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In this work, we address the problem of airborne contaminant sensor placement in high-risk buildings where critical infrastructures are managed and operated, making them possible locations for terrorist attacks (such as governmental buildings and ministries, utilities, airports and hospitals). A new software is presented based on the "Matlab-CONTAM Toolbox" and the CONTAM multi-zone simulation software, to construct multiple scenarios of contamination events and to solve the multi-objective sensor placement problem for minimizing the average and maximum impact risk with respect to the contaminant mass inhaled impact metric. The use of the software is demonstrated in a case-study using the Holmes's House benchmark. The Toolbox is released under an open-source license at https://github.com/KIOS-Research/ matlab-contam-toolbox . This research work has been partially funded by the European Research Council under the ERC Advanced Grant ERC-2011-ADG-291508 "Fault-Adaptive Monitoring and Control of Complex Distributed Dynamical Systems" (FAULT-ADAPTIVE) and by the EC project HOME/2011/CIPS/AG "online identification of Failure and Attack on interdependent Critical InfrastructurES" (FACIES).

This article accounts for the EU's failure to implement a strategy of Conflict Transformation (CT) through Regional Integration (RI) in four selected regions: Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). As a normative power, the EU has traditionally acted as a promoter of regional integration, with an underlying view of reducing regional conflicts. The academic literature, however, has failed to assess the exact role of the 'RI-CT nexus'1 in the EU's foreign policy toolbox, as well as its outcomes. To fill this gap, our study investigates the degree to which the RI-CT strategy is perceived by EU practitioners as a key deliverable and what concrete measures or influence paths have been implemented by the EU. We show that the EU has made use of four main types of influence paths in order to transform regional conflict dynamics. Nevertheless, our findings also demonstrate that RI developments within the different regions and, in particular, negative regional responses, progressively led EU practitioners to adapt and develop a behaviour of self-restraint.

The governance of major metropolitan areas is often associated with a "fragmented" and "uncoordinated" multi-government apparatus, frequently sculpted from years of particularistic ad hoc administrative reforms. This image of dysfunctional structure gains high salience when the metropolitan context is accentuated by complexity and fluidity, especially where intense paradoxical forces of economic development and ecological sustainability are present. The most visible "solutions" for such a state often come from bureaucrats seeking to "streamline" government according to norms of standardization and hierarchy. But, calls for reform may also come from scholars of polycentric government, who see the problem as a misalignment of administrative structure with the metropolitan context. This article adopts the latter, less-appreciated perspective that argues such dysfunctions in a metropolitan multi-government network are essentially problems of adaptive organizational design. Different than the bureaucratic model, treatises on new public management or group-behavior theory, it emphasizes the contextual nature of public administration by employing the holistic framework of "organizational systems." It illustrates the logic by introducing a toolbox for multi-government design that speaks to the adaptive qualities of government networks in whole metropolitan areas. Its purpose is to reinvigorate this holistic approach in thinking about the way we look at multi-government networks in major metropolitan areas.

As climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often interact negatively, this edited volume takes Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnamℓ́ℓs first mega-urban region as a case study to analyse its vulnerability to climate change and to suggest measures towards a more sustainable urban development. The book offers an overview on land use planning regarding the aspects of urban flooding, urban climate, urban energy and urban mobility as well as spatial views from the angle of urban planning such as the metropolitan level, the city, the neighbourhood and building level. It shows that to a significant degree, measures dealing with climate change can be taken from the toolbox of sustainable urban development and reflects how institutional structures need to change to enhance chances for implementation given socio-cultural and economic constraints. This is merged and integrated into a holistic perspective of planning recommendations, supporting the municipal government to increase its adaptive capacity. The authors are members of a German government funded research project on how to support HCMCℓ́ℓs municipal government to adapt to risks related to climate change.

