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Papers
for 2006:
(in reverse chronological
order)
ESD-WP-2006-23
Simple Models of Influenza Progression within
a Heterogeneous Population
by
Richard C. Larson, Center for Engineering
Systems Fundamentals, Engineering Systems
Division, and Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, MIT
The
focus of this ‘OR framing paper’
is to introduce the OR community to the
need for new mathematical modeling of an
influenza pandemic and its control. By reviewing
relevant history and literature, one key
concern that emerges relates to how a population’s
heterogeneity may affect disease progression.
Another is to explore within a modeling
framework ‘social distancing’
as a disease progression control method,
where social distancing refers to steps
aimed at reducing the frequency and intensity
of daily human to human contacts. To depict
social contact behavior of a heterogeneous
population susceptible to infection, a non-homogeneous
probabilistic mixing model is developed.
Partitioning the population of susceptibles
into subgroups, based on frequency of daily
human contacts and infection propensities,
a stylistic difference equation model is
then developed depicting the day-to-day
evolution of the disease. This simple model
is then used to develop a preliminary set
of results. Two key findings are (1) early
exponential growth of the disease may be
dominated by susceptibles with high human
contact frequencies and may not be indicative
of the general population’s susceptibility
to the disease; and (2) social distancing
may be an effective non-medical way to limit
and perhaps even eradicate the disease.
Much more decision-focused research needs
to be done before any of these preliminary
findings may be used in practice.
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ESD-WP-2006-22
Strategies to Overcome Network Congestion
in Infrastructure Systems
by
Jason W. Black and Richard C. Larson, Center
for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, Engineering
Systems Division, MIT
Networked
Infrastructure systems deliver services
and/or products from point to point along
the network. They include transportation
networks (e.g., rails, highways, airports,
sea ports), telecommunication networks (by
frequency-bounded airwaves or cables), and
utilities (e.g., electric power, water,
gas, oil, sewage). Each is a fixed capacity
system having marked time-of-day and day-of-week
patterns of demand. Usually, the statistics
of demand, including hourly patterns (i.e.,
means and variances) are well known and
often correlated with outside factors such
as weather (short term) and the general
economy (longer term).
An
infrastructure system is typically difficult
and expensive to design and construct. Once
built, it can have a mean lifetime from
20 years (telecommunications) to over 100
years (water). As population and the economy
grow, increasingly large demands are being
placed on infrastructure systems. Eventually
they must be upgraded due to lack of adequate
capacity and/or the need for improved technology.
However, that moment can be delayed, often
for long periods, by the use of congestion
pricing to reduce peak demand. Congestion
pricing provides incentives to shift demand
from peak time periods to lower demand periods.
This effectively increases the capacity
of the system without the need for additional
investment.
Current
examples of congestion pricing schemes include:
time of day congestion pricing for autos
in Singapore and London; for-profit 'toll-ways'
adjacent to freeways; time of day pricing
for electricity; time of day pricing for
long distance telephone calls; revenue management
in airlines to balance out travel demands
over the course of a week and over the year;
and auction type bidding for some infrastructure
services, with higher prices paid for congestion
periods.
This
paper investigates congestion pricing across
critical infrastructures in terms of the
potential benefits of forgone investment
achieved by reducing peak demand. It also
presents several existing implementations
of congestion type pricing. We then look
at the political and economic impediments
to widespread adoption of such pricing schemes.
Finally, the paper presents areas of future
research to develop congestion pricing strategies
that provide efficiency gains and are politically
acceptable and amenable to implementation
across infrastructure domains.
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ESD-WP-2006-21
Offshoring: The Transition From Economic
Drivers Toward Strategic Global Partnership
and 24-Hour Knowledge Factory
by
Amar Gupta, University of Arizona; Satwik
Seshasai, Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
Sourav Mukherji, IIM Bangalore; and Auroop
Ganguly, Government of the United States
of America
The
concept of offshoring of professional services
first gained attention slightly over 25
years ago. At that time, US companies began
to realize the cost-advantage of getting
their computer software developed in India
and other countries. The concept gained
momentum with the advent of Internet and
the availability of inexpensive communication
technologies. Unrelated events, such as
the need to address the Y2K problem, in
a timebound manner, further increased the
use of computer personnel based in faraway
places. Studies conducted by professional
organizations, such as ACM, IEEE, and NSPE,
focus on the cost and labor aspects of offshoring
and its direct impact on employment opportunities
in the countries involved. This paper broadens
this perspective by emphasizing that the
key drivers for offshoring will be strategic,
not economic, over time. A formal mathematical
model is presented to highlight the new
trend. Further, instead of a binary model
in which the work is performed in the country
of the sponsoring organization or a different
country, we will gradually see a new work
paradigm in which the work is performed
in a sequence in factories located in multiple
continents of the world. Such 24-Hour Knowledge
Factories can leverage factors beyond cost
savings. One can employ professionals in
multiple parts of the world, perform tasks
at all times of the day, and bring new products
and services quicker to the market. Just
as the advent of multiple shifts allowed
machines to be utilized round the clock
leading to the benefits of the Industrial
Revolution, the creation of new globally
distributed workforces and global partnerships
can lead to major strategic advantages for
companies and countries alike.
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ESD-WP-2006-20
Decision-Making in the Political and Technical
Environments
by
David André Broniatowski and Prof.
Annalisa L. Wiegel
Mutual
misunderstanding between decision-makers
in the political and technical environment
leads to programs that experience cost overruns,
schedule delays and, often, cancellation.
This paper compares and contrasts the determinants
of decision-making in the technical and
political realms, with the intention of
demonstrating how these decisions translate
to cost, schedule and performance parameters.
Studies of those elements that are most
salient to the policy maker are informed
by the political science literature. In
particular, studies of administrative, bureaucratic
and Congressional decision-making are instructive
in determining how an engineering system
interacts with the political realm. So as
to lend concreteness to this analysis, we
focus on NASA’s interactions with
Congress surrounding the Vision for Space
Exploration, announced by President Bush
on January 14th, 2004.
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ESD-WP-2006-19-Bulk
Power Grid Risk Analysis: Ranking Infrastructure
Elements According to their Risk Significance
by
A. M. Koonce, G. E. Apostolakis, and B.
K. Cook
Disruptions
in the bulk power grid can result in very
diverse consequences that include economic,
social, physical, and psychological impacts.
In addition, power outages do not affect
all end-users of the system in the same
manner. For these reasons, a risk analysis
of bulk power systems requires more than
determining the likelihood and magnitude
of power outages; it must also include the
diverse impacts power outages have on the
users of the system.
We
propose a methodology for performing a risk
analysis on the bulk power system. A power
flow simulation model is used to determine
the likelihood and extent of power outages
when components within the system fail to
perform their designed function. The consequences
associated with these failures are determined
by looking at the type and number of customers
affected. Stakeholder input is used to evaluate
the relative importance of these consequences.
The methodology culminates with a ranking
of each system component by its risk significance
to the stakeholders. The analysis is performed
for failures of infrastructure elements
due to both random causes and malevolent
acts..
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ESD-WP-2006-18-House
of Security: Locale, Roles and Resources
for Ensuring Information Security Research-in-Progress
by
Wee Horng Ang, MIT, Yang W. Lee, Northeastern
University, Stuart E. Madnick, MIT, Dinsha
Mistress, MIT, Michael Siegel, MIT, Diane
M. Strong, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Richard Y. Wang, MIT, and Chrisy Yao, Suffolk
University
In
this paper we redefine information security
by extending its definition in three salient
avenues: locale (beyond the boundary of
an enterprise to include partner organizations),
role (beyond the information custodians’
view to include information consumers’
and managers’ views), and resource
(beyond technical dimensions to include
managerial dimensions). Based on our definition,
we develop a model of information security,
which we call the House of Security. This
model has eight constructs, Vulnerability,
Accessibility, Confidentiality, IT Resources
for Security, Financial Resources for Security,
Business Strategy for Security, Security
Policy and Procedures, and Security Culture.
We have developed a questionnaire to measure
the assessment and importance of information
security along these eight aspects. The
questionnaire covers multiple locales and
questionnaire respondents cover multiple
roles. Data collection is currently in process.
Results from our analysis of the collected
data will be ready for presentation at the
conference.
