Integrating Operational and Organizational Aspects in Interdependent Infrastructure Network Recovery

Managing risk in infrastructure systems implies dealing with interdependent physical networks and their relationships with the natural and societal contexts. Computational tools are often used to support operational decisions aimed at improving resilience, whereas economics‐related tools tend to be used to address broader societal and policy issues in infrastructure management. We propose an optimization‐based framework for infrastructure resilience analysis that incorporates organizational and socioeconomic aspects into operational problems, allowing to understand relationships between decisions at the policy level (e.g., regulation) and the technical level (e.g., optimal infrastructure restoration). We focus on three issues that arise when integrating such levels. First, optimal restoration strategies driven by financial and operational factors evolve differently compared to those driven by socioeconomic and humanitarian factors. Second, regulatory aspects have a significant impact on recovery dynamics (e.g., effective recovery is most challenging in societies with weak institutions and regulation, where individual interests may compromise societal well‐being). And third, the decision space (i.e., available actions) in postdisaster phases is strongly determined by predisaster decisions (e.g., resource allocation). The proposed optimization framework addresses these issues by using: (1) parametric analyses to test the influence of operational and socioeconomic factors on optimization outcomes, (2) regulatory constraints to model and assess the cost and benefit (for a variety of actors) of enforcing specific policy‐related conditions for the recovery process, and (3) sensitivity analyses to capture the effect of predisaster decisions on recovery. We illustrate our methodology with an example regarding the recovery of interdependent water, power, and gas networks in Shelby County, TN (USA), with exposure to natural hazards.     

For better,for worse? Public support for the capitalist model of the economy

A capitalist market economy is based on several institutional elements, such as private ownership and competition. Does public support for this economic model rise if the economy prospers, and fall during a downturn? Or is public support largely independent of the ups and downs of economic cycles? We hypothesize that positive economic performance increases support and that persons profiting personally are more supportive of the economic system's constitutive institutional elements. Using multilevel regression we study the determinants of individual-level support for the economic system. We also test for differences in the perception of economic performance due to political attitudes and personal properties. The findings partly support the hypotheses, indicating that macro-economic factors matter for individual-level attitudes towards the economy. Attitudes towards different institutional elements of the economic system also differ in the degree to which they are political or economic, and influenced by economic performance. Individual features – education and personal economic stakes – affect attitudes towards the economy, but a substantial share of the individual-level variation in economic attitudes remains unexplained.     

Risk Modeling of Interdependent Complex Systems of Systems: Theory and Practice

The emergence of the complexity characterizing our systems of systems (SoS) requires a reevaluation of the way we model, assess, manage, communicate, and analyze the risk thereto. Current models for risk analysis of emergent complex SoS are insufficient because too often they rely on the same risk functions and models used for single systems. These models commonly fail to incorporate the complexity derived from the networks of interdependencies and interconnectedness (I–I) characterizing SoS. There is a need to reevaluate currently practiced risk analysis to respond to this reality by examining, and thus comprehending, what makes emergent SoS complex. The key to evaluating the risk to SoS lies in understanding the genesis of characterizing I–I of systems manifested through shared states and other essential entities within and among the systems that constitute SoS. The term “essential entities” includes shared decisions, resources, functions, policies, decisionmakers, stakeholders, organizational setups, and others. This undertaking can be accomplished by building on state‐space theory, which is fundamental to systems engineering and process control. This article presents a theoretical and analytical framework for modeling the risk to SoS with two case studies performed with the MITRE Corporation and demonstrates the pivotal contributions made by shared states and other essential entities to modeling and analysis of the risk to complex SoS. A third case study highlights the multifarious representations of SoS, which require harmonizing the risk analysis process currently applied to single systems when applied to complex SoS.     

