Publications

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Interactions between individuals, both economic and social, are increasingly mediated by technological systems. Such platforms facilitate interactions by controlling and regularizing access, while extracting rent from users. The relatively recent idea of two-sided markets has given insights into the distinctive economic features of such arrangements, arising from network effects and the power of the platform operator. Simplifications required to obtain analytical results, while leading to basic understanding, prevent us from posing many important questions. For example we would like to understand how platforms can be secured when the costs and benefits of security differ greatly across users and operators, and when the vulnerabilities of particular designs may only be revealed after they are in wide use. We define an agent-based model that removes many constraints limiting existing analyses (such as uniformity of users, free and perfect information), allowing insights into a much larger class of real systems. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.

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This report provides the results of a scoping study evaluating the potential risk reduction value of a hypothetical, earthquake early-warning system. The study was based on an analysis of the actions that could be taken to reduce risks to population and infrastructures, how much time would be required to take each action and the potential consequences of false alarms given the nature of the action. The results of the scoping analysis indicate that risks could be reduced through improving existing event notification systems and individual responses to the notification; and production and utilization of more detailed risk maps for local planning. Detailed maps and training programs, based on existing knowledge of geologic conditions and processes, would reduce uncertainty in the consequence portion of the risk analysis. Uncertainties in the timing, magnitude and location of earthquakes and the potential impacts of false alarms will present major challenges to the value of an early-warning system.

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A system dynamics model was developed in response to the apparent decline in STEM candidates in the United States and a pending shortage. The model explores the attractiveness of STEM and STEM careers focusing on employers and the workforce. Policies such as boosting STEM literacy, lifting the H-1B visa cap, limiting the offshoring of jobs, and maintaining training are explored as possible solutions. The system is complex, with many feedbacks and long time delays, so solutions that focus on a single point of the system are not effective and cannot solve the problem. A deeper understanding of parts of the system that have not been explored to date is necessary to find a workable solution.

The goal of the work discussed in this document is to understand the risk to the nation of cyber attacks on critical infrastructures. The large body of research results on cyber attacks against physical infrastructure vulnerabilities has not resulted in clear understanding of the cascading effects a cyber-caused disruption can have on critical national infrastructures and the ability of these affected infrastructures to deliver services. This document discusses current research and methodologies aimed at assessing the translation of a cyber-based effect into a physical disruption of infrastructure and thence into quantification of the economic consequences of the resultant disruption and damage. The document discusses the deficiencies of the existing methods in correlating cyber attacks with physical consequences. The document then outlines a research plan to correct those deficiencies. When completed, the research plan will result in a fully supported methodology to quantify the economic consequences of events that begin with cyber effects, cascade into other physical infrastructure impacts, and result in degradation of the critical infrastructure's ability to deliver services and products. This methodology enables quantification of the risks to national critical infrastructure of cyber threats. The work addresses the electric power sector as an example of how the methodology can be applied.

A model of the repair operations of the voice telecommunications network is used to study labor management strategies under a disaster scenario where the workforce is overwhelmed. The model incorporates overtime and fatigue functions and optimizes the deployment of the workforce based on the cost of the recovery and the time it takes to recover. The analysis shows that the current practices employed in workforce management in a disaster scenario are not optimal and more strategic deployment of that workforce is beneficial.

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