Computational and Statistical Physics Approaches for Complex Systems and Social Phenomena.

A deeper understanding of emergence of global patterns in social systems such as diffusion of ideas, emergence of norms & conventions, higher organizations, collective wisdom and evolution of culture; through simple and predictable local interactions of individuals, has been a long quest for sociologists. Agent-based modeling is the latest approach which has virtually replaced the use of traditional techniques of equation based models & micro simulations for social systems analysis. This new paradigm, in addition to being applied to model & analyze various social systems, is also finding widespread application in diverse domains such as economics, business organizations and computational systems. The findings of agent-based models of social systems not only help obtaining a better understanding of the investigated phenomenon but also provide valuable inputs for design of agent-based computational formulations for solving different problems in varied domains. In this paper, we have tried to characterize the use of multi-agent based modeling approach of social contagion and emergent collective behavior along with our experimental work on neighbourhood aggregation model. The paper concludes with a short discussion of the relevant implications for multi-agent systems design.

This is the second part of a two part article. In Part I, a social systems theory was applied to the analysis of hazardous technology and socio-technical systems, their complex dynamics, and risky dimensions and likelihood of accidents. It identified many of the diverse human risk factors associated with complex technologies and socio-technical systems, thus contributing knowledge toward preventing — or minimizing the likelihood of — accidents or catastrophes. This second part of the article will systematically address the broader issues of risk conceptions, analysis, and management in contemporary society including policy and other practical aspects. The social systems perspective and its derivations are contrasted to such impressionistic conceptions as those of Ulrich Beck. Section 1 of the paper introduces the topic of risk as a discursive concept in contemporary society. Our point of departure is the social system approach introduced in Part I, which is contrasted to that of Ulrich Beck, who eschews systematic theorizing at the same time that he denigrates empirical sociology. The section stresses that contemporary society is not so much threatened by high risks all around (as in Ulrich Beck’s “risk society”) but is more characterized by its developed risk discourses (a great deal owing to Beck himself), risk consciousness, risk theorizing, and risk management. What is truly characteristic of modern society are discretionary powers to determine dimensions, levels, and regulation of risk, that is, choices can be made whether or not to develop a technology, whether or not to not to tightly regulate it, for instance limiting or banning its use or whether or not to allow its widespread application, and under what conditions. Section 2 provides a brief review of our social systems framework, actor-system-dialectics (ASD) theory. Section 3 treats risk and risk analysis in a systems perspective, emphasizing the limitations of risk assessment and the risk management of complex, hazardous systems. Section 4 considers several principles which may serve to guide policy-making and regulation with respect to the hazards and risks of complex technologies and socio-technical systems.

This thesis demonstrates that many large, socio-technical systems fail to meet the goal of their sponsors and that one reason for this failure is that socio-technical systems are complex, co-evolutionary systems and that once such systems reach a particular level of complexity, they become as unpredictable as eddies in a stream. Technology based systems are built by engineers; systems engineers, software engineers, telecommunication engineers, mechanical engineers, etc. Engineering is goal-directed and based on the laws of physics. There are goals to achieve and requirements to be met. Thus engineering, and systems engineering particularly, is concerned with plans for the future. These plans are based on predicting the global state description of the system of interest, or in other words the behaviour, at specified times in the future. In a truly complex, large socio-technical system, this planned predictability can break down into a morass of unanticipated behaviour. This unpredictability comes from the propagation of the effects of change through coevolving subsystems. The effect of a change in one subsystem is often deterministic and in general predictable but when influencing links connect many subsystems, the effects become complex. The propagating changes originating from two or more initial changes interfere and alter the outcome. The subsystems' new states apply conflicting pressures for change on each other inducing them to enter a cyclic or chaotic set of states. These changes to individual or small groups of are local in nature but their aggregate effect is evident in the emergent behaviour of the system. The holistic system behaviour is unpredictable because it is dependent on a multitude of local effects. At the local level the pressure one subsystem has on another is dependent on the degree of coupling between the subsystems. Within a subsystem, there is again conflict, the magnitude of alteration in one dimension being traded off against that of another so that the aggregate effect affects the pressure for change. The threshold computation and the propagation of change can be brought together in a protocol, i.e. a set of rules, that is described in the thesis. This protocol relates the pressure for change, the subsystem aims, the risks and costs of change, and the control of change. It also describes the effects of the propagation of change. The ANZAC warship is used to illustrate the findings of the research. Each ship is a very complex socio-technical system so changes must be carefully considered in order to achieve the required result. Furthermore, each ship has an unending list of planned changes as capability requirements change. A tool was needed so that multiple changes could be simulated concurrently or successively and the implications shown. The thesis describes a number of concepts that could be the basis for such a tool. The tool, named SeeChange, was designed and built as part of the research. In a socio-technical system, the non-deterministic effect of the behaviour of humans also needs to be considered in depth. Human behaviour makes it extremely difficult to foresee the effect of changing one variable in a complex scenario. Building a large information system, for example, is a complex undertaking and the introduction of human subsystems raises the level of complexity. Often when change is contrived to achieve a particular effect the implementer is bewildered when the change achieves a different effect. This thesis draws attention to the presence of chaotic states within relatively simple complex systems and extends that concept to real world systems. It highlights the certainty of change, the uncertainty in foreseeing the effects of change, indicates why some systems may fail and offers some suggestions that may help to alleviate the problem of complex socio-technical systems failure. In summary, the thesis demonstrates that the effect of changes propagating within a complex, socio-technical system is inherently unpredictable and that there is a strong probability of the system failing to meet expectations. Therefore, there is not and, importantly, cannot be a single solution for preventing chaotic, socio-technical system failure, however, the SeeChange program coupled with the alleviative statements suggest a mechanism for improving the success rate and turning the nature of change to advantage.

