Operationalizing Sustainability - Patrick Corsi

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Résumé :

Note to all Contributors xv

Note to the Reader xvii

List of Acronyms xxi

Introduction xxvii

Part 1 Sustainability: Toward the Unification of Some Underlying Principles and Mechanisms 1

Chapter 1 Toward a Sustainability Science 3

1.1 Introduction 3

1.2 What does unification mean? 4

1.3 Coming back to sustainability: how many sustainabilities? 7

1.4 Sustainability: what kind of unification? An integration issue? 10

1.5 What kind of paradigm do we have to integrate? 12

1.6 The issue and the implementation of a new dimension 14

1.6.1 Preamble: code of matter, power of laws and balance of powers 14

1.6.2 The addition of a new dimension: gimmick or necessity? 16

1.6.3 Integration of time and dynamics 17

1.6.4 Application 19

1.7 Extensions of the concept 20

1.7.1 Comments 20

1.7.2 Life sciences: power laws, evolution, life and death phenomena 21

1.7.3 The power laws 24

Chapter 2 Sustainability in Complex Systems 29

2.1 Preamble: theories of interconnected systems 29

2.2 Analysis of feedback phenomena in an assembly manufacturing cell 30

2.2.1 Preliminary considerations 30

2.2.2 Case study 1: modeling the limitation of work in progress (WIP) by a threshold called MAQ 32

2.2.3 Case study 2: modeling the WIP through assignment rules 33

2.2.4 Case study 3: model building based on dynamic management of bottlenecks 34

2.2.5 Main comments 36

2.3 Application to complex systems: quantitative characteristics of a deterministic chaos 37

2.3.1 Introduction 37

2.3.2 Quantification of state variables in a production system 39

2.4 General considerations about interactions in networked organizations 39

2.5 Role of feedback in mimicry and ascendancy over others 41

2.6 Network theory: additional characteristics due to their new structure 43

2.6.1 Mycorrhization networks 46

2.7 Simplexification 47

2.8 Convergences in network theory 51

Chapter 3 Extension: From Complexity to the Code of Thought 53

3.1 The code of thought: effects of cognition and psyche in global sustainability 53

3.2 Is sustainability the only technological and technocratic approach? 56

3.3 The three laws of sustainability: prediction and anticipation in complex systems 57

3.3.1 Is sustainability a consistent property of any complex system? 58

3.3.2 Sustainability is also the art of combining paradoxes 59

3.3.3 Adaptation of a manufacturing process: what is so important in planning and scheduling? 59

3.3.4 Predicting the future? Is it a necessity? 60

3.4 Consequence: toward a new dimension 63

3.5 Conclusion 64

3.6 Indicators for monitoring the EU sustainable development strategy 65

Part 2 Operationalization: Methods, Techniques and Tools - the Need to Manage the Impact 69

Chapter 4 From Context to Knowledge: Building Decision-making Systems 71

4.1 Introduction 71

4.1.1 In the back part of the brain, there is the cerebellum 72

4.1.2 In the temporal lobe of the cerebrum and limbic system 73

4.1.3 The frontal lobe of the cerebrum (frontal neocortex) 73

4.2 How about obtaining a sustainable knowledge? 74

4.2.1 The first question: how do we learn from experience? 74

4.2.2 The second question: how do we learn from experiences and develop a conceptual understanding? 75

4.2.3 The third question: how do we model a sustainable information and knowledge processing system? 76

4.3 Preliminary consideration: the nature of the problems encountered in test and di...

Biographie:
Evolution of a Knowledge Base 257

11.1 Introduction 257

11.2 Sustainable cognition: definition and concepts 258

11.3 Concepts and slippage needs: effects related to new generations 260

11.4 Basic structure of our brain: a probabilistic approach 261

11.4.1 Application to a human population: macro behavior and conditional probabilities 262

11.4.2 Bayes theorem: a universal statistical concept 264

2.4.3 Impact of the Bayes theorem on information system sustainability and decision theory 265

11.5 Application and probabilistic reasoning in updating a knowledge base: a more sustainable model 266

11.5.1 Two applications 266

11.5.2 Complex reasoning: a question of plausibility and probabilistic estimates 269

11.6 Sustainable cognition: brain structure, understanding micro-to-macro links 271

11.7 More recent developments 271

11.8 Detection of novelties through adaptive learning and fractal chaos approaches 274

11.9 Neuro computing: new opportunities provided by quantum physics 277

11.10 Applications 279

11.11 Quantum physics: impact on future organizations 280

Chapter 12 Brain and Cognitive Computing: Where Are We Headed? 283

12.1 State of the art 283

12.2 Achievements: is neuroscience able to explain how to perform sustained assumptions and studies? 284

12.3 Artificial brain: evolution of the simulation models 289

12.4 Examples of challenges to be well controlled 290

Part 5 Towards an Approach to the Measurement of Sustainability and Competitivity 293

Chapter 13 On Measuring Sustainability 295

13.1 Introduction 295

13.2 Some basic criteria specific to the new Sustainable era 296

13.3 What are the nature and limits of the new paradigm, in terms of sustainability evolution? 297

13.4 A reminder about competitivity and sustainability properties 299

13.5 Synthesis: the present dimensions of a production system 302

13.6 An under-assessed value: time 305

13.7 Application and results 307

13.7.1 Time is the source of streams and flows 307

13.7.2 Time and power: some considerations about streams and throughputs 308

13.7.3 Measurement of sustainability in a chaotic system: Lyapunov experiments 310

13.7.4 Consequences at governance level to get a sustainable system 312

13.8 Two new dimensions: thought and information within network theory 313

13.8.1 From storytelling... 314

13.8.2 ... to talking bullshit 315

13.8.3 An improved understanding of a New World complexity 315

13.9 Synthesis: cognitive advances provided by the new exchange and communication tools 316

13.9.1 The cognitive behaviors associated with this classification 317

13.9.2 Synthesizing the cognitive advances 319

13.10 Consequences and characteristics linked to a global network notion 321

13.10.1 Generalizing the knowledge at organization level 321

13.10.2 The behaviors associated with human beings' psychological features 322

13.11 Back to the code of matter: contributions to Simultaneous Time and Network Theory 323

13.12 Application of quantum interactions 326

13.13 Sustainability: how to widen the scope of competitiveness indicators? 328

13.14 Conclusion 330

13.15 Social interactions and massively multiplayer online role playing games 330

General Conclusion 333

Bibliography 355

Index 375