Analysis of transformations to socio-technical systems using agent based modeling and simulation

Shah, Anuj P.

Title:

Analysis of transformations to socio-technical systems using agent based modeling and simulation

dc.contributor.advisor	Pritchett, Amy R.
dc.contributor.author	Shah, Anuj P.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Goel, Ashok
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Goldsman, David
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Corker, Kevin
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Rouse, William B.
dc.contributor.department	Industrial and Systems Engineering
dc.date.accessioned	2009-07-31T18:14:31Z
dc.date.available	2009-07-31T18:14:31Z
dc.date.issued	2006-02-24
dc.description.abstract	Transformations to socio-technical systems may be enacted at fairly low levels, i.e., through changes in technology, processes, information and workers, to obtain a change in system level performance. This thesis provides a conceptual framework and a simulation platform to a priori computationally analyze the impact of such transformations. This thesis builds on the principles of cognitive engineering to describe the components of the work environment, i.e., technology, processes and information, in work relevant ways and using a structure-preserving model, i.e., a model form that describes the models using the same attributes and structure as used by system designers. This thesis also builds on the principles of agent-based modeling to model workers and their interactions with the work environment. These models are specified through a conceptual framework that includes declarative models describing which components are included within the system and their interrelations, and object-oriented models of those complex, dynamic behaviors that cannot be adequately described declaratively. Declarative modeling enables easy composition and modification of component models and, by declaring all required components collectively, a system model. This thesis established an XML representation for the declarative models, and developed a mechanism that automatically assembles, from the individual components' specifications and interrelations, a network-level model of the entire system in XML, which can serve to analyze network dependencies between components. The combination of the declarative and object-oriented models also enables computational simulations to predict the system performance that will emerge from a network of components when placed in a given scenario. Thus, this thesis also developed an agent-based simulation platform to support analysis of emergent behavior. The theoretical contributions of this thesis include the conceptual framework as a broadly applicable and structure-preserving representation of the important aspects of socio-technical system behavior, and associated extensions to cognitive engineering descriptions of the work environment. These insights, combined with the simulation platform, also enable computational modeling, analysis and prediction of socio-technical system performance with a comprehensiveness and detail not possible before. The theoretical and practical utility of these developments is demonstrated through a case study in air traffic control.	en
dc.description.degree	Ph.D.
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/29399
dc.language.iso	en_US	en
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology	en
dc.subject	Work environment	en
dc.subject	Operational analysis	en
dc.subject	Network analysis	en
dc.subject	Ecological methods	en
dc.subject	Environment centered design	en
dc.subject	Design-driven architecture	en
dc.subject	Cognitive engineering	en
dc.subject	Design analysis	en
dc.subject.lcsh	User-centered system design
dc.subject.lcsh	Work environment
dc.subject.lcsh	Technological innovations
dc.subject.lcsh	Computer simulation
dc.subject.lcsh	Operations research
dc.title	Analysis of transformations to socio-technical systems using agent based modeling and simulation	en
dc.type	Text
dc.type.genre	Dissertation
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Engineering
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	29ad75f0-242d-49a7-9b3d-0ac88893323c
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569