Handbook On Resilience Of Socio Technical Systems

The goal to improve the resilience of social systems – communities and their economies – is increasingly adopted by decision makers. This unique and comprehensive Handbook focuses on the interdependencies of these social systems and the technologies that support them. Special attention is given to the ways in which resilience is conceptualized by different disciplines, how resilience may be assessed, and how resilience strategies are implemented. Case illustrations are presented throughout to aid understanding.

Presenting critical insights on how economic activity is constrained by the environment’s ability to provide material and energy resources, this timely Research Agenda explores how humanity shapes, and is shaped by, environmental change and sustainability challenges. Chapters highlight how, under these constraints, people may seek to improve their lives and standards of living without undermining the abilities of others to do so now or in the future.

Resilience engineering has consistently argued that safety is more than the absence of failures. Since the first book was published in 2006, several book chapters and papers have demonstrated the advantage in going behind 'human error' and beyond the failure concept, just as a number of serious accidents have accentuated the need for it. But there has not yet been a comprehensive method for doing so; the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) fulfils that need. Whereas commonly used methods explain events by interpreting them in terms of an already existing model, the FRAM is used to model the functions that are needed for everyday performance to succeed. This model can then be used to explain specific events, by showing how functions can be coupled and how the variability of everyday performance sometimes may lead to unexpected and out-of-scale outcomes - either good or bad. The FRAM is based on four principles: equivalence of failures and successes, approximate adjustments, emergence, and functional resonance. As the FRAM is a method rather than a model, it makes no assumptions about how the system under investigation is structured or organised, nor about possible causes and cause-effect relations. Instead of looking for failures and malfunctions, the FRAM explains outcomes in terms of how functions become coupled and how everyday performance variability may resonate. This book presents a detailed and tested method that can be used to model how complex and dynamic socio-technical systems work, to understand why things sometimes go wrong but also why they normally succeed.

This handbook aims at modernizing the current state of civil engineering and firefighting, especially in this era where infrastructures are reaching new heights, serving diverse populations, and being challenged by unique threats. Its aim is to set the stage toward realizing contemporary, smart, and resilient infrastructure. The Handbook of Cognitive and Autonomous Systems for Fire Resilient Infrastructures draws convergence between civil engineering and firefighting to the modern realm of interdisciplinary sciences (i.e., artificial intelligence, IoT, robotics, sensing, and human psychology). As such, this work aims to revolutionize the current philosophy of design for one of the most notorious extreme events: fire. Unlike other publications, which are narrowed to one specific research area, this handbook cultivates a paradigm in which critical aspects of structural design, technology, and human behavior are studied and examined through chapters written by leaders in their fields. This handbook can also serve as a textbook for graduate and senior undergraduate students in Civil, Mechanical, and Fire Protection engineering programs as well as for students in Architectural and social science disciplines. Students, engineers, academics, professionals, scientists, firefighters, and government officials involved in national and international societies such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), among others, will benefit from this handbook.

This book provides basics and selected advanced insights on how to generate reliability, safety and resilience within (socio) technical system developments. The focus is on working definitions, fundamental development processes, safety development processes and analytical methods on how to support such schemes. The method families of Hazard Analyses, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and Fault Tree Analysis are explained in detail. Further main topics include semiformal graphical system modelling, requirements types, hazard log, reliability prediction standards, techniques and measures for reliable hardware and software with respect to systematic and statistical errors, and combination options of methods. The book is based on methods as applied during numerous applied research and development projects and the support and auditing of such projects, including highly safety-critical automated and autonomous systems. Numerous questions and answers challenge students and practitioners.

The systems that surround us are often multidimensional, and complex, consisting of a large collection of networked components with convoluted connections between them. Designing and managing such systems can be challenging, particularly in organizations. Designing and Managing Complex Systems introduces readers to the theory of complex systems, examining the role of human within larger systems, the factors that affect system performance, and how such systems can be optimized. The first section reviews the history of one particularly fruitful approach to complexity, one based on knowledge of the human nervous system. Next, the author discusses the current understanding of complex systems in a variety of domains including physical, biological, mechanical, and organizational. Within these chapters the author also introduces the idea that there are marked similarities in how complexity is successfully managed across these different domains and how the ideas from one domain can be useful in other domains. Next, these ideas are synthesized into a framework for successfully designing and managing complex systems. The fourth section focuses on case studies concerning failures and successes within complex systems. Provides an overview of the background and scope of complexity science Reviews current understanding of complex systems in a variety of domains (physical, biological, mechanical, and organizational) Introduces the idea of using successful techniques from one domain to help design and manage complex systems in other domains Includes case studies analysing failures and successes within complex systems

The study of governance has risen to prominence as a way of describing and explaining changes in our world. The SAGE Handbook of Governance presents an authoritative and innovative overview of this fascinating field, with particular emphasis on the significant new and emerging theoretical issues and policy innovations. The Handbook is divided into three parts. Part one explores the major theories influencing current thinking and shaping future research in the field of governance. Part two deals specifically with changing practices and policy innovations, including the changing role of the state, transnational and global governance, markets and networks, public management, and budgeting and finance. Part three explores the dilemmas of managing governance, including attempts to rethink democracy and citizenship as well as specific policy issues such as capacity building, regulation, and sustainable development. This volume is an excellent resource for advanced students and researchers in political science, economics, geography, sociology, and public administration. Mark Bevir is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

The third edition of Human Factors in Aviation and Aerospace is a fully updated and expanded version of the highly successful second edition. Written for the widespread aviation community including students, engineers, scientists, pilots, managers, government personnel, etc., this edition continues to offer a comprehensive overview, including pilot performance, human factors in aircraft design, and vehicles and systems. With new editors, this edition adds chapters on aviator attention and perception, accident investigations, automated systems in civil transport airplanes, and aerospace. Multicontributed by leading professionals in the field, this book is the ultimate resource for anyone in the aviation and aerospace industries. Uses real-world case examples of dangers and solutions Includes a new chapter on spaceflight human factors and decision making Examines future directions for automated systems, in two new, separate chapters