A Maturing of Systems Thinking? Evidence from Three Perspectives

This paper reviews trends in systems theory/thinking from the 1970s to the early 2000s. It proposes a maturation of the field based on certain conceptual and methodological advances that have sought to liberate systems thinking from earlier strictures. An edited dialogue among three prominent systems thinkers from different systems schools—Merrelyn Emery, Bob Flood, and Eric Wolstenholme—provides evidence. Similarities and differences are identified, complementarities among the schools are derived and analyzed, and trajectories for future research are indicated.     

Modeling Organizational Systems: Banathy's Three Lenses Revisited

The inherent complexity of organizational systems defies full understanding by inquirers. This condition often causes organizational inquirers to become mired in convoluted deliberations, unable to attain the consensus among the inquiring community that is needed to advance the research forward to a meaningful conclusion. Consequently, many practitioners and researchers employ models of organizations to aid in simplifying the system's complexity and to reach shared agreement. Because no single model can fully capture the complexity of an organization, Dr. Bela H. Banathy therefore proposed using three types of interrelated models to give a multidimensional view of a human system under study. Since Banathy first introduced his three lenses approach, the concept has been employed in many educational and organizational settings. This article examines the author's experience using Banathy's three lenses and integrates their usage with some other popular modeling techniques, providing a comprehensive view of how Banathy's three lenses can be effectively employed in contemporary organizational settings.     

Repositing Thinking for Future Social Systems Design: In Tribute to Bela H. Banathy and His Inspiration of the Fuschl Conversations

Contemporary systems activity can be divided into that stressing feasible and practical short-term measures, and that which is more ideal-aware, focussed on mid-longer term futures, and typically involving on-going community or social systems design. The paper highlights the key differences in approach, but then invites closer collaboration in the cause of the possible contribution that systems thinking could make for a longer term future, with Y3K (Year 3000) as a metaphor for this. This analysis, which derives from work undertaken at Asilomar 1995 and Fuschl conversations in 2000 and 2002, finds that contemporary social system design, which is driven by western culture and is action-oriented, needs adaptation before it could contribute to greater future global harmony. A truly comprehensive systems design process must accommodate a wide range of possible parameters in terms of culture, and appreciation of time and progress. An emerging paradigm as basis for thinking and engaging in social systems design work of the future is offered, which also has relevance to general systems practice.     

一类线性切换系统的能控性和能观测性的充要条件

循环不变子空间是常用于控制科学和信号处理理论的重要数学工具之一。用循环不变子空间的性质研究了切换系统的能控性和能观测性。先给出了切换系统能控性、能达性和能观测性的概念,并讨论了循环不变子空间的性质。然后用循环不变子空间的性质研究了周期线性切换系统的能控制性、能达性及能观测性,得到线性周期切换系统完全能控和完全能观测的充分必要条件。最后给出一般线性切换系统完全能控和完全能观测的充分条件和必要条件。     

Application of the Constrained Predicated Nets and Interval Logic to Production Systems

1 .INTRODUCTIONDuetotheireconomicsignificanceandclosenesstopersons,productionsystemsmustbemodeledbeforetheirimplementationanduse,thus,amethodwhichspecifies ,analyzesandsynthesizestheproductionsys tems—discreteeventsystems (DES)hasbeenestab lishedanddevelopedstepbystepinrecentyears.DESmethodspecifiestheplantbasedonitsdiscretecharacters,however,intherealworld ,therearefewplantsthatcanbemodeledbypurelydiscretemathe maticalmodelbecausetherearealwayssomecontinu ousparametersforstudyinnearlya…     

Dynamic Characteristics of Inter-Satellite Links in LEO Networks

To establish an efficient inter-satellite link (ISL) in an LEO network, the effect of geometric characteristics of ISL on the ISLs and the devices on the LEO satellite should be examined. Because of the continuous movement of the LEO satellite, the time-varying behaviours of the ISL's geometric charactersistics continuously change with the changes of the satellite's position on the orbit. These dynamic geometric characteristics of the ISLs are important for ISL's performance analyzing and the design of the devices on the LEO satellite. This paper describes dynamic geometric characteristics of ISL, analyzes the impact of these regulations on the tracking system of the satellite's antenna and the power adjusting system of the satellite's transmitter, with the Iridium system as an example.     

Study on the Medical Image Distributed Dynamic Processing Method

To meet the challenge of implementing rapidly advanced, time-consuming medical image processing algorithms, it is necessary to develop a medical image processing technology to process a 2D or 3D medical image dynamically on the web. But in a premier system, only static image processing can be provided with the limitation of web technology. The development of Java and CORBA (common object request broker architecture) overcomes the shortcoming of the web static application and makes the dynamic processing of medical images on the web available. To develop an open solution of distributed computing, we integrate the Java, and web with the CORBA and present a web-based medical image dynamic processing methed, which adopts Java technology as the language to program application and components of the web and utilies the CORBA architecture to cope with heterogeneous property of a complex distributed system. The method also provides a platform-independent, transparent processing architecture to implement the adva     

STABILITY CRITERIA FOR A CLASS OF UNCERTAINSYSTEMS WITH TIME—DELAY

Some stability criteria are obtained for a class of uncertain systems with time-delay usingLyapunov functional and analytic techniques. It is easy to check the criteria by making use of theboundedness of the uncertainties.     

STRATEGIC EXERCISE OF REAL OPTIONS：INVESTMENT DECISIONS IN TECHNOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

Viewing investment projects in new technologies as real options, this paper studies the effects ofendogenous competition and asymmetric information on the strategic exercise of real options. We firstdevelop a multi-period, game-theoretic model and show how competition leads to early exercise andaggressive investment behaviors and how competition erodes option values. We then relax the typicalfull-information assumption found in the literature and allow information asymmetry to exist acrossfirms. Our model shows, in contrast to the literature that payoff is independent of the ordering ofexercise, that the sequential exercise of real options may generate both informational and payoffexternalities. We also find some surpising but interesting results such as having more information isnot necessarily better.     

LOGISTICS SCHEDULING： ANALYSIS OFTWO-STAGE PROBLEMS

This paper studies the coordination effects between stages for scheduling problems where decision-making is a two-stage process. Two stages are considered as one system. The system can be a supply chain that links two stages, one stage representing a manufacturer; and the other, a distributor It also can represent a single manufacturer, while each stage represents a different department responsible for a part of operations. A problem that jointly considers both stages in order to achieve ideal overall system performance is defined as a system problem. In practice, at times, it might not be feasible for the two stages to make coordinated decisions due to (i) the lack of channels that allow decision makers at the two stages to cooperate, and/or (ii) the optimal solution to the system problem is too difficult (or costly) to achieve.Two practical approaches are applied to solve a variant of two-stage logistic scheduling problems. The Forward Approach is defined as a solution procedure by which the first sta