Community Resilience: Challenges, Requirements, and Organizational Models

VincenzoDe FlorioMOSAIC: UniAntwerp iMinds

Times, they are a-changin’…

Less resources

Higher peaks, harder

shocks

Higher number

of users…

ICT

Energy product-ion & distribution

Businesses

Transport ofgoods & people

Water treatment& distribution

CRISISMANAGEMENT

Understanding & rethinkingour organizations is crucial!

With the meter in the red zone…• …organizations that

appeared to work fine reveal their limitations!– lose too much – use up too many resources– do not scale well– intolerable to changes– fail to address new aspects

→ Traditional approaches are reaching structural limits.

Challenges• How do we address “big” societal

problems such as crises & disasters?• How do we rethink our organizations?

Which tools, which software could help?

1.Intro: What are crises?2.A case study3.Requirements4.Conjectures & models

This ppt

CRISES

Single events(or chains thereof) with multiple and diverseconsequences

PUBLICHEALTH

ECONOMY

PUBLICSAFETY

NATIONALSECURITY

CRISES

Single events(or chains thereof) affectingmultiple "human circles"

People

Local responders

State responders...

Businessorganizations

KATRINA

One of the five deadliest hurricanes in US history

Katrina’s circles:Private circles

People:Individuals, families,neighbors...

Private organizations:Business orgs, communities

Katrina’s circles:Institutional circles

Local institutions:City policeFire brigadesFlood rescue

Katrina’s circles:State circles

Stateorganizations:Depts ofemergencymanagement

Budget: (e.g., California): $80M/y

Katrina’s circles:Federal circles

Federalorganization:FederalEmergencyResponseOrg, $10.9B/y

Katrina’s circles:National circles

Dept of HomelandSecurity(created in 2001; abso- rbed FEMA in 2003)

Requested budget (2015): $38.2B

The farther,the costlier

Katrina’s circlesPeople Individuals, families, neighbors...

Private organizations Business orgs, communities

Local emergency response organization City police, fire brigades, flood teams

State emergency response organization Depts of emergency management:

http://www.fema.gov/state-offices-and-agencies-emergency-managementBudget (California): $80M

• Federal emergency response organization FEMA, $10.9 billion budget (2012)

Absorbed in the DHS (2003)(Department of Homeland Security)

Institutionalresponders

= Multi-level system of emergency mgmt

Privatecircles

How did it fare?

BADLY!

Strict hierarchy→ Each layer is

SPOC & SPOF

Slow initial response

How did it fare?

Info/KW collection/

dissemination: centralized!

Slow reactions

"Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?!"

How did it fare?

Far-from-the-field control

Wrong/untimely

decisions!

E.g. $12.5M to buy ice for K's victims → unused/melted away

How did it fare?"Poor comm.

among federal/ state/local entities"

"Unadequate readiness"

"Reduced effectiveness"Major reason?

Major reason:Institutional-

only response!“[Responders] would have been

able to do more if the tri-level system (city, state, federal) of

emergency response was able to effectively use, collaborate with,

and coordinate the combined public and private efforts.

How to do so [...] is a central task of enhancing community

resilience.”CARRI 3 Tech Report

Community Resilience• "A measure of the sustained ability

of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations."

• Conjecture: three aspects.RAND 3 Tech Report

Limited inter-circleinteroperability

Individual-context worst-case dimensioning:Worst-case analysis done w/o considering collaborative sharing of resources among the participating circles

Difficulty to propagateKW & share assets

Three aspects1) Organization

Limited inter-circleinteroperability

Individual-context worst-case dimensioning:Worst-case analysis done w/o considering collaborative sharing of resources among the participating circles

Plastic, fragileorganizations

Difficulty to propagateKW & share assets

Three aspects1) Organization

Limited inter-circleinteroperability

Individual-context worst-case dimensioning:Worst-case analysis done w/o considering collaborative sharing of resources among the participating circles

Plastic, fragileorganizations

Difficulty to propagateKW & share assets

Three aspects1) Organization

Expensive!

Three aspects2) Society

Private circles: INACTIVE!

Three aspects2) Society

Private circles: INACTIVE!

Waste ofsocial energy

Pre-definedroles /

behaviors

Three aspects3) Behavior

Pre-definedroles /

behaviors

Private circles: DEMOTED!

Three aspects3) Behavior

Pre-definedroles /

behaviors

Private circles: DEMOTED!

Passive-behaviored

components (objects!)

Three aspects3) Behavior

→ Emergence failures

Centrifugal forces

Behavioral mismatches →

→ Emergence failures

Centrifugal forces

Behavioral mismatches →

Conjecture 1• Society must be part of "the solution"• Society ≡ abundant "pool" of mobile

“resources” able to exercise complex action

• Need: engineer ways to tap into the nearly unlimited sources of “social energy” of our societies.

