#ISSS2017 Vienna

Armenia, Stefano; Ferreira Franco, Eduardo; Nonino, Fabio; Spagnol,i Emanuele

Stefano Armenia, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
armenia@dis.uniroma1.it

Eduardo Ferreira Franco, Escola Politécnica of University of São Paulo
eduardo.franco@usp.br

Fabio Nonino, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
fabio.nonino@uniroma1.it

Emanuele Spagnoli, PricewaterhouseCoopers
ema.spagno@gmail.com

Nowadays our society is increasingly becoming economic and social dependent on the cyberspace, which includes physical network assets and software based systems. However, the cyberspace is exposed to numerous risks, and there is a constant threat of exploitable vulnerabilities, which could cause significant reputational and economic damages to the companies. For addressing these increasing threats, the Italian National Cyber Security Framework was developed to offer a uniform approach to assessing cyber risks into organizations, as well as to help improve the related security through focused investments. Still, this evaluation is not a straightforward endeavor. Using the principles of the Systems Thinking paradigm, this work presents a way to put into causal relationship the self-assessment risk-categories of the framework by associating them to the various aspects of reference inside a theoretical organizational structure (composed of business areas, process, functions, and roles), hence deriving a systemic causal-effect relationship map capable of evidencing, at least qualitatively for this study, how a change in one or more categories is driving changes also into other ones.

Keywords: National Cyber Security Framework; Cyber-security Risks; System thinking.

Systemic Innovation is a field of praxis that is rapidly taking shape as a key driver in R&D initiatives focused on integral sustainability the world over. This field curates the exploration of socio-technical systems design, implementation and insertion in society in ways that foster planetary thrivability at local and global (aka ‘glocal’) levels. To do so, it adopts a transformative approach to characteristically “wicked” societal problems through the transdisciplinary study of ways in which pragmatic socio-technical systems innovation can dissolve VUCA challenges (i.e., those that are characteristically volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). This paper explores how insights from the systems sciences can directly influence real-world socio-technical systems change. By considering both the systemic leverage points and systemic nurturance spaces that foster the emergence of innovations for thrivability, the field of systemic innovation is developing new methods, models and means of emerging ecosystems of R&D+i (research and development plus innovation). Results include the generation of socio-technical solutions that are synergetic with each other (thereby forming collective incubators or innovation greenhouses based on the application of collective intelligence). The emergence of such innovation ecosystems requires leadership and systemic innovation that incorporates social values, technological creativity, economic opportunity and environmental integrity. This paper considers themes of innovation, leadership, connective intelligence, collective intelligence, collective creativity, design thinking, systems practice, entrepreneurial experimentation and other considerations related to the emerging field of leadership and systemic innovation.

Systems Processes Theory (SPT) teams, following 40 years of collection by its originator Dr. Len Troncale, are continuing to collect numerous case studies, scientific research articles, books, references, definitions and other related material on phenomena across the major domains of science (astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, mathematics, computer science, human & social systems). Some 55 Isomorphic Systems Processes or Patterns (ISPs) as GST components organize these collections because the peer-reviewed scientific method gives evidence for their underlying commonality, similarity or universality despite specific differences in scale, discipline, or type of system involved. For example, SPT has a collection for the cycles ISP of about 100 case studies of cycling features/functions from the literature of the above 9 disciplines. Same for hierarchies, or networks. The "Origins patterns" has over 1,000 research articles collected as one ISP. Plans are to collect items for 30 Categories of Information (InfoCategories) for each and every ISP. Access to this valuable, transdisciplinary, general systems oriented body of knowledge is currently very limited. Several wish to secure this huge knowledge base in perpetuity for use by a wider range of systems scientists, systems thinkers, sustainability experts, systems engineers, design & management specialists, etc.

The authors are working with Dr. Troncale to develop a publicly accessible database of the information. This development would make the work of the many usable by anyone. This presentation and paper describes initial planning. We recognize two major parts of this project: 1) the database schema & software, and 2) the human interface to the data. The development of the schema is complicated by the wide diversity of material in the collection. Metadata surrounding each item lacks uniformity. For example, the bibliographic citations exist in a multitude of formats (ALA, Chicago, Dewey Decimal, IEEE reference numbers, URL, LOC, Marc 25 and so on.) The first step in developing the schema is collecting, rationalizing and building a common citation construct with enough flexibility to adjust to future requirements without introducing redundancy. The development of the interface must anticipate the questions a user might ask. Since the users of the database will range from experienced science researchers to students to engineers to curators and more - most likely there will be multiple access modes needed.

This paper and presentation also discusses the progress so far and outlines the next steps for other key design challenges such as: (1) enabling crowd sourcing and collaboratories; (2) identifying meaningful relationships among seemingly unrelated data elements; and (3) providing structured and unstructured information access for diverse users. The earliest paper (1978) in the SPT series described the ideal of a virtual network graphic of great complexity that would be instantaneously updated with any new entry to the DB-SP2T, and enable real-time travel thru the graphic by the user for choice of any specific part of the net graphic. Organization of the net would be with ISPs as nodes and Linkage Propositions (LPs) between nodes. The incredible detail in the DB-SP2T is evidenced by considering a matrix of ISPs by ISPs that records the number of current LPs with over 3000 interstices, each containing critical information. Or by considering a matrix of ISPs by InfoCategories, where just one of the 3,300 interstices usually has a dozen items of information, resulting in a matrix possibly totaling nearly 40,000 entries. Examples of such matrices will be presented and their inclusion in the DB-SP2T critiqued.

