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![The Ideal Science, Technology, Process Learning Curve Dr Dover, in his evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, perfectly sets out the dilemma facing all fleets of any size – from the Wright Flyer to the F-35, irrespective [Atkinson: 2008].](profile/Simon-Atkinson-4/publication/262377326/figure/fig3/AS:339770715721731@1458019059966/The-Ideal-Science-Technology-Process-Learning-Curve-Dr-Dover-in-his-evidence-to-the.png)
The Ideal Science, Technology, Process Learning Curve Dr Dover, in his evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, perfectly sets out the dilemma facing all fleets of any size – from the Wright Flyer to the F-35, irrespective [Atkinson: 2008].
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Many contemporary organisations are based upon what has been loosely termed the ‘Standard Social Science [Reference] Model’. This model appears to be increasingly divergent from the underlying sciences and technologies that should form and underpin them. If the models are wrong and we are viewing the models through a lens similarly
constructed, the...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... complicating matters, the Operational Analysis (OA) models used to develop UK Force Structures are based upon scenarios lasting 6 months -in other words, structures intended to fight operations, not campaigns. Figure 6 considers the ideal conjoined -science, technology, services -learning curve, based upon a processes and services (including policies and legislation) time constant of 8 years. 5 At regular moments over the 50-year cycle, reflective phase changes occur. ...
Context 2
... complex system would adapt -changing its structures to match its environment. This has not been occurring, which suggests that the models are complicated and reactive; not complex and reflective, as presented in Figure 6. Such complicated linear re-modelling is based upon a rejection of the underlying science and an inability to enable reflection. ...
Context 3
... as posited, design is part of the adaptation process, then this should be a moment of real opportunity for the UKAF but only if they undertake a fundamental redesign. The premise of the science, technology, services model is that they remain conjoined, Figure 6. The apparently stable (surge) part of the science learning curve may also, and more dangerously, convey to some the impression of certainty, if not predictability. ...
Citations
... [38] The conflation of science and technology may have profound moral and ethical implications for humanity, including for the development of QAI, QAIIT, and QUAINT. [9,15,39] It also may explain, in part, the excesses (including, potentially behaviours, e.g., PwC) being exhibited by the major accountancy consultancy companies. Who may have been ethically, by the rule / code book, etc., re-badging the same model (through referentialism, or evidentialism) 11 for the last three decades. ...
... Without going back to the science, to ground their IT. [39][40][41] ...
Evolution is both incremental and by step change. Science and Technology follow different entangled harmonic time constants that combine and separate about conjoined surge / stagnate, and invention / innovation logistic curves. These time constants are used to understand how the Science at different discovery levels may interact with Technology, at different readiness levels-and vice versa. This, the first of three papers, examines the adoption of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) as a means of assessing against the science. This gives rise to the adoption of a Scientific Discovery Level (SDL) for subjectively situating TRL. The SDL-TRL Instrument identified allows for objective assessments to be made for situating science and technology. To arrive at the SDL-TRL instrument, historical analysis of previous scientific ages; associated technologies; and human generations is undertaken. This leads into analysis of future scientific ages, with ethical and moral implications for humanity. The next paper will examine uncertainty graph modelling for aiding scientific and technology assessments. The final paper will examine means for translating and operationalising science and technologies into successful capabilities.
... The linkage between the social and knowledge may be confirmed by researching previous scientific and technological ages. In their examination of an earlier scientific age (Parson's Turbines), Jarratt and Clarkson [11] and Reay Atkinson [12] determined a Scientific time constant, after Chen and Yi [13], of 45-50 years for change to reach 95% of its steady state value [10]. They also recognised that within the scientific time constant exist technological time constants (driven by the science) of about 15 years. ...
The Oliver Hazard Perry Class (FFG-7) became the benchmark surface warship design against which subsequent designs, be they Russian, British, Chinese, French, or German, drew their inspiration. Criticised at the time for being underarmed and lacking in redundancy, they were not regarded as being part of President Reagan’s 500 ship Navy. Nonetheless, its conceptual design space (CDS) created a fundamental break with pre-existing designs. Consequently, it was more representative of the Information Age (1970-2015), into which it was conceived and born in the mid-1970s, than the Industrial Age (1920-1965) designs that preceded it.
