Normal Accidents of Expertise

Charles Perrow used the term “normal accidents” to characterize a type of catastrophic failure that resulted when complex, tightly coupled production systems encountered a certain kind of anomalous event. These were events in which systems failures interacted with one another in a way that could not be anticipated, and could not be easily understood and corrected. Systems of the production of expert knowledge are increasingly becoming tightly coupled. Unlike classical science, which operated with a long time horizon, many current forms of expert knowledge are directed at immediate solutions to complex problems. These are prone to breakdowns like the kind discussed by Perrow. The example of the Homestake mine experiment shows that even in modern physics complex systems can produce knowledge failures that last for decades. The concept of knowledge risk is introduced, and used to characterize the risk of failure in such systems of knowledge production

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Functional Fixedness in the Design of Software Artifacts

A common rule of thumb to make components reusable is to "make components generic". But software engineers tend to design in a way that solves the particular problem at hand, and in a way that they do not easily see opportunities to reuse existing components. We call such solutions "functionally fixed". Domain analysis prior to system design can help a great deal here, but for most software engineers fighting functional fixedness is still a constant and uphill battle. It seems to us that designers need more experience in recognizing functional fixedness when it is "staring them in the face", and in generalizing functionally fixed solutions to more (re)usable artifacts. In this paper we suggest how to uncommit design decisions from functionally fixed designs in such a way that their essence is kept. This uncommit process is done with the support of: ffl reasoning by analogy, ffl stating implications, ffl challenging assumptions, and (of course) ffl previous experience/ knowledge abo..