Nowadays, analysts and business researchers are modeling a huge number of services. To develop a service accomplishing a simple requirement is quite easy to fulfill and any currently used modeling tool seems to be fully sufficient for the purpose. But is it really true? Are we sure that we can cover (with some level of abstraction) all processes and relationships hidden in the service provision by current modeling tool? We want to elaborate on these questions further.

The situations and services we are currently trying to model become more and more complex. Complexity itself is just one part of the issue. The other one is that the services should work in different contexts. A high number of analysts create simply as many models how many contexts they are able to recognize. Thence, the question is: Are we able to mention the role of the particular service in different contexts using current modeling tools?

Let's take a simple example of a street lighting. There is a try of cities to save money by upgrading street lamps into adjustable LED equipped lamps. The idea is to dim a light when there is no pedestrian nor a driving car on the street. For this purpose, LED lamps need to be equipped with a camera that signals the LED to increase luminosity when a pedestrian or a car is identified. Moreover, once the camera is equipped, it can be used to identify free parking slots on the street, or even to help ensure public safety (passively - by identifying moving people, lighting the street more when needed/actively - by informing a police about suspicious situations).

As it can be seen, there is at first a context of an adjustable lighting to save money. Then we used same devices to identify free parking slots and lastly to ensure a public safety. Whence, we used the same devices and similar data in different contexts to create different services.

If there is an error in some service, it can influence the other services. The problem can be a dysfunction of some cameras or the recognition software resolving in bad illumination of the street, not correct recognition of free parking slots, with no active public safety. If there is just one service deployed at the beginning and the other is added later, it can influence a traffic on the network the data are going through and slow down both service or lower a service reliability.

Therefore, for context modeling, we need to use (or develop) a tool that is not only context adaptive but also accepts the context as a part of the model itself. This tool should have following features:
Enable to decompose any situation into a set of elements
Build any related model by a specific use of those elements in any context
Recognize the differences among the contexts and describe them

Use of such modeling tool for an analysis of a complex service should bring better value for all the service participants. Nevertheless, according to the last service research, services are not only more and more complex, they become more adaptive at the same time. Therefore, we need to develop a modeling tool that will be also adaptive, meaning that it can adapt the model according to the actual context without losing any knowledge, information or relationships from previous contexts. In this paper, we propose such a tool for adaptive context service modeling.

This paper describes preliminary research in formalizing Isomorphic Systems Processes, Patterns or Pathologies (ISPs) using automated systems engineering tools, based on systems science research. Monterey Phoenix (MP) is a behavior modeling approach and tool used by systems engineers to describe system behaviors and expose emergent behaviors in engineered, complex systems. MP is introduced in the context of its potential for modeling ISPs both abstractly (at the universal patterns level) and concretely (at the example, case study, or instantiation level). In this paper, the Cycles ISP is modeled in MP and executed to compute many possible variations for the Cycles ISP. Input for the model of Cycles ISP comes from the accumulating SPT relational data base of 30 categories of information for each ISP briefly described in the paper. Selection of key information from just four of the categories were used to model the Cycles ISP in Monterey Phoenix, namely, “Identifying Features,” “Measurables,” “Identifying Functions,” and “How a Process.” Inspection of the output from this executable model provides insight to inform the proposed ISP taxonomy. In particular, MP-generated variants of the Cycles ISP are shown to contain patterns of positive feedback, negative feedback, oscillation, lifecycle, and recycling. Although, the input relational data base contained preliminary information on three of these (oscillations, lifecycles, and recycling), the other two were not anticipated in pre-model analyses. Applications of the Cycles ISP are included to demonstrate example instances of where these patterns occur and which deviations from the standard universal patterns might result in system dysfunctions or pathologies. The paper suggests how knowledge of these deviations might contribute to knowledge of why they occur at the fundamental general systems level, what exact impacts they have, and how they might be corrected. The initial results show that MP is a productive framework for describing an ISP as a formal and executable model, in terms of a simple and straightforward event grammar. Future work includes expanding the overall SPT-MP meta-model with other proposed ISPs (there are at least 55 additional ISPs available), creating more exploratory executions of the meta-model, and cataloging the formal MP models of ISPs. The ultimate goal would be to interconnect a sufficient number of the ISPs to yield a very general model of sustainable systems dynamics at all scales and for many types or classes of systems as well as models of dysfunction that are often encountered in engineering and natural systems.

The search for sustaining abundance and genuine happiness is a human aspiration since immemorial times. Nowadays in a scenario of increasing complexity with unforeseen challenges linked to systemic fragility we continue this quest and must undergo a profound cultural transformation to shape desirable futures.

By enhancing the awareness and comprehension of the interconnected nature of our world, and developing the capacity to execute meaningful choices that (truly) recognize our interdependency within the web of life is a key to live joyfully in a sustainable and nurturing society, both locally and planetary. A society to which corresponds an “Economía Amable”: an economy kind to people and to nature.

Note that the Spanish word “amable” comes from the Latin amabilitas, which in short means conducive to love. In our view it means “love in action”, a genuine kindness that comes from nurturing multidimensional generosity and carefulness in every field of human action. Feminine values, since long diminished by the patriarchal culture, are core to bring forth capabilities and conditions for the emergence of an “Economía Amable”.

A way to create a new system, out of an existing one, is envision a new desirable one, and then find out what resources to rely on to advance —recreating past, present and future— in a co-evolutionary process. We propose action-research practices to promote coevolutionary change towards a culture that expresses kind feminine values, an economy of abundance.

We created a work of artscience as a tool to contribute to that endeavor. The World of Navis Utopia depicts a world in which the currently most delicate challenges humanity faces doesn’t exist anymore. It is a travelling exhibition to easily find its way into the imaginations and lives of all those yearning to make the world a better place. It shows that the seeds of a desirable scenario already exist in our planetary community, as well as the knowledge and methodologies to successfully overcome the challenges our specie undergoes at the time being.

We started an autoecolearning community with the aim to learn together, redefining and opening up to unforeseen possibilities. We intend to promote its development offering encounters and workshops in which to address significant issues, using variations of the Bela Banathy Conversation Model and exhibits of the World of Navis Utopia. In these learning events we foster personal, organizational and social learning, addressing the main concerns of the community, including keys to develop a systems perspective, cyclical consciousness and multidimensional amabilitas. Envisioning, looking beyond the constraints of present circumstances and tendencies is a first attempt to bring in a rich innovative learning process in which to share ideas, experiences and concepts, cultivating systemic leverage, designing a desirable future, changing the ways we perform our daily activities: creating a better world for everyone by becoming the systems be wish to see in the world.

The new forms of smart and artificial intelligent technologies present a great risk to the society (political – ethical challenge). For this reason, the ability of the society's decision makers to prepare an appropriate ethical response is needed.

The paper is focused on the outline the main social, economic, and ethical issues, raised by the faster development of the smart and artificial intelligent products or services in everyday life processes. Smart technologies can today explore their environment, communicate with each other or with humans and help their users. The development and implementation of the smart technologies in the human environment is and it will be influenced by social and economic changes and opening new social and ethical problems in the near future, because smart technologies are now: (i) invading into the sensitive human areas and allow others to come easier for sensible private information in real time; (ii) causing job losses; (iii) replacing humans for tasks such as driving and more demanding (e.g. management of the industrial processes).

The paper presents the issues of technology and human sciences. It is going for a complex subject which is quite often misrepresented, some of the fundamental concepts relating ethics in science and technology are recalled and clarified.

At the conclusion of the paper social responsible model for implementation of the smart technology in human environment will be presented. The purpose of the model is to provide ethical and social norms and thus protect human before the socioeconomic changes caused with the high penetration of smart technologies in human everyday life.

Increasing wealth disparity, polarization of discourses, move into the Anthropocene epoch, people’s migration, terrorism…are all pieces of evidence that our worldview ought to evolve quickly if we want our eco-system, our humanity to survive and to keep claiming we are the smartest species on earth.

The elements of ancient Chinese wisdom like wu-wei, the power of de, and practicing meditation, echo many of the principles which have emerged in recent years, such as spiritual leadership, and are also expressed in organizational models such as Holocracy, Sociocracy, or Teal, and in economic concepts, such as enlightened capitalism, all seeking at making our world more sustainable. So, what can we learn from the school of thoughts of the Warring State period, 2,500 years old, and can this help us address the wicked problems we are facing both in the West and the East?

In this article I will look specifically at Taoism through the lens of Clare Graves’s human development model. Graves defined eight levels of human consciousness, six defined as needs-based systems and two as being systems. According to Graves’s research, only when thinking at the latter two levels can we develop sustainable systems. When analyzing some key Taoists concepts through that lens, looking also through Ken Wilber’s trans fallacy concept, it is hard not to conclude that the Taoist philosophy operates at Tier 2 level and offers many keys to develop a more functional eco-system.

Yet, are these Taoists assumptions and concepts plausible and viable in today’s world? Can they really support the development of a more sustainable society? To answer these questions I will look at the latest research in neuroscience and social science. Focusing on Taoism, I will look at three principles.

First, the cycle of reversion, that is nothing should be taken to extremes or it will turn back to its original state, causing the opposite effect, a concept illustrated by the design of the Yin and Yang symbol. I will explore this principle through the work of Wegner on the ironic effect of conscious efforts and of Frankl on paradoxical intention therapy. Both showed that conscious pursuit of a goal often leads to missing that goal and it is what the Daodejing refers to as the quests of opposites. In any dyad, Laozi wants one to pursue the part one does not want: choose weakness rather than strength, darkness over brightness.

I will then look at the research on downregulation of the prefrontal cortex to explore the validity of the state of wu-wei. The state that Laozi wants one to enter into is similar to what cognitive neuroscientist Arne Dietrich referred to as transient hypofrontality, that is, the downregulation of our prefrontal cortex. His work on the physiology of athletes being in the zone, that is, in wu-wei, showed that due to the intensity of the exercise the prefrontal cortex is literally shut down for a while, giving a sense of peacefulness, of living in the present, of flow, of oneness with nature and the universe. Reaching this state allows one to be more authentic, spontaneous.

Last, I will look at the notion of categorical rigidity. Zhuangzi was very concerned by the risk presented by language. This categorical inflexibility hinders what is often referred to as divergent creativity. This human limitation has now been proven scientifically, for instance, by the work of Guilford on the development of unusual alternative task.

