Neil Allan

Low-energy dwellings: the contribution of behaviours to actual performance

The UK Governments Building a Greener Future: Policy Statement (2007) announced that all new homes must be zero carbon from 2016. To date, a number of housing sites around the UK have strived to reduce carbon emissions by following sustainable design principles and utilizing renewable technologies. On paper, these sites exceed regulatory compliance and are regarded as high-performance buildings. However, their actual performance is seldom validated from the perspective of either the design engineer or the occupants. Findings are presented from an on-going post-occupancy evaluation of a UK EcoHomes site with an ‘excellent’ rating (the highest rating of the predecessor to the current standard, the Code for Sustainable Homes). The detailed post-occupancy evaluation investigated the energy performance of the buildings (as well as water consumption) and the comfort and satisfaction of users. A bespoke behavioural survey and interview were developed and implemented to distinguish between and quantify frugal and profligate patterns of consumption. Results indicate that energy-efficiency behaviours account for 51%, 37%, and 11% of the variance in heat, electricity, and water consumption, respectively, between dwellings. Human factor issues need to be addressed more adequately as standard practice in low-energy/carbon design. La déclaration de principe du Gouvernement Britannique intitulée Building a Greener Future: Policy Statement (Construire un Avenir Plus Vert: Déclaration de Principe) (2007) annonçait que tous les nouveaux logements devraient être zéro carbone à compter de 2016. A ce jour, un certain nombre d’ensembles d’habitation à travers le Royaume-Uni se sont efforcés de réduire les émissions de carbone en suivant des principes de conception durable et en utilisant des technologies renouvelables. Sur le papier, ces ensembles d’habitation vont au-delà des obligations réglementaires à respecter et sont considérés comme des bâtiments à hautes performances énergétiques. Néanmoins, leurs performances réelles sont rarement confirmées du point de vue de l’ingénieur concepteur ou des occupants. Sont présentés les résultats d’une étude en cours relative à l’évaluation après occupation d’un ensemble d’habitation britannique EcoHomes classé « excellent » (la notation la plus élevée prévue par la norme antérieure à la norme actuelle, Le Code pour des Logements Durables). Cette évaluation détaillée après occupation a examiné les performances énergétiques des bâtiments (aussi bien que la consommation d’eau), ainsi que le confort et la satisfaction des utilisateurs. Il a été élaboré et procédé à une enquête comportementale sur mesure, avec entretien, afin de pouvoir faire la distinction entre les habitudes de consommation économes et dépensières et de les quantifier. Les résultats indiquent que les comportements éco-énergétiques représentent respectivement 51 %, 37 % et 11 % des différences de consommation de chauffage, d’électricité et d’eau entre les logements. Dans une conception basse énergie/bas carbone, il est nécessaire qu’un traitement plus adapté des questions liées aux facteurs humains devienne pratique courante. Mots clés: performances des bâtiments, évaluation de la consommation, logement, bâtiment basse énergie, comportement des occupants, évaluation après occupation, théorie des comportements planifiés

Toward Project Complexity Evaluation: A Structural Perspective

Complexity is often quoted as an independent variable that challenges the utility of traditional project management tools and techniques. A large body of work has been devoted in exposing its numerous aspects, yet means for quantitatively assessing it have been scarce. Part of the challenge lies in the absence of hard evidence supporting the hypothesis that projects can be considered as complex systems, where techniques for measuring such complexity are better established. In response, this study uses empirical activity networks to account for the technological aspect of five projects. By doing so, the contribution of this study is twofold. First, a procedure for the quantitative assessment of an aspect of project complexity is presented; namely, structural complexity. Second, results of the analysis are used to highlight qualitatively similar behavior with a well-known complex system, the Internet. As such, it suggests a transition from the current, metaphorical view of projects being complex systems to a literal one.From a practical point of view, this study uses readily captured and widely used data, enabling practitioners to evaluate the structural complexity of their projects to explore system pathologies and, hence, improve the decision-making process around project bidding, resource allocation, and risk management.

