EMPLOYEE DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF DIALECTIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

Employee diversity management (EDM) belongs to the crucial task of human resources management. EDM is rarely linked with systems theory, although it needs requisite holism. We report on research that considers the application of Dialectical Systems Theory (DST) to EDM. We first briefly describe DST and then turn our attention to employee diversity (ED). We include its elements, such as various types of personality, values, and attitudes of employees; family issues; and demografic trends, which managers should know in order to successfully manage ED in their organizations. We find that successful ED management depends on holism, which in turn depends on systems thinking. The DST approach is what we find most suitable among various approaches: It supports well the interdisciplinary cooperation that is needed in EDM.     

SYSTEMS APPROACH OF THEORETICAL MODELS IN RADIOBIOLOGY AND RADIOTHERAPY

Most of theoretical models encountered in radiobiology and radiotherapy use the absorbed energy dose (d) as the reference variable. By taking account of the nature of the elementary transformations which occur at molecular level in irradiated systems, it is shown that D is generally not a suitable variable, and that it is preferable to use a formalism in which the variables of radiation spectrum and intensity, and the time variable, are explicity separate. In parallel with the selection of suitable variables, a topological representation in the form of transformation graphs provides a clear schematization of the various processes and their respective roles. This representation, which includes physical, chemical and biological phenomena, clearly shows both the level of observations and the level of hypotheses. When searching for particular models one must first take into account the phenomenological requirements resulting from the observations which can be made, before introducing any complementary hypothesis. The basic models of target and hit theory generally do not satisfy these requirements.

At it is easy to see, the formalism used is sufficiently general and can be utilized in fields different from the one described here.¹.     

ON THE PROBLEM OF REPRESENTATION IN LOCKEAN AND DIALECTICAL BELIEF SYSTEMS: A SYSTEMS APPROACH TO POLICY ANALYSIS

This paper explores the problems that are associated with building a model (representation) of two systems which are central to the field of policy analysis. The systems are the Lockean and Dialectical Inquiring Systems (ISs). Given two or more belief systems, a Lockean IS will attempt to secure maximum agreement between them, whereas a Dialectical IS will attempt to secure maximum disagreement as the basis for forming a policy.     

INFORMAL SYSTEMS THINKING OR SYSTEMS THEORY

Systems thinking is the practice of holistic thinking, which can be informal or based on systems theory. Success has always depended on holistic rather than one-sided thinking. Empirical findings about the innovative society can exemplify this statement, though there seems to be no universal agreement as to what the basic attributes of systems thinking are, and we offer a summary of them. To test them, we investigated an industrial latecomer country and found that the understanding of both the innovative society and the systemic thinking are rare: one-sidedness prevails. What do we do to come closer to holistic thinking? Neither the General Systems Theory nor most other systems theories (except the Dialectical Systems Theory) provide a methodology supportive of holism; however, the case of the visionary companies proves that informal systems thinking can be very powerful. Hence, systems theories should work more on informal systems thinking.     

混合系统的稳定性分析

研究了混合系统的稳定性问题.首先,对于混合系统给出了一种一般的模型,该模型能 够描述混合状态的跳变现象.然后,定义了一种辅助函数作为系统能量的一种度量.基于该模型 和辅助函数,得到了混合系统稳定性判定的一些新结果.这些结果给出了在离散状态改变时,在 由于连续状态的跳变而引起的系统能量增加的情况下,混合系统仍保持稳定的充分条件.最后， 给出了一种能量函数的寻找方案,并利用一个仿真实例验证了该方案的有效性.     