I will conclude that Ancient Chinese wisdom, Taoism in particular, provides very valuable elements to help humanity develop a more sustainable world.

This paper suggests that two reasons for the lack of progress toward a widely recognized consensus on a candidate general theory of systems (GST as GTS) are: (1) there does not exist a consensus set of criteria with which to judge alternative candidates (so they just continue to proliferate without any unification); and (2) there is little or no tradition of judgement or selective force in the ISSS eliminating alternatives or forcing them to integrate. In this presentation and paper, a list of 15 criteria or features that we propose MUST be present in any candidate GTS are submitted, described and critiqued. One major criterium is that any candidate GTS must cite or utilize multiple (as in many) isomorphies as hypothesized by the Founders of GST in the beginning. The author knows of several authors of alternative systems theories who dispute this claim and so arguments for and against are presented and refuted. Then the list of criteria for a GST are compared with a list of twenty Tenets (or features) of the Systems Processes Theory (SPT). Each tenet is explained in terms of the criteria needed for a GST. Then a listing of a dozen other candidate systems theories are listed, examined, and discussed. Some of these theories of system dynamics are adequate for the purposes or functions for which they were designed, but this presentation will show that they are not within the realm of the science of systems intended by the ISSS Founders or are not, in fact, general. SPT will be shown to be strictly a science of systems as opposed to attempts at systems thinking for purely human design objectives. SPT will also be shown to be general in the widest definition of that term. Then the SPT will be compared with newer descriptions of features needed for a GST emerging from the work of Rousseau and Wilby et. al. and the BCSSS (Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science). Several continuing obstacles that inhibit formation of a consensus on a unified GST will also be considered and their history discussed as well as the current fate and/or status of the SPT.

This presentation and paper will explore the similarities between the established discipline of Systems Biology and the new suggested discipline of top-down Systems Pathology. It will show that both investigate complex systems, and both are necessarily interdisciplinary. Both recognize some of the same isomorphies (especially self-organization, feedbacks, and networks -- though Systems Biology is less consciously aware of them as isomorphies). Both look for the primary or fundamental causes of dysfunctions (one at the reductionist level; the other at the systems dynamics level). Whereas there are similarities, there are also differences that will be discussed. While systems biology is reductionist dominated, most often elucidating molecular machine and organellar level foci, even these levels may be considered as examples of total systems dynamics such that even systems biology may be considered systems pathology oriented and not just conventional reductionist science. Systems Biology is unaware of this perspective.

The talk and paper will begin with citation of evidence for the rapid recent expansion of the new field of systems biology measurable in terms of funding, institutions, job descriptions, major centers, and initiation of new education and academic programs. Systems Biology will be characterized as very successful and here to stay. The paper will continue with an explication of how useful investigation of dysfunctions have been in getting a start on understanding of complex systems in biology (with examples from the studies of enzymopathies, knock-out genes, and errors in development and how each gave us a handle to pursue to understand better otherwise impenetrable complex physiology). We will suggest that as Systems Biology has amply demonstrated, this is a fruitful strategy for Systems Pathology and even all of GST to pursue in researching complex systems.

The talk will continue with examples of the utility of the systems biology approach to research on key and important total system diseases (thus systems pathologies) as represented in the author’s course lectures on the Systems Biology of Cancer (Bio 302) and the Systems Biology of Aging. (Bio 328). But beyond providing a better understanding of disease states such as those, the systems approach is also useful in understanding the structure and limits-on-structure of all systems at all scales and types thru such new fields as the author’s Systems Allometry and Systems Mimicry (spin-offs of Systems Processes Theory (SPT)), which also may be classified under the title, Systems Biology.

Further examples of overlap will include the use of network theory in both Systems Biology and Systems Pathology to discover “motifs” (unlikely similarities of part:part interactions true of many diverse system network analyses) and of the use of hierarchical structure to gain the advantages of modularity in both Biosystems and all systems. This latter case has especially been useful as an application of systems theory as a guideline for engineering and as a source of errors in engineering as in Systems Pathology. The overall conclusion will be that many aspects of the widely accepted new field of Systems Biology are similar to the yet untested new field of Systems Pathology.

The development of tourist activities has been present in different spaces, being one of the most significant the coastline, which valuation as a recreational scenario has motivated the rapid conditioning and transformation of the beaches. The massive tourism produced tourist activities without planning that have undermined the quality of the resource and its aesthetics. In this sense, it is considered important to propose alternatives from the Systems Science that allow designing strategies for the suitable management of these spaces. This paper presents an option which, from a holistic perspective, contributes to strengthen the management of the coast line through the integration of relevant actors in order to protect it. The methodological approach was carried out through Soft Systems Methodology and the Viable System Model, having as a result an inclusive diagnosis that allowed: to characterize the coastline where the study was conducted, to elucidate interrelations between actors who intervene in the problem and determine an administrative structure based on mechanisms of control, coordination, surveillance, respect and estimation of the space coast. The above, in order to strengthen the coastline as a political, social, environmental and economic resource.

This work begins interdisciplinary, theoretical support for a new technical age of more creative and varied play writing and more productive theatre performance.

