scholarly journals Defining Resilience for Engineered Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bobby J Cottam ◽  
Eric A. Specking ◽  
Colin A. Small ◽  
Edward A. Pohl ◽  
Gregory S. Parnell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Makers ◽  
Life Cycle Costs ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The Face ◽  
Engineered Systems ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Insight Into

This paper surveys the literature on resilience, provides several definitions of resilience, and proposes a new comprehensive definition for a resilient engineered system, which is: a system that is able to successfully complete its planned mission(s) in the face of disruption(s) (environmental or adversarial), and has capabilities allowing it to successfully complete future missions with evolving threats. This definition captures the subtle differences between resilience and a resilient engineered system. We further examine the terminology associated with resilience to understand the various resilient time-frames and use the terminology to propose a resilience cycle, which differentiates mission resilience (short term) and platform resilience (long term). We then provide insight into various resilience evaluation methodologies and discuss how understanding the full scope of resilience enable designers to better incorporate resilience into system design, decision makers to consider resilient trade-offs in their assessment, and operators to better manage their systems. A resilient engineered system can lead to improved performance, reduced life-cycle costs, increased value, and extended service life for engineered systems.

scholarly journals Assessing the Capacity of Adaptive Policy Pathways to Adapt on Time by Mapping Trigger Values to Their Outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Raso ◽  
Jan Kwakkel ◽  
Jos Timmermans
Keyword(s):  
Monitoring System ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Level Of Confidence ◽  
Adaptive Policy ◽  
Misclassification Errors ◽  
The Future ◽  
Adaptive Action ◽  
The Face

Climate change raises serious concerns for policymakers that want to ensure the success of long-term policies. To guarantee satisfactory decisions in the face of deep uncertainties, adaptive policy pathways might be used. Adaptive policy pathways are designed to take actions according to how the future will actually unfold. In adaptive pathways, a monitoring system collects the evidence required for activating the next adaptive action. This monitoring system is made of signposts and triggers. Signposts are indicators that track the performance of the pathway. When signposts reach pre-specified trigger values, the next action on the pathway is implemented. The effectiveness of the monitoring system is pivotal to the success of adaptive policy pathways, therefore the decision-makers would like to have sufficient confidence about the future capacity to adapt on time. “On time” means activating the next action on a pathway neither so early that it incurs unnecessary costs, nor so late that it incurs avoidable damages. In this paper, we show how mapping the relations between triggers and the probability of misclassification errors inform the level of confidence that a monitoring system for adaptive policy pathways can provide. Specifically, we present the “trigger-probability” mapping and the “trigger-consequences” mappings. The former mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the level of confidence regarding whether change occurs and adaptation is needed. The latter mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the consequences of misclassification errors for both adapting the policy or not. In a case study, we illustrate how these mappings can be used to test the effectiveness of a monitoring system, and how they can be integrated into the process of designing an adaptive policy.

A case study of children’s lived experience and meaning of a natural disaster

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Tami Maes Fragedakis, PhD ◽  
Carmen Vincent Russoniello, PhD ◽  
Sharon Knight, PhD ◽  
Susan McGhee, PhD ◽  
Richard Williams, EdD
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Recreational Therapy ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Post Disaster ◽  
Insight Into

The purpose of this study was to document how children described their experiences of an unanticipated natural disaster in the form of a flood which followed a hurricane, focusing on strategies that helped them cope with the event. Four participants engaged in a qualitative study, which was conducted 6 years after the disaster. A qualitative analysis of the data was conducted. The overarching theme that emerged from the analysis was coping with the experience during the following time frames: (a) during the disaster, (b) immediately after the disaster, and (c) continued long-term effects post-disaster. Findings provide insight into children’s post-disaster experiences and clinical implications for recreational therapy.

scholarly journals High-altitude champions: birds that live and migrate at altitude

2017 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 942-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine L. Laguë
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Oxygen Transport ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
Anser Indicus ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Cardiac Stroke Volume

High altitude is physiologically challenging for vertebrate life for many reasons, including hypoxia (low environmental oxygen); yet, many birds thrive at altitude. Compared with mammals, birds have additional enhancements to their oxygen transport cascade, the conceptual series of steps responsible for acquiring oxygen from the environment and transporting it to the mitochondria. These adaptations have allowed them to inhabit a number of high-altitude regions. Waterfowl are a taxon prolific at altitude. This minireview explores the physiological responses of high-altitude waterfowl (geese and ducks), comparing the strategies of lifelong high-altitude residents to those of transient high-altitude performers, providing insight into how birds champion high-altitude life. In particular, this review highlights and contrasts the physiological hypoxia responses of bar-headed geese ( Anser indicus), birds that migrate biannually through the Himalayas (4,500–6,500 m), and Andean geese ( Chloephaga melanoptera), lifelong residents of the Andes (4,000–5,500 m). These two species exhibit markedly different ventilatory and cardiovascular strategies for coping with hypoxia: bar-headed geese robustly increase convective oxygen transport elements (i.e., heart rate and total ventilation) whereas Andean geese rely predominantly on enhancements that are likely morphological in origin (i.e., increases in lung oxygen diffusion and cardiac stroke volume). The minireview compares the short- and long-term cardiovascular and ventilatory trade-offs of these different physiological strategies and offers hypotheses surrounding their origins. It also draws parallels to high-altitude human physiology and research, and identifies a number of areas of further research. The field of high-altitude avian physiology offers a unique and broadly applicable insight into physiological enhancements in hypoxia.