Threatening communication is a widely applied method in behavior change interventions, which at the same time has been heavily criticized in the psychological literature. The current paper describes a study of the reasons for this persistent wide application of threatening communication. We conducted qualitative interviews with 33 key actors in behavior change intervention development in The Netherlands. Specifically, we interviewed intervention developers, policymakers, politicians, scientists, and advertising professionals. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently coded using NVivo. We found that participants most closely involved with the actual intervention development were generally convinced that threatening information was to be prevented, but often did not understand the exact processes involved. They were often under the impression that rather than a potent efficacy enhancing element, a behavioral suggestion would suffice to prevent threatening communication from backfiring. As participants were further removed from the actual intervention development, they generally tended to be more in favor of threatening communication. The main reasons for use of threatening information were to attract attention or prompt self-reflection through confrontation, because target population members were assumed to like threatening information and respond rationally to increased risk perceptions by changing their behavior, or simply because no alternatives were available. In addition, intervention developers frequently had to deal with supervisors or funders who preferred threatening communication. Thus, when communicating with practitioners, it seems fruitful to provide them with a toolbox of evidence-based behavior change methods that promote adaptive, rather than maladaptive, behavior; to promote basing interventions on the most relevant behavioral determinants as identified by determinant analyses; and to equip intervention developers with the tools to persuade other key stakeholders that fear is a bad ...

Threatening communication is a widely applied method in behavior change interventions, which at the same time has been heavily criticized in the psychological literature. The current paper describes a study of the reasons for this persistent wide application of threatening communication. We conducted qualitative interviews with 33 key actors in behavior change intervention development in The Netherlands. Specifically, we interviewed intervention developers, policymakers, politicians, scientists, and advertising professionals. The interviews were transcribed and subsequently coded using NVivo. We found that participants most closely involved with the actual intervention development were generally convinced that threatening information was to be prevented, but often did not understand the exact processes involved. They were often under the impression that rather than a potent efficacy enhancing element, a behavioral suggestion would suffice to prevent threatening communication from backfiring. As participants were further removed from the actual intervention development, they generally tended to be more in favor of threatening communication. The main reasons for use of threatening information were to attract attention or prompt self-reflection through confrontation, because target population members were assumed to like threatening information and respond rationally to increased risk perceptions by changing their behavior, or simply because no alternatives were available. In addition, intervention developers frequently had to deal with supervisors or funders who preferred threatening communication. Thus, when communicating with practitioners, it seems fruitful to provide them with a toolbox of evidence-based behavior change methods that promote adaptive, rather than maladaptive, behavior; to promote basing interventions on the most relevant behavioral determinants as identified by determinant analyses; and to equip intervention developers with the tools to persuade other key stakeholders that fear is a bad ...

Farmland is the most basic material condition for guaranteeing rural livelihoods and national food security, and exploring management strategies that take both stable rural livelihoods and sustainable farmland use into account has vital significance in theory and practice. Farmland is a complex and self-adaptive system that couples human and natural systems, and natural and social factors that are related to its changing process need to be considered when modeling farmland changing processes. This paper uses Qianjingou Town in the Inner Mongolian farming–pastoral zone as a study area. From the perspective of the relationship between household livelihood and farmland use, this study establishes the process mechanism of farmland use change based on questionnaire data, and constructs a multi-agent simulation model of farmland use change using the Eclipse and Repast toolbox. Through simulating the relationship between natural factors (including geographical location) and household behavior, this paper systematically simulates household farmland abandonment and rent behaviors, and accurately describes the dynamic interactions between household livelihoods and the factors related to farmland use change. These factors include natural factors (net primary productivity, road accessibility, slope and relief amplitude) and social factors (household family structures, economic development and government policies). Ultimately, this study scientifically predicts the future farmland use change trend in the next 30 years. The simulation results show that the number of abandoned and sublet farmland plots has a gradually increasing trend, and the number of non-farming households and pure-outworking households has a remarkable increasing trend, whereas the number of part-farming households and pure-farming households has a decreasing trend. Household livelihood sustainability in the study area is confronted with increasing pressure, and household non-farm employment has an increasing trend, while regional appropriate-scale agricultural management is maintained. The research results establish the theoretical foundation and a basic method for developing sustainable farmland use management that can meet the willingness of households and guarantee grain and ecological security.