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ESD-WP-2006-17-Reutilization
and Legal Protection of Non-Copyrightable
Database Contents
by
Hongwei Zhu, MIT and Stuart Madnick, MIT
The
availability of data on the web and the
improvement of technologies have made it
increasingly easy to reuse existing data
to create new databases and provide value-added
services. Meanwhile, initial database creators
have been seeking legal protection for their
data. After presenting a brief history of
legislation related to legal protection
for non-copyrightable database contents,
we discuss challenging issues to be considered
in formulating a database protection regulation.
These issues can be addressed from the perspective
of economics. Results from a preliminary
economic analysis are presented. The findings
indicate that depending on investment required
to create the initial database and the level
of differentiation between the initial database
and the reuser database, the choice of a
social welfare-enhancing regulation can
allow for no reuse, free reuse, or fee-paying
reuse.
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ESD-WP-2006-16-Global
Outsourcing of Professional Services
by
Satwik Seshasai, MIT and IBM and Amar Gupta,
MIT and University of Arizona
As
a growing number of firms outsource more
of their professional services across geographic
and temporal boundaries, one is faced with
a corresponding need to examine the long-term
ramifications on business and society. Some
persons are convinced that cost considerations
should reign as the predominant decision-making
factor; others argue that outsourcing means
permanent job loss; and still others believe
outsourcing makes US goods and services
more competitive in the global marketplace.
We assert that if outsourcing options need
to be analyzed in detail with critical objectivity
in order to derive benefits for the concerned
constituencies.
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ESD-WP-2006-15-Toward
the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory in Software
Development
by
Satwik Seshasai, MIT and IBM and Amar Gupta,
MIT and University of Arizona
“The
Sun never sets on the British Empire,”
was a notion emphasized during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries to highlight that
the British Empire was far-flung, and that
the sun was always visible from some part
of this vast empire. While the British Empire
has gradually disintegrated, we can now
coin an equivalent notion: “The Sun
never sets on the 24-hour Knowledge Factory!”
The
notion of the 24-hour Knowledge Factory
can be traced back to the industrial revolution.
Since the installed equipment was scarce
and costly, the employees were scheduled
to work in shifts of 8-16 hours in order
to use the manufacturing facilities on a
round-the-clock basis. With the advent of
electronic computers and diminishing costs
for telecommunications, one developed the
notion of 24-hour Call Centers. Depending
on the time of the call, it is automatically
directed to a call center that is active
at that time. Using a cluster of 3 to 4
call centers located in time zones 6-8 hours
apart from the time zone of the neighboring
call center, one can ensure that all employees
of these geographically distributed call
centers are working during daytime in their
respective countries. The notion of multiple
support centers was subsequently adapted
for supporting global communications networks
over time. Now it has become feasible for
one to use a geographically distributed
workforce of highly trained professionals
to complete an endeavor in a much shorter
timeframe as compared to a scenario in which
all personnel are based at one location,
irrespective of where location is.
By
involving specialized microchip design engineers
located at multiple places around the world,
a semiconductor chip design firm may create
virtual “24-hour knowledge factories”.
This allows for an efficient design process
that has a faster turnaround time. It provides
the firm with access to high-talent designers
who would otherwise have to move to a different
country, or work at odd hours of the night;
some persons call the latter type of shift
as the “graveyard shift”. The
creation of professional service teams that
transcend geographic and temporal boundaries
offers the potential to change the face
of many industries. This innovation will
dramatically impact the manner in which
companies build, test, sell and support
their products and services. Years ago,
people in India and the United States thought
the time difference was a negative - they
thought it would hinder their ability to
work with US firms. Now that has switched
around - for many projects the time difference
is a plus, as it enables the creation of
the 24-hour Knowledge Factories described
in this paper.
The
24-hour Knowledge Factory will involve “offshoring”
of part of the endeavor. Today, offshoring
is done primarily to reduce costs. We believe
that over time, the growth in offshoring
will also be fueled by the potential to
achieve drastic reductions in turnaround
times for major endeavors. The focus of
this paper is on software development, and
specifically on new product development.
The authors contend that efficient information
management is the key to incorporating 24-Hour
Knowledge Factory concepts in such development
efforts, and describe models for achieving
strategic advantage with work teams located
in three continents of the world.
This
paper uses a case study to highlight a 24-Hour
Knowledge Factory model with integrated
data analysis. While this study involved
two sites within IBM, the findings and methods
could be applied to endeavors that use three
or more geographically dispersed sites within
any corporation or across multiple collaborating
companies. As compared to traditional single-site
operations, significant differences were
observed in information sharing, collaboration,
and innovations in work operations. The
quantitative measures used in this case
study gauged data on aspects such as frequency
and methods of collaboration, social and
technical networks, and differences in handling
strategic and tactical decisions. The qualitative
parameters were elicited through interviews
in which the stakeholders described their
perceptions of the quantitative data, and
their motivations for decisions related
to knowledge sharing. The primary emphasis
of the field study was to evaluate the role
that spatial and temporal differences play
in the creation of new software products,
with this analysis serving as the foundation
for studying the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory
paradigm.
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ESD-WP-2006-14-Toward
the 24-Hour Knowledge Factory
by
Amar Gupta, MIT and University of Arizona
and Satwik Seshasai, MIT and IBM
The
term “24-Hour Knowledge Factory”
connotes a globally distributed work environment
in which members of the global team work
on a project around the clock; each member
of the team works the normal workday hours
that pertain to his or her time zone. At
the end of such a workday, a fellow team
member located in a different time zone
continues the same task. This creates the
shift-style workforce that was originally
conceived in the manufacturing sector. A
globally distributed 24-hour call center
is the simplest manifestation of this paradigm.
The true example of the 24-hour factory
paradigm discussed in this paper involves
groups working together to accomplish a
given set of deliverables, such as a software
project, and transcending conventional spatial
and temporal boundaries.
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ESD-WP-2006-13-Promoting
the Concept of Sustainable Transportation
within the Federal System - The Need to
Reinvent the U.S. DOT
by
Ralph P. Hall, MIT and Joseph M. Sussman,
MIT
This
paper argues that a major obstacle to progress
towards sustainable development/transportation
is the lack of an integrated approach to
decision-making within the U.S. federal
system. To address this problem, the concept
of sustainable transportation is first broadened
to include the transportation sector’s
interconnections with other sectors. This
revised notion of sustainable transportation
is then used to help visualize the need
for horizontal integration and co-optimization
of policies/regulations/initiatives across
federal agencies. From the assumption that
a national strategy for sustainable development
will remain illusive in the short-term,
a ‘U.S. DOT reinvention model’
is endorsed as a useful mechanism to promote
sustainable development/transportation policy
in the U.S.
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ESD-WP-2006-12-Trade-off/Positional
Analysis (with a Rawlsian Approach to Equity)
as an Alternative to Cost-Benefit Analysis
(CBA) in Socio-technical Decisions
by
Ralph P. Hall, MIT and Nicholas A. Ashford,
MIT
This
paper introduces a hybrid trade-off/positional
analysis framework as an alternative to
cost-benefit analysis (CBA). As a decision-support
tool, the proposed framework [1] allows
decision-makers not to monetize or aggregate
non-monetary factors over time; [2] invites
the entrance of stakeholders into the debate
since there is greater transparency as to
who benefits and who is harmed by a particular
policy/program/project; [3] enables analysts
to undertake a comparative analysis of alternatives
over time; and [4] takes into account the
important role of technological change in
shaping the state and performance of a system.
In addition, a Rawlsian approach to incorporating
equity into decision-making is advocated.
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ESD-WP-2006-11-Advances
in Supply Chain Management: Potential to
Improve Forecasting Accuracy
by
Shoumen Palit Austin Datta, MIT, Clive W.
J. Granger, University of California
Forecasting is a necessity almost in
any operation. However, the tools of forecasting
are still primitive in view of the great
strides made by research and the increasing
abundance of data made possible by automatic
identification technologies, such as, radio
frequency identification (RFID). The relationship
of various parameters that may change and
impact decisions are so abundant that any
credible attempt to drive meaningful associations
are in demand to deliver the value from
acquired data. This paper proposes some
modifications to adapt an advanced forecasting
technique (GARCH) with the aim to develop
it as a decision support tool applicable
to a wide variety of operations including
supply chain management. We have made an
attempt to coalesce a few different ideas
toward a “solutions” approach
aimed to model volatility and in the process,
perhaps, better manage risk. It is possible
that industry, governments, corporations,
businesses, security organizations, consulting
firms and academics with deep knowledge
in one or more fields, may spend the next
few decades striving to synthesize one or
more models of effective modus operandi
to combine these ideas with other emerging
concepts, tools, technologies and standards
to collectively better understand, analyze
and respond to uncertainty. However, the
inclination to reject deep rooted ideas
based on inconclusive results from pilot
projects is a detrimental trend and begs
to ask the question whether one can aspire
to build an elephant using mouse as a model.
