Journal of the International Society for the Systems Sciences

Isomorphism in General System Theory

2026-06-08T13:19:31+00:00

This paper revisits the role of General System Theory (GST) within Critical Systems Thinking (CST) and Critical Systems Practice (CSP), arguing that GST has been too narrowly interpreted as a functionalist and regulation-oriented approach associated primarily with hard systems thinking. Drawing on Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s original concern with isomorphism, the paper proposes an alternative reading in which GST is understood as a general framework for relating structurally comparable models across different domains and paradigms. Inspired by van Fraassen’s pragmatic philosophy of science and the use of isomorphism in abstract algebra, the paper argues that isomorphism should be understood primarily as a relation between epistemological models rather than between real-world systems themselves. On this basis, the paper develops Critical Systems Intervention (CSI) as a model-centric approach to multimethodological intervention. CSI maintains coherence across paradigmatic shifts by introducing an explicit intervention ontology in the form of a game model representing the evolving socio-technical situation under study. Different systems methodologies associated with the Burrell–Morgan paradigms are then treated as generating structurally related representations of the same underlying intervention situation. The paper illustrates this argument through a reinterpretation of the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) and concludes that GST can be repositioned as the broader ontological and epistemological framework within which critical and plural systems interventions become theoretically integrated.

Axiomatic Systems Science - Geometry of Thinking

2026-06-19T07:44:35+00:00

As highlighted by Dr. Leonardo Lavanderos, systems science has evolved without a unified cognitive foundation and a clear philosophical framework, despite the primary ambition of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s General Systems Theory.This paper introduces Axiomatic Systems Science as a visual, symbolic and AI-compatible approach to systems inquiry. The central contribution is the GoodReason Integral Theory, a four-quadrant architecture that connects symbolic foundations, the Geometry of Thinking, research resilience and Universal Systems Methodology. The paper argues that systemic inquiry requires not only concepts and models, but also an explicit meta-ontological grammar that can support human reasoning, visual communication and AI-mediated interpretation.The paper develops this argument through a 56-node α–Ω structure represented as GrammarWare and JSON. The model is illustrated through the Andreas case, the eight dimensions of Geometry of Thinking, and several demonstrations based on systems thinking terminology, systems science and systems philosophy as a semantic service network. The results show how existing systems knowledge can be reconfigured through GoodReason into a coherent visual and computational architecture. The paper concludes that GoodReason provides an axiomatic systems mindset for navigating complexity, supporting human–AI inquiry and advancing systems science toward a more explicit geometry of thinking.

Generative Systems Theory

2026-06-05T06:33:44+00:00

Systems science has developed powerful descriptive frameworks for modelling complexity, yet it lacks a generative ontology that explains how systems produce coherence, drift, collapse, and repair. Classical systems theory maps relationships but does not identify the structural conditions that make systemic behaviour possible. While cybernetics explains regulation, it does not explain generativity, and complexity science describes emergent patterns but not the mechanisms that generate them. Resilience theory accounts for collapse and reorganisation, but not the substrate that makes downward collapse terminate at a mechanical floor where torsion expresses as violence. This paper identifies the substrate and the generative operators that govern systemic behaviour across biological, psychological, social, and institutional domains.

Generative Systems Theory begins with the substrate: the integrative field, the fold as the generator of identity, the law of cost, combinatorial expansion, the two outcome rule, and cross scale homology. Acting on this substrate are four generative operators of differentiation, integration, torsion, and repair, which form a continuous Double Figure Eight cycle. Together, they produce the invariant generative sequence through which boundaries generate tension, collapse moves downward, repair moves upward, and renewal emerges.

