Development of a 3D dynamic flood web GIS visualisation tool

Low elevation coastal areas are vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise and to an increase in the frequency and severity of storm surge events due to climate change.Coastal urban areas are at risk because coastal flooding causes extensive damage to energy and transportation infrastructure, disruptions to the delivery of services, devastating tolls on the public’s health and,occasionally, significant loss of life. Although scientists widely stress the compelling need to mitigate and adapt to climate change, public awareness lags behind. Because WebGIS maps (web-based geographic information systems) quickly convey strong messages, condense complex information, engage people on issues of environmental change, and motivate personal actions, this paper focuses on searching the ideal flood assessment WebGIS method to encourage people to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Surveys demonstrated that 3D visualisations have an enormous added value because they are more vivid and therefore more understandable and make it easier to imagine the consequences of a flood than2D visualisations. In this research, the WebGIS will be created using Ol3-Cesium and openlayers to visualise a flood event by dynamic layers in a 2D/3D environment

Using system dynamics for collaborative design: a case study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In order to facilitate the collaborative design, system dynamics (SD) with a group modelling approach was used in the early stages of planning a new stroke unit. During six workshops a SD model was created in a multiprofessional group.</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>To explore to which extent and how the use of system dynamics contributed to the collaborative design process.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A case study was conducted using several data sources.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>SD supported a collaborative design, by facilitating an explicit description of stroke care process, a dialogue and a joint understanding. The construction of the model obliged the group to conceptualise the stroke care and experimentation with the model gave the opportunity to reflect on care.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>SD facilitated the collaborative design process and should be integrated in the early stages of the design process as a quality improvement tool.</p

Workflow in Clinical Trial Sites & Its Association with Near Miss Events for Data Quality: Ethnographic, Workflow & Systems Simulation

10.1371/journal.pone.0039671PLoS ONE76

Security of Supply in the Swiss Electricity Market: A System Dynamics Approach

Guaranteeing the security of supply (SoS) has become more complex since the liberalization of electricity markets started in the 90's. Liberalization and the ever larger share of intermittent sources (photovoltaic [PV] and wind energy), combined with increasingly interconnected markets, have a direct impact on SoS. Given the large number of elements and stakeholders involved, actions to enhance security may conflict with economic efficiency and/or environmental protection, thus increasing problem complexity. We develop a SD model that allows us to analyse the investment decision process and, understand, how the presence of PV and wind energy affects the reliability of the system. We focus on the Swiss electricity market, which is currently undergoing a liberalization process, and has simultaneously decided to encourage the implementation of renewable energies and to phase out nuclear energy. Results of the simulation show that nuclear production is replaced mainly by PV, CCGT and imports, which impacts the SoS negatively. Although installed capacity increases, the decreasing de-rated margin indicates a drop of the system's reliability. This reveals a problem of capacity adequacy that is partially "solved" by increasing imports. Regardless of the increasing share of inexpensive sources, this large dependency drives prices up, especially in winter, and to a lower extend in autumn

From Nuclear phase-out to renewable energies in the Swiss Electricity Market

Liberalisation and the ever larger share of variable renewable energies (VRES), e.g. photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy, affect security of supply (SoS). We develop a system dynamics model to analyse the impact of VRES on the investment decision process and to understand how SoS is affected. We focus on the Swiss electricity market, which is currently undergoing a liberalisation process, and simultaneously faces the encouragement of VRES and a nuclear phase out. Our results show that nuclear production is replaced mainly by PV and imports; the country becomes a net importer. This evolution points to a problem of capacity adequacy. The resulting price rise, together with the subsidies needed to support VRES, lead to a rise in tariffs. In the presence of a high share of hydro, the de-rated margin may give a misleading picture of the capacity adequacy. We thus propose a new metric, the annual energy margin, which considers the energy available from all sources, while acknowledging that hydro-storage can function as a battery. This measure shows a much less reassuring picture of the country's capacity adequacy

