A farming systems approach to development has meant many things over the past 15 years, depending on its institutional and ecological setting, its target populations, and the goals motivating its implementation. Despite the diversity of approaches, and the sometimes rancorous discussion over which was best and why, the approach is now recognized in many places as the only one that can identify and respond to the needs of limited resource farm families, especially those in marginal ecosystems. Involving (...) an iterative process of diagnosis, design, testing and extension, the farming system approach to date has done more to change research objectives at national and international institutions than to change actual farmer practices. By legitimizing what limited resource farmers do and why they do it, a farming systems approach lends itself to policy analysis as well. Recent research in farming systems suggests greater attention should be payed to exogenous variables, including policy and infrastructure, as well as to development of technology that really responds to the felt needs of limited resource farmers in improving their level of living. (shrink)

The innovation systems approach has swiftly spread out worldwide in the last three decades and stood as an important framework for policy-making in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. At the same time, there have been serious and untreated concerns in the literature about the theoretical soundness of this approach. Our discussion in this paper is based on the belief that a detailed analysis on epistemological foundations of the approach could shed a judgmental light on (...) the aforementioned concerns. To provide that analysis, we reconstructed and studied the nature and evolution of innovation systems approach as a case of conceptual revolution against the more established traditions in economics of innovation. Our analyses show that the rise of the systemic view of innovation include radical changes in conceptual structures pertaining to orthodox view of innovation. These developments also go so far as to include significant shifts in epistemological foundations of the old paradigm. These later shifts provide us with an epistemological base from which we can shelter the innovation systems approach from the hard criticisms rooted in a quasi-positivist point of view. That epistemological base also shows the path for the future development of the approach towards more robustness and precision. (shrink)

The systems approach to niche presented herein stands as an example of the unifying potential of mathematical system theory when applied to concepts and principles of ecology. Beginning with subjective concepts from the naturalistic tradition, the niche was framed in the formalism of general system theory. So modeled, it appeared as a restriction of a more general construct, the environ. Both niches and environs are implementable in the context of ecosystem models, and with the growing ability of ecologists (...) to construct such models, system theoretic niches and environs both should serve in the future to clarify old problems of ecology, and make it possible to raise new classes of problems. The nature of niches, always difficult conceptually for the ecologist, may now give way to further development, both theoretical and empirical. (shrink)

The author has made the attempt to develop conceptual issues of systems approach to comparative criminological studies. The article deals with “bedrock” of criminology (and comparative criminology) as interdisciplinary science. In this article, the systems approach to comparative criminological studies has been defined. The author argues that practically all modern sciences are designed according to systems approach. Analysis of scientific literature enabled the author to state that systems approach was/is applied to the (...) studies of political systems, legal systems, criminal legal systems, criminal justice systems, penitentiary systems, and other systems. Standing out that “systems theory” as one of scientific approaches has made a considerable influence on criminology, the author considers the systems approach in criminology to be hosted and necessary. Considering three basic assumptions of systems approach, the author believes in the existence of “criminological systems”. The author has conducted a profound analysis of “criminological system” from the point of view of “systems theory”. He argues that the definition of criminological system and its features allow getting a general conception of system and the definition of such features on the level of a country allows getting the idea of its “national criminological system”. Also, the author supports the idea of existence of “criminological system” elements, such as “criminological outlook”, “criminological legislation”, “criminological practice”, “criminological security”. The interrelation between the elements of “criminological system” and other systems (and their elements) is discovered. Results of the author’s analysis will be significant in the development of modern criminology in the context of science globalisation. (shrink)

The complex systems approach (CSA) to characterizing cognitive function is purported to underlie a conceptual and methodological revolution by its proponents. I examine one central claim from each of the contributed papers and argue that the provided examples do not justify calls for radical change in how we do cognitive science. Instead, I note how currently available approaches in ‘‘standard’’ cognitive science are adequate (or even more appropriate) for understanding the CSA provided examples.

