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This course advances the concept that humans and their organizations are an integral part of the engineering paradigm and that it is up to engineering to learn how to better integrate considerations of people into engineering systems of all types. This course focuses this concept on the assessment and management of the risks associated with engineered systems during their life-cycle (concept development through decommissioning). Risks (likelihoods and consequences) are addressed in the contexts of the desired quality from an engineered system including serviceability (fitness for purpose), safety (freedom from undue exposure to harm), compatibility (on time, on budget, with happy customers including the environment), and durability (freedom from unexpected degradations in the other quality characteristics). Reliability is introduced to enable assessment of the wide variety of hazards, uncertainties, and variabilities that are present during the life-cycle of an engineered system. Proactive (get ahead of the challenges), Reactive (learn the lessons from successes and failures), and Interactive (realtime assessment and management of unknown knowables and unknown unknowables) strategies are advanced and illustrated to assist engineers in the assessment and management of risks.

The goal? To identify where institutional complexity is an issue, where complexity caused by factors such as a lack of role clarity or poor processes is a problem, and what’s responsible for the complexity in each area. Companies can then boost organizational effectiveness through a combination of two things: removing complexity that doesn’t add value and channeling what’s left to employees who can either handle it naturally or be trained to cope with it.

In this article, we review the experience of a multinational consumer goods manufacturer that applied this approach in several regions and functions and consequently halved the time it needed to make decisions in critical processes.

Armed with the survey data, the manufacturer constructed several “heat maps” to help senior managers pinpoint where, and why, complexity was causing trouble for employees. Each map showed a particular breakdown—a region or function, for example—and how much complexity of various kinds was occurring there, as well as the level of coping skills employees possessed.

Generic training that can aid in dealing with unanticipated complex terrorist activities is needed. Terrorist acts can create stressful situations involving volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and delayed feedback and information flow (“VUCAD”). Strategic management simulation technology, based on complexity theory, can be used to assess and train personnel who must deal with the threat of terrorism.

Yet we also need more generic training to handle the VUCAD of terrorism

A more applicable technology is known as “quasi-experimental simulation.”17 While the quasi-experimental approach is a compromise between the free and experimental simulation methods, it tends to combine the advantages of both and mostly eliminates the disadvantages of the other two. In a quasi-experimental simulation, preprogrammed information is restricted to only part of the information: incoming messages that assure that all participants experience the same flow of events. On the other hand, many additional computer-generated responses (typically one-half of the incoming information) to participant actions allow realism (and maintenance of high motivation levels). Yet, because of the constant flow of pre-programmed information that keeps significant events and timing constant for all participants, performance can be numerically scored against established criteria of excellence or can be compared between different participants (or participating teams). The observer (who was necessary in the free simulation) has become obsolete. Performance is computer scored, both in terms of how any participant processes information (for example, is strategy developed?) and in terms of the appropriateness of the actions taken to deal with scenario-generated events

The systematic review of published research studies is a major method used for evaluating particular treatments. The Cochrane Collaboration is one of the best-known, respected examples of systematic reviews. Like other collections of systematic reviews, it requires authors to provide a detailed and repeatable plan of their literature search and evaluations of the evidence. Once all the best evidence is assessed, treatment is categoried as "likely to be beneficial", "likely to be harmful", or "evidence did not support either benefit or harm".

Evidence-based medicine categorizes different types of clinical evidence and ranks them according to the strength of their freedom from the various biases that beset medical research. For example, the strongest evidence for therapeutic interventions is provided by systematic review of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials involving a homogeneous patient population and medical condition. In contrast, patient testimonials, case reports, and even expert opinion have little value as proof because of the placebo effect, the biases inherent in observation and reporting of cases, difficulties in ascertaining who is an expert, and more.

CHAPTER 4 FRAMEWORK FOR SCADA UTILITY SURVIVABILITY MODELING * 4.1 Risk Modeling * 4.2 Internet Survey * 4.3 Survivability * 4.4 Taxonomy for Assessing Computer Security * 4.5 Definitions and Terms for a Taxonomy * 4.6 Understanding the Taxonomy * 4.7 Hierarchical Holographic Modeling (HHM) * 4.8 Recent Uses of the HHM in Identifying Risks * 4.9 Risk Modeling Using HHM * 4.10 Goal Development and Indices of Performance * 4.11 Event Tree and Fault Tree Analysis * 4.12 Distributions from Event Tree Analysis * 4.13 Partitioned Multiobjective Risk Method * 4.14 Multiobjective Tradeoff Analysis * 4.15 Evaluation *

S 25999On June 15, 2010 the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the adoption of BS 25999 for the PS-Prep program.  BS 25999 (which comes in two parts) is one of three standards for use in the Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Accreditation and Certification Program (PS-Prep). PS-Prep is directed by Title IX of the Implementing the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007.

The Pentagon is looking to better train its troops — by scanning their minds as they play video games. Adaptive, mind-reading computer systems have been a work-in-progress among military agencies for at least a decade. In 2000, far-out research agency Darpa launched “Augmented Cognition,” a program that sought to develop computers that used EEG scans to adjust how they displayed information — visually, orally, or otherwise — to avoid overtaxing one realm of a troop’s cognition. The Air Force also took up the idea, by trying to use EEGs to “assess the operator’s actual cognitive state”  and “avoid cognitive bottlenecks before they occur.”

Now, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is soliciting small business proposals for an even more immersive trainer, one that includes voice-recognition technology, and picks up on vocal tone and facial gestures. The game would then react and adapt to a war-fighter’s every action. For example, if a player’s gesture “insults the local tribal leader,” the trainee would “find that future interactions with the population are more difficult and more hostile.” And, most importantly, the new programs would react to the warrior’s own physiological and neurological cues. They’d be monitored using an EEG, eye tracking, heart and respiration rate, and other physiological markers. Based on the metrics, the game would adapt in difficulty and “keep trainees in an optimal state of learning.”

The OSD isn’t ready to use neuro-based systems in the war zone, but the agency does want to capitalize on advances in neuroscience that have assigned meaningful value to intuitive decision-making. As the OSD solicitation points out, troops often need to make fast-paced decisions in high-stress environments, with limited information and context. Well-reasoned, analytic decisions are rarely possible