I summarize past, highly validated display theory that is applied in an "interdisciplinary experiment" as technical additions to a professionally, table read, full length play showing justification of the application. Results suggest further interdisciplinary research to take advantage of demonstrated benefits and address interesting problems uncovered. In contrast to much theatre today that stems from past elocution, realism and illusion ages, presently being added are technical elements reinforcing live action and dialogue including projection. Projection had to wait half a century from attempts by Tennessee Williams to introduce it in "The Glass Menagerie." I take this technical addition a step further by projecting an MS Word script with color and embedded sound and images that come with productivity and "viewability" increases traded off with increased pre-performance costs. The article defines these and following constructs. Play writing, performance and audience enjoyment can be greatly enhanced using script projection with embedded technical elements, and I present a needed, better, theoretical approach to play writing supporting this technical addition.

I summarize a Social Science experiment resulting in my former, original display theory, involving Viewability, Complexity, Productivity and MS Windows. That theory is expanded and applied to both play script "pages" in one or more MS Windows and to Proscenium Theatre Production. See papers discussing that experiment presented and published through ISSS in the '90's. I consider projection of a digital script, with embedded multi-media that is played/displayed by the projectionist, as one or more additional "virtual" cast members along with traditional non-human theatre elements. Practical considerations of script projection suggest beneficial changes in the "standard" script format. Original contributions to display theory for playwrights and theatre performance follow from summary and analysis of the results of readings of the experimental play, "Con Te Partiro," in December, 2016. Using the new theory promises very much greater opportunity for variety and creativity to the playwright and audience. MS Word is more powerful and flexible compared to existing play writing Apps. This resulting theory is applied to the script, projected image and proscenium as analogues of Windows.

Points in the theory are correlated with results--validating them as appropriate applications of the prior social sciences experimental results--suggesting a different script format and an architecture for play writing (in development). Lessons learned in the table readings suggest improvements that might be made by Microsoft to Word. Interdisciplinary research opportunities to substantiate other points in the new theory are listed.

This paper lays a guiding, validated, scientific foundation for a new, theoretical architecture of more creative and varied play scripts in a technical, interdisciplinary age of theatre, promising cost savings at performance time.

A person gradually establishes one’s personality and becomes an expert. Such a process is related to some concepts of unconscious learning such as ‘tacit knowing’ by M.Polanyi, ‘identification’ by H.A.Simon, ‘appreciation’ by G.Vickers, ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ by J.Lave and E.Wenger, and ‘blind point’ by O.Scharmer. Based on the concepts, we investigate the fundamental idea of an inquiry and learning process of systems methodologies for knowledge management. We then discuss that the establishment of personality and mastery are a process of exteriorization into an organization. In this presentation I will show some details of the above concerns.

This paper and presentation focuses on the search for negative evidence for a hypothesis because that task is the hallmark of critical thinking and the scientific method. While it seems unusual to begin a new discipline with examination of all the possible pitfalls or disadvantages of that effort, it appears to this team that a comprehensive search for possible errors is a good way to begin design of a new approach. The paper begins with comparative definitions of analogy, homology, and isomorphy and lessons learned in biomedicine from past mistaken applications of those concepts. It continues with a quick overview of the Systems Pathology analogy with biomedicine, our attempt to capitalize on its vast knowledge base and 5000 years of development to give a significant jump-start to Systems Pathology. The paper describes how research into pathologies or dysfunctions has been a great methodology for advancing the gradual understanding of complex systems of all types in the past, and especially for study of complex systems. It continues with definitions for our use of the words “caveat” and “limits” in this context. It continues by describing at least twenty specific caveats and limits to the Systems Pathology analogy. These include difficulties defining healthy systems, diseased systems, conflating symptoms versus ultimate causes, difficulties in generalizing across all scales, distinguishing change and evolution from dysfunction, avoiding the trap of optimality, avoiding iatrogenic or unintended effects, difficulties in certification of SysPath knowledge, broadening education about Systems Pathology, noting positive aspects of senescence and death, the need for SysPath values and a Hippocratic Oath, and more. With each description, there is a discussion of ways to ameliorate or reverse negative effects. Finally, it lists at least a dozen independent domains of Systems Pathology that are fragmented and remain unintegrated causing difficulties in cross-communication, less transfer of models, barriers to use of knowledge, and generation of new knowledge in our understanding of how to curate or cure ailing systems at all scales. We hope for, anticipate, and enable a future world where humanity protects and preserves its nest of all surrounding systems just as biomedicine attempts to increase longevity and quality of human life.

MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) Tourism in Mexico generates more than 501 thousand jobs and contributes 1.43% to the national GDP. According to the World Ranking of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) Mexico is increasingly positioned as a destination for this tourism market, becoming a key driver in the economy.

This tourism activity is characterized to be a large-scale phenomenon, in which an interdependence is generated between the various agents involved creating positive and negative impacts and repercussions on the hosting destinations of the events. That is why is relevant manage this activity as a complex system identifying the relationships of its elements to generate solutions considering its economic, social, cultural, and environmental reality.

In this research is presented the current situation of MICE Tourism in Mexico through the Soft Systems Methodology. In the end, all those components and external agents that make up this tourist segment in Mexico can be identified, as well as the problem situations existing in the system and its environment. This diagnosis guides to the generation of a Viable System Model that allows the system to persist over the time despite the changes that occur in the environment, this by the realization of sustainable events.

Systems thinking, a holistic approach that puts the study of wholes before that of parts, is an efficient way of dealing with real-world situations. By emphasizing the interrelationships between the system's components rather than the components themselves, systems thinking allows us to increase our personal and professional effectiveness, and transform our organizations. Specifically, systems thinkers can conceptually analyse the system without knowing all the details, recognizing the forest through the trees. They can see beyond the surface to the deeper patterns that are responsible for creating behaviour.

