A Measure for Integration and Its Application to Sensor Networks
7 Pages Posted: 14 Oct 2012 Last revised: 21 Feb 2017
Date Written: August 21, 2005
Abstract
Systems are often designed in order to integrate various subsystems. While system designers have a tacit understanding of what integration is, the concept is difficult to formalize. In this paper we propose a measure of integration. In the case of pairwise integration, we suggest a function of the time to communicate information, which is related to latency. Considering integration across many subsystems in a network, we describe a measure of overall network utility, a sum of an exponential function of pairwise time-to-communicate measurements. This allows a measure of the integration of already integrated subsystems; this function is also consistent at the limit with Metcalfe’s law. We consider the application of this measure to the integration of sensor networks. We suggest how the idea might be applied to higher level systems.
Keywords: integration, latency, sensor networks, organizations
JEL Classification: C61, D81
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation