A Conceptual Framework Based on Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer to Explore the Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology

This paper explores Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) through the lenses of a theoretical framework that incorporates key concepts from Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer (OoO) with the view of complementing Checkland’s SSM application process. We outline and examine paradigmatic compatibility between: Checkland’s ontological position (reality is problematic/chaotic) together with his interpretivist epistemology (multiple perceptions enrich the ever-changing reality); and Maturana’s OoO (we are immersed in the praxis of living in an ontological multi-universe). We argue that OoO resonates with key SSM theoretical underpinnings. After establishing compatibility between these two influential systems thinkers, we advance a conceptual framework in which Checkland’s SSM learning process is re-visited through a the framework grounded on Maturana’s OoO. The proposed framework illustrates how key ideas drawn from Maturana’s OoO can shed light into the way in which some of the main SSM devices (i.e.: Root definitions, Conceptual model) are used in the SSM process. By doing that, SSM is enriched and becomes more flexible as the stakeholders involved are placed within the domain of constitutive ontologies from which, a deeper dialogue can be promoted in a domain of coexistence in mutual acceptance. We argue that this is a suitable way to have more flexible and holistic views for a SSM intervention in particular to promote the learning process and debating proposed changes amongst the stakeholders involved. The proposed framework, when applied, may enhance the power of SSM learning process and when adopted can have substantial implications to complement the SSM process.

     

How Local Participation in National Planning Creates New Development Opportunities

This study looks into the role of participation in influencing the adaptation of national policies to generate local economic development opportunities. The main question put forward is: What are the preconditions for creating new local development opportunities in a national state’s government planning process? The subject of the study is a planning process for the designation of a national park in the southwestern part of Norway. The analysis looks into three factors from the perspective of power: the mobilization and power base development of local stakeholders, the planning authority’s intention and structure for participation and change, and how conflicts are handled in the dialogue arenas. The conclusion with respect to regional innovation literature is that local stakeholders could make a difference by articulating both power over and power with and that conflicts may be useful if the planning authority takes the participants’ claims seriously by showing compromise or allowing integration of interests. From such preconditions new local economic opportunities could be created by collaboration.     

CONFLICT ANALYSIS OF CITARUM RIVER BASIN POLLUTION IN INDONESIA： A DRAMA-THEORETIC MODEL

The need to manage water resource within a holistic approach is crucial in Indonesia. Conflict situation which involves a variety of stakeholder needs an appropriate methodology to handle it. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated framework of a river basin pollution case in Indonesia. This research try to obtain an understanding of the complexity of inter-relationship between stakeholders of the Citarum River Basin and to give feasible recommendations based on a new developed integrated framework. We first describe the problem in a comprehensive way, then develop a framework to analyze the conflict. Next, we propose a general procedure to apply it, which we call Drama-theoretic Dilemma Analysis (DtDA). After analyzing the conflicts that arise there between stakeholders using DtDA, we will show how to resolve the dilemmas by using holistic as well as intensive approaches. By applying DtDA in stakeholder analysis and resolving the dilemmas that arise in the interactions between them, we can identify barriers for collaboration.     

Action Research for Sustainable Water Futures in Western Sydney: Reaching Beyond Traditional Stakeholder Engagement to Understand Community Stakeholder Language and Its Implications for Action

Action on issues of ecological significance often requires changes in personal behaviour and political consensus on technologies to support these changes. Unfortunately, many consultation processes only engage a narrow range of stakeholders, usually those professionally engaged or already active on a range of community issues. This paper illustrates how people who are ‘hard to reach’ or seen as ‘apathetic’ might be engaged using ‘action-conversations’ that explore the social climate for action and how scientific/technical messages can be framed in the language of the community.     