L\'{e}vy robotic systems combine superdiffusive random movement with emergent collective behaviour from local communication and alignment in order to find rare targets or track objects. In this article we derive macroscopic fractional PDE descriptions from the movement strategies of the individual robots. Starting from a kinetic equation which describes the movement of robots based on alignment, collisions and occasional long distance runs according to a L\'{e}vy distribution, we obtain a system of evolution equations for the fractional diffusion for long times. We show that the system allows efficient parameter studies for a search problem, addressing basic questions like the optimal number of robots needed to cover an area in a certain time. For shorter times, in the hyperbolic limit of the kinetic equation, the PDE model is dominated by alignment, irrespective of the long range movement. This is in agreement with previous results in swarming of self-propelled particles. The article indicates the novel and quantitative modeling opportunities which swarm robotic systems provide for the study of both emergent collective behaviour and anomalous diffusion, on the respective time scales.

As design discourse continues to grapple with complexity in sociotechnical systems, new methodologies have coalesced under the term — systemic design. These approaches rely heavily on systems mapping through co-design to synthesize stakeholder perspectives on a system-of-interest into a visual representation of the system — a system map. Subsequent visual abductive reasoning then becomes the primary meaning-making process and method of creating insight and consensus. While system maps are useful in many ways and contexts, they also have limitations that stem from their status as static visual artifacts. In other systems disciplines, system maps are frequently used as inputs into more dynamic modeling processes, like simulation. Systemic design has yet to adopt simulation widely, due to the large expense, specific expertise, and tremendous effort needed to create such models of complex systems. We offer a Playful Systems approach that uses game co-design as a more flexible, familiar, and functional, way of capturing and representing the dynamics of systems from varying stakeholder perspectives. We outline the advantages of our Playful Systems approach in terms of five qualities of iterative game design: dynamics, intervention, freedom, embodiment, and persistence and associate each with a collection of research questions that together create an agenda for design researchers who want to explore the unique power of games and game design for managing complexity in sociotechnical systems.

A Qualitative-Quantitative Resilience Assessment Approach for Socio-technical Systems

Health care can be categorized as a complex socio-technical system. Often, similar projects or systems experience very different outcomes during implementation. To better understand the differentiating success factors when comparing projects or systems, we argue there is a need to systematically compare complex socio-technical systems. While Cognitive Engineering offers many methods for analyzing complex socio-technical systems, such as Cognitive Work Analysis, few methods support a comparison paradigm. We propose using Cognitive Work Analysis and using it to compare two similar socio-technical systems through Comparative Cognitive Work Analysis. Through parallel phases to Cognitive Work Analysis, the comparative method allows for the identification of differentiating factors, which we call Junctions, and allows practitioners to identify design opportunities to introduce success interventions into existing designs. Future work will involve further development of this concept and its application to healthcare problems.

Understanding human performance in sociotechnical systems – Steps towards a generic framework

Most business and social organisations can be seen nowadays as complex sociotechnical systems (STSs), including three components: technical artifacts, social artifacts, and humans. Within social artifacts, a special role have norms, which largely influence the overall system's behavior. However, norms need to be understood, interpreted, negotiated, and actuated by humans, who may of course deviate from them, or even decide to change them. STSs are therefore essentially prone to failure: critical situations are part of STS’s life, and may sometimes lead to tragic outcomes. That’s why resilience to failure must be built into such systems, and is a crucial parameter to determine their quality. We argue in this paper that, to achieve a high level of resilience, transparency is the key: actors within the system need to take a reflective stance toward the system itself. In other words, an STS must be open to its actors, which by observing and understanding its dynamics can take the appropriate initiatives in presence of unforeseen problems, possibly modifying the system at run time. Ontological models can play a crucial role in this context. However, we need to make a radical change in our modelling approach, shifting the focus of analysis from ontology-driven information systems to ontology-driven sociotechnical systems.KeywordsLegal NormTechnical ArtifactSociotechnical SystemUnforeseen ProblemSocial SubsystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Sociotechnical systems, risk management, and public health: comparing the North Battleford and Walkerton outbreaks

We are witnessing a significant expansion and penetration of wireless appliances, sensors, smart phones, and PDAs in a wide range of domains such as hospitals, healthcare, smart homes, and elderly home care. Healthcare applications are mission-critical, real-time, and are used in a complex socio-technical system that requires collaboration, communication and coordination between many actors (doctors, patients, nurses, lab technicians, administration, etc.) and devices in the system, depending on their context. This paper introduces a framework for supporting context awareness, which is built from available open source components. The paper illustrates how the framework can be used in the healthcare domain with the help of an emergency department application.

