How do we solve wicked problems? Effective crowd management

This paper introduces concepts that may improve our understanding of crowd behaviour and new tools which may help to improve the management of crowds. A multidisciplinary approach taken, drawing on psychology, sociology, mathematics and computer science, amongst other disciplines, and incorporating general management theory, complexity theory and concepts of emergent behaviour and complex adaptive systems. The new tools available for crowd management have been made possible due to advances in digital technology and artificial intelligence

Organization knowledge management change from a complex adaptive systems perpective with ability for ambidexeterity

We are working on the confluence of knowledge management, organizational memory and emergent knowledge with the lens of complex adaptive systems. In order to be fundamentally sustainable organizations search for an adaptive need for managing ambidexterity of day-to-day work and innovation. An organization is an entity of a systemic nature, composed of groups of people who interact to achieve common objectives, making it necessary to capture, store and share interactions knowledge with the organization, this knowledge can be generated in intra-organizational or inter-organizational level. The organizations have organizational memory of knowledge of supported on the Information technology and systems. Each organization, especially in times of uncertainty and radical changes, to meet the demands of the environment, needs timely and sized knowledge on the basis of tacit and explicit. This sizing is a learning process resulting from the interaction that emerges from the relationship between the tacit and explicit knowledge and which we are framing within an approach of Complex Adaptive Systems. The use of complex adaptive systems for building the emerging interdependent relationship, will produce emergent knowledge that will improve the organization unique developing

Organisational culture and climate : elusive pieces in the healthcare technology management puzzle

South Africa is in the process of implementing a multi-billion rand National Healthcare Insurance strategy, the objective being cost effective healthcare service delivery to all South Africans. The implementation and use of innovative e-health technology systems to support service delivery are deemed to form an important element of the strategy. The objective of this paper is to research the organisational culture and climate implications associated with the deployment, use and management of the innovative technologies concerned. In this regard a complex adaptive system, in contrast to a traditional scientific management, approach in dealing with culture change is specifically explored. The research methodology constitutes a multi-disciplinary literature review and it is suggested that the findings emanating from the study could serve as a source of information and reference for the technology and healthcare practitioners involved. A key finding emanating from the research is that the traditional scientific management approach in dealing with culture change may not be all that effective and it is suggested that a complex adaptive systems perspective may be of more value and ought to be considered.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_jcman.htmlam2013ai201

Social-ecological resilience and socio-technical transitions: critical issues for sustainability governance

Technology contributes both positively and negatively to the resilience of ‘social-ecological systems’, but is not considered in depth in that literature. A technology-focused literature on sociotechnical transitions shares some of the complex adaptive systems sensibilities of social-ecological systems research. It is considered by others to provide a bridging opportunity to share lessons concerning the governance of both. We contend that lessons must not be restricted to advocacy of flexible, learning-oriented approaches, but must also be open to the critical challenges that confront these approaches. Here, we focus on the critical lessons arising from reactions to a ‘transition management’ approach to governing transitions to sustainable socio-technical regimes. Moreover, we suggest it is important to bear in mind the different problems each literature addresses, and be cautious about transposing lessons between the two. Nevertheless, questions for transition management about who governs, whose system framings count, and whose sustainability gets prioritised are pertinent to social-ecological systems research. They suggest an agenda that explores critically the kinds of resilience that are helpful or unhelpful, and for whom, and with what social purposes in mind.ESR

Resilience: A Literature Review

Resilience has, in the past four decades, been a term increasingly employed throughout a number of sciences: psychology and ecology, most prominently. Increasingly one finds it in political science, business administration, sociology, history, disaster planning, urban planning, and international development. The shared use of the term does not, however, imply unified concepts of resilience nor the theories in which it is embedded. Different uses generate different methods, sometimes different methodologies. Evidential or other empirical support can differ between domains of application, even when concepts are broadly shared. The review centres on three resilience frameworks, of increasing complexity: Engineering Resilience (or ‘Common Sense’ resilience); Systems Resilience, called Robustness in economics; and Resilience in Complex Adaptive Systems. Although each framework has historical roots in particular disciplines, the frameworks themselves can be applied to any domain: Engineering Resilience is utilised in some child development studies; Systems Resilience is often used in governance and management; and the Complex Adaptive Systems approach has been applied to economics, innovation in technology, history, and urban planning. Thus different frameworks along the spectrum offer a choice of perspective; the acceptability of trade-offs between them, and not subject matter, will ultimately determine which perspective is chosen.The Rockerfeller Foundatio

