Information About

Resilience




Resilience generally means the ability to recover from (or to resist being affected by) some shock, insult, or disturbance. However, it is used quite differently in different fields.


MATERIALS

In Physics and Engineering , resilience is defined as the capacity of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed Elastically and then, upon unloading to have this energy recovered. In other words, it is the maximum energy per volume that can be elastically stored. It is represented by the area under the curve in the elastic region in the Stress-Strain diagram.

Modulus of Resilience, U_r, can be calculated using the following formula: U_r= rac{\sigma^2}{2E}=0.5\sigma\epsilon=0.5 \sigma( rac{\sigma}{E}), where \sigma is Yield Stress , E is Young's Modulus , and \epsilon is Strain .

An example of a Biomaterial which has a high resilience is articular Cartilage , the substance lining the ends of Bone s in articulating Joints such as the Knee and Hip .


NETWORK

"Resilience is the ability of the network to provide and maintain an acceptable level of Service in the face of various ''' Faults ''' and '''challenges''' to ''' Normal Operation '''.

Resilient networks aim to provide acceptable Service to applications:
  • ability for users and applications to access information when needed, e.g.:

  • --- Web browsing

  • --- distributed database access

  • --- sensor monitoring

  • --- situational awareness

  • maintenance of end-to-end communication association, e.g.:

  • --- computer-supported cooperative work

  • --- video conference

  • --- teleconference (including VoIP calls)

  • operation of distributed processing and networked storage, e.g.:

  • --- ability for distributed processes to communicate with one another

  • --- ability for processes to read and write networked storage

  • Note that resilience is a superset of Survivability ."The ResiliNets Research Initiative definition of '''resilience'''.Abdul Jabbar Mohammad, David Hutchison, and James P.G. Sterbenz

" Poster: Towards Quantifying Metrics for Resilient and Survivable Networks ", ''14th IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP 2006)'', Santa Barbara, California, USA, November 2006



ECOLOGY

In Ecology , resilience has been defined in two competing fashions that emphasize two different aspects of stability. The consequences of those different aspects for ecological systems were first emphasized by the Canadian ecologist C. S. Holling in order to draw attention to Tradeoff s between efficiency on the one hand and persistence on the other, or between constancy and change, or between predictability and unpredictability. It is defined by the Resilience Alliance as "the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes. A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary. Resilience in social systems has the added capacity of humans to anticipate and plan for the future." Resilence is conferred in human and ecological Systems by Adaptive Capacity .

One definition of resilience is the rate at which a system returns to a single steady or cyclic state following a Perturbation . This definition of resilience assumes that behavior of a system remains within the stable domain that contains this steady state.

When a system can reorganize, that is shift from one stability domain to another, a more relevant measure of ecosystem dynamics is ecological resilience. It is a measure of the amount of change or disruption that is required to transform a system from being maintained by one set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures to a different set of processes and structures.

The first definition focuses on efficiency, control, constancy, and predictability - all attributes at the core of desires for fail-safe design and optimal performance. The second focuses on persistence, adaptiveness, variability, and unpredictability - all attributes embraced and celebrated by those with an Evolution ary or developmental perspective. The latter attributes are at the heart of understanding sustainability.

The first definition, which is more traditional, concentrates on stability near an equilibrium steady-state, where resistance to disturbance and speed of return to the equilibrium are used to measure the property. This type of resilience has been defined as engineering resilience.

The second definition emphasizes conditions far from any steady-states, where instabilities can flip a system into another regime of behavior - i.e. to another stability domain. In this case resilience is measured by the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before the system changes its structure by changing the variables and processes that control behavior. This type of resilience has been defined as ecological resilience.

These two aspects of a system's stability have very different consequences for evaluating, understanding and managing complexity and change. Sustainable relationships between people and nature require an emphasis on ecological resilience, because the interplay between stabilizing and destabilizing properties is at the heart of present issues of development and the environment- global change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem restoration and sustainable development. Emphasis on engineering resilience reinforces the dangerous myth that the variability of natural systems can be effectively controlled, that the consequences are predictable and that sustained production is an attainable and sustainable goal.

