Research Motivation

Smart cities, regions, and nations require convergence research that address the interdependent societal challenges of the Anthropocene era.  This research theme represents a concerted effort to converge the knowledge, methods, and results of the other research themes across spatial and temporal scales.  We are particularly interested in systems where two or more intelligent engineering systems are integrated together.

We have made contributions in three areas:

For further details, please explore the LIINES Publication Repository  and the Hetero-functional Graph Theory page. 

 

Thought Leadership

Earth Systems to Anthropocene Systems: An Evolutionary, System- of-Systems, Convergence Paradigm for Interdependent Societal Challenges (2023):  In this work, Prof. Farid teams up with an international team to forcefully advocate for a system-of-systems convergence paradigm to address the interdependent societal challenges of the Anthropocene. 

Smart City Drivers and Challenges in Energy and Water Systems (2020):  Led by Prof. Farid, the IEEE Smart Cities Research and Development Committee outlines the drivers and challenges for two important smart city application domains. 

Smart City Drivers and Challenges in Urban Mobility, Healthcare and Interdependent Infrastructure Systems (2020):  Led by Prof. Farid, the IEEE Smart Cities Research and Development Committee outlines the drivers and challenges for three important smart city application domains. 

Designing Patient‐Oriented Healthcare Services as Systems of Systems (2018):  Led by Prof. Inas Khayal, this work describes the use of systems-of-systems engineering principles to design patient-oriented healthcare services in a manner that classic services do not model. 

Designing Smart Cities for Citizen Health and Well‐being (2017):  Led by Prof. Inas Khayal, this work describes how systems-of-systems engineering may be used to design smart cities that explicitly take into consideration health factors to social and physical environments. 

The Need for Systems Tools in the Practice of Clinical Medicine (2016): Led by Prof. Inas Khayal, this work emphasizes the need for model-based systems engineering tools in the practice of clinical medicine as it transitions to personalized healthcare delivery systems.

Data & Analysis and Methods

Hetero-functional Network Minimum Cost Flow Optimization: A Hydrogen-Natural Gas Network Example  (2023):  Led by Dr. Wester Schoonenberg, this work generalizes the well-known network minimum cost flow optimization model to hetero-functional networks and demonstrates it on an hydrogen-natural gas network example. 

Reconciling Formal, Multi-layer, and Hetero-functional Graphs with the Hetero-functional Incidence Tensor  (2022):  In this work, the LIINES answers doubts as to similarities and differences between formal, multi-layer, and hetero-functional graphs.  In so doing, it explains where hetero-functional graphs are required relative to formal and multi-layer graphs. 

A Tensor-Based Formulation of Hetero-functional Graph Theory  (2022):  Led by Prof. Farid, this provides the first tensor-based treatment of hetero-functional graph theory.  In so doing, it proves that hetero-functional graphs have fewer modeling constraints than multi-layer networks.  It also provides computationally efficient methods for the construction and use.    

Evaluating Engineering System Interventions (2022): Led by Dr. Wester Schoonenberg, this work presents a holistic understanding how to best evaluate interventions into engineering systems of various types.

Healthcare System Design (2021): Led by Prof. Khayal, this textbook chapter introduces engineers to design considerations for healthcare systems.

A Dynamic System Model for Personalized Healthcare Delivery and Managed Individual Health Outcomes (2021): Building on the 2017, this work uses hetero-functional graph theory to understand the dynamics of healthcare delivery systems in concert with the evolution of patients’ health.

Design of Large Engineering Systems (2021): This textbook chapter introduces engineers to the fundamentals of designing “in the large” relative to traditional design activities “in the small”.

A Hetero-functional Graph Theory for Modeling Interdependent Smart City Infrastructure (2019): This book presents a hetero-functional graph theory that explicitly recognizes the heterogeneity and hetero-functionality found in interdependent smart city infrastructure applications.

Architecting a System Model for Personalized Healthcare Delivery and Managed Individual Health Outcomes (2017): Building upon recent work in mass-customized production systems and applying hetero-functional graph theory, this work presents an architectural model for personalized healthcare delivery systems.

Axiomatic Design in Large Systems: Complex Products, Buildings, and Manufacturing Systems (2016): This book emphasizes that applicability of Axiomatic Design to large systems including complex products, buildings, and manufacturing systems.

An Engineering Systems Introduction to Axiomatic Design (2016): This work explicitly shows the methodological origins of hetero-functional graph theory in Axiomatic Design and goes on to explain how the two can be applied to the engineering systems field.

An Application of Quality Function Deployment and Axiomatic Design to the Conceptual Design of Temporary Housing (2016): This work recognizes the worst ongoing refugee crisis in history and applies QFD and Axiomatic Design to produce a temporary housing design.

Static Resilience of Large Flexible Engineering Systems (2014): This work presents how hetero-functional graph theory can be used to calculate resilience measures for large flexible engineering systems with explicit heterogeneity.

Case Studies

A Hetero‐functional Graph Structural Analysis of the American Multi‐modal Energy System (2022): Led by Dakota Thompson, this work conducts the first-even asset-level granularity structure analysis of American Multi-modal Energy System.  Using hetero-functional graph theory, it shows quantitatively that without outside intervention incumbent energy technologies will be systematically favored creating infrastructure lock-in that impedes the sustainable energy transformation. 

Axiomatic Design Based Volatility Assessment of the Abu Dhabi Healthcare Labor Market (2015): In this work, we showed that as the Emirate of Abu Dhabi has developed in recent decades, its ability to retain its healthcare labor capital has significantly degraded. Further case studies can be found in the smart power grid, hydrogen-energy-water nexus, and electrified-transportation systems  research themes.