The Domination Fractal

2026-05-06T19:29:16+00:00

This paper introduces the domination fractal (DF, german: Herrschaftsfraktal) as a scale-invariant pattern by which coercive organization reproduces across levels of society: households, firms, administrations, and states. This work does not deliver an analytical formalism yet but a first draft and empirical motivation. The model treats society as a graph of interacting open systems. Each node exchanges information and resources, and its effective decision space is shaped by constraints imposed by other nodes and physical reality. We define violence as the process of shrinking another node’s decision space, power as the capacity to do so, and responsibility as the identification of such power relations. Exploitation becomes feasible when power gradients inflict on exchange interactions, while mediator nodes can extract rents via information asymmetry. Domination is modeled as a control loop: optimization of a cost function that compares “desired” and “actual” states and uses coercion (force, incentives, penalties, and narratives) as means of influence over the future of a subset of the physical reality including society. Under competitive selection, such control loops become autopoietic and self-reinforcing, yielding self-similarity across scales. This paper connects the model to empirical anchors such as hierarchy and compensation, critique of human-capital narratives, statistical physics analogies in wealth distributions, and macro-scaling relations between energy and material stocks alongside affluence-driven impact.

Reinforcement under Constraint: A Systems Model of Forward, Cycle, and Backward Dynamics (FxCxB)

2026-05-20T02:47:55+00:00

Systemic breakdown in complex adaptive systems rarely results from a lack of forward momentum; rather, it frequently emerges from uncontrolled reinforcement and the erosion of constraints needed to govern it. This paper proposes the Forward × Cycle × Backward (FxCxB) framework as a conceptual systems model for diagnosing reinforcement under constraint. Building on systems theory and cybernetics, FxCxB distinguishes three structural components: Forward, the ignition of variation (new possibilities); Cycle, the reinforcement structure that amplifies behaviors via feedback loops; and Backward, explicit structural selection under constraint—a constitutive braking mechanism that governs which reinforced trajectories are permitted to persist. Methodologically, the paper develops a conceptual cybernetic model and proposes diagnostic indicators (selection latency, reallocation half-life) for identifying drift. Under constraint, reinforcement tends to expand outcome dispersion faster than validation and allocation capacities update. Durability therefore depends on whether selection mechanisms update at a rate commensurate with reinforcement-driven amplification. When amplification outpaces structural selection, systems enter structural drift: a divergence between visible expansion and governability. Extending generic variation–selection accounts, FxCxB defines drift as a rate-mismatch condition and highlights operational diagnostics for detecting it, even while surface growth metrics remain positive. As a minimal illustration, consider a growing socio-technical service organization (e.g., SaaS) where acquisition and usage expand while churn and support burden creep upward: top-line indicators appear “green,” yet selection updates lag, fragility accumulates, and reallocation becomes costly once constraints tighten. FxCxB is intended as a diagnostic lens for identifying leverage points within reinforcing systems, rather than prescribing domain-specific techniques.

Presentation Slides — Reinforcement under Constraint: A Systems Model of Forward, Cycle, and Backward Dynamics (FxCxB)

2026-06-16T11:19:15+00:00

This submission contains the presentation slides for Submission ID 4502:
“Reinforcement under Constraint: A Systems Model of Forward, Cycle, and Backward Dynamics (FxCxB).”

The corresponding full paper has already been submitted separately.

Pressure, Integration, and Breakdown: A Biological Lens on Human Systems

2026-06-01T08:22:59+00:00

Abstract

Organizations invest significant resources in leadership development, coaching, consulting, organizational improvement, workforce development, wellbeing initiatives, and burnout prevention. These efforts help people learn, grow, adapt, and perform more effectively. This conceptual paper proposes an integrated framework grounded in the relationship between human biological function and organizational conditions. Drawing from nearly two decades of leadership experience, systems thinking, and insights informed by Somatic Experiencing, the paper argues that human function changes in response to conditions and that organizational function changes as well. Human biological function influences organizational function, while organizational conditions continuously shape human function in return.

Pressure is presented as a natural and necessary feature of complex systems. When pressure can move through healthy pathways, systems remain more capable of learning, adapting, integrating, contributing, and thriving. When pressure becomes blocked, concentrated, isolated, redirected, or unresolved, individuals and organizations increasingly reorganize around protection and survival rather than contribution. The framework examines the significant role of the unspoken, the difference between functioning and flourishing, the opportunity cost of silence and reactivity, the loss or absence of objectivity under strain, and the ways leadership behaviors influence individuals and systems.

The paper further proposes that leadership development, organizational development, coaching, consulting, and wellbeing efforts may be influenced by the organizational conditions in which they are applied. It concludes that sustainable organizational improvement requires attention not only to visible outcomes, but also to the upstream conditions shaping both human and organizational function.

Algorithmic Collective: A General Model for Swarm Intelligence

2026-05-14T04:14:09+00:00

The mechanisms underlying swarm intelligence remain largely unexplained theoretically, and existing frameworks struggle to account for both homogeneous and heterogeneous intelligent groups—this is the core problem addressed in this paper. Understanding how collective intelligence emerges from individual interactions is not only a theoretical gap in swarm intelligence research but also a critical issue in systems science, artificial intelligence, and human-machine collaboration. Based on complex adaptive systems theory and integrated with a generalized view of algorithms, this paper proposes the "algorithmic collective" model, whose theoretical innovations are threefold. First, it establishes three core ideas of the algorithmic perspective: the generalized algorithm expands the traditional scope of algorithms beyond computer programs to general rule systems; the unity of entity and rule holds that an algorithmic unit is both an objective entity and a process of rule execution, the two being dialectically unified; the hierarchy of entity and rule reveals the nested relationship between macro-rules and micro-rules, providing methodological guidance for cross-level modeling. Second, it defines the "algorithmic unit" as the basic rule-system individual constituting a group, replacing the concept of adaptive agent, with four advantages: thorough monism, wide applicability, explicit representation of heterogeneity, and higher operability. Third, it constructs a three-layer conceptual model consisting of the entity layer, rule layer, and function layer, forming a closed-loop evolutionary path of institutionalization, emergence, and embodiment. The rule layer is further decomposed into three parallel sub-rules: individual rules, communication rules, and leadership rules, decomposing the nonlinear interactions in swarm intelligence into designable, controllable, and measurable components. This study demonstrates that the algorithmic collective model provides a new ontological foundation and methodological tool for understanding the emergence process of swarm intelligence, and can effectively support computational modeling of swarm intelligence, analysis of heterogeneous groups, and interdisciplinary research on complex adaptive systems.

Collective Cognitive Coherence in Human Decision-Making About Artificial Intelligence: An Applied Framework for Oversight, Governance, and Human-Machine Teaming

2026-06-02T03:28:39+00:00

The integration of artificial intelligence into high-stakes organizational systems is reshaping how groups of humans make collective decisions, particularly under conditions of shared narrative context, ambiguity, and AI-induced uncertainty. Classical decision theory, which models group cognition as the linear sum of independent rational agents, cannot adequately capture what happens in these environments. Distributed decisions exhibit relational structure – patterns of coherence that classical aggregation cannot detect – and tracing them requires tools drawn from complexity science, information theory, and quantum-inspired multipartite analysis. This paper introduces the Quantum Forces of Change Index™ (Q-FOCI™), an applied systems instrument designed to measure multipartite cognitive coherence in human decision environments and to inform AI oversight design, alignment review architecture, and human-machine team cognition. Drawing from the mathematical formalism of quantum many-body entanglement, Q-FOCI™ rests on an empirical foundation. A mixed-design experiment immersed 40 participants, organized into eight non-communicating five-person groups, in an ambiguous AI malfunction scenario set in 2126. Responses were analyzed using multipartite correlation functions, entanglement-witness analogs, mutual information, and Shannon entropy, then benchmarked against Monte Carlo-generated classical independence baselines. Seven of eight groups exceeded the classical null on at least one measure. Subjective items elicited stronger inter-participant coupling than objective items, suggesting that contextual ambiguity organizes group cognition more powerfully than factual reasoning. A W-state structural analysis further revealed qualitatively distinct coherence classes – GHZ-dominant, W-dominant, and mixed – providing the first behavioral evidence that the GHZ-W distinction has detectable analogs in collective human cognition. Building on this foundation, Q-FOCI™ translates many-body coherence detection into a measurable framework for AI governance, oversight architectures, and human-machine teaming, with a research agenda to validate it in operational contexts.