Too Big to Fail in the Electricity Sector

There have always been certain sectors that are critical for the functioning of society. Examples include hospitals, gas, railways, electricity, etc. Such sectors used to be state-owned, or subject to strict regulation. But over the last decades many of these have been deregulated and privatized, with the creation of markets and competition (Newbery, 2002). However, what happens when one or more key companies of these industries face bankruptcy, threatening the availability of the service? While this issue has received attention since the start of the privatization process, the discussion has remained very much theoretical, with occasional problems being solved on a case by case basis. The situation changed drastically in 2007/2008 when the USA mortgage crisis created a snowballing effect, causing a global collapse of the financial sector to become a realistic prospect. During the decade following this crisis the financial sector was subject to a close scrutiny, with particular attention to the influence of individual financial institutions on the overall system. In addition to a general tightening of regulation and oversight, there was a focus on identifying system critical institution; these became the subject of careful monitoring, and were required to increase their capitalization to increase their solvency, so as to reduce the risk of a rerun of the financial crisis. In this paper we address the following question: given the essential role of electricity in today’s society, is there a need for a similar critical evaluation of the electricity sector to ensure security of supply? While the electricity sector does not have the same global inter-connectedness as the financial sector, it has become increasingly connected. The failure of a major generator or distributor, leading to reduced access to electricity or even large-scale blackouts would have devastating effects, spreading well beyond national boundaries. As was the case in the financial sector, public intervention would be required to prevent such a disastrous event

A framework to evaluate security of supply in the electricity sector

Security of Electricity Supply (SoES) has become a major concern for regulators and policymakers over the last decade. However, most work focusses either more generally on energy security or on a single fuel. We develop a comprehensive but flexible framework to assess the SoES for a single jurisdiction, taking into the account the specificities of electricity. This framework has two aims: (i) provide a snapshot of the situation to understand current weaknesses and determine what actions are required; (ii) capture the evolution over time to evaluate progress and identify potential problems before they materialise. The framework, based on an extensive literature review, consists of twelve dimensions that are critical for SoES. We develop metrics that capture the state and evolution of each dimension. This framework is intended to be a management information tool for all stakeholders, aimed at organising data and structuring its analysis, to enable monitoring the evolution of the SoES, while also functioning as an early-warning system by flagging potential future problems

Interdependencies in security of electricity supply

The analysis of security of electricity supply (SoES) is particularly complex due to, among others, the liberalisation process and the increasing penetration of renewable energies. Larsen et al. [1] propose a framework based on twelve dimensions to evaluate SoES for a single jurisdiction. However, actions aimed at improving one dimension might impact others negatively, adversely affecting the overall system. Understanding how these dimensions are interrelated is thus a prerequisite for appropriate planning and resource allocation. We apply a Cross Impact Analysis (CIA) to these dimensions to determine the degree to which the different dimensions depend on each other. From this we derive an influence diagram to visualise the interdependencies and a scatter plot to categorise the dimensions as independent, driver, connector or outcome. Actions targeting the drivers or connectors are potentially the more effective ones a regulator can take, as the consequences will gradually ripple through the system. Having an integral view of the dimensions' interdependencies provides a better understanding of the higher-order changes an intervention may cause. This enables policymakers and regulators to identifying where in the system to intervene to achieve the desired effect with the least amount of resources and with as few undesirable side-effects as possible

Self-Organizing Behavior in Collective Choice models: Laboratory Experiments

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to consider queuing systems where captive repeat customers select a service facility each period. Are people in such a distributed system, with limited information diffusion, able to approach optimal system performance? How are queues formed? How do people decide which queue to join based on past experience? The authors explore these questions, investigating the effect of information availability, as well as the effect of heterogeneous facility sizes, at the macro (system) and micro (individual performance) levels. Design/methodology/approach - Experimental economics, using a queuing experiment. Findings - The authors find little behavioural difference at the aggregate level, but observe significant variations at the individual level. This leads the authors to the conclusion that it is not sufficient to evaluate system performance by observing average customer allocation and sojourn times at the different facilities; one also needs to consider the individuals' performance to understand how well the chosen design works. The authors also observe that better information diffusion does not necessarily improve system performance. Practical/implications - Evaluating system performance based on aggregate behaviour can be misleading; however, this is how many systems are evaluated in practice, when only aggregate performance measures are available. This can lead to suboptimal system designs. Originality/value - There has been little theoretical or empirical work on queuing systems with captive repeat customers. This study contributes to the understanding of decision making in such systems, using laboratory experiments based on the cellular automata approach, but with all agents replaced by humans