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ESD-WP-2006-10-Advances
in Supply Chain Management Decision Support
Systems: Potential for Improving Decision
Support Catalysed by Semantic Interoperability
between Systems
by
Shoumen Palit Austin Datta, MIT
Globalization has catapulted ‘cycle
time’ as a key indicator of operational
efficiency [1] in processes such as supply
chain management (SCM). Systems automation
holds the promise to augment the ability
of supply chain operations or supply networks
to rapidly adapt to changes, with minimal
human intervention, under ideal conditions.
Business communities are emerging as loose
federations or organization of networks
that may evolve to act as infomediaries
in global SCM. These changes, although sluggish,
are likely to impact process knowledge and
in turn may be stimulated or inhibited by
the availability or lack of process interoperability,
respectively. The latter will determine
operational efficiencies of supply chains.
Currently “community of systems”
or organization of networks (aligned by
industry or business focus) contribute minimally
in SCM decisions because true collaboration
remains elusive. Convergence and maturity
of multiple advances offers the potential
for a paradigm shift in interoperability.
It may evolve hand-in-hand with [a] the
gradual adoption of the semantic web [2]
with concomitant development of ontological
frameworks, [b] increase in use of multi-agent
systems and [c] advent of ubiquitous computing
enabling near real-time access to identification
of objects and analytics [4]. This paper
examines some of these complex trends and
related technologies. Irrespective of the
characteristics of information systems,
the development of various industry-contributed
ontologies for knowledge and decision layers,
may spur self-organizing networks of business
communities and systems to increase their
ability to sense and respond, more profitably,
through better enterprise and extraprise
exchange. In order to transform this vision
into reality, systems automation must be
weaned from the syntactic web and integrated
with the organic growth of the semantic
web. Understanding of process semantics
and incorporation of intelligent agents
with access to ubiquitous near real-time
data “bus” are pillars for “intelligent”
evolution of decision support systems. Software
as infrastructure may integrate plethora
of agent colonies through improved architectures
(such as, service oriented architecture
or SOA) and business communities aligned
by industry or service focus may emerge
as hubs of such agent empires. However,
the feasibility of the path from exciting
“pilots” in specific areas toward
an informed convergence of systemic real-world
implementation remains unclear and fraught
with hurdles related to gaps in knowledge
transfer from experts in academia to real-world
practitioners. The value of interoperability
between systems that may catalyse real-time
intelligent decision support is further
compromised by the lack of clarity of approach
and tools. The latter offers significant
opportunities for development of tools that
may segue to innovative solutions approach.
A critical mass of such solutions may spawn
the necessary systems architecture for intelligent
interoperability, essential for sustainable
profitability and productivity in an intensely
competitive global economy. This paper addresses
some of these issues, tools and solutions
that may have broad applicability in several
operations including the management of adaptive
supply-demand networks [7].
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ESD-WP-2006-09-Distance
Learning as a Tool for Poverty Reduction
and Economic Development: A Focus on Two
Countries, China and Mexico
by
Richard C. Larson and M. Elizabeth Murray,
MIT
Early
in 2003, the Director of Community Learning
Centers (CLC) in Mexico, Ms. Laura Ruiz,
hosted visitors at the Virtual University
at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. Knowing
their interest in learning more about the
CLC’s, she decided to take them on
a trip to one of the nearby towns called
Dr. Arroyo, Nuevo Leon, located 400 km south
of Monterrey, to show them a real picture
of the CLC’s. As soon as they arrived,
they entered a classroom that she was proud
to show them. Users’ heads were seen
peaking out above almost all of the computer
display screens, but she noticed that one
in the back appeared empty. She started
talking to the students, asking questions
about what they were doing, when all of
a sudden a little head peaked out from behind
the “empty” computer display
screen in the back. Ms. Ruiz and her guests
were surprised to see a ten-year old girl
sitting at the computer. As she approached
the girl, Ms. Ruiz -– humoring her
guests – asked what she was doing
there and the girl answered, “I have
taken the Basic Computer Abilities Course,
and now I am taking the labor certification
process”. Hearing this, Ms Ruiz became
amazed to see that this little girl had
finished a course that was not designed
for children. So Ms. Ruiz became worried
that since this girl was only ten years
old, she might not get the certificate.
