Utility-service provision as an example of a complex system

AbstractUtility-service provision is a process in which products are transformed by appropriate devices into services satisfying human needs and wants. Utility products required for these transformations are usually delivered to households via separate infrastructures, i.e., real-world networks such as, e.g., electricity grids and water distribution systems. However, provision of utility products in appropriate quantities does not itself guarantee that the required services will be delivered because the needs satisfaction task requires not only utility products but also fully functional devices. Utility infrastructures form complex networks and have been analysed as such using complex network theory. However, little research has been conducted to date on integration of utilities and associated services within one complex network. This paper attempts to fill this gap in knowledge by modelling utility-service provision within a household with a hypergraph in which products and services are represented with nodes whilst devices are hyperedges spanning between them. Since devices usually connect more than two nodes, a standard graph would not suffice to describe utility-service provision problem and therefore a hypergraph was chosen as a more appropriate representation of the system. This paper first aims to investigate the properties of hypergraphs, such as cardinality of nodes, betweenness, degree distribution, etc. Additionally, it shows how these properties can be used while solving and optimizing utility-service provision problem, i.e., constructing a so-called transformation graph. The transformation graph is a standard graph in which nodes represent the devices, storages for products, and services, while edges represent the product or service carriers. Construction of different transformation graphs to a defined utility-service provision problem is presented in the paper to show how the methodology is applied to generate possible solutions to provision of services to households under given local conditions, requirements and constraints.(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionUtility-service provision is a process in which utility products such as water, electricity, food, etc. are delivered to households to satisfy basic human needs such as nutrition, adequate quantity and quality of water, thermal comfort, and wants such as leisure. These products can either be delivered via infrastructure or produced locally, e.g., electricity can be produced from sunlight using solar panels or water can be harvested from rainwater and subsequently treated to drinking water standards1.Utility infrastructures such as power grids, water and gas pipelines, or transportation and communication systems can be considered as complex networks with similar topological and dynamic properties to the World Wide Web2 that additionally depend on the traffic and the pattern of connections. We can divide such complex networks into four categories, originally proposed by Newmars:* Social networks in which a set of people form patterns of contacts or interactions, e.g., friendships,thematic groups, mutual likes and hobbies, etc.;* Information networks, otherwise referred to as knowledge networks, e.g., the network of citations between academic papers or the World Wide Web where web pages are linked via hyperlinks pointing from one page to another;* Biological networks such as the food web, in which nodes represent species in an ecosystem and directed edges between two nodes indicate that the former species prays on the latter one4;* Technological networks designed for distribution of some commodity or resource, e.g., information, water, electricity, etc.; such networks are the main focus of this paper.Utility-service provision can be considered as a technological network and analyzed as such since its main objective is to deliver different utility products to households and then convert these utility products using different devices into services in order to satisfy basic human needs and wants. …