scholarly journals Factors That Impact Measures of Grit among Nursing Students: A Journey Emblematic of the Koi Fish

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 564-574
Author(s):  
Daniel Terry ◽  
Blake Peck
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Students ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
Nursing Programs ◽  
First Year ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Undergraduate Nursing ◽  
Clinical Challenge ◽  
The Face ◽  
Insight Into

Grit is the capacity to persevere, to have passion, and be committed to achieve goals long-term regardless of adversity or challenge. Grit provides an insight into why some nursing students succeed academically or clinically, while others do not. This quantitative cross-sectional correlational study measured levels of grit among nursing students undertaking a three-year bachelor’s degree program. All students (n = 2349) within the program were invited to complete a questionnaire which included the short grit scale (Grit-S) which measured each student’s level of perseverance and passion. Overall, it was highlighted that increased levels of grit correlated with an increase in the student’s year of study, greater perceived clinical and academic performance, not using television as a motivator for entry to nursing, being lower on the socio-economic spectrum, and being older in age. Grit was found to develop exponentially as students entered second and third years, suggesting that a balance of constant academic and clinical challenge was an impetus for many to achieve in the face of adversity, and is reminiscent of the journey of the koi fish. This paper culminates in a call for educators to consider the inclusion of creative grit forming challenges that focus on developing a student’s sense of open-mindedness within first year of undergraduate nursing programs.

scholarly journals Decision Maker Preferences for International Legal Cooperation

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilie M. Hafner-Burton ◽  
Brad L. LeVeck ◽  
David G. Victor ◽  
James H. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Strategic Reasoning ◽  
Behavioral Traits ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Institutional Cooperation ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Policy Elites

AbstractWhy do some decision makers prefer big multilateral agreements while others prefer cooperation in small clubs? Does enforcement encourage or deter institutional cooperation? We use experiments drawn from behavioral economics and cognitive psychology—along with a substantive survey focused on international trade—to illustrate how two behavioral traits (patience and strategic reasoning) of individuals who play key roles in negotiating and ratifying an international treaty shape their preferences for how treaties are designed and whether they are ratified. Patient subjects were more likely to prefer treaties with larger numbers of countries (and larger long-term benefits), as were subjects with the skill to anticipate how others will respond over multiple iterations of strategic games. The presence of an enforcement mechanism increased subjects' willingness to ratify treaties; however, strategic reasoning had double the effect of adding enforcement to a trade agreement: more strategic subjects were particularly likely to favor ratifying the agreement. We report these results for a sample of 509 university students and also show how similar patterns are revealed in a unique sample of ninety-two actual US policy elites. Under some conditions certain types of university student convenience samples can be useful for revealing elite-dominated policy preferences—different types of people in the same situation may prefer to approach decision-making tasks and reason through trade-offs in materially different ways.

scholarly journals Relevence and Effectiveness of Mathematical Models Dealing with Covid-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Dr. Uma Shankar Shukla
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Real World ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Face ◽  
Simplifying Assumptions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Insight Into

How does COVID-19 pandemic affect the India? How many people can be hit in a state and how many of them will succumb to the disease? When is it going to peak? How long should the government continue with the lockdown? What is the damage to the economy and what is its impact on each sector? These are some of the questions that haunt not only the decision makers but every sensible people in India. Mathematical models developed by mathematicians and epidemiologists has come to assist decision makers in evaluating the effects of countermeasures to an epidemic before they actually deploy them. The model could give political and beuricatic person's critical insights into the best steps they could take to counter the spread of disease in the face of pandemics. Mathematicians use modeling to represent, analyze and make predictions or otherwise provide insight into real world phenomena. Real world scenarios can be designed into a mathematical model to bring clarity to big messy questions amid fast changing variables. These models aim to make simplifying assumptions in order to arrive at tractable equations. Dealing with the novel coronavirus is an unprecedented situation which the world could not have foreseen. In order to track the COVID-19 pandemic, make predictions about the disease's progression and take decisions, as of now, the government is solely dependent on data from doctors and health workers.