The two contrasting aspects of stability- essentially one that focuses on maintaining efficiency of function (engineering resilience) vs. one that focuses on maintaining existence of function (ecological resilience)- are so fundamental that they can become alternative paradigms whose devotees reflect traditions of a discipline or of an attitude more than of a reality of nature.

Resilience under stress is trustworthiness under all circumstances of use. When used in the system of systems of industry sectors that comprise the critical infrastructure, the essential indicator of resilience is the set of coordinated and dependable recovery recovery time objectives.


INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL SAFETY

Within the broad domain of industrial safety, the term resilience has come into use to emphasise that safety must be proactive as well as reactive. Whereas conventional risk management approaches are based on hindsight and emphasise error tabulation and calculation of failure probabilities, '''Resilience Engineering''' looks for ways to enhance the ability of organisations to create processes that are robust yet flexible, to monitor and revise risk models, and to use resources proactively in the face of disruptions or ongoing production and economic pressures. In Resilience Engineering failures do not stand for a breakdown or malfunctioning of normal system functions, but rather represent the converse of the adaptations necessary to cope with the real world complexity. Individuals and organisations must always adjust their performance to the current conditions; and because resources and time are finite it is inevitable that such adjustments are approximate. Success has been ascribed to the ability of groups, individuals, and organisations to anticipate the changing shape of risk before damage occurs; failure is simply the temporary or permanent absence of that.


PSYCHOLOGY

See Also: Psychological resilience


Resilience (or "'''psychological resilience'''") is a term used in Psychology to describe the capacity of people to Cope with Stress and Catastrophe . It is also used to indicate a characteristic of resistance to future negative events. This psychological meaning of resilience is often contrasted with "risk factors".


ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS

Economic resilience is the ability of a local economy to retain function, employment and prosperity in the face of the Perturbation caused by the shock of the loss of a particular type of local Industry or employer. Communities with resilient economies find that the loss of an employer results in rapid reabsorbtion of workers made redundant by the closure of an Enterprise or industry into new, and frequently more satisfying and stable employment than before.

In business terms, resilience is the ability of an Organization , resource, or structure to sustain the impact of a business interruption and recover and resume its operations to continue to provide minimum services.

Economic and business resilience, according to the Resilience Alliance, is enhanced "when the management of a resource is shared by a diverse group of stakeholders (e.g., local resource users, research scientists, community members with traditional knowledge, government representatives, etc.), decision-making is better informed and more options exist for testing policies. Active adaptive management whereby management actions are designed as experiments encourages learning and novelty, thus increasing resilience in social-ecological systems."


SEE ALSO



REFERENCES


  • Robert B. Cairns and Beverley D. Cairns. 1995. ''Lifelines and Risks: Pathways of Youth in Our Time''. . ISBN 0-521-48570-3

  • Ray Hilborn and Carl J. Walters. 1992. ''Quantitative Fisheries Stock Assessment: Choice, Dynamics and Uncertainty ''. London: Chapman and Hall. ISBN 0-412-02271-0. pp. 63-64.

  • Gunderson, L. & CS Holling, editors. 2002. Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington, DC.

  • Hollnagel, E., Woods, D. D. & Leveson, N. G. 2006. Resilience engineering: Concepts and precepts. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-4641-6



EXTERNAL LINKS

Ecology:

  • The Resilience Alliance is a research network that focuses on social-ecological resilience

  • "Resilience," a short (encyclopedic) article coauthored by Holling in pdf


  • "Resilience, adaptability and transformability" a concise article coauthored by Walker, Holling, Carpenter and Kinzig outlining the three inter-related attributes of systems that determine their capacity to respond to external shocks {Link without Title}


Engineering:


Psychology: