1 [email protected], attributed copies permitted 683 Explores the Edge Other perspectives and open opportunities to advance the state of knowledge

1 [email protected], attributed copies permitted

683 Explores the Edge

Other perspectives

and

open opportunities to

advance the state of

knowledge

The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman,First edition cover art 2005, Farrar, Straus and Giroux


Domain SpecificResponse-Able System Principles

Natural Systems

The Nine Laws of God

1. Distribute being

2. Control from the bottom up

3. Cultivate increasing returns

4. Grow by chunking

5. Maximize the fringes

6. Honor your error

7. Pursue no optima; have multiple goals

8. Seek persistent disequilibrium

9. Change changes itself

Enterprise Systems

VISA Chaordic Principles

1. Equitable ownership

2. Equitable rights & obligations

3. Open to all qualified participants

4. Distributed power, function, resources

5. Distributed authority

6. Everything (possible) is voluntary

7. Fees are budgeted, not assessed

8. Malleable yet durable

9. Change induced, not compelled

10. No re-org that alienates/ousts

Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock Out of Control, Kevin Kelly


Enterprise SoSEnterprise SoSEnterprise SoSEnterprise SoS


Enterprise SoSEnterprise SoSCracking the CodeCracking the Code

Enterprise SoSEnterprise SoSCracking the CodeCracking the Code


The genetic DNA code has sub-segments known as chromosomes,

that determine the nature of a resultant union

when mated with chromosomes from

another genetic code

Systems have similar chromosome-like characteristics

that interact with their counterparts

in a union of systems

to determine the nature and stability of the resultant SoS.


Interoperability Mediation

New Ideas

■ High performance interoperation

■ Rich interoperation dimensions

■ Multiple factors within dimensions

■ Interoperation compatibility logic

■ Interoperability optimization

Impact

■ Net-centric warfighter interoperability

■ Urban-situation local data rapid-access

■ Emergency responder collaboration

■ Web services negotiated relationships

■ M&A success-likelihood measures

■ Project partnership evaluations

Some Application & Research Potential

■ Semantic interoperability

■ Security interoperability

■ Governance compatibility

■ Other Key dimensions: culture, ethics, behavior, activity speed, …

■ Key factors within dimensions

■ Optimization functions

■ Mediation

Mapping the interlocking codesof system-of-system compatibilities


LeadershipPower

Structural

Strategic

Relationship

2) Factors


Mapping the mating codesof system-of-system compatibilities

Process Semantics Security Culture Governance Ethics …

FactorsFactors Factors Factors FactorsFactors

1) Dimensions

3) Compatibility MathEnterprise ADimension n

Factor m

Enterprise BDimension n

Factor m


LeadershipPower

Structural

Strategic

Relationship

2) Factors


Mapping the mating codesof system-of-system compatibilities

Process Semantics Security Culture Governance Ethics …

FactorsFactors Factors Factors FactorsFactors

1) Dimensions

3) Compatibility MathEnterprise ADimension n

Factor m

Enterprise BDimension n

Factor m

Extended EnterpriseSimulation Project


Systems-of-Systems Mediation Layer

Semantic Interoperability is the Glue

Enabling network-speed FCS, SOA, and Semantic Web deployment necessity

Critical InfrastructurePerformance


Three Dimensions of Semantic Computing

The workhorse tool for semantic interoperability is the ontology:“a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents … Pragmatically, a common ontology defines

the vocabulary with which queries and assertions are exchanged among agents.” [GRUB 07]

From Daconta, Obrst, Smith 2003 [DACO 03]; Adapted by Richard Murphy [SICoP 05]


Adaptive Information – Improving Business Through Semantic Interoperability, Grid Computing, and Enterprise IntegrationJeffrey T. Pollock and Ralph Hodgson, John Wiley & Sons, 2004


Complex Adaptive Systems

Self Organizing Systems

Systems of Systems

Swarm Systems

Evolving Systems

...and more

SDOE 683SDOE 683Design of Agile Systems and EnterprisesDesign of Agile Systems and EnterprisesSelf Organizing Systems of SystemsSelf Organizing Systems of Systems

Autonomous Agent Systems

Open Community Systems

Network Systems

Willful Systems

HIT Systems

Resilient Systems


A Framework withRequisite Variety, Parsimony, and Harmony

1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The Three Lawsof Robotics

(Isaac Azimov)

BANTAM BOOKS

This is a generative framework, the basis of emergence


Evolving Framework“In science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction must obey. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories, the Laws state the following:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

• A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first passage in Asimov's short story "Liar!" (1941) that mentions the First Law is the earliest recorded use of the word robotics. Asimov was not initially aware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy with mechanics, hydraulics, and other similar terms denoting branches of applied knowledge.