How Robust Is Your Project? From Local Failures to Global Catastrophes: A Complex Networks Approach to Project Systemic Risk

Current societal requirements necessitate the effective delivery of complex projects that can do more while using less. Yet, recent large-scale project failures suggest that our ability to successfully deliver them is still at its infancy. Such failures can be seen to arise through various failure mechanisms; this work focuses on one such mechanism. Specifically, it examines the likelihood of a project sustaining a large-scale catastrophe, as triggered by single task failure and delivered via a cascading process. To do so, an analytical model was developed and tested on an empirical dataset by the means of numerical simulation. This paper makes three main contributions. First, it provides a methodology to identify the tasks most capable of impacting a project. In doing so, it is noted that a significant number of tasks induce no cascades, while a handful are capable of triggering surprisingly large ones. Secondly, it illustrates that crude task characteristics cannot aid in identifying them, highlighting the complexity of the underlying process and the utility of this approach. Thirdly, it draws parallels with systems encountered within the natural sciences by noting the emergence of self-organised criticality, commonly found within natural systems. These findings strengthen the need to account for structural intricacies of a project’s underlying task precedence structure as they can provide the conditions upon which large-scale catastrophes materialise.

A New Insight into the World Economic Forum Global Risks

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recognises in their recent global risk reports the need to better understand the dynamics of the global economic system, and in particular the interconnectedness in the system in order to better appreciate the possibility of both single and multiple risk events occurring. This paper applies a cladistics analysis technique to identify the commonality of identified characteristics across a sample set of the 2014 WEF global risks (WEF 2014) as a basis for a new understanding of the linkages and potential evolution of the WEF risks. This approach shows strong potential to provide deeper insights into the nature and interdependency of global risks and in particular how this allows for more efficient management of these risks.

An analysis of operational risk events in US and European Banks 2008–2014

Abstract This paper explores the characteristics of 2,141 operational risk events amongst European (EU) and US banks over the period 2008–2014. We have analysed the operational risk events using a method originating in biology for the study of interrelatedness of characteristics in a complex adaptive system. The methodology, called cladistics, provides insights into the relationships between characteristics of operational risk events in banks that is not available from the traditional statistical analysis. We have used cladistics to explore if there are consistent patterns of operational risk characteristics across banks in single and different geographic zones. One significant pattern emerged which indicates there are key, stable characteristics across both geographic zones and across banks in each zone. The results identify the characteristics that could then be managed by the banks to reduce operational risk losses. We also have analysed separately the characteristics of operational risk events for “big” banks and extreme events and these results indicate that big banks and small banks have similar key operational risk characteristics, but the characteristics of extreme operational risk events are different to those for the non-extreme events.

The Bermuda Experience: Leading the Way on Galvanized Reinforcement

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the efficacy and utility of galvanized reinforcement in a variety of concrete structures on the islands of Bermuda. Bermuda has an aggressive marine environment, and experience has shown that galvanized reinforcement is a cost-effective solution to the concrete-corrosion problem. The chapter explains an experience of the author gained while working on the design and construction of civil and maritime projects throughout the world, including eight years from 1987 as a senior engineer with the Ministry of Works and Engineering (MW&E) in Bermuda. Reference is made to the unique geographical and climatic conditions of Bermuda and the problems this creates for reinforced concrete structures. The chapter also presents the results of specific investigations and current research. Using practical examples and illustrations, the author portrays an engineers viewpoint of the wider application of galvanized reinforcement. The chapter attempts to answer two simple questions:(1) why does the MW&E in Bermuda resolutely continue to specify exclusively hot-dip galvanized reinforcement for its entire construction works and (2) is the practice that has been adopted for over 50 years still applicable in the light of experience, recent research, and changing construction methods. The chapter presents that the use of galvanized reinforcement in Bermuda is historical and small scale, but this would be far from the truth.Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the efficacy and utility of galvanized reinforcement in a variety of concrete structures on the islands of Bermuda. Bermuda has an aggressive marine environment, and experience has shown that galvanized reinforcement is a cost-effective solution to the concrete-corrosion problem. The chapter explains an experience of the author gained while working on the design and construction of civil and maritime projects throughout the world, including eight years from 1987 as a senior engineer with the Ministry of Works and Engineering (MW&E) in Bermuda. Reference is made to the unique geographical and climatic conditions of Bermuda and the problems this creates for reinforced concrete structures. The chapter also presents the results of specific investigations and current research. Using practical examples and illustrations, the author portrays an engineers viewpoint of the wider application of galvanized reinforcement. The chapter attempts to answer two simple questions:(1) why does the MW&E in Bermuda resolutely continue to specify exclusively hot-dip galvanized reinforcement for its entire construction works and (2) is the practice that has been adopted for over 50 years still applicable in the light of experience, recent research, and changing construction methods. The chapter presents that the use of galvanized reinforcement in Bermuda is historical and small scale, but this would be far from the truth.

