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This volume examines problem solving and applied systems aimed at improving performance and management of organizations. The book's eight chapters are integrated into two parts: methodologies and techniques that discuss complex dynamic analysis of the organizations, participative processes for building trend scenarios, consultancy as a systemic intervention process, processes to promote innovative goals in organizations, and analytical processes and solid mathematical representation systems. The authors also include a model to urban parks location, an analytic model to urban services location, and a system to forecast demand with fussy sets.Describes methodologies to analyze processes in complex dynamic organizations, including as participative, interventional, innovative, and analytical approaches;Clarifies a strategies for providing structure to complex organizations and applying analytical methods to decision making;Illustrates problem holistic solving strategies;Explains how to approach several problems from a holistic point of view and how analyze the subjacent processes to make decisions.

This book presents selected topics in implementing a risk-based approach for complex engineering systems in general, and nuclear plants in particular. It addresses gap areas in implementing the risk-based approach to design, operation and regulation, covering materials reliability, digital system reliability, software reliability, human factor considerations, condition monitoring and prognosis, structural aspects in risk-based design as well as the application aspects like asset management for first-of-their-kind projects, strategic management and other academic aspect. Chapters are authored by renowned experts who address some of the identified challenges in implementation of risk-based approach in a clear and cogent manner, using illustrations, tables and photographs for ease of communication. This book will prove useful to researchers, professionals, and students alike.

This book describes a systematic approach to risk assessment for complex socio-technical systems like industrial processes, especially innovative ones. It provides an overview of applications of system dynamics theory and methodologies on industrial systems in order to demonstrate the relevance of such an approach in helping to assess risks in such complex systems. An important feature of this approach is that it takes into account the dynamic of the interactions of the components (technical, human and organizational ones) in order to study and simulate the behavior of the system. This methodology helps to define the failures and/or accident scenarios and to implement and test the prevention and protection barriers. This book is of particular interest to students and teachers at university level (Master and Doctorate) and to engineers interested in risk analysis and management.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book summarizes work being pursued in the context of the CIPRNet (Critical Infrastructure Preparedness and Resilience Research Network) research project, co-funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The project is intended to provide concrete and on-going support to the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) research communities, enhancing their preparedness for CI-related emergencies, while also providing expertise and technologies for other stakeholders to promote their understanding and mitigation of the consequences of CI disruptions, leading to enhanced resilience. The book collects the tutorial material developed by the authors for several courses on the modelling, simulation and analysis of CIs, representing extensive and integrated CIP expertise. It will help CI stakeholders, CI operators and civil protection authorities understand the complex system of CIs, and help them adapt to these changes and threats in order to be as prepared as possible for mitigating emergencies and crises affecting or arising from CIs.

A new approach to safety, based on systems thinking, that is more effective, less costly, and easier to use than current techniques.Engineering has experienced a technological revolution, but the basic engineering techniques applied in safety and reliability engineering, created in a simpler, analog world, have changed very little over the years. In this groundbreaking book, Nancy Leveson proposes a new approach to safety—more suited to today's complex, sociotechnical, software-intensive world—based on modern systems thinking and systems theory. Revisiting and updating ideas pioneered by 1950s aerospace engineers in their System Safety concept, and testing her new model extensively on real-world examples, Leveson has created a new approach to safety that is more effective, less expensive, and easier to use than current techniques.Arguing that traditional models of causality are inadequate, Leveson presents a new, extended model of causation (Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes, or STAMP), then shows how the new model can be used to create techniques for system safety engineering, including accident analysis, hazard analysis, system design, safety in operations, and management of safety-critical systems. She applies the new techniques to real-world events including the friendly-fire loss of a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter in the first Gulf War; the Vioxx recall; the U.S. Navy SUBSAFE program; and the bacterial contamination of a public water supply in a Canadian town. Leveson's approach is relevant even beyond safety engineering, offering techniques for “reengineering” any large sociotechnical system to improve safety and manage risk.

Complex System Reliability presents a state-of-the-art treatment of complex multi-channel system reliability assessment and provides the requisite tools, techniques and algorithms required for designing, evaluating and optimizing ultra-reliable redundant systems. Critical topics that make Complex System Reliability a unique and definitive resource include: • redundant system analysis for k-out-of-n systems (including complex systems with embedded k-out-of-n structures) involving both perfect and imperfect fault coverage; • imperfect fault coverage analysis techniques, including algorithms for assessing the reliability of redundant systems in which each element is subject to a given coverage value (element level coverage) or in which the system uses voting to avoid the effects of a failed element (fault level coverage); and • state-of-the-art binary decision diagram analysis techniques, including the latest and most efficient algorithms for the reliability assessment of large, complex redundant systems. This practical presentation includes numerous fully worked examples that provide detailed explanations of both the underlying design principles and the techniques (such as combinatorial, recursive and binary decision diagram algorithms) used to obtain quantitative results. Many of the worked examples are based on the design of modern digital fly-by-wire control system technology. Complex System Reliability provides in-depth coverage of systems subject to either perfect or imperfect fault coverage and also the most recent techniques for correctly assessing the reliability of redundant systems that use mid-value-select voting as their primary means of redundancy management. It is a valuable resource for those involved in the design and reliability assessment of highly reliable systems, particularly in the aerospace and automotive sectors.