The current study deals with the development of systems thinking among students and graduates of technology management. The goals of the study are to identify the factors that influence the development of systems thinking and to find ways to encourage this development. We used a variety of research tools: A questionnaire for assessing the capacity for systems thinking, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality type test and supervisor evaluations.

In conclusion, the current study findings show that graduates with certain personality traits can gradually acquire or improve their capacity for systems thinking by receiving appropriate training and through a wide range of work experience, and by holding different job positions over time. Having a broad range of professional experience and holding different job positions can help graduates gain knowledge and become familiar with diverse systems and technologies.

Today, innovating new systems, solutions and services at unprecedented rates is critical for the survival of businesses in any industry sector. Increasingly, traditional products and services that are offered by businesses are not sufficient for these businesses to retain their market share and revenues. Hence, businesses are looking at innovation in anticipation of growth in their respective businesses. Globally, it has been established that, businesses need to continuously innovate so as to stay ahead of the competition. While, innovation is supposed to introduce something new to the business that disrupts their value systems, habits and culture, it is often the case that businesses fail to change sufficiently and succeed in their innovations. Even though businesses invest heavily on capital and human resources in order to come up with innovations, it is often the case that these implementations are seldom successful.

Even though businesses try their best to be innovative and adopt a wide variety of approaches, the percentage of successful innovations is significantly less all over the world. In this situation, it is widely recognized that without innovation management, businesses cannot meet the changing requirements and achieve non-linear growth that arises due to innovation. Innovation management deals with the management of business innovation practices, procedures and processes starting from ideation till its successful implementation. There are many approaches, frameworks, methodologies that has been espoused by the leaders in the field to aid in innovation management. Each of these, describe the decisions, activities, and practices that businesses could utilize to generate business value to their customers and other stakeholders in a specific context. To adopt these approaches, frameworks, and methodologies, businesses need to deal with contextual variations/extensions in the business environment, variability in geographies, vertical markets, product lines, services, customers, operating environments, technology platforms, business logic, operating contexts, interaction/integration concerns, market needs, etc.

In this paper, a study to explore the successful innovations of a large conglomerate is discussed. The objective of this study is to understand and reason over an innovation, its structure, intent, purposes, processes, success criteria, constraints, outcomes and its ability to bring in change and disruption in the business domain. Another objective is to identify, classify and understand conceptual foundations, principles, properties, core-ideas and techniques of the innovation management approaches, practices, frameworks, methodologies that were adopted by this large conglomerate and draw meaningful conclusions about their formal and spatial aspects.

This talk and paper develops an overview of the planned online services of the proposed ISSP. Initially there will be two websites on the WWW and one website on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry will not be available until all incorporation documents are submitted and approved. When it appears, it will contain the ISSP definition of Domains of the new Systems-level pathology and links to the 27 Pathology Organizations already represented in Wikipedia. Presumably, ISSP will join this listing when submitted.

The website systemspathologies.com will contain the particular research program of Systems Pathology as a spin-off of the Systems Processes Theory (SPT) developed as a candidate GST in the ISSS and INCOSE organizations over the past two decades. This variant Systems Pathology provides a very detailed and rich taxonomy of dysfunctions of systems that are defined as isomorphic, common, or universal across systems at all scales and in all domains. The taxonomy is based on errors that occur in the 55 Isomorphic Systems Processes (ISPs) of the SPT. As such, this website will contain vital information on the ultimate causes or etiology of systems dysfunctions or diseases in general as seen from the systems architecture rather than reductionist level.

Most of this talk and paper will concentrate on description of the third website. The website intsocsyspath.org will make publicly available the official documents and activities of the ISSP organization. The “shell” of this website is already available by invoking that reserved URL. It contains the usual pull-down menu’s for professional societies. The “About” pull-down will have multiple subheadings for ISSP Stats, Overview Definitions of Systems Pathology as used by the ISSP, A Manifesto on Systems Pathology, description of the Major Domains of Systems Pathology and a short history of each of the several domains. The “Membership” pull-down menu will offer information on “Benefits,” “Types/Dues,” and useful “Forms.” The critically important “Working Group” pull-down menu will contain lists of working groups (WGs),” “special committee’s,” and “special research projects.” The ISSP By-Laws require the Board of Director’s to name and find leadership for WGs that represent all of the existing domains that might have interest in a systems-level aspect of Pathology. The “Meetings” pull-down menu will include information on current annual conferences, annual workshops, and any geographically local meetings as well as co-sponsored, related conferences. The “Publications” pull-down will contain information on ISSP publications as described in the following Katina talk and paper. The “Products/Services” pull-down will inform members of the ISSP “Newsletters,” “Knowledge Data Base,” ISSP “Awards,” and ISSP official “Bibliographies.” The “Administration” pull-down will offer information on “Officers,” “Chapters,” “By-Laws” and other official documents. The “Education” pull-down will include information for Professional Development in the new Field. The final pull-down, “Alliances” will contain links to related and cooperating professional societies such as the ISSS, INCOSE, IFSR, AAAS, ISSB, and more. Screen shots of these pages will be shown in powerpoint. Participants will be asked to suggest additional features for online development of the new field of Systems Pathology. The authors will be happy to discuss further the pro’s and con’s of online education and WWW professional development from their past extensive experiences.