As soon as Ms. Ruiz got back to Monterrey,
she called to investigate the issue. They
told her that they never thought a child
would finish the course, but that they did
not have a rule saying that a child could
not get the certificate, so for the first
time they gave the certificate to a ten-year
old girl!
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ESD-WP-2006-08-Screening
for Real Options “In” an Engineering
System: A Step Towards Flexible System Development;
PART I: The Use of Design Matrices to Create
an End-to-End Representation of a Complex
Socio-Technical System
by
Jason E. Bartolomei, Engineering Systems
Division Ph.D. Candidate, MIT, Richard de
Neufville, Engineering Systems Division
and Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, MIT, Daniel E. Hastings, Engineering
Systems Division and Department of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, MIT, Donna H. Rhodes,
Engineering Systems Division and Lean Aerospace
Initiative, MIT
The
goal of this research is to develop an analytical
framework for screening for real options
“in” an engineering system.
Real options is defined in the finance literature
as the right, but not the obligation, to
take an action (e.g. deferring, expanding,
contracting, or abandoning) at a predetermined
cost and for a predetermined time. These
are called "real options" because
they pertain to physical or tangible assets,
such as equipment, rather than financial
instruments. Real options improve a system’s
capability of undergoing classes of changes
with relative ease. This property is often
called “flexibility.” Recently,
the DoD has emphasized the need to develop
flexible system in order to improve operational,
technical, and programmatic effectiveness.
The aim of this research is to apply real
options thinking to weapon acquisitions
in order to promote the ability of weapon
system programs to deftly avoid downside
consequences or exploit upside opportunities.
The
practice of real options in systems engineering
is a nascent field of inquiry. One of the
most significant challenges in applying
real options to engineering systems is the
problem of identifying the most efficacious
points within the system to create options.
In order to identify the points of interest,
systems engineers require knowledge about
the physical and non physical aspects of
the system, insight into sources of change,
and the ability to examine the dynamic behavior
of the system. We propose a two-phase process
to perform this analysis. The first phase
is a system representation phase that seeks
to create an end-to-end representation of
engineering system that includes endogenous
interactions across system views and interactions
with a systems environment. The next phase
is an analysis phase that models the evolution
of the engineering system in order to identify
the real options in the system. This paper
presents the system representation phase
and proposes a methodology for creating
an end-to-end representation of an engineering
system.
The
methodology for representing an engineering
system extends existing systems engineering
and architecting methods in two dimensions.
First, the framework couples traditional
architecting views to represent traceability
and endogenous interactions within an engineering
system. Second, the framework includes views
of the system not represented in traditional
engineering frameworks that includes social
networks and environmental interactions.
The framework uses coupled Design Structure
Matrices (DSM) to represent the traditional
and new architecting views. The coupled
DSMs are organized into an Engineering System
Matrix (ESM), which is a holistic representation
of an engineering system that captures all
of the critical variables and causal interactions
across architectural elements. The result
is an analytic framework that captures the
qualitative understanding of the system
into a single view that is conducive for
deep quantitative inquiry.
This
paper presents a discussion of pertinent
literature, an overview of the ESM framework
and underlying theory. In addition, this
paper previews ongoing research using the
ESM to identify options for a mini-air vehicle
(MAV) weapon development system.
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ESD-WP-2006-07-Encouraging
and Ensuring Successful Technology Transition
in Civil Aviation
by
Karen Marais and Annalisa L. Weigel, Department
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT
Technology
transitions are essential to transforming
air traffic management to meet future capacity
needs. Encouraging and obtaining equipage
adoption is one crucial aspect of technology
transitions. We propose an approach for
developing appropriate strategies to persuade
aviation stakeholders to transition to new
technologies. Our approach uses cost, benefit,
and value distribution across stakeholders
and over time to determine which strategies
are most appropriate to persuading aircraft
operators to adopt new equipage. Equipage
that may show an overall positive value
can nevertheless fail to provide value to
individual stakeholders. Such imbalances
in value distribution between stakeholders
or over time may lead to stakeholder intransigence
and can stymie efforts to transform air
traffic management systems. Leverage strategies
that correct these imbalances and accelerate
the realization of value for all stakeholders
can enhance cooperation and increase the
likelihood of a successful transition to
the new technology. We demonstrate the application
of the approach using the case of automatic
dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B).