We undertake the comparison between Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Alexandr Bodganov's Tektology as two theories proposing a holistic interpretation of reality and claiming to solve problems which are unsolvable via conventional philosophic and scientific theories and methodologies. Basic misunderstandings by some Soviet authors regarding the nature of these theories — especially in the case of Tektology — are pointed out. The comparison is made in what concerns the general origins and purposes of the theories, their approaches (...) to the problem of organization, their treatment of mathematics and their understanding of the cybernetic concept of regulation.We contend that Tektologycontains — some 15 years earlier — all the basic concepts which will be later developed by the General Theory of Systems. As we shall see, Tektology is the ultimate expansion of any theory of systems. This fact is widely ignored in contemporary specialized literature. (shrink)

This essay examines the contemporary approaches to systems theory, the strengths and limitations of these approaches, and how communication researchers can apply them creatively. It points out that using system approaches requires communication scholars to study the mutual interaction of both information inputs and matter/energy inputs. Overloads of these inputs coupled with storage problems could engender positive feedback loops and move the system away from the linear region of stability toward the edge of chaos. It could then self-organize as (...) a more complex system in a new phase space of its trajectory. This complexity approach could be used to trace the trajectory of the global mass communication system or to conduct empirical research on all or any of the information-processing subsystems within the eight hierarchical levels of nested systems ranging from cell to supranational systems. Although systems thinking is writ large in the onto-cosmology of Eastern philosophies, its epistemological and methodological refinements did not occur until quantum physics challenged the ‘atomism’ of the dominant Newtonian-Cartesian model. (shrink)

The successful early acquisition of reading literacy represents a crucial learning process determining the further course of academic development (Stanovich, 2009). During this process, interactions between children and their proximal social environment are of utmost importance. Therefore, we introduce a systemic framework for the development of learning potential (e.g., Mudrak et al., 2015, 2019, 2019b; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2017) and explore the interactions between the social and motivational processes associated with reading literacy development in school-age children. We base our analysis (...) on a representative Czech sample of fourth-grade pupils involved in the Progress in International Reading Literacy study (PIRLS, Martin et al., 2016). On the basis of the systemic framework, we hypothesized hierarchical relationships among family socioeconomic status, related developmental resources (including parental support, expectations, and reading resources), children’s reading motivation (including reading engagement and reading confidence), and manifested learning outcomes (including school grades and reading competence). We implemented three structural equation models to test the hypothesized relationships. The first model tested the direct effect of developmental resources on reading competence. The second model included the motivational variables as mediators between resources and competence. The third model included school grades as mediators between resources and motivational variables. Our analyses indicated the good fit of the proposed models. The final model explained 37.8 % of the variance in children’s school grades and 46.5 % of the variance in reading literacy test scores (compared to 34.8 % in the first model). Moreover, parental socioeconomic status was strongly associated with parental expectations, which were associated with reading confidence, partially through the effect of parental expectations on children’s school grades. Reading confidence was the main predictor of reading literacy within the model, followed by the direct effects of parental resources. The results illustrate complex processes through which the family environment affects the development of learning competencies such as reading literacy by providing children with the relevant social and material resources associated with their motivation and school outcomes. We discuss some of the reasons that these relationships may take place and consider their implications for educational practice. (shrink)

Although it has acquired an extraordinary social diffusion, entrepreneurial education has a certain lack of definition associated with its conceptualisation and meaning. It seems clear that entrepreneurial education is linked to the economic sphere, but it is not limited to the productive sector. The idea of entrepreneurial education has been progressively enriched, being linked to the development of skills for personal growth and social progress. Further clarification of the meaning and scope of entrepreneurial education is, therefore, needed. Thus, it is (...) relevant to analyse entrepreneurial identity in the context of personal identity via the theoretical–explanatory investigation of a model developed in two phases. A critical analysis leads us to study the different factors that intervene in the configuration of this identity in an attempt to construct a systemic map of entrepreneurial action. Between the private and the public, entrepreneurs seek new ways of facing the challenges of our times, trying to find new ways of regenerating the links between individuals and institutions and with society in general. In this sense, we show how entrepreneurial educational ecosystems acquire relevance insofar as they consider the subject as the principle of action rather than merely the result of various contextual factors. (shrink)

Codes of professional ethics and cases designed to teach ethical decision making are written for individual professionals and ignore the systems level of analysis. They typically employ a lineal view of causality and overvalue placement of blame as a component of ethical problem solving. This article takes a systems approach to ethical problems and identifies aspects of systems that promote or impede ethical decision making. Psychological abuse of children is used as an example of a problem (...) requiring a coordinated, systemic response to ethical issues such as autonomy, privacy, and confidentiality. (shrink)

Concern about the integrity of empirical research has arisen in recent years in the light of studies showing the vast majority of publications in academic journals report positive results, many of these results are false and cannot be replicated, and many positive results are the product of data dredging and the application of flexible data analysis practices coupled with selective reporting. While a number of potential solutions have been proposed, the effects of these are poorly understood and empirical evaluation of (...) each would take many years. We propose that methods from the systems sciences be used to assess the effects, both positive and negative, of proposed solutions to the problem of declining research integrity such as study registration, Registered Reports, and open access to methods and data. In order to illustrate the potential application of systems science methods to the study of research integrity, we describe three broad types of models: one built on the characteristics of specific academic disciplines; one a diffusion of research norms model conceptualizing researchers as susceptible, “infected” and recovered; and one conceptualizing publications as a product produced by an industry comprised of academics who respond to incentives and disincentives. (shrink)

Machine learning heralds highly transformative approaches to the automation of numerous clinical tasks, from diagnosis to risk assessment, and from prognosis to informing treatment decisions....

In the late 1980s, a new conceptual framework appeared in the science, technology, and innovation studies: the National Innovation System. The framework suggests that the research system's ultimate goal is innovation, and that the system is part of a larger system composed of sectors such as government, university, and industry and their environment. The framework also emphasized the relationships between the components or sectors, as the ``cause'' that explains the performance of innovation systems. Most authors agree that the framework (...) came from researchers like Freeman, Nelson, and Lundvall. In this article, the author want to go further back in time and show what the ``system approach'' owes to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and its very early works from the 1960s. This article develops the idea that the system approach was fundamental to OECD work, and that, although not using the term National Innovation System as such, the organization considerably influenced the above-mentioned authors. (shrink)

Improving nitrogen (N) fertilizer management in agricultural systems is critical to meeting environmental goals while maintaining economically viable and productive food systems. This paper applies a farm systems framework to analyze how adoption of N management practices is related to different farming operation characteristics and the extent to which fertilizer, soil and irrigation practices are related to each other. We develop a multivariate probit regression model to analyze the interdependency of these adoption behaviors from 966 farmers across (...) three watersheds and diverse cropping systems in the Central Valley of California. Our analysis demonstrates that farmers adopt varying combinations or portfolios of practices, with the most common portfolio featuring a core set of fertilizer-focused practices. Irrigation infrastructure is an especially important farm operation characteristic for encouraging adoption of innovative practice portfolios that integrate water and fertilizer management. These findings highlight the ability for a farm systems approach to improve our understanding of farmer decision-making across diverse agricultural landscapes. (shrink)

Definition of the problemQuality of care also includes a professional approach to ethical challenges. This involves the moral interpretation of an issue and the management of intra- and interpersonal reflection processes. Combining both is the central task of clinical ethics consultation (CEC). Despite its importance only a few studies have dealt with the appropriate methods for steering reflection processes.ArgumentsCEC requires a theory-based and methodological approach. The argumentation shows the effects that systems theory and systemic methods have on (...) the effectiveness of CEC. The main methods such as clarification of mandates and handling complexity are presented, and their impact on dealing with ethical challenges is shown through the discussion of two cases.ConclusionThe paper provides insight into systems thinking. It discusses the influence that systemic tools have on dealing with typical challenges within clinical ethics counselling. It also shows how specific counselling methods impact a normative level. (shrink)

Consciousness has been the bone of contention for philosophers throughout centuries. Indian philosophy largely adopted lived experience as the starting point for its explorations of consciousness. For this reason, from the very beginning, experience was an integral way of grasping consciousness, whose validity as a tool was considered self-evident. Thus, in Indian philosophy, the question was not to move from the brain to mind but to understand experience of an individual and how such an experience is determined through mental structures (...) (and secondarily, the preoccupation with the brain and its relation to the mind). In contrast, cognitive science (the study of mind and cognition through 1 interdisciplinary methods, with emphasis on computational methods) found its debates soaked in discussion which primarily involved the brain and mind. Experience was not considered a primary source of information and its validity had to be established to consider it a source of information of mind. With the rise of physicalism and realization that mental states are correlative to brain states, the body was virtually neglected from involvement in understanding the mind and the attempts to reduce mind to the brain were rampant. The inability to explain subjective experience of an individual through neuroscientific findings alone has urged philosophers to explore other ways of understanding the ontology of mind. Over the last few years, embodied cognition and enactive approach have brought back the body as a central participant in this debate, providing fertile grounds to explain the relation of brain, body and mind. This paper proposes that we understand the brain as a complex system from which the mind emerges. This emergence is marked by the development of novel property of self-consciousness in human beings. The mind is a process which is embedded throughout the body and thus, the body acts as an actualizing medium for the individual. Thus, the brain is a necessary condition for the mind to be while the mind is embedded throughout the body. The brain and mind are in reciprocal causal relationship with one another, as is the body and environment with one another. In this paper, embodied cognition is understood through principles of Merleau Ponty's idea of embodiment, than through Andy Clark and Francis Varela's alone. (shrink)