高泉小流域生态恢复的水土效益评价研究

依据生态经济学原理,采用层次分析法,建立了高泉小流域生态恢复的水土效益评价指标体系和评价模型。根据指标体系和评价模型对研究区的坡地、梯田的草地、林地和农田等不同类型土地进行生态恢复的水土效益进行评价。评价结果为：高泉小流域生态恢复的水土效益指数为44．819。其水土效益排序指数排序为：土壤养分效益〉林草地生态恢复效益〉土壤水分含量效益〉农田土地生产力效益。总的研究结果表明：生态恢复治理措施对农田土地生产力和土壤水分效果较之于土壤养分和林草地植被恢复效益来说低,这种评价结果比较符合当地实际。也说明该小流域通过治理后,生态恢复还处于初始阶段。图1,表2,参7。     

Examining Conditions that Influence Evaluation use within a Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organization in Burkina Faso (West Africa)

Program evaluation can support capacity building and inform practice and policy. Yet long-term efforts to ensure evaluation use (EU) in the humanitarian sector are seldom documented, leaving much uncertainty about EU conditions. This study examined conditions that influenced EU by stakeholders of a humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) in Burkina Faso striving to base its health care program on solid evidence. It used 36 qualitative semi-structured interviews and a single case study design to document stakeholders’ (n?=?26) perception of EU conditions. Analyses focussed on characteristics of five broad conditions of research use previously documented. Results demonstrate that EU was facilitated by intended users with proactive attitudes, research experience, and willingness to participate in program evaluations. Also helpful was an organizational culture that valued learning, feedback, and accountability, wherein leaders collaborated toward common goals. Evaluation-based knowledge that met information needs and that was actionable, contextualized, and quickly accessible enhanced EU. Knowledge transfer strategies promoting EU were diverse, participatory, adapted to needs, and regularly followed up. Evaluators who were trusted, experienced, credible, and adaptable, promoted EU most effectively. Conversely, EU was compromised when intended users felt distrusting, uninformed, or unable to engage in program evaluations. Knowledge contradicting expectations or deemed inapplicable impeded EU. Adapting knowledge transfer strategies required time and interactions. Initially, evaluations were not sufficiently adapted and put into plain language, which hampered EU. EU conditions are numerous and intricately interrelated, but interpersonal relationships, trust, and effective communication are key conditions for evaluators and stakeholders wishing to promote EU.

     

黑龙江生态省建设的思考

从黑龙江省的实际情况出发,概述了自然资源、生态环境背景和在国民经济中的地位,阐明了生态省建设的方向、原则和生态产业体系、生态城市（镇）环境、生态新农村建设及资源环境保护与复原的重点内容,提出了实施生态省建设的保障措施。     

三江自然保护区生态建设与替代生计选择研究

在理清了生态建设和替代生计的概念基础上,分析了两者之间的关系,认为生态建设的实施是寻求替代生计的动力因素,替代生计的实施可以为生态建设提供保障和支持,可以消除生态建设所产生的负面影响,解决经济社会问题.通过时三江自然保护区的现状问题分析,提出退耕还湿、退耕还草和设施建设工程3项促进三江自然保护区湿地良性发展的生态建设内容和生态移民、传统农业改造和多元化产业发展的替代生计模式.图2,参13.     

基于速度障碍法的飞行冲突网络建模与分析

由于依据航空器相对位置关系构建的复杂网络模型未考虑速度、航向等信息, 对航空器之间的冲突和空中交通的复杂情况反映能力有限。为解决这一问题, 使用速度障碍模型优化飞行状态网络中航空器节点之间的连边和权重, 在考虑航空器位置临近的同时, 关注航空器的航向与速度状态, 使网络能够反映出更多空域系统的内禀属性。通过程序仿真和长水机场雷达数据进行验证, 结果表明，该模型相较于飞行状态网络能够更加准确地反映航空器之间的冲突关系和空域的复杂信息, 减少飞行冲突的虚警数量, 提升网络的信息价值。     

引入生态修复技术的太湖流域生态补偿方案

针对生物膜法、活性污泥法等适用于点源污染治理的技术无法有效解决面源污染的问题,引入生态修复技术,选取美人蕉作为修复植物,构建了太湖流域污染治理生态补偿模型。并以2005年太湖流域COD削减为例进行分析,结果显示:通过生态补偿方案激励太湖流域苏浙沪各地区合作治污可降低流域治理成本约5%,引入生态修复技术可进一步降低合作治污成本约12%;引入生态修复技术后,为促进苏浙沪各地区合作治污,提升整个流域的治理效率,应建立流域地区间生态补偿机制,太湖流域实证研究确定了地区之间的补偿标准:浙江省对江苏省、上海市的COD生态补偿价格为6648.30元/吨、8164.21元/吨。     

A Systemic Model for Managing and Evaluating Conflicts in Organizational Change

Change or innovation diffusion is a key issue for most business organizations but is yet difficult to implement as the change management process is often complex as it relies on an organized methodology to complement an organization’s commitment and participation. An ambiguous environment surrounding change mechanism tends to develop unintended attitudes, resulting in resistance and conflict. The study proposes a model for the management of such conflicts among change participants (involved and affected) in the context of organizational change. The authors consider organizational change process as an innovation project that treats change and conflicts holistically with the Ulrich’s notion of boundary considerations (boundary critique). A social network setting of multiple stakeholders is considered to effectively help in resolving problematic situations that hinder organizational learning and change. The proposed model provides a theoretical foundation based on concepts governing Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH), change theory, stakeholder theory and conflict management.     

Ethical Problem Solving and Systems Theory: The Complexity Connection

No matter what the present success in straightening out difficulties and harmonizing conflicts, it is certain that problems will recur in the future in a new form or on a different plane. Indeed, every genuine accomplishment instead of winding up an affair and enclosing it as a jewel in a casket for future contemplation complicates the practical situation. . . . From the side of what has gone before the achievement settles something. From the side of what comes after, it complicates, introducing new problems, unsettling factors. (John Dewey)     

Interactive Management: An Emancipatory Methodology

An erosion of the power of people and their communities to control any more than a fragment of their future continues. Educational and governmental policy decisions are, for the most part, mandated from above and/or outside the community. This paper introduces a model which reflects Freire's humanizing pedagogy. This method is a vehicle, an avenue of empowerment for people and their communities to control their own destiny and the future of their community. The model is Interactive Management (IM) and its derivative, The CogniScope System. IM is a specialized system of management using collaborative teamwork to define and resolve highly complex issues. The process includes the integration of the diversity of perceptions of the participants with regard to the given ssues, builds consensus and joint ownership of the process and/or product, and creates a collaborative action plan to accomplish the participants' goals. The principal intangible outcome of the process, however, is the reflective participation, which leads to action, and the learning that occurs among the community of stakeholders present. The process of Interactive Management (IM), enhanced through the use of the CogniScope System, is described and examples of its application by First Nation peoples are shared.     

Systems Pluralism in Infrastructure Decision-Making for Socially Connected Greenfield Communities

The problem in planning for relevant infrastructure in new communities is that the community doesn’t yet exist and is not engaged in the planning process. As such, planners draw on available housing and demographic information and essentially ‘best guess’ the future community’s infrastructure and social connection needs. This situation spotlights a gap in the planning literature concerning ways to ‘better determine’ a future community’s infrastructures that enable social connection between residents. In seeking to help address that knowledge gap, the purpose of this paper is to theoretically argue for the process of and illustrate the value of, pursuing a hybrid systems thinking approach to the identification and deployment of the physical infrastructures that may help better facilitate the social connectedness of a future community in new greenfield development areas. This approach combines aspects of Soft systems methodology and system dynamics. Such a process informs the development of a decision support model for Planners’ that incorporates multiple user perspectives in these local planning decisions and contributes to the structural advancement of socially connected communities.     

资源、环境与产业转型的复合生态管理

中国环境污染与生态破坏问题的症结在于管理问题 ,其实质是资源代谢在时间、空间尺度上的滞留或耗竭 ,系统耦合在结构、功能关系上的破碎和板结 ,社会行为在经济和生态管理上的冲突和失调 .生态管理科学旨在运用系统工程的手段和生态学原理去探讨这类复合生态系统的动力学机制和控制论方法 ,协调人与自然、经济与环境、局部与整体间在时间、空间、数量、结构、序理间的系统耦合关系 ,使资源得以高效利用 ,人与自然高度和谐 ,环境经济持续发展 .为解决国家、地区及部门重大生态环境问题提供决策支持、科学依据和管理方法 .复合生态系统管理的热点是生态资产、生态健康和生态服务功能管理 .应用生态管理学包括产业生态管理 ,城镇生态管理和区域生态管理 .综述了当前国内外区域生命支持系统管理和产业转型的生态管理方法 ,如生命周期分析、生态足迹分析等 .     