The approach is also applicable to a wide
range of industries beyond aviation, such
as the energy sector and telecommunications.
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ESD-WP-2006-06-Transition
challenges for alternative fuel vehicle
and transportation systems
by
Jeroen Struben, John D. Sterman, MIT Sloan
School of Management
Automakers
are now developing alternatives to internal
combustion engines (ICE), including hydrogen
fuel cells and ICE-electric hybrids. Adoption
dynamics for alternative vehicles are complex
due to the enormous size and importance
of the auto industry and vehicle fleet.
Diffusion of alternative vehicles is both
enabled and constrained by powerful positive
feedbacks arising from scale and scope economies,
R&D, learning by doing, driver experience,
word of mouth, and complementary resources
such as fueling infrastructure. We describe
a dynamic model of the diffusion and competition
among alternative fuel vehicles, including
the coevolution of the fleet, technology,
driver behavior, and complementary resources.
Here we focus on the generation of consumer
awareness of alternatives through feedback
from driving experience, word of mouth and
marketing, with a reduced form treatment
of network effects and other positive feedbacks
(which we treat in other papers). We demonstrate
the existence of a critical threshold for
sustained adoption of alternative technologies,
and show how the threshold depends on economic
and behavioral parameters. We show that
word of mouth from those not driving an
alternative vehicle is important in stimulating
diffusion. Nevertheless, marketing and subsidies
for alternatives to ICE must remain in place
for long periods for diffusion to become
self-sustaining. Expanding the model boundary
to include endogenous learning, technological
spillovers and spatial coevolution of fueling
infrastructure adds additional feedbacks
that further suppress the diffusion of alternative
vehicles.
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ESD-WP-2006-05-Context
Mediation Demonstration of Counter-Terrorism
Intelligence (CTI) Integration
by
Stuart E. Madnick, Allen Moulton, Michael
D. Siegel, MIT Sloan School of Management
Examination
of intelligence failures prior to the 9/11/01
attacks made clear it that lack of effective
information exchange among government agencies
hindered the capability of identifying potential
threats and preventing terrorist actions.
A 2002 National Research Council study noted
that “Although there are many private
and public databases that contain information
potentially relevant to counterterrorism
programs, they lack the necessary context
definitions (i.e., metadata) and access
tools to enable interoperation with other
databases and the extraction of meaningful
and timely information.”[14] This
report clearly recognized the importance
of problems that the semantic data integration
research community has been studying.
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ESD-WP-2006-04-Understanding
& Modeling State Stability: Exploiting
System Dynamics
by
Nazli Choucri, Christi Electris, Daniel
Goldsmith, Dinsha Mistree, Stuart E. Madnick,
J. Bradley Morrison, Michael D. Siegel,
Margaret Sweitzer-Hamilton, MIT Sloan School
of Management
The
potential loss of state stability in various
parts of the world is a source of threat
to U.S. national security. Every case is
unique, but there are common processes.
Accordingly, we develop a system dynamics
model of state stability by representing
the nature and dynamics of ‘loads’
generated by insurgency activities, on the
one hand, and by articulating the core features
of state resilience and its ‘capacity’
to withstand these ‘loads’,
on the other. The problem is to determine
and ‘predict’ when threats to
stability override the resilience of the
state and, more important, to anticipate
propensities for ‘tipping points’,
namely conditions under which small changes
in anti-regime activity can generate major
disruptions. On this basis, we then identify
appropriate actionable mitigation factors
to decrease the likelihood of ‘tipping’
and enhance prospects for stability.
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ESD-WP-2006-03-Policy
for the Protection and Reuse of
Non-Copyrightable Database Contents
by
Hongwei Zhu, Stuart Madnick, Michael Siegel,
MIT Sloan School of Management
With
the increasing use of the Internet, many
of us feel strongly about the free and unfettered
exchange and use of information. But the
actual situation is not that simple. After
the European Union adopted the Database
Directive to provide legal protection for
non-copyrightable database contents, the
U.S. has introduced six legislative proposals,
all of which failed to become a law. One
of the major difficulties of formulating
a socially beneficial database law is in
finding the right balance between protecting
the incentives of creating publicly accessible
databases (including semi-structured web
sites) and preserving adequate access to
factual data for value creating activities.