The development of smart cities is considered an alternative to face urban problems; one of them is the growth of population with disabilities and senior citizens, which will lead to sustainability issues particularly those dealing with services and infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for innovation in the tourism sector, considering the Triple Helix model to achieve competitiveness in urban tourism destinations.

This research presents a literature review of the smart cities characteristics, challenges, and opportunities that bring technological development in social inclusion. The Soft Systems Methodology is applied to show how the smart tourism destination can be modeled. This review shows that smart cities can make more competitive and inclusive the tourism destinations, considering the cultural, economic, politic and social context and how the Triple Helix model of innovation is capable of building strategies and public politics that bring social inclusion for people with disabilities and senior citizens, making the city a more competitive destination.

The paper is devoted to the issue of cooperation and coordination of efforts in modern world. The role of questions is being considered. Authors describe three new techniques of raising and using questions and put the problem of developing forms and methods of education that will motivate and teach people to raise questions.

High risk projects within a stakeholder community invite the use of systems thinking to understand the underlying complexities embedded in the relationships around assumptions of risk. Incorporating systemically derived metaphors into a project vision and scoping activity (the model system in this study being a Class III medical device design-development early planning stage), that encourages the visualization of an evolving lifecycle reference system, enables the collective formation of critical knowledge – or knowledge that compels intentional actions. A combination of entry points for systems thinking and practice into the discourse landscape of a stakeholder community (such as a project Case Study, the follow-on Business Case and GAAP recognized accounting reports linked to an associated balance sheet) can leverage the efficacy of collective economic impact valuations for a given stakeholder project venture (e.g. a private-public-partnership). Integrating a philosophy of systems with contemporary stakeholder and accounting theory, and selected entrepreneurial theories from business and non-profit models, offers a compelling approach to the collective task of a priori risk-design at the outset of a multi-entity venture. Learning how to cooperatively build a reference system of intrinsic and instrumental values that can then adapt to the dynamic emergence of stakeholder ecology decision lifecycles is an ongoing collaborative effort in values engineering. A systems philosophy approach, that surfaces critical-boundaries where the presuppositions and beliefs of stakeholder principals interact with consequence, can liberate the values engineering process and strengthen the understanding of social imperatives that can serve to regeneratively drive motivations and the subsequent choices that make a difference.

This presentation establishes an initial image of the planned comprehensive publication program for the new professional society - International Society for Systems Pathology (ISSP). It describes the contents of five proposed products or services: a semi-annual bulletin, a proposed Annual Yearbook (or volumes of an Annual Review of Systems Pathology), a new proposed Journal devoted to publishing peer-reviewed research articles on Systems Pathology, an initial Review Book (i.e., Introductory Collection of Chapters on Systems Pathology), and a Bibliographic Manual giving the source citations for important foundational papers. Each of these will be described in the talk.

The overall goal of the publication program is derived from the goals of the ISSP as reflected in its society’s By-Laws. These include promoting wider awareness of the multiple domains of Systems Pathology, enabling communication among domains, researching mechanisms by which systems dysfunction, enabling transfer of concepts, theories, techniques and tools, developing models, taxonomies, applications, that are useful across domains, and promoting synthesis, unification and integration across the currently separated domains of Systems Pathology. Publications should also play an important role in education in Systems Pathology and both expanding and disseminating its knowledge base.

The first planned publication is the Bulletin that informs the membership about the growth, organization, and activities of the Society. The Bulletin’s will contain regular sections with the following titles: Editorial; Managing Director’s Report; ISSP Business; Meetings and Conferences; Guest Articles; Products and Services; Reports from Working Groups and Chapters; Correspondence; Members Bulletin Board, and more.

At this moment, the second publication will be an introductory text containing a collection of chapters on Systems Pathology. This proposed text will include chapters by noted authors representing different types of pathology from the systems point of view and on the systems level. Effort will be made to include chapters representing all domains relevant to Systems Pathology including, among others, Systems Engineering, Systems Science, Systems Thinking, Sustainability, Design and Management, Anatomical, Clinical (including molecular conventional medical pathologies),and Systems Biology.

The Annual Yearbook is intended for libraries and will mimic the structure of the initial Introductory Collection in that it will include selections from the best publications representative of every known domain of Systems Pathology. The Editor-in-Chief will make these selections with the help of an at-large Editorial Board composed of experts in each one of the Domains of Systems Pathology cited above.

ISSP intends on creating a scholarly journal, a periodical publication, in which scholarship relating to Systems Pathology can be published. This yet-to-be named journal will serve as a permanent and transparent forum for the presenting, scrutinizing, and discussion on topics related to Sytstems Pathology research. The journal will be peer-reviewed by members of ISSP and experts in domains of applications. Content will typically take the form of articles presenting original research. However, reviews and books, as well as opinions and technical papers will be solicited. Staying true to Henry Oldenburg, researchers, government, and industrial leaders are “invited and encouraged to search, try, and find out new things, impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences” (Oldenburg, 1965, p. 2) – in terms of pathology, of course.

A Bibliographic Manual, will be developed and updated, accordingly. This manual will provide sources (and citations) to foundational papers relevant to Systems Pathology.

