“Unfolding” Natural Resource-Use Information Systems: Fieldwork in Botswana

My research examines the performance of natural resource-use information systems. I question why such systems, despite receiving substantial financial and human investment, appear to have a weak impact on projects, programs, and policy intended for rural poverty alleviation in developing countries. Drawing on my understanding of the process of unfolding introduced by C. West Churchman, and its particular relationship to Habermasian constitutive interests, I reflect on my experiences of using the concept during fieldwork undertaken in Botswana. The concept is found useful on two fronts: first, it provides a purposeful guide for gathering and processing information/knowledge—what I have termed an epistemological intent; second, it provides a useful template for evaluating other information systems; in particular, the role of expertise—what I have termed an ontological intent. The process of unfolding, as I understand it, also provides an invitation for constructive (rather than self-indulgent) personal reflection: what might be termed a constitutive reflexive intent. By making information gathering and knowledge generation less mystical and a more transparent social activity, the conceptual and practical application of the process of unfolding can help toward retrieving inquiry as being a purposeful, openly political, and thereby less deceptive engagement: features which I believe are found particularly wanting in the business of rural development information gathering.     

Holism and Understanding Sustainability

In work undertaken in both Malta and Lebanon we have been reflecting on the current means by which the international community apply concepts intended to achieve what is called “sustainable development.” In an attempt to make means and ends conform to each other we have developed a holistic approach to what is essentially a timeless need for understanding, systemic planning, and compassionate stewardship. This essay indicates that we may be closer to holistic means with which to realize these goals than we know. It describes how some planning and analysis methods have their origins in ancient traditions. However, the milieu in which sustainability occurs is often unsympathetic to and sometimes incompatible with the ideals of holism. The essay assesses the current understanding of sustainability and points to the need for a wider and more inclusive base to contemporary sustainability as practiced in the community.     

Insights into Operationalizing Communities of Practice from SSM-Based Inquiry Processes

Two systemic inquiries, based on soft systems methodology (SSM), into the potential for using community of practice (CoP) theory by an Australian-government created research and development corporation to change its knowledge management (KM) strategy, are reported. Key staff were engaged in the inquiry into how to build a third-order KM strategy based on CoPs; an exploration of key published work on CoPs yielded four SSM activity models—‘being a community practice system’; ‘doing the work of imagination sub-system’; ‘doing the work of alignment sub-system’ and ‘doing the work of engagement sub-system’. These models can be used as heuristics to aid the purposeful design of CoPs in other settings. SSM, enacted as a systemic inquiry, can be understood as a form of systemic action research, which was well equipped to deal with CoP theory and, when enacted participatively, can generate important systemic insights. The inquiry began the process of fostering an appreciation of third order KM but, on the evidence available, did not lead to on-going commitment to a CoPs-based KM strategy. Future research should acknowledge how the framing of research situations influences the research process, the importance of the design of practice change settings and the limited evidence for purposeful interventions leading to successful CoPs.     

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.     

Some difficulties of ecological thinking,considered from a critical systems perspective: A plea for critical holism

We probably have simplified matters too much. We tend to talk about systems thinking and practice as if we knew what they are. The fashionable call for “holistic” or “systems” thinking in ecological issues provides a major example. This much is certain: the quest for comprehensiveness, although it represents an epistemologically necessary idea, is not realizable. If we assume that it is realizable, the critical idea underlying the quest will be perverted into its opposite, i.e., into a false pretension to superior knowledge and understanding—a danger of which the environmental movement does not always appear to be sufficiently aware. My question, therefore, is this: How can we deal critically with the fact that our thinking, and hence our knowledge, designs, and actions, cannot possibly be comprehensive, in the sense that we never “comprehend” all that ought to be understood before we pass to judgment and action? What consequences does this fact imply for a critical systems approach to ecological concerns and, ultimately, for our concepts of rationality in general?     

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.     

Evaluation of the Design Alternatives of Emergency Bridge by Applying Analytic Network Process (ANP)

The article introduces the basic process that uses analytic network process (ANP) to design alternative evaluation of emergency bridge. ANP is a better evaluation method for bridge designs and is now widely used in decision making with dependence and feedback. ANP considers all factors, estimates the relative influence from the factors, values factors with ratio scales from 1 to 9, makes pairwise comparisons on factors, and synthesizes to obtain overall results. An ANP case is conveniently computed by super decisions ANP software. The computed results show that the ANP is suitable for evaluating the design alternatives for emergency bridges.     

Rapid Institutional Appraisal

A week-long intensive process of staff development and induction called Rapid Institutional Appraisal (RIA) was conducted in November 2000 in the Systems Discipline, Centre for Complexity and Change (CCC), at the Open University. We report the systemic roots and characteristics of the RIA as designed from traditions of soft systems methodology and rapid rural appraisal. Our experiences arising from our own use of RIA are described and the wider implications for organizational learning in a complex organization discussed. While acknowledging limitations with this RIA event, we argue that RIA offers a potential model for staff development for adaptive use in different contexts and on varying scales. The process builds on principles of "conversation" and "multiple perspectives" as the touchstone for establishing a purposeful community of practice.     

装备保障对象系统任务持续性模型研究

任务持续性是装备保障对象系统在规定的任务时间内和规定的保障条件下能够连续执行训练和作战任务的能力,评估保障对象系统的任务持续性对于评估装备保障系统的保障能力具有重要意义。选取任务可靠度作为装备保障对象系统的任务持续性评估参数,研究了装备保障对象分别为装备、基本作战单元和作战单元时任务可靠度的建模方法,建立了考虑维修保障和备件补充的不同层次装备保障对象系统的任务可靠度模型。算例分析表明了该模型的实用性和有效性。     

小展弦比翼面-操纵面系统的防颤振设计方法

本文探讨小展弦比翼面-操纵面系统的两个防颤振设计问题:一个是“质量平衡”与“不可逆”这两个设计措施哪个更可取;另一个是不可逆操纵面的偏转频率多大为宜,即确定编转频率的设计指标。文中,基于系统工程的观点,把弯曲、扭转和偏转自由度纳入一个统一的数学模型中。     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">An Engineering View for Social Systems: Agency as an Operational Principle for Designing Higher Education Access Policies</Emphasis>

Access to higher education (HE) has been a persistent concern for governments, practitioners and researchers. Access to HE has been widely studied from scientific perspectives that have focussed on the factors that contribute to the problem; however, authors have highlighted the need for systemic and design perspectives on education systems. The need to connect research with policy remains one of the most challenging issues for education researchers. In view of this gap, this paper argues that engineering thinking and methods represent an opportunity for the design of HE access policies because engineering rationality (distinct from scientific rationalities) matches the concerns and goals of any policymaking attempt. Engineers design artefacts to meet particular goals. These artefacts are artificial systems, tangible or intangible, such as hammers, bridges or whole organizations, which are designed in particular contexts to meet precise goals. Policies for access to HE are good examples of artefacts that seek to fulfil specific needs under concrete constraints inherent to a country or region. More specifically, HE systems are social systems; in other words, they are created and recreated by the interactions and decisions of diverse actors. Hence, to change, redesign or improve such types of systems involves engineering their very interactions that are the outcomes of institutional and human actions. In particular, engineering design requires operational principles. Thus, we propose agency as a fundamental design concept for the improvement of HE systems, which opens new possibilities for a distinct type of policy-making that takes excellent advantage of what engineering can offer, while at the same time expanding on traditional expectations for engineering.     

Triple Task Method: Systemic, Reflective Action Research

This brief article introduces a new methodology for systemic action research—Triple Task (TT)—and sets out its rationale and initial progress in becoming an embedded method for group working. Arising from the authors previous work with soft systems approaches, the Imagine method for sustainable development assessment and action research in a variety of global locations, TT provides a means for groups to engage together in purposive work and, at the same time, for facilitators to understand how the dynamic of the group influences the groups output. TT is based on an ambitious concept and at the time of writing the results of TT applied in the context of an EU Framework 7 funded project are in their early stages but importantly, significant insights are already arising including the answers to some puzzling questions:

• Do purposeful groups always produce the most insightful outcomes?
• Do conflictual groups produce incoherent results?
• What makes a ‘good’ group?

     

Cooperation,power, and the impact of information systems

Imagination suggests that the computer as a communication tool is potentially a significant factor in enhancing cooperative work, especially where the participants are located over a physical or temporal distance. Implementation of innovative information technology offers enhancement of operational efficiency to an enterprise in a turbulent business environment. Communications and decision making are inseparable. Industrial democracy (ID) is a particular arrangement of decisionmaking power where decision makers have to be informed and decisions have to be communicated. Cooperation implies a redistribution of power and the weakening of the traditional management organizational heirarchy. Cogently, this effect is mirrored by the potential of management information systems to redistribute information and, hence, power within an enterprise. The response of traditional management personnel to the threat of information technology (IT) to established positions of authority, is one of defense. Conventional systems analysis is unsuited for the design task of ID information systems. The methods employed by systems analysis preserve or reproduce the formal hierarchical structure of managerial organization. Soft systems methodology is explored as a means of confronting the sociopolitical factors present in the specification of information systems for an ID.     