Decision‐making under uncertainty in child protection: Creating a just and learning culture

The argument is made for having a positive error culture in child protection to improve decision‐making and risk management. This requires organizations to accept that mistakes are likely and to treat them as opportunities for learning and improving. In contrast, in many organizations, a punitive reaction to errors leads to workers hiding them and developing a defensive approach to their practice with children and families. The safety management literature has shown how human error is generally not simply due to a “bad apple” but made more or less likely by the work context that helps or hinders good performance. Improving safety requires learning about the weaknesses in the organization that contribute to poor performance. To create a learning culture, people need to feel that when they talk about mistakes or weak practice, there will be a constructive response from their organization. One aspect of reducing the blame culture is to develop a shared understanding of how practice will be judged and how those appraising practice will avoid the hindsight bias. To facilitate a positive error culture, a set of risk principles are presented that offer a set of criteria by which practice should be appraised.     

对清教妇道观的有力抨击--评《喧哗与骚动》中女主人公的悲剧形象

威廉·福克纳的代表作品《喧哗与骚动》中的女主人公凯蒂 ,美丽善良 ,富有爱心 ,但却不为深受清教传统思想影响的社会和家庭所接受、所爱护 ,她渴望美好幸福的生活 ,却又没有树立起良好的价值观同传统妇道观相抗争 ,最终沦落为妓女。作者通过对女主人公悲剧形象的塑造 ,有力地抨击了南方传统道德标准及清教主义的妇道思想 ,揭露了它们对人性的压制和摧残。     

Challenge of multi-level governance in developing countries and possible GIS applications

Of the three most prominent issues in governance discourse—the horizontal coordination of markets, government hierarchies and networks, global governance and multi-level governance—this paper argues that the last, developing and sustaining structures of multi-level governance, constitutes the most profound governance challenge for most developing countries.The paper identifies the major forces promoting change in favor of multi-level governance in developing countries. Using the growing literature and comparative national experiences (illustrated with the examples of India, the Philippines, Colombia and Nigeria), it highlights the key achievements of democratic decentralization as well as its nagging problems in these countries. Finally, the paper demonstrates the significance of these developments for democracy and development in these countries and shows some of the ways by which external partners—especially experts associated with the Geographic Information Systems for Developing Countries can assist and possibly benefit from this process.     

'Polyphonic' welfare: Luhmann's systems theory applied to modern social work

This article applies a series of concepts from Niklas Luhmann's systems theory in an analysis of modern welfare organisations. The point of departure is that social help in late modern welfare states has become 'polycentric' in that 'help' is today being defined by various different agents: public, voluntary and private care providers. Empirically, this article investigates re-housing work with homeless people, a kind of social work which involves several different welfare organisations. The case study shows how these organisations define themselves by making internal constructions of their surroundings, and how their self-enclosed nature creates a certain 'insensitivity' towards one another. How to coordinate and translate within this 'polyphony' of incomparable observations and values represents a major managerial challenge for present-day social workers.     

Fast retraction of evidence in a probabilistic expert system

We present and justify a propagation algorithm to facilitate the simultaneous calculation, for every node in a probabilistic exper system of the distribution of the associated random quantity, conditional on all the evidence obtained about the remaining nodes.     

具有反馈控制的Logistic扩散系统周期解的存在与稳定

利用上下解，Ｂｒｏｕｗｅｒ不动点原理及Ｌｙａｐｕｎｏｖ泛函方法，讨论了一类具有反馈控制的Ｌｏｇｉｓｔｉｃ扩散系统的周期解问题；获得了周期解存在且稳定的判别条件．     

建设节约型社会的理性思考

工业文明以来,石油危机、海啸等一系列生态危机就人类对资源的保护和利用问题敲响了警钟。为了实现人与自然的和谐、可持续发展,实现全面建设小康社会的目标,2004年初,我国政府正式提出建设节约型社会,使资源得到节约使用,环境得到保护,人民生活更加文明、健康、科学,经济与社会持续发展。建设节约型社会是可持续发展不可分割的部分,是构建和谐社会的重要保证,是中国现代化的根本出路,关系到中华民族的兴衰与长期发展,也关系到全人类的幸福与明天。本文主要研究节约型社会作为节约系统工程的评价及体系构建,以期更好地建设节约型社会。