The Three Laws form an organizing principle and unifying theme for Asimov's fiction, appearing in his Robot series and the other stories linked to it, as well as his Lucky Starr series of science-oriented young-adult fiction. Other authors working in Asimov's fictional universe have adopted them, and references (often parodic) appear throughout science fiction and in other genres.

Wikipedia, 9/4/07

This image, the cover to a now out-of-print edition of I, Robot, illustrates the first scene in Asimov's corpus which uses all three Laws, though earlier stories presumed robots had various built-in safeguards. As such, this cover depicts an important moment in the history of science fiction, and it is therefore of considerable scholarly utility.


z(n+1) = z(n)2 + c

THE MANDELBROT SET THE MANDELBROT SET

INFINITE VARIETY FROM A SIMPLE EQUATION INFINITE VARIETY FROM A SIMPLE EQUATION


Another Generative framework

“Companies seeking an “empowered” or decentralized work environment should first and foremost impose a tight ideology, screen and indoctrinate people into that ideology, eject viruses, and give those who remain the tremendous sense of responsibility that comes with membership in an elite organization. It means getting the right actors on the stage, putting them in the right frame of mind, and then giving them the freedom to ad lib as they see fit. It means, in short, that cult-like tightness around an ideology actually enables a company to turn people loose to experiment, change, adapt, and – above all – to act.”

Built to Last, pg. 139, Collins and Porras


Pattern Languages• Alexander suggests using Pattern Languages• A dictionary of terms laying out a set of basic design decisions

Alexander presents over 250 examples, including:

'alcoves' 'entrance transition' 'ceiling height variety' 'secret place' 'cascade of roofs' 'wings of light'

'something roughly in the middle'

• Design discussions are conducted using this language

• Design at all levels springs from this common baseo Not every room will have 'alcoves'

or 'ceiling height variety'o Many will

• The common language promotes commonality of design

• The pattern language does not tell you how to design anything

• It helps you decide what should be designed

From "Design Patterns" Aren't” by Mark Jason Dominus, [email protected] http://perl.plover.com/yak/design/


Scientific American, March 2000, pps 72-79

What can SoS learn from swarms?

Are they willful?

Does Nature care if they succeed?


An Army of Small Robots, Grabowski, R., Navarro-Serment, L.E., Kholsa, P.KScientific American, Nov 2003, pps 62-67

Maybe some swarms can and do consist

of self-sufficient units


Group Consensus?

"Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable – as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead. [Bernard Baruch, Speculator]

"The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest. [Henry David Thoreau]

"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups. [Friedrich Nietzsche]

"I do not believe on the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.[Thomas Carlyle, Historian]


Emergence?

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon:

"... it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated.

"... can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence.

"... always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual.

"A crowd, Le Bon argued, was more than just the sum of its members. Instead, it was a kind of independent organism. It had an identity and a will of its own, and it often acted in ways that no one within the crowd intended. [James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds]


Doubleday, 2004

Examines three kinds of group problems:- Cognition- Coordination- Cooperation

Groups work well under certain conditions... - Need rules to maintain order and coherence- Individuals think and act independently- Individuals talk-to/learn-from each other- But, too much communication is bad

Conditions necessary:- Diversity- Independence- Decentralization - with aggregation

Lesson:- Even the author can't accept the truth


Barrett-Koehler, 1999, www.bkconnection.com

Cooperative EnterpriseSoS Concepts

- Such as VISA –

Wisdom:

Lessons:

• aggregation not centralization

• minimal rules of order/coherence

• non-interference (independence)

• self-selection (decentralization)

• explicit synergy (collective value)

• High growth to large group, but then...• Backslid to conventional structure


Will

Control-System Model of Human Goal Pursuit...Studies in Human and Organization Interaction

Amity and Enmity - I, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003


2-Partner Unconscious Attitude Linkage



Complexity and Systems of Systems



Cooperation Against an Enemy

Amity and Enmity - II, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003


Stability of Cooperation vs Intelligence/Speed



SoS Internal Conflict

vs External Unity

Is Selfless Interest Super Natural?



