The Acceptance and Progress in Argentina of Multi-Modal Systems Thinking for Community Development

This article describes the acceptance and development of multi-modal systems thinking in Argentina in the last 5 years, both in theory and in practice. On the theoretical side, we show the efforts made to provide compatible epistemological doctrines for different modalities, starting with ethics and aesthetics. This took place first through the phenomenology of values and more recently in the context of Christian existentialism and continuing later on with the study of the relationship among other modalities. On the practical side, we describe the applications of this framework to study the so-called “crisis of the Argentine countryside”. This is a conflict between the community of farmers, the national government and the present situation with cattle producers. Other applications include a programme to teach action-research and projects related to abandoned children and education in indigenous communities.     

A Systemic Indicators Framework for Sustainable Rural Community Development

Systemic Practice and Action Research - Community indicators have been of special interest to scholars worldwide, because of their vital role in community development. Nevertheless, the best way to...     

可持续发展的系统探析

实现社会可持续发展的战略,离不开系统观的指导。持续性本身就体现了客观事物系统的联系、系统的作用、系统的整体性等不可违背的客观规律。因此,必须探索、概括可持续发展的系统观,认识其重要的意义和作用。     

Enhancing Emancipatory Systems Methodologies for Sustainable Development

Our interest lies in applying the principles of critical systems thinking to human activity systems in developing countries in situations where issues of natural resource sustainability constrain the feasible set of long-term strategies. The concept of sustainable development provides an expanded domain for critical systems thinking. The fundamental values underpinning sustainable development are that both intragenerational and intergenerational equity are important. As a consequence, key stakeholders are often excluded from power-sharing within current social systems. Addressing these issues requires renewed focus on emancipatory commitment and methodologies. To date, Ulrich's critical systems heuristics is the only critical systems methodology that offers practicable tools for emancipation. A case study analysis in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, provides insights in relation to the application of critical system heuristics to issues of sustainable development and highlights the need to extend the use of critical systems heuristics beyond the design and monitoring of structured interventions.     

探讨复杂系统中的群体结构

为探讨恰当划分复杂系统群体蛄构的新方法，提出了改进边介数法。在对网络实例空手道俱乐部的研究中，将谊方法与传统社会学聚类方法和GN算法进行了对照比较。其实证结果表明了谊方法对于正确分析系统的群体结构的有效性。     

Multi-Modal Systems Thinking and a Self-Study of Teaching Reform: Realizing the Ethical Mode of Being

I describe multi-modal systems thinking in the context of my qualitative investigation of the influence of open discourse on technicism in a University Business Computing Course. I discontinued the research on realizing, through a reflective self study, influenced by my reading of the multi-modal thinking of the Amsterdam School, that I had acted unethically. I thus changed my research and my teaching practice. I note that this approach has recently been incorporated into systems thinking in the work of J. R. D. de Raadt, whose university informatics teaching reform, informed by the "way of the prophet," resonates with my reforms.     

从系统论看可持续发展理论

可持续发展观包含着丰富的系统思想 ,从系统论的角度分析了可持续发展理论 ,揭示了可持续发展观的系统本质     

Community Development and Renaissance Social Humanism: Some Lessons for Systems Science

Starting from the crisis in our communities—research has indicated it to be widely spread—the author explores the scientific tradition preceding the rise of modernism in order to draw out a more humane way of thinking that may help our contemporary societies. He discerns between two types of Renaissance humanism, one characterised by its cleverness, the other by its compassion and desire to restore dignity to the lives of people struggling to escape the clutches of medievalism. The father of the latter is Erasmus of Rotterdam and we follow the development of his conception of a social humanism as it branches out, through the work of his successors, into every scientific discipline, both natural and human. These disciplines are united by an embracing systemic idea of philosophy that unites the mind with the heart and which Erasmus called “Philosophia Christi”. We examine the two main pillars upon which this philosophy is built, love for our neighbour and education as the only legitimate instrument to change society, and the extraordinary impact it had on science and on communities living in the seventeenth century. We contrast this with the idea of power, the chosen instrument of modernity to transform society, and trace some of its tragic outcomes. We conclude by discussing the incorporation of an Erasmian type of social humanism into systems education and the future development of such programmes.     

Normative Evaluation of Community Projects: A Multimodal Systems Approach

This paper introduces an evaluation method for community projects based on the multimodal systems approach. The method differs from the common mechanistic approach to evaluation in four ways. Firstly, it uses the long-term life (viability) of a community as the ultimate criteria of evaluation. Secondly, it is normative; that is, it focuses on the responsibility of people to their own community and for managing their own lives. Thirdly, it is dynamic; it identifies factors that threaten a community and examines their dynamic link and long-term impact on the community. Fourthly, it evaluates the adequacy of a community activity (good practice) to help ensure its long-term viability. The method is illustrated with a European Union sponsored project.     

论城市社区发展的系统观

从系统理论观点出发，将社区作为社会大系统中的子系统，论述了城市社区发展与社区系统的整体优化、社区发展与社区结构功能的耦合、社区发展与社区内部调节机制的关系。探讨了我国城市社区发展存在和亟待解决的问题。     

Intersections of Critical Systems Thinking and Community Based Participatory Research: A Learning Organization Example with the Autistic Community

Critical systems thinking (CST) and community based participatory research (CBPR) are distinct approaches to inquiry which share a primary commitment to holism and human emancipation, as well as common grounding in critical theory and emancipatory and pragmatic philosophy. This paper explores their intersections and complements on a historical, philosophical, and theoretical level, and then proposes a hybrid approach achieved by applying CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice to traditional systems thinking frameworks and practices. This hybrid approach is illustrated in practice with examples drawn from of the implementation of the learning organization model in an action research setting with the Autistic community. Our experience of being able to actively attend to, and continuously equalize, power relations within an organizational framework that otherwise has great potential for reinforcing power inequity suggests CBPR’s principles and considerations for operationalizing emancipatory practice could be useful in CST settings, and CST’s vocabulary, methods, and clarity around systems thinking concepts could be valuable to CBPR practitioners.     

基于综合方法的区域可持续发展指标体系选择

在对区域可持续发展指标体系的选取原则、指标选择的定性及定量分析技术进行探讨的基础上,结合上海市某区的区情,基于环境-经济-社会模式,通过专家咨询定性地确定了该区可持续发展指标原始数据库(共70个指标),并进一步通过聚类分析和非参数检验的定量综合分析技术。对该原始指标体系进行了简化及有效性检验。     

Appreciative Inquiry: A Field Study of Community Development

The meaning of race, ethnicity, social class, and culture has rapidly changed within the last two decades. In addition to the tremendous growth of diverse populations in our neighborhoods, administrative policy changes have pushed community leaders to approach organizational engagement with diversity more comprehensively. Using Appreciative Inquiry method to achieve a high level of participation and to transform inner dialogue between the participants, this study is about doing systemic thinking and practice in a diverse inner-city setting in the United States. The results of this study indicate that Appreciative Inquiry method is an appropriate model for systemic practice in community development.     

发展中大系统控制论与可持续发展战略方法论探讨

首先引入“发展中大系统”的基本概念,指出其主要特征;然后探讨发展中大系统控制问题的研究方法;并将发展中大系统控制论运用可持续发展战略方法论研究之中。     

How New Individuals Behave in a Heterogeneous Community: A Computational Approach to Norm Assimilation Using Agent-Based Systems

Heterogeneous community entails a number of social groups that adopt similar/different social norms. In such community, new individuals who join a new social group should be able to decide with which group they could assimilate based on their capabilities/values/manners. Otherwise, they would be penalized by other members in the group for violating some norms which they cannot comply.Using this approach, software agents would have better reasoning in simulating human society. In this paper, the authors propose a norms assimilation theory, in which a new agent attempts to assimilate with a social group's norms. This theory builds an approach to norm assimilation, analyzes the cases for an agent to decide to assimilate with a social group and develops a mathematical model to measure the assimilation cost and the agent's ability. The approach is developed based on the agent's internal belief about its ability and desire, and its external belief about the cost of assimilating with a number of social groups. The significance of this research is two-fold. Firstly, the study paves the way to future design of intelligent systems, i.e., software agents or robots, to closely mimic human social interactions.Secondly, the norm assimilation using agent-based system could be potentially utilized to simulate some social issues such as immigrants, new students, expatriate etc. The experiments that have been conducted demonstrate that an agent in the domain is able to calculate the assimilation cost and decide which social group to join.     

Fast and Robust Control of Excitation Systems: A Finite-time Method

1　 IntroductionExcitation control plays a very importantrole in the security operation of power systems.It has drawn a greatdeal of attention and many contributions have been made( Bittanti etal.1 996;Lahdhiri et al.1 997;Lu et al.1 989,1 996;Mak,1 992 ;Savaresi et al.1 997;Chapman etal.1 992 ) . This paper proposes a new design method of finite-time excitationcontrol of the following widely used 5th-order model of synchronous generators ( Savaresietal.1 997;Brasca etal.1 993,1 994 ;Bitta…     

管理信息系统的最优k分解方法

本文提出一种从管理信息系统的基本元素——过程和数据类的分析入手,建立信息系统的有向图模型,并运用最优k分解方法进行模型的分解与优化的形式化方法,文中还给出了一个企业管理信息系统的例子来说明方法的应用.     

航天系统安全性分析的概率风险评估方法

在对航天系统进行安全性分析的定性、定量、综合方法的基础上,主要介绍了以定量风险评估为主的、在ＮＡＳＡ和ＥＳＡ均得到广泛应用的概率风险评估（ＰｒｏｂａｂｉｌｉｓｔｉｃＲｉｓｋＡｓｓｅｓｓｍｅｎｔ,ＰＲＡ）方法．着重介绍了该方法的基本思想和具体实施过程,并探讨了在我国航天系统安全性分析中使用ＰＲＡ方法的可行性。