceptually unify this broad range of digitally-mediated practices under the term “the mediated city”, and propose that the ways in which urban actors are appropriating these technologies has the potential to transform not just the practices that take place within the city but the very processes of the genesis of built urban space. I articulate a theoretical framework that encapsulates the various modes of actually existing digitally-mediated urban spatial practice in the three realms of mediated urban life, mediated urban design and mediated urban planning and establish a genealogy of ideas and actions linking the theory and practice of this emerging milieu to interface theory and practice and urban theory and practice. I apply grounded theory methodology to gain an understanding of current mediated urban spatial practice, based upon which I construct and illustrate a conceptual model of the mediated city. In order to exemplify the understanding of the themes, qualities and mechanisms of the mediated city that I have assembled through this research, I bring my general conceptual model of the mediated city to bear on the structured imagining of possible futures for urban China. I propose a hypothetical program of “moves” taken by various urban actors within this context, to exemplify the types of urban practices I am trying to articulate, to aid in the refinement of said articulation, and to serve as ‘probes’ to draw comment and critique

Foucault 2.0: Discipline, Governmentality and Ethics

The rise of globalisation, along with the proliferation of the internet and the development of groundbreaking technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain technology has, in the twenty-first century, given rise to a complex nexus of mutable relations that lends itself to a continuation and recontextualization of the kind of philosophical explorations and analyses that Michel Foucault started in the previous century. This then is what this thesis sets out to do, with the ultimate goal of seeing what lessons we can learn from Foucault, particularly in the context of the modern organisation and business ethics. This thesis tracks the trajectory of the subject through Foucault’s work on power, governmentality, and ethics. Central to this, is the question of how Foucault’s analysis may be applied to the contemporary networked, high-tech social context today’s subject finds himself in. I contend that today’s subject constitutes itself in a way that is very different from the subject of any preceding epoch. The subject of today is a divided subject, a type of Deleuzian "dividual" who occupies both the physical world as well as the virtual one. In order to understand how the modern subject constitutes itself within the current socio-economic and technological environment, I use a quasi-Foucauldian methodology. However, instead of analysing practices in hospitals, sanitariums, schools or clinics, my focus is on the twenty-first century enterprise - on companies and corporations as microcosms of a larger social, economic and technological macrocosm. This entails a thoroughgoing investigation into the twenty-first century organisation - its discourses, its mechanisms of power, domination, and control, “managementality”, and the care of the self or the self-constitution of the contemporary working subject. Ultimately, this results in an attempt to unearth an entirely new perspective on ethics, particularly in business.A importância cada vez mais reforçada da globalização, em conjunto com a expansão da internet e o desenvolvimento de tecnologias pioneiras, tais como a inteligência artificial, machine learning e as tecnologias de block chain, têm dado origem, no século XXI, a um nexo complexo de relações mutáveis que se adequa a uma continuação e uma recontextualização da atividade exploratória e analítica filosófica que Michel Foucault iniciou no século passado. Neste sentido, o principal objetivo desta tese prende-se com uma examinação das lições que podemos tirar dos conceitos de Foucault, e em particular, no contexto da organização empresarial contemporânea e de ética empresarial. Esta tese acompanha a trajetória do tema através da obra de Foucault nas áreas de poder, governamentalidade e ética, tendo como cerne especial a questão de como a análise de Foucault pode ser aplicada no contexto social, contemporâneo, high-tech, e online, no qual o tema se insere. O tema abordado, hoje em dia, é constituído de uma forma bem diferente a qualquer abordagem feita no passado, considerando, agora, que se trata de um sujeito dividido, um tipo de “dividual” Deleuziano que ocupa o mundo físico e o mundo virtual ao mesmo tempo. Para entender como o sujeito moderno se constitui no ambiente socioeconómico e tecnológico atual, uma metodologia quase-Foucaultiana é usada. Contudo, em vez de analisar estas práticas em hospitais, sanitários, escolas ou clínicas, pretende-se focar nas empresas do século XXI, olhando-as como microcosmos de um macrocosmo social, económico e tecnológico mais abrangente. Isto implica investigar a organização empresarial do século XXI – os seus discursos, os seus mecanismos de poder, a sua dominação e controlo, a sua managementality, e a noção de cuidar de si e como se constitui como um sujeito trabalhador contemporâneo. Por último, pretende-se apontar para uma nova perspetiva sobre a ética, sobretudo, na área de negócios

Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

A few months into the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2009/10, the promises of social media, including its ability to influence a participatory governance model, grassroots civic engagement, new social dynamics, inclusive societies and new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, became more evident than ever. Simultaneously, cartography received new considerable interest as it merged with social media platforms. In an attempt to rearticulate the relationship between media and mapping practices, whilst also addressing new and social media, this interdisciplinary book abides by one relatively clear point: space is a media product. The overall focus of this book is accordingly not so much on the role of new technologies and social networks as it is on how media and mapping practices expand the very notion of cultural engagement, political activism, popular protest and social participation

Foundations of Security Analysis and Design III, FOSAD 2004/2005- Tutorial Lectures

he increasing relevance of security to real-life applications, such as electronic commerce and Internet banking, is attested by the fast-growing number of research groups, events, conferences, and summer schools that address the study of foundations for the analysis and the design of security aspects. This book presents thoroughly revised versions of eight tutorial lectures given by leading researchers during two International Schools on Foundations of Security Analysis and Design, FOSAD 2004/2005, held in Bertinoro, Italy, in September 2004 and September 2005. The lectures are devoted to: Justifying a Dolev-Yao Model under Active Attacks, Model-based Security Engineering with UML, Physical Security and Side-Channel Attacks, Static Analysis of Authentication, Formal Methods for Smartcard Security, Privacy-Preserving Database Systems, Intrusion Detection, Security and Trust Requirements Engineering