Significance of Controllable and Uncontrollable Drivers in Credit Defaults

The world economy has been shown to be a complex adaptive system with the consequence that companies within the global economy are constantly needing to react to influences from the activities of other companies with which they are interconnected and external influences. This paper uses a methodology developed for complex adaptive systems to analyse the characteristics of multiple credit default events in the United States, Europe and Asia over the period 1990–2010 to establish the significance of factors driving credit defaults. The analysis indicates that factors controllable by companies are more significant in the United States and Europe than uncontrollable events, but the reverse occurs in Asia.

Exploring Structural Patterns Across Evolved and Designed Systems: A Network Perspective

Our desire to deliver increased functionality while setting tighter operational and regulative boundaries has fueled a recent influx of highly coupled systems. Nonetheless, our current capacity to successfully deliver them is still in its infancy. Understanding how such Designed systems are structured, along with how they compare to their naturally Evolved counterparts, can play an important role in bettering our capacity to do so. Based on this premise, the structural patterns underlying a wide range of seemingly unrelated systems are uncovered using tools from network science. By doing so, structural patterns emerge and are subsequently used to highlight both similarities and differences between the two classes of systems. With a focus on the Designed class, and assuming that increased structural variety fuels design uncertainty, it is shown that their adherence to statistical normality i.e., expected vs. encountered patterns and statistical correlations between combinations of such patterns is rather limited. Insight of this sort has both theoretical context agnostic approaches are increasingly relevant within the domain of Systems Engineering, yet are rarely used and practical transferability of knowledge implications.

A review of the use of complex systems applied to risk appetite and emerging risks in ERM practice

The Management Board of the UK Actuarial Profession has identified enterprise risk management (ERM) as an area of growth, particularly within the financial sector. It is an area which offers opportunities for actuaries, working with other disciplines, to move out of their traditional sectors of employment, with the skill set required fitting well with an actuarys training and practical focus.Members of the Profession also highlighted ERM as one of the two main areas where they wanted the Profession to focus their research efforts in the membership survey in 2009. Consequentially the Management Board allocated funds to support research projects in ERM in 2010–2011 and has worked with the ERM Practice Area Committee to identify the topics that they feel most suited to external research where the outputs will have a broad strategic value to the financial services sector.

Dynamics of Organizational Culture: Individual Beliefs vs. Social Conformity

The complex nature of organizational culture challenges our ability to infer its underlying dynamics from observational studies. Recent computational studies have adopted a distinctly different view, where plausible mechanisms are proposed to describe a wide range of social phenomena, including the onset and evolution of organizational culture. In this spirit, this work introduces an empirically-grounded, agent-based model which relaxes a set of assumptions that describes past work–(a) omittance of an individual’s strive for achieving cognitive coherence; (b) limited integration of important contextual factors—by utilizing networks of beliefs and incorporating social rank into the dynamics. As a result, we illustrate that: (i) an organization may appear to be increasingly coherent in terms of its organizational culture, yet be composed of individuals with reduced levels of coherence; (ii) the components of social conformity—peer-pressure and social rank—are influential at different aggregation levels.