Amity and Enmity, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003Editions a la Carte, Zurich, Switzerlandwww.editions.ch, [email protected]


Fast, Cheap and Out of Control"Ghengis was a robot that could walk over anything in its path as it followed a person. Ghengis had six legs, bumper antennas, and infrared sensors for following the heat signature of the person it is following. The software for Ghenghis was not organized as a single program but fifty-one parallel programs Brooks called Augmented finite-state machines, which can send numbers to components on fixed wires. The first forty eight AFSMs allow Ghenghis to scramble around rough terrain. The walk machine uses six outputs that sequence the six legs to take steps. The Infrared Sensors machine receives input from six pyroelectronic sensors and each one has an on or off state that feeds into the Prowl or Steer machine. The Prowl machine is connected to inhibit the outputs of the Walk finite-state machine. If the robot detected some infrared activity, it walked toward it. If the sensors had been rotated to the back of the robot, it would walk away. ... The insect-like Ghengis was a turning point for robotics. Ghengis followed an emergent trajectory that was a product of both of its actions and its situation in the terrain of the world. (Amazon Reviewer: D. Nishimoto) [Rodney Brooks heads the CSAI Lab at MIT]

Attila, MIT (1989–91)

© MIT, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Genghis

www.amazon.com/Flesh-Machines-Robots-Will-Change/dp/037572527X www.britannica.com/eb/article-219109/artificial-intelligence


Paraphrasing a comment Brook's made...

I don't think humans can write

predictable emergent programs.

The answer may lie in

humans providing the initial seeds,

which are then improved by genetic algorithms.


Will They Attack Boston By Mistake?

Current swarms are remote controlled. Future swarms will be autonomous.

Patrolling the eastern seaboard. Evolving toward willfulness.

www.military-aerospace-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=686


Aberrant behavior arising in a stable social systemis detected and opposed

Example: Female penguin attempting to steal a replacement egg for the one she lost is prevented from doing so by others.


Complex Adaptive Systems

The Biology of Business, John Henry Clippinger III, Editor, Jossey-Bass, 1999, p 9.


The Roessler Attractor“This figure is a plot in three-dimensional phase space of a set of differential equations in their chaotic regime. The line that twists through this figure indicates the trajectory of this system, a trajectory that is so intertwined that arbitrarily small differences in initial conditions can lead to widely varying outcomes.

For instance, if the system starts at location “A,” it is in principle impossible to predict whether at a specified future time it will be at location B or location C.

However, in spite of its detailed unpredictability, the systemis confined to a highly structured envelope, and it is impossible for it to visit the point D.

[“Making Swarming Happen,” Conference on Swarming and C4ISR, Van Parunak, 3 Jan 2003, www.newvectors.net/staff/parunakv/MSH03.pdf].


Some Research Possibilities

What are the differences between Complex Systems, Wicked Systems, and Systems of Systems?

CS WS SoS

Behavior

Fixed Changing Changing Cause Generating Generating Generating

Function Function Function

Effect Bounded Unbounded Bounded

Intriguing thought at this point – to be explored.


Ad by Accenture

Scientists have investigated this question of expertise -- specifically, skill at a level that seems unobtainable by normal, motivated individuals. In one case, Researchers at Florida State University studied musicians at a Berlin conservatory.

The results were clear-cut, with little room for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. The elite musicians had practiced far more than the others. "That's been replicated for all sorts of things -- chess players and athletes, dart players," says Ericsson.

"The only striking difference between experts and amateurs is in this capability to deliberately practice."

The group even determined the number of hours musicians must play to compete at the highest professional level -- about 10,000, the equivalent of practicing four hours a day, every day, for almost seven years.

Mastering Expertise

Aug 21/28, 2006


Effortful, Self-Critical StudyStudies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well.

Effortful study is the key to achieving success in chess, classical music, soccer and many other fields. New research has indicated that motivation is a more important factor than innate ability.

…

Psychologists found a second attribute in elite players that is less obvious than sheer hours of practice. While most of us think of practice as the repetition of tough spots, elite musicians, they found, took a different approach. They were intensely self-critical, identifying weaknesses at an incredibly detailed level. They examined the pattern in which they put their fingers down, the way their muscles tensed -- and they continually experimented with ways to improve. In other words, they were not only musically creative, they were creative about solving problems.Photo: Ethan Hill

Scientific American, Aug 2006 Aug 21/28, 2006

Scientific American, Aug 2006


Marin Civic CenterFrank Lloyd WrightZen and the Art of System Design


Frank Lloyd Wright...only when we know what constitutes a good building...when we know that the good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but is one that makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before that building was built.

Still regarded as the greatest 20th Century house ever built. Responding to the geological strata of the site, his mastlike tower of stacked shale stone seemingly held aloft three cantilevered levels hovering over Bear Run, a tiny river.

He expressed the rocky site by metaphorically lifting the stones out of the riverbed to create the interior floor planes, using the largest rock, the Kaufman's choice spot to sunbathe, as the hearthstone for the living room fireplace. And instead of orienting the structure to face the falls, Wright floated the entire structure over the falls, merging the house inseparably into the total natural picture.

Excerpted from David Jameson, www.architechgallery.com/arch_info/artists_pages/frank_lloyd_wright.html



Value Propositioningas a System

Requisite VarietyParsimonyHarmony


SDOE 675 SDOE 678 SDOE 679 SDOE 683

675 678 679 683

4-Course G

raduate

Certificate


675Thinking

678Engineering

679Architecting

683Designing

science

rationale

strategy

vision

fundamentals

agile systems and enterprises

architecture

infrastructure

shape

art

architecting

process

application

elegance

strategy

performance

683 - Designing Agile Systems and Enterprises: Design Quality and Self Organizing SystemsCommon themes converge here in a study of agility across a wide variety of system types, characterized by aspects of complex adaptive systems expressed as self-organized systems of systems. Studies will explore 4th generation warfare, swarm systems, systems of systems with willful components, resiliency and vulnerability in infrastructure networks, emergent behavior, interoperability, open-community systems, attractors and generating functions as behavior boundaries, evolutionary systems, and similar issues at the moving edge of agile system and enterprise knowledge.


What do sexually transmitted diseases, the World Wide Web, the electric power grid, Al Queda terrorists, and a cocktail party have in common? They are all networks. They conform to surprising mathematical laws which are only now becoming clear. Albert-Laszlo Barabasi has helped discover some of those laws over just the past five years, and though they are some pretty abstruse mathematics, he has written a clear and interesting guide to them.

Not only has he attempted in this book to bring the math to non-mathematicians, he has shown why the work is important in down-to-earth applications. It is important for those multitudes who have no taste for math to know that this is not a book full of equations; Barabasi knows that for most of his readers, doing the math is not as important as getting a feel for what the math does.

He explains the basic history of network theory, and then shows how his own work has turned it into a closer model of reality, a model that most of us will recognize. Networks are all around us, and they are simply not random. Some of our friends, for instance, are loners, while others seem to know everyone in town. Some websites, like Google and Amazon, we just cannot avoid clicking on or being referred to, but many others are obscure and you could only find them if someone sent you their addresses. Barabasi calls these "nodes" with such an extraordinary number of links "hubs," and he and his students have found laws of networks with hubs, showing such things as how they can continue to function if random nodes are eliminated but they fragment if the hubs are hit.

Barabasi is currently doing research to show what intracellular proteins interact with other proteins, and true to form, some of them are hubs of reactions with lots of others. Finding the hubs of cancerous cells, for instance, and developing ways of taking them out, show enormous promise in the fight against cancer. And finding the hub terrorists in Al Queda in order to take them out would be the best way to eliminate the network. [Amazon reviewer Rob Hardy]


Review By C. W. Richards (Atlanta, GA United States)

Global guerrillas practice something Robb calls "open source warfare," which means that in the modern environment, people even on different continents can form or join groups, train, and carry out operations much more quickly than in the past or than the major legacy states can today.

As the groups learn from each other (and a sort of Darwinism selects out the unfit), a larger pattern forms, an "emergent intelligence," similar to a marauding colony of army ants, no one of which is very sophisticated, but operating together according to simple rules, they are survivable, adaptable, and in a suitable environment, invincible.

To construct this model, Robb employs a number of concepts that may be new to people unfamiliar with modern systems theory: close-coupled systems, self-organization, emergent properties (particularly "intelligence"), stigmergy, and the concept of complexity arising from simple processes.

He also introduces new tools for understanding how systems work in the modern world: open source insurgency, global virtual states, superempowerment, systempunkts, and "black swans."

Robb's general strategy is to improve resilience by any means possible. I could imagine, for example, that instead of building new power plants that, along with their distribution systems, are vulnerable to disruption, the government provides market incentives to improve resilience. The government could increase subsidies to utilities and require all of them to buy electricity from homeowners during the day and sell it at reduced rates at night. As more people add power generation capability to their houses - solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, whatever - resilience improves. This may not be the most efficient solution, but in the age of open source insurgency, too much efficiency can be dangerous.

Robb makes a compelling case that this model will also work for national security. It is certainly working very well for the groups we are fighting.

Order emerges from chaos - ready or not

Publisher: Wiley (April 20, 2007)


Whether or not you care about leaderless, borderless and/or decentralized organizations, labeled as starfish organizations, they probably affect your life in some way or another whether you have downloaded music or avoided it, dealt with PETA, looked up something in Wikipedia, had actions of al-Qaeda affect your life in some way like stricter restrictions at the airports, etc. In that sense, you might as well get to know something about them to make better use of them or be prepared to deal with them effectively when you have to. If you read this book, you will likely not just want to know or know more about them, but get involved to see what they're all about or get more involved.

Written from both an overview and hands-on approach, this book is not only useful as a reference but also as a manual on the issue. The book identified the qualities of starfish organizations and what makes them effective, how anyone and everyone could start, sustain and/or get involved in these organizations, the types of people key to such organizations and how to combat them if you're on the other side. Guidelines are offered and useful real life examples illustrate what otherwise be just concepts.

…it did not address how government could use this book to decentralize since … government is the epitome of centralization. I work for government, and felt government badly needed this, but had to think it through myself to come up with uses for attracting colleagues to my Starfish and Spider for Lunch (and Learn) voluntary book review session. When I did, though, not only was I excited at the possibilities, but also at the challenge to try to convince senior management of this, although that will take time. …if nothing else, my ability to customize an application to government should tell you something about the book's effectiveness as a manual.

Amazon Review by Minh Tan


There is a lot of good stuff in here. The descriptions of the patch procedure and simulated annealing, for instance, are very nice. This book can be useful to the motivated general reader, and to a scientist who wants to see the very basics of some novel ideas. It can also be useful for those familiar with complexity as an account of how different pieces fit together.

It's important to remember that the book is not a text in, say, biochemistry. Rather, it's about a way to see the world. At this stage of the idea development life cycle and in a basic treatment like this, it would be counterproductive to insist that these modeling tools reproduce everything we know or start at the level of complication of a mature science. If the book deals in toy examples that relate to a different view for pieces of the world and how they relate, it has done most of its job.

[Amazon reviewer]$12.89 new, on Amazon


"Sync" is a dissertation on synchronization and its place in the universe. Standard entropy theory has always indicated that a system that is orderly will, over time, move to a position of less and less organization. However, that is not always consistent with observations in real life.

Steven Strogatz does an inspired job of describing how synchronization exists in such small areas as fireflies and plant leaves to much larger concepts of the universe and the asteroid belt in our solar system.

One of the more fascinating sections of the book deals with synchronization in human beings. …for those with a keen interest in the cycles of the natural world and current research into this emerging field this is one of the foremost texts on the subject. It is a highly recommended read for anyone with a desire to learn about how natural tendencies toward synchronization move us to spontaneous order. [Amazon Review by Harold McFarland]

Documents

1 [email protected], attributed copies permitted 683 Explores the Edge Other perspectives and open opportunities to advance the state of knowledge