TeCSMART: A hierarchical framework for modeling and analyzing systemic risk in sociotechnical systems

Abstract

Recent systemic failures in different domains continue to remind us of the fragility of complex sociotechnical systems. Although these failures occurred in different domains, there are common failure mechanisms that often underlie such events. Hence, it is important to study these disasters from a unifying systems engineering perspective so that one can understand the commonalities as well as the differences to prevent or mitigate future events. A new conceptual framework that systematically identifies the failure mechanisms in a sociotechnical system, across different domains is proposed. Our analysis includes multiple levels of a system, both social and technical, and identifies the potential failure modes of equipment, humans, policies, and institutions. With the aid of three major recent disasters, how this framework could help us compare systemic failures in different domains and identify the common failure mechanisms at all levels of the system is demonstrated.

Knowledge Management Framework for Emerging Infectious Diseases Preparedness and Response: Design and Development of Public Health Document Ontology

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“…One can resolve both hierarchical complexity and semantic heterogeneity by identifying the purpose of knowledge, for a piece of knowledge could serve different purposes under different conditions. Venkatasubramanian and Zhang [ 26 ] identify the importance of means-end relation in complex system risk management and propose a systems engineering framework to explicate the relation. Adopting this idea, our approach models elements of knowledge based on their means-end relations.…”

“…The action class defines potential actions for an EID event. Actions are categorized regarding the 4 basic teleological functions: communication, control, implementation, and monitoring [ 26 ]. Subclasses of the action class represent specific functions under the 4 basic functions.…”

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Safety awareness: A chemical engineering imperative*

“…Venkatasubramanian and coworkers have also been researching a systems approach to safety . They have found commonalities among major incidents in many fields.…”