Maria Triassi,1 Elena Giancotti,2 Antonio Nardone,1 Giulia Mancini,3 Fabiana Rubba1 1Public, Preventive and Social Medicine School, University Federico II of Naples, Naples, Italy; 2Procurement and Transplantation Coordination, Naples, Italy; 3Sociology Unit, G D'annunzio University, Chieti-Pescara, Italy Introduction: The growing disparity between organ availability for transplantation and the number of patients in need has challenged the donation and transplantation community to develop innovative processes, ideas, and techniques to bridge this gap. Advances in the sharing of best practices in the donation community have contributed greatly to this aim over the past 5 years. Studies published during the past five years (2010–2014) were analyzed to gain insight on the evolving organizational areas and tools that the procurement and transplantation pathways have been focused on. The hypothesis assessed is that networking and efficacious handling of this complex path may be ameliorated by an adaptive organizational toolbox. Methods: A thorough search has been conducted using various databases, ie, Cochrane library, PubMed, EMBASE, Federico II University Open Archive. The evidence was considered following the Effective Practice and Organization of Care Group checklist. Prevalent organizational attitudes and areas were assessed, and various scenarios were analyzed. Initially, all titles and abstracts were screened. In the next phase, the full text of all abstracts considered potentially relevant by at least one of the reviewers was evaluated. Inconsistencies in decision-making within this second phase were solved based on consensus between both reviewers. In this phase, for every study we defined whether the organization was considered relevant and what the scenario was. The information was extracted from each study based on bibliographic details (author, journal, year of publication, and language). As many as 1,071 studies were analyzed, and 81 were selected as potentially relevant. Results: We found three prevalent areas of interest focused on organizational elements: global organizational strategies scenario, clinical hospital organization, and citizenship and social scenario. Conclusion: We reached the conclusion that organization has a central role in different scenarios of procurement and transplantation in a continuum from government to hospital (the core of the system) and finally among citizens. A standardized hospital pathway definitely remains the essential step in order to ameliorate either procurement or transplantation. Keywords: transplant procurement, management, organizational tool, network

Maria Triassi,1 Elena Giancotti,2 Antonio Nardone,1 Giulia Mancini,3 Fabiana Rubba1 1Public, Preventive and Social Medicine School, University Federico II of Naples, Naples, Italy; 2Procurement and Transplantation Coordination, Naples, Italy; 3Sociology Unit, G D'annunzio University, Chieti-Pescara, Italy Introduction: The growing disparity between organ availability for transplantation and the number of patients in need has challenged the donation and transplantation community to develop innovative processes, ideas, and techniques to bridge this gap. Advances in the sharing of best practices in the donation community have contributed greatly to this aim over the past 5 years. Studies published during the past five years (2010–2014) were analyzed to gain insight on the evolving organizational areas and tools that the procurement and transplantation pathways have been focused on. The hypothesis assessed is that networking and efficacious handling of this complex path may be ameliorated by an adaptive organizational toolbox. Methods: A thorough search has been conducted using various databases, ie, Cochrane library, PubMed, EMBASE, Federico II University Open Archive. The evidence was considered following the Effective Practice and Organization of Care Group checklist. Prevalent organizational attitudes and areas were assessed, and various scenarios were analyzed. Initially, all titles and abstracts were screened. In the next phase, the full text of all abstracts considered potentially relevant by at least one of the reviewers was evaluated. Inconsistencies in decision-making within this second phase were solved based on consensus between both reviewers. In this phase, for every study we defined whether the organization was considered relevant and what the scenario was. The information was extracted from each study based on bibliographic details (author, journal, year of publication, and language). As many as 1,071 studies were analyzed, and 81 were selected as potentially relevant. Results: We found three prevalent areas of interest focused on organizational elements: global organizational strategies scenario, clinical hospital organization, and citizenship and social scenario. Conclusion: We reached the conclusion that organization has a central role in different scenarios of procurement and transplantation in a continuum from government to hospital (the core of the system) and finally among citizens. A standardized hospital pathway definitely remains the essential step in order to ameliorate either procurement or transplantation. Keywords: transplant procurement, management, organizational tool, network