A Systemic Framework to Develop Sustainable Engineering Solutions in Rural Communities in Colombia

In several rural areas in Colombia there is a serious lack of water quality supply. Thereby the problematic situation is understood as complex one that involves stakeholders with pluralistic interests, multiple variables and requires the development of sustainable and suitable solutions. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an integration of engineering design framework (CDIO) with a systemic approach. Particularly the approach emphasizes on systemic elements such as autonomy, systems within systems, cooperation between stakeholders and cause effect relations; it also proposes a previous observing phase for engineering design framework. Thus the proposed systemic framework aims to generate projects that improve living conditions in rural communities and promote the production of knowledge between the stakeholders to ensure sustainability in the long term. To illustrate the proposal, this work contains a case study that discusses a project carried out by a research team—Ingenieros Sin Fronteras Colombia—in a rural district near to Colombia’s capital. The experience, which involved and benefited 16 families in the community, provided strong evidence to support the proposed framework. The paper concludes with a discussion about the replication of this proposal in other contexts.     

Aggregation in intersection region for distributed heterogeneous mobile sensor networks

This paper presents two aggregation strategies in convex intersection region for the distributed mobile sensor network (MSN) with heterogeneous dynamics. First, the authors analyze individual local perception model and dynamics model, set the intersection of all the local perceptions as the region of interest (ROI). The MSN consists of sensors with first-order dynamics and second-order dynamics. Then, the authors design a control strategy to ensure that individuals aggregate at a point in the ROI relying on their local perceptions and the locations of neighbors within their communication scope. The authors describe this situation of aggregation as rendezvous. In addition, the authors introduce artificial potential field to make sensors deploy dispersedly in a bounded range near the ROI, which the authors call dispersed deployment. Finally, the authors prove the stability of the proposed strategies and validate the theoretical results by simulations. This research is applied for the cooperative deployment and data collection of mobile platforms with different dynamics under the condition of inaccurate perception.     

危机态势语义信息模型研究

危机模拟时，当用软件代理扮演危机中的决策方进行危机决策时，以一种计算机程序可以理解的信息模式描述危机态势就成为危机模拟系统的关键。首先从分析危机态势所包含的基本内容入手，对危机态势进行了界定，然后以本体论为理论基础，提出了具有形式化语义表达能力的描述危机态势的信息模式，即危机态势语义信息模型，最后以XML和Schema为技术手段，探讨了实现危机态势语义信息模型的方法和途径。     

Warfare command stratagem analysis for winning based on Lanchester attrition models

Lanchester equations and their extensions are widely used to calculate attrition in warfare models. The current paper addresses the warfare command decision-making problem for winning when the total combats capability of the attacking side is not superior to that of the defending side.For this problem,the corresponding warfare command stratagems,which can transform the battlefield situation, are proposed and analyzed quantitatively by considering the influence of the warfare information factor.The application examples in military conflicts show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and the warfare command stratagems for winning.The research results may provide a theoretical reference for warfare command decision making.     

Participatory Demographic Scenarios Addressing Uncertainty and Transformative Change in Ethiopia

Projections on future population trends provide important decision support, however are confronted with high uncertainty. In contexts of low data quality, missing and contradicting knowledge on drivers of change, such as in many developing countries, participatory scenarios can support the quality of assumptions needed for quantitative projections. We present a scenario approach designed for contexts of uncertain and missing demographic data and illiteracy, which was successfully tested in three study sites in North-West Ethiopia. The four qualitative scenarios for 2030 supported the inter-subjective definition of assumptions for the calculations, which were again validated by members of the rural communities. We argue that the participation process has resulted in more robust and context-specific projections. The collaborative work on the local drivers of demographic change between science and society provided a valuable space for social learning, so that local stakeholders could identify the need for and scope of local mitigation or adaptation measures to demographic transformation.