Online Inference for Adaptive Diagnosis via Arithmetic Circuit Compilation of Bayesian Networks

International audienceConsidering technology and complexity evolution the design of fully reliable embedded systems will be prohibitively complex and costly. Onboard diagnosis is a first solution that can be achieved by means of Bayesian networks. An efficient compilation of Bayesian inference is proposed using Arithmetic Circuits (AC). ACs can be efficiently implemented in hardware to get very fast response time. This approach has been recently experimented in Software Health Management of aircrafts or UAVs. However, there are two kinds of obstacles that must be addressed. First, the tree complexity can lead to intractable solutions and second, an offline static analysis cannot capture the dynamic behaviour of a system that can have multiple configurations and applications. In this paper, we present our direction to solve these issues. Our approach relies on an adaptive version of the diagnosis computation for different kinds of applications/missions of UAVs. In particular, we consider an incremental generation of the AC structure. This adaptive diagnosis can be implemented using dynamic reconfiguration of FPGA circuits

Course Design Principles to Support the Learning of Complex Information Infrastructures

This paper presents an integrated, learning-centred course design for studying the complex, rapidly changing information infrastructures underpinning organisations and society. Students need to develop an agile, critical mindset in order to influence and be influenced by these socio-technical systems in ways which enhance information management, control and innovation. There are several challenges to developing this mindset. Students and technology vendors often expect technical training and current educational materials reinforce this approach. A silo-based structure to most degrees exacerbates the problem. The complexity of context and rapidity of change often get lost in the mix. This paper addresses these problems and makes two contributions. It models an information infrastructure as a complex adaptive system (CAS) with particular characteristics. It suggests design principles to support the learning of complex information infrastructures by extending the learning context in Whetten’s learning-centred course design. An educational ecosystem, supported by integrated case studies underpins this design

Engineering adaptive user interfaces for enterprise applications

The user interface (UI) layer is considered an important component in software applications since it links the users to the software’s functionality. Enterprise applications such as enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems have very complex UIs that are used by users with diverse needs in terms of the required features and layout preferences. The inability to cater for the variety of user needs diminishes the usability of these applications. One way to cater for those needs is through adaptive UIs. Some enterprise software providers offer mechanisms for tailoring UIs based on the variable user needs, yet those are not generic enough to be used with other applications and require maintaining multiple UI copies manually. A generic platform based on a model-driven approach could be more reusable since operating on the model level makes it technology independent. The main objective of this research is devising a generic, scalable, and extensible platform for building adaptive enterprise application UIs based on a runtime model-driven approach. This platform primarily targets UI simplification, which we defined as a mechanism for increasing usability through adaptive behavior by providing users with a minimal feature-set and an optimal layout based on the context-of-use. This paper provides an overview of the research questions and methodology, the results that were achieved so far, and the remaining work

A novel research approach for whole-life-cycle electrical power systems asset management using retroductive case study method

There are a vast number of complex influences on power systems assets both individually and as a collection of systems of assets. The complexities when governing what and when to intervene with these assets is played out over varying time frames and represents a mixture of engineering, processes, technology, people and economic contributions. The importance of governing power systems olistically has been shown across decades with outages, safety issues, investment needs etc. As of today, research is yet to provide the effective governance framework to manage power systems assets holistically as-a-system; whilst aggregating decisions made at single asset level to generate consistently better outcomes. This paper sets out an approach to researching the phenomenon of asset management applied to power systems by utilising advancements in engineering asset management research and complex adaptive systems; whilst combining industry contributions and technical practices to ensure the suitability of future work. Ultimately the aim of this paper is to provide guidance and method to holistic decision making for power system companies and the management of power systems assets across the whole life