Human Factors als interdisziplinäre Wissenschaft untersucht die Interaktion von Mensch und Technologie. Sicherheit, Zuverlässigkeit und Produktivität sind ihre wichtigsten Anliegen. Heutige Arbeitsumgebungen werden immer stärker informatisiert, virtualisiert, anpassungsfähig und dynamisch. Die zugrundeliegenden vernetzten Technologien sind hoch komplex und verteilt. Dadurch entstehen sowohl für die theoretischen Fundamente als auch für die methodologischen Ansätze von Human Factors einige Herausforderungen. Durch Bezugnahme auf das Anwendungsfeld der Produktionsplanung und –steuerung (PPS) und Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systeme als ein Beispiel für eine solche Arbeitsumgebung macht diese Dissertation explizit, wie Human Factors daran scheitert wesentliche Fragen und Probleme aus diesem Typ von Umgebung zu beantworten. In einer Übersicht über die Human Factors Forschung in PPS werden diese offenen Fragen summarisch dargestellt. Als Konsequenz dieser Beobachtungen schlage ich eine philosophische Umorientierung, basierend auf der Denkschule des kritischen Realismus, und eine Erweiterung der philosophischen Annahmen von Human Factors als Disziplin vor. Dabei fokussiere ich mich auf Handlungsmacht (Engl.: agency) und soziale Strukturen als zentrale Konzepte für das Verständnis von menschlichem Verhalten. Dieses meta-theoretische, ontologische Fundament ermöglicht dann eine vertiefte Diskussion der existierenden methodologischen Ansätze im Feld der PPS. Diese Überlegungen führen zur Formulierung eines kritisch-realistischen Theorie/Methoden-Pakets für Human Factors, mit welchem die identifizierten Forschungsfragen im Feld der PPS angegangen werden können. Um meine Reflexionen über eine so entwickelte kritische Human Factors Perspektive zu illustrieren, wende ich das vorgeschlagene Paket von ausgewählten Methoden retrospektiv auf empirisches Material aus zwei Fallstudien in mittelgrossen Industrieunternehmen an. In der ersten Fallstudie verwende ich die sozio-kognitive Diskursanalyse um Praxis-Positionen, Intentionalität und Spannungsfelder im Zusammenhang mit ERP-Einführungen und der Benützung dieser Systeme aufzuzeigen. Die zweite Fallstudie ergänzt die erste durch die Verwendung einer erweiterten Form der Cognitive Work Analysis und Archer's morphogenetischem Ansatz zur Analyse des Arbeitsumfeldes. Ich schliesse mit Implikationen die sich aus der Diskussion der Anwendbarkeit und der Erklärungskraft des vorgeschlagenen Theorie/Methoden Paketes ergeben. Vom hier eingenommenen Standpunkt her wird eine politisch bewusstere und selbst-kritischere Positionierung von Human Factors befürwortet. Durch die Integration von Handlungsmacht und sozialen Strukturen in unser Denken über Technologien werden unsere Gestaltungs- und Entwicklungs-Interventionen besser auf die vernetzten Arbeitsplätze und die globalisierten Arbeitskräfte, mit denen wir uns zunehmend beschäftigen, abgestimmt werden. ; Human Factors as an interdisciplinary science investigates the interaction of humans and technology. Safety, reliability and productivity are its primary concerns. Today's work contexts are getting ever more informatized, virtual, adaptive and dynamic. The underlying networked technologies are highly complex and distributed. As a consequence, both the theoretical fundaments and the methodological toolbox of Human Factors become somewhat challenged. By drawing on the field of production planning and scheduling (PPS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as an example of such a work context, this thesis is making explicit how Human Factors fails to fully account for many problems and questions related to this type of environment. An overview of Human Factors research in PPS is leading to a list of unresolved issues and open questions. As a consequence of these observations, I am proposing a philosophical reorientation based on critical realist thought leading to an elaboration of the philosophical assumptions behind Human Factors as a discipline. Hereby, I focus on agency and social structures as central concepts for the understanding and explanation of human behavior. The meta-theoretical, ontological fundament that I put forward then allows for a through discussion of existing methodological approaches to the field of PPS. These considerations lead to the formulation of a critical realist theory/methods package for Human Factors to address the research issues identified in the PPS domain. To illustrate my reflections on a critical Human Factors perspective developed as such, I am retrospectively testing the proposed package of selected methods with empirical material from two case studies of medium sized industrial companies. The first case study employs socio-cognitive discourse analysis to describe position-practices, intentionality and fields of tension related to ERP implementation and use. The second case study complements the first one by using an extended form of Cognitive Work Analysis and Archer's morphogenetic approach to analyze the work environment. I conclude with implications resulting from the discussion of the applicability and explanatory power of the theory/methods package. From the point of view adopted here, a more politically conscious and self-critical positioning of Human Factors is advocated. Through the integration of agency and social structure into our thinking about technology, our design and development interventions will become more tuned to the networked workplaces and globalized workforce we are increasingly engaged with.