Conjecture 2• Fact: Organizational choices

determine the features of our systems• Classic model (quasi-closed,

hierarchical systems): incapable of any complex interoperability.

• Need: open smart organizations– Self-optimizing– Inter-organizational collective strategies– Mutualistic relationships; collaborative

sharing of data and resources, etc.

Conjecture 2 (cont.d)• Conjecture: Biologically inspired

distributed organizations may play a key role in the emergence of collectively intelligent responses – Holarchies and fractal organizations– “Simultaneously a part & a whole, a

container & a contained, a controller & a controlled” [Sousa et al., 2000]

– Networks of peer-levels (members).

Conjecture 3• A match should exist between the

behaviors exercised by the societal nodes and those exercised and expected by the enrolling organization

• Community resilience only emerges when this match is sustained.

Community Resilience• How?• Through sociotechnical

organizations managing communities of participating members.

• No preclusion (→ all society can contribute)

• No constrain (→ behaviors are not pre-assigned)

• Service-oriented communities, fractal social organizations.

Service-oriented Community• Sociotechnical organization

built by explicitly addressing organization/society/behavior:–Node of a distributed organization–Taps into “social energy”–Supports complex resilient

behaviours.

37

Service provider Servicerequester

Service registry

Starting point: classical SOA model

Publish Discover

Bind

Servicedescription

38

Member Member

Service registry

Servicedescription

Service-oriented Community

Publish Publish

Bind

Local reasoning & coordination

Individual &social concerns

optimization

CapabilitiesPoliciesAvailabilityLocation…

Events

People`Things’

Components...

Member

Reasoning & coordination

Member Member

Member w/service & feature registry

Service& feature

Service-oriented Community

Publish Publish

Individual &social concerns

optimization.

CapabilitiesPoliciesAvailabilityLocation…

Events

PeopleDevices

Components

SOCIETY

BEHAVIOUR

OR

GA

NIZ

ATI

ON

Bind

SoC for Ambient Assistance: Mutual Assistance

Community

40

Mutual Assistance Community• Aim:

–Optimally orchestrate devices & beings –Complement existing healthcare orgs–Special purpose SoC: organize intelligent

responses to AAL scenarios• Not just safety nets:

– Reducing social isolation of elderly people– Reducing costs best utilizing the social

resources.

Mutual Assistance Community• Self-serve paradigm (mutually satisfying requests).

Member Member

Service and feature registry

Servicedescription

Publish Publish

Bind

Local analysisand coordination

Intra-circleprocessing

CapabilitiesPoliciesAvailabilityLocations…

Roles &situations

People`Things’

Member

MemberMember MemberMember

SoC's…

Inter-circleprocessing

SoC as a building blockException → Event propagation

Fractal Social Orgs

• Mathematical model: http://goo.gl/gvVGH5

• Geometrical and audio representations– Modularity– Self-similarity– Fractal dimension!

http://goo.gl/vO8RKj

Elements of a ModelModel of the collective behavior in a “flat” society of roles

Society = multiset of roles (=integers)

Example: S = {0,0, 1,1, 2, 3,3, 4,4} =

2 nurses

2 GPs 1 patient2 sensors

2 cars

Elements of a Model

Event: Condition c takes place (for instance, a patient has fallen)Response:

Intervention of 1 GP and 1 nurse. Society S gets partitioned into two “blocks”:

L = {0, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4} and R = {0, 1, 2}.

0011

2222

2222

0123

4567

8

0011

2334

4

• "Templates" that repeat at different scale–Blocks that represent other

"sub-communities" (circles!)–Societal responses to sub-problems!

• Fractal Social Organization: fractal organization of communicating & collaborating communities

Modularity

A fractal organization of SoC’s

51

CIRCLES

Laye

r 0(R

aw

com

po-

nent

s)

ElectronicHealth

Records

...U

pper

la

yers

...La

yer 1

(S

mar

t R

oom

s)

Laye

r 2

(Sm

art

Flat

s)

Laye

r 3

(Sm

art B

uild

ings

)

iMinds project “LittleSister”

Little Sister• Low-cost non-intrusive

telemonitoring solution• System: multi-tier

distributed architecture

• Specially designed low-resolution sensors

Little Sister• Services structured within hierarchical

federation reflecting structure of deployment environment

• All resources wrapped as manageable web services

Little Sister : Resolving Resources• Seamless integration w/ external apps (layer 4)• Information exchange: pub-sub mechanism• Events “flow” upward — dedicated software

component available at each service group

Conclusions• “We are confronted with a vast quantity

of plastic..." organizations!• An organization "is like a parachute --

it doesn't work if it's not open" [ZAPPA!]→ New models are needed!→...With new models... new challenges

– A.o., how to guarantee the identity of the "system"

– SoC and FSO: also tools to raise the attention and enhance awareness

– Much to be done... we're on the move!

Thank you for your attention!

vincenzo.deflorio@gmail.com@EnzoDeFloriogoo.gl/D9frjV