This paper argues that subsequent designs, including the Littoral and Global Combat Ships (GCS – the British Type 26 Frigate), are essentially optimised versions of the FFG-7. Concomitantly, they have fallen into the Pugh-Augustine trap, whereby fleet numbers halve every 20-25 years. By contrast, examination of submarine build programmes subject to regularly refreshed conceptual designs – including modularised build and construction – show submarine Basic Mass Empty (BME) costs have remained below those of other weapon systems; only increasing at or below historic inflation. In simple terms, submarines have become more affordable, not less, and this is reflected in countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Myanmar actively seeking such capabilities [6]. Theoretically, surface warship BME costs should have kept pace with submarines – but they have not. In actuality, frigate and destroyer numbers have often halved over the same period – unlike submarines, surface warships have become less and not more affordable.
Nearing or at the end of the Information Age, this paper submits that a reconceptualization of the warship design space; shipyards and build techniques – a Revolution in Naval Affairs – is overdue. Only by restoring political, economic and military affordability of ships and potential losses, will usability be restored.
... Loop 1 may be the home of the diplomat, the public servant, the researcher, designer and planner [24]. Loop 1 can be described in terms of its focus upon the methodology, on managing the loop from observation (experimentation, for example) through to orienting the structure appropriately for a decision to be made. ...
This conceptual paper considers Law as different types of network and how an understanding of these networks, at the systems level, might assist in decision making and taking processes necessary for: information assurance; privacy; and, security applications in Law – as may be applied in Cyber through emerging legal networks. We first identify the systems we might be working with before considering Law as a networked ecology. We then look at law beyond existing stable, more certain and ruled jurisdictions and how it might be applied to decision making and taking in Cyber. We consider an example of how law may apply in areas of uncertainty and where existing jurisdictional remits may no longer apply e.g., in stateless jurisdictions. We conclude by considering how Legal Networks may assist in the decision making, taking and social problem solving processes in Cyber and so contribute to system resilience.
... capability but, as a network, can create collective capability and the capacity to endure / pervade [28] over time. As identified by Hossain and Reay Atkinson, et al [1,3,29,45,53,55,56] structure is important to enable interaction between different groups, provide for a variety [27,36] (as opposed to managed diversity) of different thinking, enable problem solving [57], prevent internecine competition (between service level providers, for example) [4] and enable adaptation of the system whole. As Rosabeth Moss Kanter 5 correctly observes: ...
... Rowland [80] considered three groups [56,82,83]. The Positive Deviants represent between 10-15% of the population; the Majority, 60-75% and the Normal Deviants, 20-30% (Rowland, 2006). ...
... Rowland Distribution[56,80,82,83] ...
In this paper, we consider trust as a virtue binding organizations together and providing the necessary [pre]conditions for collaboration, tolerance and civility between different cyber and external communities. We develop this in terms of relational trusts between structures, agents and agency, where we consider agency in terms of its predominant socio-info/techno (collaborative social influence) and info/techno-socio (coordination rule and control) cyber-networks. From this analysis, we examine recent examples of intolerance between cyber and external communities when socially binding trusts, codes and norms of behavior have broken down. To understand why such intolerances may occur, we develop the concept of xenonetworks.
Recent revelations that China has launched multiple new Ro-Pax ferries that could be used as amphibious assault ships against Taiwan have caused consternation among some strategic analysts. The core of this article appeared in Article for ASPI/The Australian Defence supplement, May 2023.
In this paper, we consider transfer entropy and mutual information in terms of their application in the emerging highly interconnected and dynamic synthetic ecologies underpinned by the Cyber. We consider existing models relating to the management of learning and change within organizations and as they may relate to mutual information (MI) and transfer entropy (TE) within socio and info/techno settings, based upon a Mech-Organic perspective. A premise of this paper is that change is costly and that it needs to be seen through a social as well as an info/techno lens. We identify potential improvements to existing models (i.e. for managing change, over time) and applications applied to the management of change by considering alternative models such as transferring knowledge between handovers and how MI and TE may be applied collaboratively within a learning organization.
We suggest that over the last fifty years there may have been a widening gap between the underlying philosophies of the social and physical sciences to the extent that methodology is potentially being mistaken as philosophy even in some cases being used to supplant the philosophy. Lack of a common and connecting philosophy, we suggest, may have created significant biases and sometimes even antagonism between the more social and physical sciences – occasionally to the point of rejection by one methodology (sometimes mistaken / conflated as ‘being’ the underlying philosophy or science) of the other, i.e. the managerial delineation between social and economic research and the engineering, medical and physical sciences.
