Whole life thinking and engineering the future

Whole-life thinking for engineers working on the built environment has become more important in a fast changing world.Engineers are increasingly concerned with complex systems, in which the parts interact with each other and with the outside world in many ways – the relationships between the parts determine how the system behaves. Systems thinking provides one approach to developing a more robust whole life approach. Systems thinking is a process of understanding how things influence one another within a wider perspective. Complexity, chaos, and risk are endemic in all major projects. New approaches are needed to produce more reliable whole life predictions. Best value, rather than lowest cost can be achieved by using whole-life appraisal as part of the design and delivery strategy.

Making Life Better: A Whole System Strategic Framework for Public Health 2013-2023 (PDF 11MB)

"Making Life Better" is the public health strategy for Northern Ireland 2013-2023. It is designed to provide direction for policies and actions to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Northern Ireland and to reduce inequalities in health.

Making Life Better: A Whole System Strategic Framework for Public Health 2013-2023 (Online Publication)

"Making Life Better" is the public health strategy for Northern Ireland 2013-2023. It is designed to provide direction for policies and actions to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Northern Ireland and to reduce inequalities in health.

Dynamic whole system testing of combined renewable heating systems : the current state of the art

Objective: For the evaluation of the energetic performance of combined renewable heating systems that supply space heat and domestic hot water for single family houses, dynamic behaviour, component interactions, and control of the system play a crucial role and should be included in test methods. Methods: New dynamic whole system test methods were developed based on “hardware in the loop” concepts. Three similar approaches are described and their differences are discussed. The methods were applied for testing solar thermal systems in combination with fossil fuel boilers (heating oil and natural gas), biomass boilers, and/or heat pumps. Results: All three methods were able to show the performance of combined heating systems under transient operating conditions. The methods often detected unexpected behaviour of the tested system that cannot be detected based on steady state performance tests that are usually applied to single components. Conclusion: Further work will be needed to harmonize the different test methods in order to reach comparable results between the different laboratories. Practice implications: A harmonized approach for whole system tests may lead to new test standards and improve the accuracy of performance prediction as well as reduce the need for field tests.

Testing of combined heating systems for small houses: Improved procedures for whole system test methods : Deliverable 2.3

Dynamic system test methods for heating systems were developed and applied by the institutes SERC and SP from Sweden, INES from France and SPF from Switzerland already before the MacSheep project started. These test methods followed the same principle: a complete heating system – including heat generators, storage, control etc., is installed on the test rig; the test rig software and hardware simulates and emulates the heat load for space heating and domestic hot water of a single family house, while the unit under test has to act autonomously to cover the heat demand during a representative test cycle. Within the work package 2 of the MacSheep project these similar – but different – test methods were harmonized and improved. The work undertaken includes:  • Harmonization of the physical boundaries of the unit under test. • Harmonization of the boundary conditions of climate and load. • Definition of an approach to reach identical space heat load in combination with an autonomous control of the space heat distribution by the unit under test. • Derivation and validation of new six day and a twelve day test profiles for direct extrapolation of test results.   The new harmonized test method combines the advantages of the different methods that existed before the MacSheep project. The new method is a benchmark test, which means that the load for space heating and domestic hot water preparation will be identical for all tested systems, and that the result is representative for the performance of the system over a whole year. Thus, no modelling and simulation of the tested system is needed in order to obtain the benchmark results for a yearly cycle. The method is thus also applicable to products for which simulation models are not available yet. Some of the advantages of the new whole system test method and performance rating compared to the testing and energy rating of single components are:  • Interaction between the different components of a heating system, e.g. storage, solar collector circuit, heat pump, control, etc. are included and evaluated in this test. • Dynamic effects are included and influence the result just as they influence the annual performance in the field. • Heat losses are influencing the results in a more realistic way, since they are evaluated under "real installed" and representative part-load conditions rather than under single component steady state conditions.   The described method is also suited for the development process of new systems, where it replaces time-consuming and costly field testing with the advantage of a higher accuracy of the measured data (compared to the typically used measurement equipment in field tests) and identical, thus comparable boundary conditions. Thus, the method can be used for system optimization in the test bench under realistic operative conditions, i.e. under relevant operating environment in the lab.   This report describes the physical boundaries of the tested systems, as well as the test procedures and the requirements for both the unit under test and the test facility. The new six day and twelve day test profiles are also described as are the validation results.

Organization Performance Evaluation Using System Thinking: A Study in Brazilian Chemical Organizations Models

System thinking allows companies to use subjective constructs indicators like recursiveness, cause-effect relationships and autonomy to performance evaluation. Thus, the question that motivates this paper is: Are Brazilian companies searching new performance measurement and evaluation models based on system thinking? The study investigates models looking for system thinking roots in their framework. It was both exploratory and descriptive based on a multiple four case studies strategy in chemical sector. The findings showed organizational models have some characteristics that can be related to system thinking as system control and communication. Complexity and autonomy are deficiently formalized by the companies. All data suggest, inside its context, that system thinking seems to be adequate to organizational performance evaluation but remains distant from the management proceedings.

PyGirl Generating Whole-System VMs from high-level models using PyPy

Virtual machines emulating hardware devices are generally implemented in low-level languages and using a low-level style for performance reasons. This trend results in largely difficult to understand, difficult to extend and unmaintainable systems. As new general techniques for virtual machines arise, it gets harder to incorporate or test these techniques because of early design and optimization decisions. In this paper we show how such decisions can be postponed to later phases by separating virtual machine implementation issues from the high-level machine-specific model. We construct compact models of whole-system VMs in a high-level language, which exclude all low-level implementation details. We use the pluggable translation toolchain PyPy to translate those models to executables. During the translation process, the toolchain reintroduces the VM implementation and optimization details for specific target platforms. As a case study we implement an executable model of a hardware gaming device. We show that our approach to VM building increases understandability, maintainability and extendability while preserving performance.

PyGirl: Generating Whole-System VMs from High-Level Prototypes Using PyPy

Virtual machines (VMs) emulating hardware devices are generally implemented in low-level languages for performance reasons. This results in unmaintainable systems that are difficult to understand. In this paper we report on our experience using the PyPy toolchain to improve the portability and reduce the complexity of whole-system VM implementations. As a case study we implement a VM prototype for a Nintendo Game Boy, called PyGirl, in which the high-level model is separated from low-level VM implementation issues. We shed light on the process of refactoring from a low-level VM implementation in Java to a high-level model in RPython. We show that our whole-system VM written with PyPy is significantly less complex than standard implementations, without substantial loss in performance.

Whole system approaches for managing land-use change to deliver multiple benefits from biodiversity in tropical forest landcapes

Presentamos en una sesión dedicada al proyecto ROBIN: Session No. 101: Whole system approaches for managing land-use change to deliver multiple benefits from biodiversity in tropical forest landcapes (Chairs: Terry Parr, Michael Schmidt, Kirsten Thonicke - Theme 3)

Exposition of the First epistle of Peter : considered in reference to the whole system of divine truth /

Mode of access: Internet.

The experienced farmer : an entire new work, in which the whole system of agriculture, husbandry, and breeding of cattle, is explained and copiously enlarged upon; and the best methods with the most recent improvements pointed out /

Goldsmiths'-Kress no. 17262.

The fatal effects of gambling exemplified in the murder of Wm. Weare, and the trial and fate of John Thurtell, the murderer, and his accomplices : with biographical sketches of the parties concerned ... : to which is added, the Gambler's scourge, a complete exposé of the whole system of gambling in the metropolis, with memoirs and anecdotes of notorious blacklegs.

Goldsmiths'-Kress no. 24260.

System Thinking to Understand Networked Innovation

Part 9: Innovation Networks

The Andalusian Public Health System Virtual Library. Four years on

The Andalusian Public Health System Virtual Library (Biblioteca Virtual del Sistema Sanitario Público de Andalucía, BV-SSPA) set up in June 2006 was determined by the II Quality Plan 2005-2008. It consists of a regional government action with the aim of democratizing the health professional access to quality scientific information, regardless of the professional workplace. Andalusia is a region with more than 8 million inhabitants, with 92,000 health professionals for 41 hospitals, 1,500 primary healthcare centres, and 10 centres for non-medical attention purposes. • To obtain documentary resources for health professionals. • To help citizens to find health information. • To coordinate the Andalusian Health Documentary centres. • To establish strategic agreements with organizations. • To contribute to the Knowledge Management Development • The BV-SSPA acquires in a centralised way, all of the information resources for the whole system. • It offers services for all professionals: o Document Supply Service o Online Learning o User service • Remote access to these resources and services. • Communication and marketing plan to promote the knowledge and use of the BV-SSPA. Presently the BV-SSPA has reached: • The subscription of 2,431 electronic reviews, 8 data bases and other scientific information resources. • The establishment of the Document Supply Service, which focuses all the article orders from and for the Andalusian Public Health System. • The starting up for the online learning platform. • The introduction of the user service and virtual reference service in beta mode. • The use of appropriate tools, as the meta-researcher and the link resolver, which allow the presentation of resources and services in a tidy, easily findable way, through a Web 2.0 page where the user can take part with his contributions and where his offers and suggestion are gathered. • Access to the resources, for the Andalusian Health Professionals worldwide requiring only an internet connection. Andalusian Health Professionals have access to the greatest Health Science Electronic Resources Collection in Spain. The BV-SSPA has become the undisputed medium for the Health Research and Clinical Healthcare in our region, being consolidated as the Knowledge Manager into the Andalusian Public Health System. In 2010, it faces new projects such as the institutional repository creation, HypatiaSalud; the analysis of our research activity; and the drafting of a normalised licence model for the contracting of electronic resources.