多传感器ATR系统中传感器的选配

多传感器数据融合引入 ATR系统首先面临的是传感器的选配问题。从系统中可选传感器的分析出发 ,阐述了传感器选配中应考虑的几个基本因素 ,部分解决了目前传感器选配中的盲目性和随意性问题 ,指出 ,多传感器 ATR系统中传感器选配方法的发展趋势是引入系统工程理论和优化设计方法。     

有色Petri网在通信协议中的应用

有色Petri网(CPNs)提供了一个框架用来对系统进行设计.有色Petri网有着很广泛的应用领域,很多CPNs项目在工业中得以应用.通讯协议、操作系统、硬件系统、嵌入式系统和软件设计也是有色Petri网的应用领域.     

Metamodeling: The epistemology of system science

The Metasystem Paradigm postulates a hierarchy of at least three inquiring systems: at the lowest level of abstraction, an inquiring system devoted to IMPLEMENTATION; at the object level, an inquiring system devoted to MODELING; and finally, at the metalevel, an inquiring system devoted to METAMODELING. System Design is incomplete without the intervention of these three inquiring systems, each of which plays a role in System Design. System Science draws its paradigm and its epistemology from the metalevel inquiring system. Furthermore, this inquiring system is dedicated to a methodology called METAMODELING which provides MODELING (at the next-lower inquiring system) with its source of knowledge and its reasoning methods. A design is incomplete unless it takes into account both MODELING and METAMODELING. METAMODELING is to MODELING what the Theory of Design is to Design, or what Decision Making ABOUT Decision Making is to Decision Making, or what Learning to Learn is to Learning. The consequences of using an obsolete modeling paradigm are explored in relation to the discipline of operations research.     

Identifying and incorporating change in information systems

The difficulty of identifying future requirements and the inflexibility of information systems make what is normally called the maintenance process difficult and costly, and may lead to information systems failure or obsolescence. This paper addresses the problem in a number of ways. It discusses three techniques which might be used to help identify future requirements. Two of these techniques are drawn from other disciplines; the third is not used widely in the information systems domain. All the techniques have broader applicability than maintenance alone, in that they are concerned with reducing uncertainty. The paper outlines some tenets of good applications software design, drawn from a number of sources, which will facilitate change by making the software design more flexible. Finally, these tenets are incorporated into information systems design through a proposed modification of the information systems life cycle framework. This framework—part of a “code of good practice” for information systems developers—could be incorporated into information systems development methodologies.     

Sustainability,Systems Thinking and Professional Practice

This article explores the impact of the new sustainability agenda on the occupational and professional needs of those who have taken educational and training programmes in the environmental field either at undergraduate or postgraduate level or through relevant professional institutions’ continuing professional development programmes. It also describes a one-day workshop for the professionals on sustainable development, based on systems thinking and practice. The workshop provides a model for developing greater understanding and effective action in professional practice, by using dialogue and interprofessional learning to explore approaches to sustainability in a variety of business and professional contexts. It introduces the principles underpinning the concept of sustainability and provides tools to support the integration of sustainable development into professional practice and organisational change.     

The Role of the Qualifying Function Concept in Systems Design

In this paper I explore potential benefits with using the concept qualifying function as a tool for systems design. The concept originates from the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd and refers to the function or character that guides and directs the internal structure of an entity or activity. This means that if the qualifying function for an entity or activity changes, its structure as a whole will change as well. Due to this, the concept and its related theory can help people to view situations from new and different perspectives and to explore the consequences of different views. It can provide a common base for the design around which accommodation more easily can be reached and from where further discussions can be continued. Finally, it has the potential to point at fundamental differences of opinion between participants and stakeholders.     

社会系统可持续性建模与仿真研究

提出了社会系统的狭义可持续性与广义可持续性的概念与数学定义,建立了社会系统的控制论模型以及狭义可持续性约束与广义可持续性衡量标准,并对社会系统可持续发展模型进行了仿真,仿真结果预测了系统未来的演化趋势,分析仿真结果得出的结论可以为制定可持续发展政策提供参考建议.