These efforts, will require significant efforts and will be part of the activities for the new ISSP society. Finally, the specific details, for example, the number of issues per year for the proposed journal, are still ‘unknown.’ These details will emerge as the society matures.

The Workshop is in three parts: (1) the theoretical foundation of SAGE-P, (2) the ‘big data’ algorithm to construct SAGE-P and (3) the policies to reduce the rate of entropy production per unit of consumption. While part (1) and (2) are theoretical/technical issues, part (3) assumes the focal point of the Workshop. The participants will be introduced to a hierarchical structure of values upon which to frame policies aimed at reducing to a minimum the rate of entropy production per unit of consumption of economic, social and ecological product. This value-structure represents the essential cultural values unique to each, and every, decision-taking unit, be it a village level council to a grand UN Assembly of Nations, be it a family household to multi billion dollar investors of multinational Corporations.

We have formalised, and thus reduced, the value-structure to represent the qualitative properties of ‘objects’ and ‘functions’ we wish to conserve in any well-defined (complex) Economic, Social and Ecological System. Employed is the concepts of Category Theory to map values on any well-defined set of objects/functions we wish to conserve: {i.e., A: Ecosphere; values conserved-in-themselves, or intrinsic → B: Sociosphere; values conserved-in-use → C: Econosphere; values conserved-in-exchange. Or A [B(C)]}.

Systems Thinking enables to simplify our thinking about and management of complex realities and messes. Throughout the existence of the Systems Thinking philosophy several systems approaches have been developed with varying perspectives and purposes. This paper focus on the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) which emerged from the Hard Systems approaches, such as Systems Engineering. The aim was to use systems principles for unstructured, ill-defined problematical situations. The main system concepts that SSM build on are emerging properties, hierarchy, and feedback communication. Through its use the notion of worldview for meaningful actions has evolved as crucial. This paper builds on this notion and include Cognitive Mapping to make plain different worldviews and their relation to meaningful action in a hierarchical approach. Cognitive Mapping also has its roots in Systems Thinking approaches. Its origins in psychology and have been included in Operational Research applications with the aim of mapping and representing how a person thinks about a particular situation, issue or problem.

The paper discusses the features of Soft Systems Methodology and Cognitive Mapping including the interrelation. The combination of these approaches is demonstrated in a case which investigates the complexity of compulsory school teachers’ use of digital technologies in their everyday practice. The research followed a focused ethnographic approach, based on observations and interviews, which allowed the researcher to collect rich empirical data that related to various stakeholder perspectives. These perspectives affect the everyday practice of the school teachers and their possibilities to combine use of digital technology in education and own teaching philosophy.

Through the combination of Cognitive Mapping and one of the SSM modelling techniques we demonstrate an approach that bridges the richness of the real-world situation and the analytical phase of SSM. This approach advanced the understanding of underlying factors that contribute to the complexity of this particular situation and enabled insights which, if transferred to appropriate actions, may lead to an improved situation for involved stakeholders.

The soft systems methodology was developed by Peter Checkland over an extended period of time to assist organisational improvements. It provides tools to assist different stakeholders to articulate their perspectives on the best action to be taken in problem environments. It is grounded in the ideas of soft systems thinking, where systems are viewed as conceptual models to make sense of a messy real world environment. The original focus of soft systems methodology is organisational use rather than academic use. In this paper we demonstrate how the soft systems methodology can be used to guide and analyse interpretive interviews with participants in an academic research project in the context of interpretive research methodology.

We reflect on the hermeneutic nature of interpretive qualitative data collection and analysis and then we show that an activity diagram as used in the soft systems methodology, is a valid data analysis technique in terms of the epistemological context of interpretive data analysis.

We demonstrate our proposal by means of the data analysis of interpretive interviews of data warehouse practitioners on their perspectives of the required skills of information technology students majoring in data warehousing. We compiled activity diagrams and used them in communication with our participants, thus enabling our participants to verify our data analysis and enhance our understanding of their perspectives. We show how different perspectives can be represented and reflected upon after compiling activity diagrams and how different perspectives can be accommodated to develop a single strategy for change.

Our main contribution is to demonstrate the suitability of the soft systems methodology in data collection and analysis in interpretive cases studies where strategies for changes are studied.

The paper is organised in four main sections, starting with a discussion on the ontological and epistemological assumptions of interpretive case studies in order to show that it is possible to use the soft systems methodology from an interpretive research perspective. The second section provides a very brief discussion of the soft systems methodology. Our main contribution is in section three, providing justification and guidance for using the soft systems methodology to guide data collection and analysis in the context of interpretive research methodology. We demonstrate our proposal in the fourth section, where we show how we analysed interpretive interview data. Our paper concludes with reflection and recommendations.

This short conclusion talk and paper will report on the current status of founding the 501c3 non-profit, the International Society for Systems Pathology. Handouts for the participants will include the final By-Laws for the ISSP, Articles of Incorporation for the ISSP, a Manifesto for Systems Pathology, and a listing of current officers and members of the Board of Director’s. Projections of membership from the many domains of Systems Pathology will be presented. A timetable for the remaining tasks will be discussed. Forms for joining the ISSP will be distributed. Consistent with the title of this Joint Session of the ISSS Systems Pathology SIG and the Systems Biology/Evolution SIG, ISSP will provide a new and additional scientific research and professional development home for both topics. The International Business Office (IBO) of the ISSP will be at 232 Harrison Ave., Claremont, California, 91711.