SYSTEMS EDUCATION AT THE FIELDING INSTITUTE

This is an exposition of the post-graduate program evolving at the Fielding Institute to train professionals in social praxis—ting system theory and methods into programs that effect social change. We illustrate herein how the practice of intervention in social systems calls upon systems praxis, and we argue that the practitioners must have, in addition to a background in the social sciences, a pragmatic access to theories of personal, social and institutional change. The foundation of an education for systems praxis requires intermingling theoretical ideas with skills that can affect the social system. We propose three essential elements for the education of system practitioners: (1) the process of decision-making. (2) processes of inquiry suitable to living systems at personal and at societal levels, and (3) system thinking. Finally, we describe how the whole process requires self-reflection and personal maturity to maintain authentic human engagement     

A fault-tolerant distributed subcube management scheme forhypercube multicomputer systems

This paper proposes a fault-tolerant distributed subcube management scheme for hypercube multicomputer systems. Gracefully degradable subcube management is supported by a data structure, called the distributed subcube table (DST), and a fault-tolerant broadcast protocol, called the reliably synchronized broadcast (RSB). In an n-dimensional hypercube, DST is the collection of 2ⁿ local subcube tables (LSTs), DST={LST₀, LST, ..., LST_2-1 ⁿ}, where LST, is a bit-mapped table assigned to N_x, a fault-free node whose address is x. LST_x, ∀_x, is n+1 bits long, and it records the status (free/busy) of certain subcubes adjacent to N_x. The RSB diagnoses and avoids faults during interprocessor communication to prevent faulty nodes from being allocated for job execution. In addition to possessing a fault-tolerant design, our scheme can also achieve comparable or better performance than existing centralized schemes, as verified by extensive simulation     

一类柔性制造系统的运行特性

柔性制造系统是一类重要的离散事件动态系统,它的运行特性分析及系统优化已引起了广泛的注意。本文研究 Cohen 模型描述的一类柔性制造系统的运行特性,着重分析系统的加工时间矩阵与系统运行效率的关系。应用本文的结论,可以找到一大类具有相同运行效率的柔性制造系统,这对于系统的优化是有意义的,文中的例子不仅证实了各种结论,而且对于生产线上的排序问题有启发意义。     

SYSTEM TRANSFORMATIONS AND ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

The purpose of this paper is to formulate the concept of system transformation and the concept of adaptive system in the framework of general systems theory, and to characterize both concepts as well as mutual relationships between them from a qualitative viewpoint.

We define a system transformation as a mapping on the class of all systems under consideration in a general and unified manner, and especially consider the variety of system behavior under parallel, cascade, and feedback transformation for linear functional time systems. We introduce the notion of open system in terms of system transformation. We then formulate class controllability and adaptability of an open system under system transformation, and characterize them in terms of basic system properties. In particular, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition under which an open system is adaptive.     

SYSTEMS THEORY APPROACH TO THE HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATION ON NATIONAL LEVEL

National health care systems have been found ineffective in most countries. The subsystems of the health care systems are not autonomous and as such cannot be competitive in the market. A participative health care system with empowered patients as customers and hospitals as providers is proposed. The consequences for both further modeling and implementation of such systems are discussed.     

TOWARDS A MODELING OF NATURAL SYSTEMS

We percept the infinitely various and diverse world as a huge system of systems. In the classification of them the one entity can be singled out and be called the growing systems. This paper presents an attempt of modeling such systems. It resulted with some non-trivial inferences and suggests methods of studying and controlling such systems.     

生产监控系统研究概况

本文将生产监控系统的研究工作分为三个方面,即故障检测与诊断方法的研究,监控者工作特性及其模型的研究以及计算机辅助监控系统的研究.并且分别总结和回顾了以上几个方面研究的主要状况.讨论了由于生产技术的进一步发展,生产监控系统研究所面临的新问题.     

Improving facility planning with decision technology systems

Facility planning is a complex process that requires art, science, and technology. Several methodologies have been generated to facilitate this process. Computer information systems (CIS) have been developed to deliver these methodologies and to provide knowledge relevant for effective facility planning. Since accurate decisions are required at each step of the process, the development effort has focused on CISs that support decision-making.Traditionally, the support has been provided in a segmented fashion and for separate phases of the decision-making process. To be absolutely effective, the support should be integrated and complete. There have been efforts to provide the required CIS support, but these systems have inherent conceptual shortcomings. Moreover, the newer and enhanced systems create additional problems that will prevent them from providing integrated support for all decision making phases in facility planning.This paper examines the facility planning process. Then traditional and enhanced information systems support is reviewed and the inherent shortcomings and unresolved integration problems are explained. Finally, an alternative approach, referred to as a Decision Technology System (DTS), is proposed to resolve the difficulties.     

COMMUNICATION LANGUAGES FOR MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS

Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) have recently acquired a primary role in open multiagent systems, which need a standard communication framework shared by all interacting heterogeneous agents. According to the most important ACL standard proposals so far, agents are supposed to carry out the communication process by performing actions of a specific type, namely, communicative acts, whose semantics is defined in terms of the agents' mental states. Although following the mainstream guidelines inspired by the Speech Act Theory, our work illustrates an alternative model of agent communication, by shifting the focus from agents' mental states to their social state. Taking an existing communicative act library, we provide a semantics for a significant set of acts based on the concept of commitment, and prove that our approach tackles some issues that have not been dealt with in an effective way yet and that may have hindered the rise of an universally accepted ACL standard.     

Strategies for implementing decision technology systems successfully: a field study in army housing management

A decision technology system (DTS) has been proposed to provide direct support for the entire decision‐making process. In the 1990s, the concept was implemented in stages to facilitate US Army housing management. This implementation has been the first successful field application of the DTS theory. Recent enhancements confirmed earlier insights and offered important new lessons in developing, implementing, and benefiting from DTSs. This paper discusses the original insights and fresh lessons. To provide a context, the article first briefly describes the enhancements and presents a typical, but streamlined, system session. The paper then summarizes the documented gains from implementing the DTS theory, reports the utilized strategies, and infers the implications for the systems analysis and design process.     

TREE-LIKE HIERARCHY OF SYSTEMS

In this paper the concepts of tree-like hierarchy of systems and linked hierarchy of systems are introduced. The concepts can be seen as generalizations of those of time systems and linked time systems, respectively; moreover, the concepts can be used to establish models of social organizations and of the development of a cultural entity. Some open questions are posed.     

THE CATEGORY THEORY OF TIME SYSTEMS

In this paper we show a categorical treatment of general time systems using the categorization method presented in our previous paper. Various concepts about general time systems are categorized in the unified framework. Some category theoretical tools for the investigation of such time systems are presented. Using those tools some basic properties of time systems are explored in our framework. In particular, a conceptual equivalence between the causality and the state space representability is proved in the categorical terms. These results show that our method can be a universal tool for a categorization and a categorical treatment of mathematically defined general systems.     

系统管理的一致性测试

ＯＳＩ系统管理是ＯＳＩ的一个重要组成部分，由于系统管理的特殊性，传统的一致性测试方法并不很适合于系统管理，本文分析了系统管理的各个部分，描述了与各个部分相适应的一致性测试方法。     

THE CRYPTOGRAPHIC USES OF POST TAG SYSTEMS

Post tag systems combine substitution and transposition in one operation. This leads to ciphers which are both faster and more secure than DES for both hardware and software implementations.     

SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY AND PRACTICE: THE NEED FOR A CRITICAL APPROACH

Much of the success of science in explaining, predicting and controlling natural systems can be attributed to the well understood methods that exist for producing and testing theory in the natural sciences. The successful development of social systems science is similarly likely to depend on the elucidation of methods of inquiry suitable to the systems of its concern. Unfortunately the successful methods employed by natural scientists cannot be simply taken over and used in social systems science. Systems scientists who attempt this, risk operating with wholly inappropriate tools when dealing with social systems. Alternative methods of inquiry have been developed in the “soft” systems tradition which are more appropriate for use in relation to one large class of social systems. However, there are many social systems for which even these soft systems approaches are inappropriate. For such social systems there is a need for a more radical and critical approach to producing and verifying social systems science. This paper seeks to demonstrate the need for a critical approach in relation to one class of social systems and shows how only this kind of approach can take account of the special characteristics of this category of social system.