Toward a Value-Driven Design Approach for Complex Engineered Systems Using Trade Space Exploration Tools

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon W. Miller ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Michael A. Yukish ◽  
Gary Stump ◽  
Bryan L. Mesmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Systems Design ◽  
Design Decision ◽  
Value Functions ◽  
Complex Engineered Systems ◽  
A Value ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Engineered Systems ◽  
Trade Space Exploration

Design decision-making involves trade-offs between many design variables and attributes, which can be difficult to model and capture in complex engineered systems. To choose the best design, the decision-maker is often required to analyze many different combinations of these variables and attributes and process the information internally. Trade Space Exploration (TSE) tools, including interactive and multi-dimensional data visualization, can be used to aid in this process and provide designers with a means to make better decisions, particularly during the design of complex engineered systems. In this paper, we investigate the use of TSE tools to support decision-makers using a Value-Driven Design (VDD) approach for complex engineered systems. A VDD approach necessitates a rethinking of trade space exploration. In this paper, we investigate the different uses of trade space exploration in a VDD context. We map a traditional TSE process into a value-based trade environment to provide greater decision support to a design team during complex systems design. The research leverages existing TSE paradigms and multi-dimensional data visualization tools to identify optimal designs using a value function for a system. The feasibility of using these TSE tools to help formulate value functions is also explored. A satellite design example is used to demonstrate the differences between a VDD approach to design complex engineered systems and a multi-objective approach to capture the Pareto frontier. Ongoing and future work is also discussed.

scholarly journals Performing Baadinyaa: Music, Emotion, and Health in The Gambia

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie B. McConnell
Keyword(s):  
Support Group ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
The Face ◽  
Health And Healing ◽  
Insight Into

This medical ethnomusicological study examines musical performance in The Gambia as a socio-emotional intervention to promote health and wellbeing. Based on interviews and observations conducted during seventeen months of ethnographic research (2009; 2012-2013), this research is also informed by my long-term involvement with a Gambian HIV/AIDS support group (2006-present). I use the local concept of baadinyaa (Mandinka, “positive relationship”) in order to interrogate connections between musical performance, emotion, and health as they are articulated by performers and health workers in The Gambia. The concept of baadinyaa provides insight into musical performance as a “flexibility primer” (Hinton 2008) that facilitates emotional transformation and healing. Not uniform across social categories, emotional responses to music are shaped by social identity and power relations as well as individual experience and preference. This study finds that in the face of conflict and stigma, Gambian artists use musical performance, and its association with baadinyaa, as a resource to address negative emotions such as anger and anxiety and thereby promote health and healing.

scholarly journals Preliminary observations of the impacts the 22 February Christchurch earthquake had on organisations and the economy

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne R. Stevenson ◽  
Hlekiwe Kachali ◽  
Zachary Whitman ◽  
Erica Seville ◽  
John Vargo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Recovery ◽  
Regional Economic ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Major Earthquake ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Insight Into

On 22 February 2011, Canterbury and its largest city Christchurch experienced its second major earthquake within six months. The region is facing major economic and organisational challenges in the aftermath of these events. Approximately 25% of all buildings in the Christchurch CBD have been “red tagged” or deemed unsafe to enter. The New Zealand Treasury estimates that the combined cost of the February earthquake and the September earthquake is approximately NZ$15 billion [2]. This paper examines the national and regional economic climate prior to the event, discusses the immediate economic implications of this event, and the challenges and opportunities faced by organisations affected by this event. In order to facilitate recovery of the Christchurch area, organisations must adjust to a new norm; finding ways not only to continue functioning, but to grow in the months and years following these earthquakes. Some organisations relocated within days to areas that have been less affected by the earthquakes. Others are taking advantage of government subsidised aid packages to help retain their employees until they can make long-term decisions about the future of their organisation. This paper is framed as a “report from the field” in order to provide insight into the early recovery scenario as it applies to organisations affected by the February 2011 earthquake. It is intended both to inform and facilitate discussion about how organisations can and should pursue recovery in Canterbury, and how organisations can become more resilient in the face of the next crisis.

Communicating Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne C. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Face

Communicating the impacts of climate change and possible adaptive responses is a relatively recent branch of the larger endeavor of climate change communication. This recent emergence, in large part, is driven by the fact that the impacts and policy/planning/practice responses have only recently emerged in more widespread public consciousness and discourse, and thus in scholarly treatment. This article will first describe the critical and precarious moment of when impacts and adaptation communication becomes important; it will then summarize proposed approaches to do so effectively; and discuss key challenges confronting climate change communication going forward. These challenges may well be unique in the field of communication, in that they either uniquely combine previously encountered difficulties into novel complexities or are truly unprecedented. To date, scholarship and experience in climate, environmental, or risk communication provide little guidance on how to meet these challenges of communicating effectively with diverse publics and decision makers in the face of long-term degradation of the life support system of humanity. The article will conclude with an attempt to offer research and practice directions, fit at least to serve as appropriately humble attitudes toward understanding and engaging fellow humans around the profound risks of an utterly uncertain and far-from-assured future.

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