Traditional approaches to cyber-security resilience, assuring the overall socio-technical system is secure from immediate known attacks and routes to potential future attacks, have relied on three pillars of people, process, and technology.In any complex socio-technical system, human behaviour can disrupt the secure and efficient running of the system with risk accumulating through individual and system-wide errors and compromised security behaviours that may be exploited by actors with malicious intent.Practitioners’ experience and use of different assessment methods and approaches to establish cyber-security vulnerabilities and risk are evaluated. Qualitative and quantitative methods and data are used for different stages of investigations in order to derive risk assessments and access contextual experience for further analyses. Organisational security culture and development approaches along with safety assessment methods are discussed in this case study to understand how well the people, the system, and the organisation interact.Cyber-security Human Factors practice draws on other application areas such as safety, usability, behaviours and culture to progressively assess security posture; the benefits of each approach are discussed.This study identifies the most effective methods for vulnerability identification and risk assessment, with focus on modelling large, dynamic and complex socio-technical systems, to be those which identify cultural factors with impact on human-system interactions.KeywordsHuman factorsCyber-securityBehavioural scienceOrganisational cultureSecurity cultureCyber- resilienceSocio-technicalSafety assessmentClimateBehavioralOrganizational cultureSocio-behaviouralSociotechnical

This paper describes the application of requirements engineering concepts to support the analysis of the impact of new software systems on system-wide goals. Requirements on a new or revised software component of a socio-technical system not only have implications on the goals of the subsystem itself, but they also impact upon the goals of the existing integrated system. In industries such as air traffic management and healthcare, impacts need to be identified and demonstrated in order to assess concerns such as risk, safety, and accuracy. A method called PiLGRIM was developed which integrates means-end relationships within goal modelling with knowledge associated with the application domain. The relationship between domain knowledge and requirements, as described in a satisfaction argument, adds traceability rationale to help determine the impacts of new requirements across a network of heterogeneous actors. We report procedures that human analysts follow to use the concepts of satisfaction arguments in a software tool for i* goal modelling. Results were demonstrated using models and arguments developed in two case studies, each featuring a distinct socio-technical system—a new controlled airspace infringement detection tool for NATS (the UK’s air navigation service provider), and a new version of the UK’s HIV/AIDS patient reporting system. Results provided evidence towards our claims that the conceptual integration of i* and satisfaction arguments is usable and useful to human analysts, and that the PiLGRIM impact analysis procedures and tool support are effective and scalable to model and analyse large and complex socio-technical systems.

Construction Industrialization (CI) tends to improve industrial performance and contributes substantially towards global sustainability. Considering these merits, many countries and regions, including Hong Kong, have released policies to promote CI uptake. However, those policy interventions ignore the dynamic influence of stakeholders and technologies, which significantly influence the efficient management of CI. In response, this study aimed to objectively depict a real socio-technical system of CI uptake based on a representative case study in Hong Kong. Further, this study identified the critical issues associated with the CI uptake and proposed policy-related recommendations to overcome the key issues. In addition, this study proposed a novel approach based on two-mode social network analysis to facilitate the analysis from a socio-technical perspective. Theoretically, this depicts the interactions of construction industry stakeholders and artifacts within a dynamic, complex socio-technical environment, indicating a new stance for construction management. Finally, this research also provides valuable implications for the government to anticipate the impact of different CI policies on promoting its uptake within the complex socio-technical system.

For non-mobile parasites living on social hosts, infection dynamics are strongly influenced by host life history and social system. We explore the impact of host social systems on parasite population dynamics by comparing the infection intensity and transmission opportunities of three mite species of the genus Spinturnix across their three European bat hosts (Myotis daubentonii, Myotis myotis, Myotis nattereri) during the bats’ autumn mating season. Mites mainly reproduce in host maternity colonies in summer, but as these colonies are closed, opportunities for inter-colony transmission are limited to host interactions during the autumn mating season. The three investigated hosts differ considerably in their social system, most notably in maternity colony size, mating system, and degree of male summer aggregation. We observed marked differences in parasite infection during the autumn mating period between the species, closely mirroring the predictions made based on the social systems of the hosts. Increased host aggregation sizes in summer yielded higher overall parasite prevalence and intensity, both in male and female hosts. Moreover, parasite levels in male hosts differentially increased throughout the autumn mating season in concordance with the degree of contact with female hosts afforded by the different mating systems of the hosts. Critically, the observed host-specific differences have important consequences for parasite population structure and will thus affect the coevolutionary dynamics between the interacting species. Therefore, in order to accurately characterize host-parasite dynamics in hosts with complex social systems, a holistic approach that investigates parasite infection and transmission across all periods is warranted.