A Hybrid Simulation Methodology To Evaluate Network Centricdecision Making Under Extreme Events

Currently the network centric operation and network centric warfare have generated a new area of research focused on determining how hierarchical organizations composed by human beings and machines make decisions over collaborative environments. One of the most stressful scenarios for these kinds of organizations is the so-called extreme events. This dissertation provides a hybrid simulation methodology based on classical simulation paradigms combined with social network analysis for evaluating and improving the organizational structures and procedures, mainly the incident command systems and plans for facing those extreme events. According to this, we provide a methodology for generating hypotheses and afterwards testing organizational procedures either in real training systems or simulation models with validated data. As long as the organization changes their dyadic relationships dynamically over time, we propose to capture the longitudinal digraph in time and analyze it by means of its adjacency matrix. Thus, by using an object oriented approach, three domains are proposed for better understanding the performance and the surrounding environment of an emergency management organization. System dynamics is used for modeling the critical infrastructure linked to the warning alerts of a given organization at federal, state and local levels. Discrete simulations based on the defined concept of community of state enables us to control the complete model. Discrete event simulation allows us to create entities that represent the data and resource flows within the organization. We propose that cognitive models might well be suited in our methodology. For instance, we show how the team performance decays in time, according to the Yerkes-Dodson curve, affecting the measures of performance of the whole organizational system. Accordingly we suggest that the hybrid model could be applied to other types of organizations, such as military peacekeeping operations and joint task forces. Along with providing insight about organizations, the methodology supports the analysis of the after action review (AAR), based on collection of data obtained from the command and control systems or the so-called training scenarios. Furthermore, a rich set of mathematical measures arises from the hybrid models such as triad census, dyad census, eigenvalues, utilization, feedback loops, etc., which provides a strong foundation for studying an emergency management organization. Future research will be necessary for analyzing real data and validating the proposed methodology

Knowledge transfer in a tourism destination: the effects of a network structure

Tourism destinations have a necessity to innovate to remain competitive in an increasingly global environment. A pre-requisite for innovation is the understanding of how destinations source, share and use knowledge. This conceptual paper examines the nature of networks and how their analysis can shed light upon the processes of knowledge sharing in destinations as they strive to innovate. The paper conceptualizes destinations as networks of connected organizations, both public and private, each of which can be considered as a destination stakeholder. In network theory they represent the nodes within the system. The paper shows how epidemic diffusion models can act as an analogy for knowledge communication and transfer within a destination network. These models can be combined with other approaches to network analysis to shed light on how destination networks operate, and how they can be optimized with policy intervention to deliver innovative and competitive destinations. The paper closes with a practical tourism example taken from the Italian destination of Elba. Using numerical simulations the case demonstrates how the Elba network can be optimized. Overall this paper demonstrates the considerable utility of network analysis for tourism in delivering destination competitiveness.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. Forthcoming in: The Service Industries Journal, vol. 30, n. 8, 2010. Special Issue on: Advances in service network analysis v2: addeded and corrected reference

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Trading Virtual Legacies (Management of Tradition from Alexandria to Internet)

Will the reconstructed library of Alexandria prevent a forthcoming clash of civilizations? Inventing and re-inventing traditions requires total quality management and multiple networking in shifting alliances in the information space. Stock exchange of cultural forms has long abandoned the golden standards of Enlightenment and follows a theory of cultural relativity and an international political economy of attention.Virtual legacies;cultural relativity;detraditionalization;political economy of attention;re-enchantment

Integration of a Flat Holonic Form in an HLA Environment

International audienceManagers need to create and sustain internal systems and controls to ensure that their customer focused strategies are being implemented. Companies are currently in a spiral of permanent optimization. Accordingly, many companies turn to their core activity. In this framework, one notices the development of the concept of “industrial partnership”. In this context and to control the customer–supplier relationships (CSR), we proposed a self-organized control model in which all partner entities (customers/suppliers) negotiate to guarantee good quality connections between customers and suppliers. This means meeting customer expectations as closely as possible and respecting supplier capacities. In this proposal, self-organized control is characterized more precisely by an organizational architecture of the flat holonic form type. This flat holonic form is based on the concept of autonomous control entity (ACE). The holonic architecture, the behaviour of an ACE, the interaction mechanisms between ACEs and the self-evaluation supplier process are presented, and then the modelling of ACEs using discrete event system specification (DEVS) is described. An implementation of the simulation of such a system was done via a distributed simulation environment high level architecture (HLA). A case study illustrating the proposed approach is presented

Simulating a physical internet enabled mobility web: the case of mass distribution in France

International audiencePhysical Internet (PI, π) is a novel concept aiming to render more economically, environmentally and socially efficient and sustainable the way physical objects are transported, handled, stored, realized, supplied and used throughout the world. It enables, among other webs, the Mobility Web which deals with moving physical objects within an interconnected set of unimodal and multimodal hubs, transits, ports, roads and ways. We want to develop and use holistic simulations to study and quantify the impact in terms of economical, environmental, and social efficiency and performance of evolving from the current system of freight transportation toward an open logistics web in France. This paper focuses on how the mobility web simulator supporting this study was designed and developed. The simulator produces large-scale simulations of mobility webs consisting of a large number of companies, sites and agents dealing with thousands of daily orders. It supports route and rail transportation modes, pallets and PI-containers for product shipping, different kinds of routing and shipping strategies, and various types of hubs

Plan in progress: a critique of the selective coproduction of the Spatial Policy Plan for Flanders (Belgium)

In recent years, so-called coproductive, radical strategic planning has become a synonym for integrative and holistic public sector-led planning processes and the alleged integrating qualities of representative democracies. However, these views remain framed by the specific discourses, perspectives and path dependencies of governments, obstructing opportunities for radical reorientations as intended above. In this paper, we want to illustrate how these restrained views affect concrete planning practices through the specific case of the region of Flanders (Belgium). For decades, the holistic model of the Dutch neighbours has largely inspired planning dynamics in Flanders (Belgium). As such, in 1997, most concerned Flemish authorities accepted the first overarching spatial policy plan for the region. Fifteen years later, however, original commitments have eroded and the original plan has largely lost its credibility. In 2011 a new process was launched, aiming to develop a new policy plan (the future Spatial Policy Plan for Flanders). However, this new process builds only limited support and credibility outside the select group of involved actors. We argue that today in Flanders the borrowed methodology of coproductive planning is insufficiently adapted to the institutional context and is therefore mainly delivering an aura of sustainability optimism to on-going policies, while a variety of spatial developments that are recognized as fundamental or problematic are omitted from the debate. We show this by putting forward some major missing pieces, which are located in the policy fields of large road infrastructure development, “legacy” suburbanization, retail siting, and property taxation. We show that these issues are representative of a number of constraints that are imposed by separate policy levels (located at other ministries, at the federal level, or in neighbouring regions such as Brussels) although these are not accounted for by the current planning process, apart from a number of key issues that are kept deliberately outside the process after labelling these “already decided”. Finally, we sketch some opportunities for improvement, consisting of developing a more contextualized process model, putting the stress on more concrete planning issues, involving independent stakeholders in strategic alliances, and taking a co-evolutionary approach from the start