The ISA, based on system theory, is the best way to organize knowledge and exchange it. It depends on defining every system through its boundary, main processes within this boundary, and exchange with the environment through this boundary. It relies upon thermodynamics and information theory and is, therefore, applicable to all kinds of systems, which makes it most suitable for cross-disciplinary investigations and innovation. SD is complex and cross-disciplinary by its very nature and, therefore, the ISA is the best (...) way to investigate its different subsystems. Among the most important subsystems of SD are integrated bio-refineries and bio-fuels, both of which are investigated in this article. (shrink)

Papers, Please, by Lucas Pope (2013), explores the story of a customs inspector in the fictional political regime of Arstotzka. In this paper we explore the stories, systems and moral themes of Papers, Please in order to illustrate the systemic approach to designing videogames for moral engagement. Next, drawing on the Four Component model of ethical expertise from moral psychology, we contrast this systemic approach with the more common scripted approach. We conclude by demonstrating the different (...) strengths and weaknesses that these two approaches have when it comes to designing videogames that engage the different aspects of a player’s moral expertise. (shrink)

We undertake the comparison between Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Alexandr Bogdanov's Tektology as two theories proposing a holistic interpretation of reality and claiming to solve problems which are unsolvable via conventional philosophic and scientific theories and methodologies. Basic misunderstandings by some Soviet authors regarding the nature of these theories -- especially in the case of Tektology -- are pointed out. The comparison is made in what concerns the general origins and purposes of the theories, their approaches (...) to the problem of organization, their treatment of mathematics and their understanding of the cybernetic concept of regulation. We contend that Tektology contains -- some 15 years earlier -- all the basic concepts which will be later developed by the General Theory of Systems. As we shall see, Tektology is the ultimate expansion of any theory of systems. This fact is widely ignored in contemporary specialized literature. We finally contend that both Tektology and the General Systems Theory are a sign of the times. A holistic secular monism is a respectable alternative to the failure of contemporary science and philosophy in guiding the life of men, in providing a raison d'être for human existence. However, we do not explore the soundness of this alternative. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance is a critical public health challenge, and the contribution of the widespread use of antimicrobials in food animals to bacterial drug resistance and human infection demands greater policymaker attention. Global consumption of antimicrobials in food animal production by 2030 is projected to rise by two-thirds due to increases in both food animal production and demand for animal products. In the United States, the volume of antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals is at least three times greater than (...) that sold for human use. A One Health approach that emphasizes the connections among the health of humans, animals, and the environment is needed to address antibiotic resistance in an integrated manner. This approach holds the promise of collaboration across multiple disciplines, including doctors, veterinarians, food safety professionals, and environmental health experts. (shrink)

This book presents strategies for using systemic theory and evidence-based practice in schools to support students, the adults in their lives, and their wider communities. Beginning by introducing and explaining the Advocating Students-within-Environments (ASE) theory, each chapter then addresses a specific school-based issue, such as academic achievement, crisis, trauma, and resiliency, from a systemic and environmental lens. Practical and accessible, the chapters are filled with case examples, evidence-base interventions, and helpful tools to show how counselors can incorporate the approach (...) into their practice. Extending beyond school and student problems, this text also explores greater system functioning, such as community outreach and state level intervention, discussing advocacy and political issues. This book is essential for school-based professionals who are looking for new ways to work with students, families, and their communities. It will also be of interest to mental health professionals who work systemically, such as marriage and family therapists and community counselors. (shrink)

Systems theory provides a surprisingly fruitful approach to several important ideas held in common by Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. These include complexity or organization as the key to understanding the distinction between the inorganic and the organic, and hierarchy or levels in complex systems. Teilhard and systems theorists accept hierarchy as fundamental. Tillich questions the concept and prefers “dimensions,” including the inorganic, organic, psychological, spiritual, and historical dimensions. Tillich's rejection of hierarchy is questioned, (...) but significant correlations are discovered in the systems interpretation of the psychological and spiritual dimensions as well as in the use of “centeredness” by both thinkers. (shrink)

Contrary to Hoerl & McCormack, we argue that the best account of temporal cognition in humans is one in which a single system becomes capable of representing time. We suggest that H&M's own evidence for dual systems of temporal cognition – simultaneous contradictory beliefs – does not recommend dual systems, and that the single system approach is more plausible.