We address the problem by developing an
extended spatial competition model that
explicitly considers the inefficiencies
in policy administration. With the model,
we can determine various conditions and
the corresponding socially beneficial policy
choices. The results show that, depending
on the cost level of database creation,
the degree of differentiation of the reuser
database, and the efficiency of policy administration,
the socially beneficial policy choice can
be protecting a legal monopoly, encouraging
competition via compulsory licensing, discouraging
voluntary licensing, or even allowing free
riding. The results provide useful insights
to the formulation of a socially beneficial
database protection policy.
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ESD-WP-2006-02-Measuring
Broadband’s Economic Impact
by
William H. Lehr, Carlos A. Osorio, Sharon
E. Gillett, Marvin A. Sirbu
Does
broadband matter to the economy? Numerous
studies have focused on whether there is
a digital divide, on regulatory impacts
and investment incentives, and on the factors
influencing where broadband is available.
However, given how recently broadband has
been adopted, little empirical research
has investigated its economic impact. This
paper presents estimates of the effect of
broadband on a number of indicators of economic
activity, including employment, wages, and
industry mix, using a cross-sectional panel
data set of communities (by zip code) across
the United States. We match data from the
FCC (Form 477) on broadband availability
with demographic and other economic data
from the US Population Censuses and Establishment
Surveys. We find support for the conclusion
that broadband positively affects economic
activity in ways that are consistent with
the qualitative stories told by broadband
advocates. Even after controlling for community-level
factors known to influence broadband availability
and economic activity, we find that between
1998 and 2002, communities in which mass-market
broadband was available by December 1999
experienced more rapid growth in (1) employment,
(2) the number of businesses overall, and
(3) businesses in IT-intensive sectors.
In addition, the effect of broadband availability
by 1999 can be observed in higher market
rates for rental housing in 2000. We compare
state-level with zip-code level analyses
to highlight data aggregation problems,
and discuss a number of analytic and data
issues that bear on further measurements
of broadband’s economic impact. This
analysis is perforce preliminary because
additional data and experience are needed
to more accurately address this important
question; however, the early results presented
here suggest that the assumed (and oft-touted)
economic impacts of broadband are both real
and measurable.
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ESD-WP-2006-01-Managing
Shared Access to a Spectrum Commons
by
William Lehr, MIT and Jon Crowcroft, Cambridge
University
The
open access, unlicensed or spectrum commons
approach to managing shared access to RF
spectrum offers many attractive benefits,
especially when implemented in conjunction
with and as a complement to a regime of
marketbased, flexible use, tradable licensed
spectrum ([Benkler02], [Lehr04], [Werbach03]).
However, as a number of critics have pointed
out, implementing the unlicensed model poses
difficult challenges that have not been
well-addressed yet by commons advocates
([Benjam03], [Faulhab05], [Goodman04], [Hazlett01]).
A successful spectrum commons will not be
unregulated, but it also need not be command
& control by another name. This paper
seeks to address some of the implementation
challenges associated with managing a spectrum
commons. We focus on the minimal set of
features that we believe a suitable management
protocol, etiquette, or framework for a
spectrum commons will need to incorporate.
This includes: (1) No transmit only devices;
(2) Power restrictions; (3) Common channel
signaling; (4) Mechanism for handling congestion
and allocating resources among users/uses
in times of congestion; (5) Mechanism to
support enforcement (e.g., established procedures
to verify protocol is in conformance); (6)
Mechanism to support reversibility of policy;
and (7) Protection for privacy and security.
We explain why each is necessary, examine
their implications for current policy, and
suggest ways in which they might be implemented.
We present a framework that suggests a set
of design principles for the protocols that
will govern a successful commons management
regime. Our design rules lead us to conclude
that the appropriate Protocols for a Commons
will need to be more liquid ([Reed05]) than
in the past: (1) Marketbased instead of
C&C; (2) Decentralized/distributed;
and, (3) Adaptive and flexible (Anonymous,
distributed, decentralized, and locally
responsive).
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