A Measure for Integration and Its Application to Sensor Networks

7 Pages Posted: 14 Oct 2012 Last revised: 21 Feb 2017

See all articles by Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business

Stephan Olariu

Old Dominion University

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

Nickerson, Jeffrey V. and Olariu, Stephan, A Measure for Integration and Its Application to Sensor Networks (August 21, 2005). Nickerson, J. V. and Olariu, S., A Measure for Integration and its Application to Sensor Networks, Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems (WITS), 2005, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2150441

Jeffrey V. Nickerson (Contact Author)

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business ( email )

Hoboken, NJ 07030
United States

Stephan Olariu

Old Dominion University ( email )

Norfolk, VA 23529-0222
United States

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