Typical approaches to resolving the sorites paradox attempt to show, in one way or another, that the sorites argument is not paradoxical after all. However, if one can show that the sorites is not really paradoxical, the task remains of explaining why it appears to be a paradox. Our approach begins by addressing the appearance of paradox and then explores what this means for the paradox itself. We examine the sorites from the perspective of the various brain systems (...) that are intuitively comfortable with the key features of the premises of the sorites argument. We suggest that the explicit and implicit cognitive systems are separately responsible for the initial plausibility of the categorical and inductive premises. The appearance of paradox is a function of our brain’s architecture and arises from the conflicting interactions of neurologically distinct systems. (shrink)

This article attempts to assess Mario Bunge’s important but widely neglected criticisms of dialectics. It begins by providing a contextualized interpretation of Friedrich Engels’s metaphysics of the dialectics of nature before embarking on a detailed discussion of Leon Trotsky’s and contemporary “dialectical” scientists’ views on materialist dialectics. It argues that while some of Bunge’s criticisms are eminently sensible, the principles underlying the works of dialectical scientists are compatible with Bunge’s emergentist and systemic approach and can shed light on such (...) issues as the levels of organization, the diachronic and synchronic aspects of emergence, and the individualism-holism-systemism trilemma. This article also submits that dialectics is best interpreted as a guideline for a philosophy of change instead of a magical wand that liberates the investigator from study of facts. Understood as something that serves heuristic purposes, dialectics can be sensibly utilized by scientists to shore up or refine their methodological principles and thereby to facilitate empirical research. (shrink)

As problem solving disciplines or professions mature their dependence on experience based knowledge lessens in favor of the science which has evolved. Knowledge for problem solving disciplines or professions, such as engineering or management, can be subdivided into three sectors, data, methodology/theory and applications. This paper discusses the significance of the availability of knowledge in each of these sectors and in each overlap between these sectors. Next the paper discusses and illustrates a systematic approach to meta analyses of past (...) research in a field toward the ends of synthesizing what is known and presenting the results in a manner that is both efficient and effective, and finding and specifying literature voids in each of the above sectors. Such specifications may be viewed as topics with a potential for research. (shrink)

Shanker & King (S&K) trumpet the adoption of a “new paradigm” in communication studies, exemplified by ape language research. Though cautiously sympathetic, I maintain that their argument relies on a false dichotomy between “information” and “dynamical systems” theory, and that the resulting confusion prevents them from recognizing the main chance their line of thinking suggests.

The closeness of somatosensory phenomena and emotional states can be critically extended into a clinical perspective by referring to Tourette's Syndrome (TS). Two examples are discussed in this commentary: (1) the neurodevelopmental approach to the pre- and post-tic sensorimotor urges, and (2) the TS treatment with deep brain stimulation. It is shown that in TS, both views (locationist and constructionist) need to be combined along the lifespan in order to get a more realistic picture of the brain basis of (...) emotion. (shrink)

Although ethics consultation services often engage in some of the most complex and delicate clinical situations, little is known about the qual­ity of these services or their effect on patient care and patient and provider satisfaction. There is still significant work to be done in the areas of training, credentialing, and standardization. This article articulates the essential “build­ing blocks” of the Proactive Ethics Integration model developed at Ascension as well as the lessons we have learned along the way.

There has been increasing interest in the evolutionary study of religion, but perfunctory fractionalization has limited our ability to explain how and why religion evolved, evaluate religion’s current adaptive value, and assess its role in contemporary decision-making. To move beyond piecemeal analyses of religion, I have recently offered an integrative evolutionary framework that approaches religions as adaptive systems. I argue that religions are an adaptive complex of traits consisting of cognitive, neurological, affective, behavioral, and developmental features that are organized (...) into a self-regulating feedback system. Here I explore four advantages of this systemic approach to religion: it avoids definitional problems that have plagued the study of religion, affords a contextual understanding of religious belief, informs current debates within the evolutionary study of religion, and provides links to both the natural sciences and humanities. I argue that the systemic approach offers the strongest potential for real progress and broad application of evolutionary theory to the study of religion. (shrink)

The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Winter 2003, Volume 24, Number 1, Pages 91–118, ISSN 0271–0137 This paper focuses on a logical systems flow-down of a set of consciousness requirements, which together with biological quantification of human brain anatomy sets limits on the neurological network in the cerebrum in order to produce the mind. It employs data to validate inferences, or when data do not exist, proposes methods for acquiring valid evidence. Many of these systems requirements will be (...) imposed after some fundamental assumptions are made. These assumptions are not new to theories on consciousness. However, their application as fundamentals may actually represent a new approach. Concurrent with these fundamentals, explicit periods of awareness while conscious are employed. Justification for their use is found in a theoretical process described as cerebral fusion. Additionally, storage of memory elements is postulated within local glia sites, proximal to synaptic nodes, and conductive transport through the astrocytes responsible for recall of data. The model permits variations in neural–glial interface physics and allows forecasts of mind/brain dysfunctions to be inferred. One key result from the model is hypothesized and expanded upon, and may have impact in certain types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. (shrink)

The system approach to the miracle is based on the conviction that the complex issues, requiring the interdisciplinary approach, should be captured in a system way. Thus, the problem of miracle, because of its interdisciplinary character, should be captured in a systemic way, because such approach enables the more adequate and comprehensive presentation of these issues. The system approach towards the epistemology of miracle is the attempt of the more adequate presentation of the relationship between the (...) scientific-natural research and theological stage of recognizing the miracle. Because of using systemic categories, it is possible to present the common foundations (environment) of the system of scientific-natural knowledge and the system of theological interpretation, which can be described as the rationality of knowledge. The result of adopting the systemic epistemology of miracle is noticing the relations between the scientific-natural research and theological interpretation in their system complexity. Determining these relations leads to the more general conclusion that the natural sciences and theology as separate and autonomous systems of gaining the knowledge of reality do not have to be treated as the competing but rather as the complementary ones, with their methodological diversity and limitations in mind. (shrink)

This article describes Chester Barnard, the author of The Functions of the Executive, one of the twentieth century’s most influential books on management and leadership. The book emphasizes competence, moral integrity, rational stewardship, professionalism, and a systems approach, and was written for posterity. Barnard emphasized the role of the manager as both a professional and as a steward of the corporation. His teachings drew on personal insights as a senior executive of AT&T, which saw good governance as the (...) primary means of winning public acceptance of its telecommunications monopoly. Barnard provided a conceptual scheme of the theory of organization based on the following structural concepts: the individual and bounded rationality, cooperation, formal organization, and informal organization. The principal dynamic concepts include communication, consent theory of authority, free will, the decision process, dynamic equilibrium and the inducement–contributions balance, and leadership, executive responsibility, and moral codes. (shrink)

The problem of man and the environment has many aspects. I would like to discuss the scientific aspect of the problem.

Misunderstanding of the dynamical behavior of the ventilatory system, especially under assisted ventilation, may explain the problems encountered in ventilatory support monitoring. Proportional assist ventilation (PAV) that theoretically gives a breath by breath assistance presents instability with high levels of assistance. We have constructed a mathematical model of interactions between three objects: the central respiratory pattern generator modelled by a modified Van der Pol oscillator, the mechanical respiratory system which is the passive part of the system and a controlled ventilator (...) that follows its own law. The dynamical study of our model shows the existence of two crucial behaviors, i.e. oscillations and damping, depending on only two parameters, namely the time constant of the mechanical respiratory system and a cumulative interaction index. The same result is observed in simulations of spontaneous breathing as well as of PAV. In this last case, increasing assistance leads first to an increase of the tidal volume (VT), a further increase in assistance inducing a decrease in VT, ending in damping of the whole system to an attractive fixed point. We conclude that instabilities observed in PAV may be explained by the different possible dynamical behaviors of the system rather than changes in mechanical characteristics of the respiratory system. (shrink)

The article is a study into the advent of the ‘systems approach’ in Soviet psychology in the 1970s. This arose mainly through the theoretical publications of B. F. Lomov, written after he had been appointed director of the newly established Institute of Psychology. These publications are examined as reflections of those interests related to the sociopolitical role of the director of this leading psychology institution, which was officially charged with building a common theoretical and methodological framework for all (...) Soviet psychology. The main goal of these texts, predetermined by the role of their author, was to advance a theoretical scheme that made possible a formal unification of the schools of psychology, and which at the same time promoted an image of psychology as a research field that was both capable of achieving practically applicable results and compatible with the new ‘big science’ trend. (shrink)