General Systems Principles Research Articles

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MAGISTRACY IN UKRAINE ON THE BASIS OF INTERDISCIPLINARITY

In the article the urgent problems of masters’ training in Ukraine have been considered, the main areas of study of the problem in pedagogical theory have been analyzed. Masters’ training has been considered as a pedagogical system. It has been proved that the masters’ training system in Ukraine is integral, multifunctional, dynamic and open structure, with inherent characteristics, hierarchical structure, framework links and it is aimed at creation of a new integrated quality (the totality of professional competence qualities of a Master's Degree Student - future specialist).The role of a multidisciplinary approach in modern pedagogical researches and the importance of interdisciplinarity phenomenon in the educational process have been stated. There has been proved the possibility of application of ideas of synergetics to the study of the general principles of complex systems, including the development of pedagogical system of masters’ training in Ukraine. The phenomenon of self-organisation in the process of masters’ preparation as a possible direction of its optimization is studied. It is proved that the use of a multidisciplinary approach, including basic principles of synergy allows a new approach to the process of masters’ training, taking into consideration the transitional period of Master’s Degree course building in Ukraine and finding efficient ways of its development.

How previous experience shapes perception in different sensory modalities.

What has transpired immediately before has a strong influence on how sensory stimuli are processed and perceived. In particular, temporal context can have contrastive effects, repelling perception away from the interpretation of the context stimulus, and attractive effects (TCEs), whereby perception repeats upon successive presentations of the same stimulus. For decades, scientists have documented contrastive and attractive temporal context effects mostly with simple visual stimuli. But both types of effects also occur in other modalities, e.g., audition and touch, and for stimuli of varying complexity, raising the possibility that context effects reflect general computational principles of sensory systems. Neuroimaging shows that contrastive and attractive context effects arise from neural processes in different areas of the cerebral cortex, suggesting two separate operations with distinct functional roles. Bayesian models can provide a functional account of both context effects, whereby prior experience adjusts sensory systems to optimize perception of future stimuli.

STUDY OF METHODS OF IMPROVING THE RELIABILITY OF THE INSTRUMENT IS FUNCTIONING TONAL TRACK CIRCUITS WHEN THE RESISTANCE OF THE BALLAST

Based on the general principles of automatic control systems are considered options for the structureof tonal track circuit equipment with automatic correction tracking generator output voltage depending on the ballast resistance. For further development, a system of automatic control of the output voltage of thegenerator with the stabilization of its prescribed value. The prescribed value is set in accordance with the results of measurements of the insulation resistance (ballast).

A Comparative Study on the Influence of Probe Placement on Quality Assurance Measurements in B-mode Ultrasound by Means of Ultrasound Phantoms.

To check or to prevent failures in ultrasound medical systems, some tests should be scheduled for both clinical suitability and technical functionality evaluation: among them, image quality assurance tests performed by technicians through ultrasound phantoms are widespread today and their results depend on issues related to scanner settings as well as phantom features and operator experience. In the present study variations on some features of the B-mode image were measured when the ultrasound probe is handled by the technician in a routine image quality test: ultrasound phantom images from two array transducers are processed to evaluate measurement dispersion in distance accuracy, high contrast spatial resolution and penetration depth when probe is handled by the operator. All measurements are done by means of an in-house image analysis software that minimizes errors due to operator’s visual acuity and subjective judgment while influences of ultrasound transducer position on quality assurance test results are estimated as expanded uncertainties on parameters above (measurement reproducibility at 95 percent confidence level): depending on the probe model, they ranged from ±0.1 to ±1.9 mm in high contrast spatial resolution, from ±0.1 to ±5.5 percent in distance measurements error and from ±1 to ±10 mm in maximum depth of signal visualization. Although numerical results are limited to the two examined probes, they confirm some predictions based on general working principles of diagnostic ultrasound systems: (a) measurements strongly depend on settings as well on phantoms features, probes and parameters investigated; (b) relative uncertainty due to probe manipulation on spatial resolution can be very high, i.e. from 10 to more than 30 percent; (c) Field of View settings must be taken into account for measurement reproducibility as well as Dynamic Range compression and phantom attenuation.

Развитие идей саморегуляции в исторической ретроспективе

Psychology of self-regulation is a relatively new but rapidly developing branch of psychological science. It has integrated many of the ideas that were initially born within the framework of physiology and cybernet¬ics. Interpretations of mechanisms underlying self-regulation are closely related to the general principles of dynamic systems' functioning on the basis of feedback. These principles were defined in the works of the Russian physiologists N.A. Bernstein and P.K. Anokhin and in the cybernetic models of Western scientists. Ideas of L.S. Vygotsky, S.L. Rubinstein, A.N. Leontiev, P. Janet, J. Piaget and others have also had a significant impact on the development of modern concepts of self-regulation. The paper provides a historical insight into the origins of ideas of self-regulation and shows how they have evolved from the concept of self-regulation as adaptation to the concepts of reasonable changes, subjective activity, conscious self-regulation, self-determi¬nation and self-efficacy, and individual styles of self-regulation.

The Complex-System Approach to Personality: Main theoretical assumptions

In this paper I outline my model of personality, which I refer to as the Complex-System Approach to Personality (C-SAP). The C-SAP’s meta-theoretical background embodies the general principles of systems thinking and is designed to reconcile one of personality psychology cardinal concerns—personality coherence and incoherence. However, within the approach presented here one can find possible answers to the questions about definition of personality; its organization and development; a fundamental structure of personality architecture (here the System of Regulation and Integration Stimulation); explanation of personality traits (in light of their dominant function—reactive, regulative, or self-regulative—in controlling stimulation); and their usefulness in an analysis of personality coherence/incoherence, understood at this point as functional consistency/inconsistency over stimulation processing between temperament traits and other personality traits related to stimulation processing. Moreover, it is demonstrated how coherent/incoherent types of personalities are built when types of anxiety are considered as these other personality traits related to stimulation processing. Also, the methods for analyzing the functional (adaptive) significance of coherent/incoherent personality structures are shown. And finally, I present the selected results from my studies aimed at testing the functional role of personality coherence/incoherence in relation to the quality and dynamics of attentional performance.

OPTIMIZATION OF SEA WATERWAY SYSTEM PARAMETERS IN MARINE TRAFFIC ENGINEERING / OPTYMALIZACJA PARAMETRÓW SYSTEMU MORSKICH DRÓG WODNYCH W UJĘCIU INŻYNIERII RUCHU MORSKIEGO

Abstract The article defines a system of sea waterways and discusses general principles of modeling such systems. Conditions for safe operation of marine waterway systems are specified. The author's model of waterway parameter optimization herein presented was used in designing a system of approach channels leading to the outer port in Świnoujście, the LNG terminal.

Mesoscopic modeling as a starting point for computational analyses of cystic fibrosis as a systemic disease

Probably the most prominent expectation associated with systems biology is the computational support of personalized medicine and predictive health. At least some of this anticipated support is envisioned in the form of disease simulators that will take hundreds of personalized biomarker data as input and allow the physician to explore and optimize possible treatment regimens on a computer before the best treatment is applied to the actual patient in a custom-tailored manner. The key prerequisites for such simulators are mathematical and computational models that not only manage the input data and implement the general physiological and pathological principles of organ systems but also integrate the myriads of details that affect their functionality to a significant degree. Obviously, the construction of such models is an overwhelming task that suggests the long-term development of hierarchical or telescopic approaches representing the physiology of organs and their diseases, first coarsely and over time with increased granularity. This article illustrates the rudiments of such a strategy in the context of cystic fibrosis (CF) of the lung. The starting point is a very simplistic, generic model of inflammation, which has been shown to capture the principles of infection, trauma, and sepsis surprisingly well. The adaptation of this model to CF contains as variables healthy and damaged cells, as well as different classes of interacting cytokines and infectious microbes that are affected by mucus formation, which is the hallmark symptom of the disease (Perez-Vilar and Boucher, 2004) [1]. The simple model represents the overall dynamics of the disease progression, including so-called acute pulmonary exacerbations, quite well, but of course does not provide much detail regarding the specific processes underlying the disease. In order to launch the next level of modeling with finer granularity, it is desirable to determine which components of the coarse model contribute most to the disease dynamics. The article introduces for this purpose the concept of module gains or ModGains, which quantify the sensitivity of key disease variables in the higher-level system. In reality, these variables represent complex modules at the next level of granularity, and the computation of ModGains therefore allows an importance ranking of variables that should be replaced with more detailed models. The “hot-swapping” of such detailed modules for former variables is greatly facilitated by the architecture and implementation of the overarching, coarse model structure, which is here formulated with methods of biochemical systems theory (BST). This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Computational Proteomics, Systems Biology & Clinical Implications. Guest Editor: Yudong Cai.

Improvement of organizational performance and instructional design: An analogy based on general principles of natural information processing systems

The process of improving organizational performance through designing systemic interventions has remarkable similarities to designing instruction for improving learners' performance. Both processes deal with subjects (learners and organizations correspondingly) with certain capabilities that are exposed to novel information designed for producing a desired change. The article attempts to trace these similarities deeper to the underlying general principles that govern functioning of natural information processing systems that both human cognitive architecture (in case of instruction) and organizational systems may represent, and explores such connections and draws corresponding implications for research in human performance technology.

Participatory emergy synthesis of integrated food and biofuel production: a case study from Brazil

Large-scale production of biofuels is increasingly touted in national policies and international trade agreements. This global trend is particularly clear in Brazil. However, the sugarcane monocultures promoted in the country depend on a range of fossil fuel derivates, industrial inputs, chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals, machinery, labor exploitation and various other non-renewable resources, making it a questionable alternative to substitute fossil energy sources. In parallel, an alternative approach has recently emerged in southern Brazil, which promotes integrated food and energy production in small-scale, family managed production units, based on agro-ecological principles and local market orientation. This paper explores the potential of this alternative for more environmentally sustainable and socially fair production of food and biofuels. The scope of the paper is interdisciplinary, in combining environmental and social information from participatory fieldwork and interviews with farmers. Resource flows at farm level are identified and illustrated in diagrams, and interactions between farmers and institutions at local and global levels. The paper also explores opportunities for cross-fertilization between the two approaches applied: emergy synthesis (ES) and participatory learning and action (PLA). Integration was operationalized by drawing emergy diagrams together with local farmers, supported by PLA tools. The result is a systems description that adds information provided by farmers to an understanding based on general systems principles. Apart from accounting for the empirical results from this approach, lessons learned are used for proposing a new framework for participatory emergy synthesis (P-ES), which would facilitate more interdisciplinary and participatory evaluation of agricultural systems.

Human systems therapy

AbstractThere are many methods of psychotherapy and of family therapy. The present method of therapy is applied on psychological, family and wider social level, and is based on the same general systems principles. A number of them are the result of further elaboration, development and adaptation of pre‐existing general systems principles in order to be applied in therapy. This method was originally named General Systems Therapy but since it is applied on human systems it is now called Human Systems Therapy (HST) in its more developed form. In this work, the foundations of HST on general systems theory (GST) are presented first. Then, the basic principles of HST are described as a consequence of adaptation and elaboration of the previous GST principles. Furthermore, some basic new techniques are presented, which were developed during the application of HST and according to its principles. Finally, HST is briefly discussed in relation to some other methods of therapy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Predicting protein-protein interactions in unbalanced data using the primary structure of proteins.

BackgroundElucidating protein-protein interactions (PPIs) is essential to constructing protein interaction networks and facilitating our understanding of the general principles of biological systems. Previous studies have revealed that interacting protein pairs can be predicted by their primary structure. Most of these approaches have achieved satisfactory performance on datasets comprising equal number of interacting and non-interacting protein pairs. However, this ratio is highly unbalanced in nature, and these techniques have not been comprehensively evaluated with respect to the effect of the large number of non-interacting pairs in realistic datasets. Moreover, since highly unbalanced distributions usually lead to large datasets, more efficient predictors are desired when handling such challenging tasks.ResultsThis study presents a method for PPI prediction based only on sequence information, which contributes in three aspects. First, we propose a probability-based mechanism for transforming protein sequences into feature vectors. Second, the proposed predictor is designed with an efficient classification algorithm, where the efficiency is essential for handling highly unbalanced datasets. Third, the proposed PPI predictor is assessed with several unbalanced datasets with different positive-to-negative ratios (from 1:1 to 1:15). This analysis provides solid evidence that the degree of dataset imbalance is important to PPI predictors.ConclusionsDealing with data imbalance is a key issue in PPI prediction since there are far fewer interacting protein pairs than non-interacting ones. This article provides a comprehensive study on this issue and develops a practical tool that achieves both good prediction performance and efficiency using only protein sequence information.

Predicting the protein-protein interactions using primary structures with predicted protein surface.

BackgroundMany biological functions involve various protein-protein interactions (PPIs). Elucidating such interactions is crucial for understanding general principles of cellular systems. Previous studies have shown the potential of predicting PPIs based on only sequence information. Compared to approaches that require other auxiliary information, these sequence-based approaches can be applied to a broader range of applications.ResultsThis study presents a novel sequence-based method based on the assumption that protein-protein interactions are more related to amino acids at the surface than those at the core. The present method considers surface information and maintains the advantage of relying on only sequence data by including an accessible surface area (ASA) predictor recently proposed by the authors. This study also reports the experiments conducted to evaluate a) the performance of PPI prediction achieved by including the predicted surface and b) the quality of the predicted surface in comparison with the surface obtained from structures. The experimental results show that surface information helps to predict interacting protein pairs. Furthermore, the prediction performance achieved by using the surface estimated with the ASA predictor is close to that using the surface obtained from protein structures.ConclusionThis work presents a sequence-based method that takes into account surface information for predicting PPIs. The proposed procedure of surface identification improves the prediction performance with an F-measure of 5.1%. The extracted surfaces are also valuable in other biomedical applications that require similar information.

Models of representation of fuzzy temporal knowledge in databases of temporal series

the problem of representation of fuzzy knowledge in databases of temporal series is considered. The existing approaches to formalization and search of temporal knowledge in such databases are described. A new class of models for representation of fuzzy temporal knowledge in databases of time series is proposed in order to support the processes of knowledge revealing. The methodology of estimating the efficiency of representations based on the use of general-system principles of human thinking and speaking communication is presented. Based on the selected system of criteria, the advantages of the proposed class of models are substantiated.

A participatory systems approach to modeling social, economic, and ecological components of bioenergy

Availability of and access to useful energy is a crucial factor for maintaining and improving human well-being. Looming scarcities and increasing awareness of environmental, economic, and social impacts of conventional sources of non-renewable energy have focused attention on renewable energy sources, including biomass. The complex interactions of social, economic, and ecological factors among the bioenergy system components of feedstock supply, conversion technology, and energy allocation have been a major obstacle to the broader development of bioenergy systems. For widespread implementation of bioenergy to occur there is a need for an integrated approach to model the social, economic, and ecological interactions associated with bioenergy. Such models can serve as a planning and evaluation tool to help decide when, where, and how bioenergy systems can contribute to development. One approach to integrated modeling is by assessing the sustainability of a bioenergy system. The evolving nature of sustainability can be described by an adaptive systems approach using general systems principles. Discussing these principles reveals that participation of stakeholders in all components of a bioenergy system is a crucial factor for sustainability. Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is an effective tool to implement this approach. This approach would enable decision-makers to evaluate bioenergy systems for sustainability in a participatory, transparent, timely, and informed manner.

Calculation of mathematical models of biological type multiplication and growth

Simulating scheme of calculation of mathematical models of biological object multiplication and growth has been performed with usage of simulating modelling system. Calculation scheme consist of 3 sub­systems: simulation of design parameters, simulation of external effects and calculation of state parameters. Calculation scheme are suitable for designing virtual biological systems. General design principles of such systems have been discussed.

Toward system principles: general system theory and the alternative approach

AbstractGeneral System Theory (GST) sets its goal as unification of science, and its subject matter as formulation of general system principles, or principles applicable to all systems. Unfortunately, no such principles have been formulated to date. This paper demonstrates that GST is incapable of formulating system principles due to its naturalistic methods and realist ontology that represents system as a real object, or thing. This paper suggests an alternative approach to development of system principles based on the assumption that the purpose of the system approach is not unification of science but dealing with complexity, and the corresponding method is analysis–synthesis. According to this approach, reality is neither systemic nor non‐systemic, and only our methods of treating real objects and corresponding representations of them are either systemic or not. The paper asserts that system science cannot study real systems, because they do not exist. Instead it should study history of system reasoning as the process of development of system principles. As a preliminary step, by analyzing classical definitions of system, this paper identifies the principal system concepts and categorical oppositions that can be used as an initial framework for empirical studies of system reasoning. It also outlines methodology for such studies. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Howard T. Odum’s contribution to the laws of energy

H.T. Odum’s life-long search for the energy basis of general systems principles culminated in proposals for three new energy laws, which if accepted, would double the number currently recognized by engineers and scientists. I review the evolution of his thinking on proposals for a 4th (self-organization for maximum empower), 5th (energy transformation hierarchy) and 6th (coupling of biogeochemical cycles to energy transformation hierarchies) law of energy. During his lifetime investigation of ecological systems, H.T. Odum sought to generalize his and other’s observations about how ecosystems selected their network designs to match their structure and level of activity to the availabilities of energy and resource materials, with the hope that the general principles discovered would accelerate understanding of how these and systems of all kind work. During his quest, H.T. refined Alfred J. Lotka’s (1922a) maximum power principle to present it as the 4th Law of Energy and proposed two of his own as the 5th and 6th Laws of Energy. H.T. also clarified the meaning, ubiquity, and implications of the first and second energy laws to many of his students and associates, often stating, “The first law of energy states that the quantity of energy is conserved, while the second law states that the quality of energy, its ability to do work, is not.”

Social psychiatry-an overview

This overview sketches briefly the development of social psychiatry and its clinical application in institutions in modern times. The second and longest part addresses the family as the important social context for everybody throughout life. A systems view of family tasks and functioning is offered. In the third part, some of the highlights of psychiatric epidemiology are cited, and in the last section, community psychiatry is discussed - its failures and its potential. The need to establish interagency networks with continuing consultation and discussion concerning each patient is stressed, as well as the essentiality that our professions learn and cultivate general systems principles. Social psychiatry views the patient and the context in which he or she lives or works as a field in which one element affects all others in circular fashion.

Software Engineering Education in Medical Informatics

Requirements and approaches of Software Engineering education in the field of Medical Informatics are described with respect to the impact of (1) experiences characterizing the "software misery", (2) status and tendencies in software methodology, and (3) educational status and needs in computer science education influenced by the controversy "theoretical versus practical education". Special attention is directed toward the growing importance of analysis, design methods, and techniques in the professional spectrum of Medical Informatics, the relevance of general principles of systems engineering in health care, the potential of non-procedural programming paradigms, and the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and education. Realizations of and experiences with programs in the field of Software Engineering are reported with respect to special requirements in Medical Informatics.