Judgment Preservation in Augmented Intelligence Systems

2026-05-22T02:02:58+00:00

performance problem: under what conditions may system capability be translated into actionable authority without eroding human responsibility, contestability, and learning? This problem is important because socio-technical failures frequently arise not only from model error, but also from weak authorization design, ambiguous accountability, poor escalation pathways, and the thinning of meaningful human oversight. It is well suited to systems science because it involves interacting human and technical actors, feedback loops, boundary conditions, incentive structures, and cross-level effects that cannot be adequately understood in isolation. This paper uses a systems-governance methodology that combines conceptual analysis, socio-technical systems modeling, boundary analysis, and failure-mode-oriented institutional design to distinguish capability from authority and to identify conditions under which delegated Artificial Intelligence action remains governable. The analysis develops a four-part governance model centered on bounded capability envelopes, execution-boundary revalidation at the point of action, competence-based human oversight, and observability structures that support escalation, review, and post-incident learning. The result is a framework for preserving meaningful human interpretive, supervisory, and justificatory agency under conditions of increasing machine mediation. The paper contributes to systems science by offering a transferable governance architecture for complex institutional settings and contributes to practice by clarifying how augmented intelligence can support action without surrendering responsibility in sectors such as public administration, education, health, and other regulated decision environments.

Systemic Leadership Revisited: Systemicity and Responsibilization for Human Flourishing

2026-06-03T14:24:18+00:00

This paper responds to the ongoing calls for ‘leaders’, ‘leadership’ and modes of ‘leading’ that navigate the unknown that VUCA conditions create. Ecological grant challenges raise fresh concerns to the scale of the ‘Anthropocene’ – human extinction. In this analysis, Anthropocene will be reframed to account for human flourishing. The growing momentum and focus on flourishing has emerged as a response to the ongoing calls for restoring wellbeing and the pursuit of happiness in work and personal life, placing flourishing as the end of leadership. I will elaborate on this thesis to extend accounts of ecosystemic flourishing to also revisit the way Systemic Leadership as a fundamental aspect of flourishing attends to the quality of relationships as a central dimension. I will introduce the notion of systemisity to account for the conditions that underpins modes of connectedness through inter-being and co-creation. The latter offers a fresh perspective on relational, collective and social accounts of leadership because it explicates the relationship between being human, humanity and humanness which refines our understanding of each towards responsibilization which is a mark of humane leadership. Emerging findings from an ethnographic study of PAFOS F.C. will provide empirically informed anecdotal evidence to illustrate the thesis.

Achieving a Systemic Understanding of Health Equity: Complex Health, Systemic Analysis, and Wicked Issues

2026-05-07T13:50:17+00:00

Problem:

Science is interpreted and validated, albeit from different analytical and theoretical orientations. Causal inference and analysis are more often expected in public health science. Public health science and its knowledge generation are expressed in a vernacular meant to describe wicked, value-laden structural health outcomes, divergent health statuses, and unpredictable health behaviors. Deviation from scientific expectations of reductionism can invite scrutiny and disregard. A taxonomy of public health establishes a shared, communal reality and imbues it with the perception of immutable, ordered certainty, while health remains a persistent uncertainty. Science shapes scientific conceptualization and analysis, and vice versa. When a narrow orientation to science leads exclusively to linear thinking, the opportunity to uncover the complexity of public health issues is missed. The gravity of health inequity leaves no room for missed public health opportunities or overly simplistic, restrictive reasoning.

Rationale:

Strict reliance on discrete measurement and reductionism cannot provide a complete picture of the complex health disparities that undermine health equity. A hallmark of scientific research is a shared vocabulary and a respected scientific orientation. Systems thinking is not new, but its adoption in public health has been slow. Finding a shared, complexity-sensitive vernacular in public health equity that crosses disciplines and systems methods has been elusive.

Methodology:

As with the adoption of causal inference, systems theories and methods have been rigorously applied with success in other fields and hold promise for innovation in public health. The importance of shared meaning in systemic health is explained using a novel network-based framework for health equity: the health-restricting and health-flourishing subsystems, as applied to health in under-resourced communities.

Results/Conclusion:

Systemic frameworks enable reformed focus on health equity within health systems. Wicked reasoning provides a fundamental foundation, employing shared nomenclature and a holistic understanding to support health.

The Fair Society: An Ideology for the 21st Century

2026-06-19T15:25:37+00:00

The accumulating evidence about human evolution, and our growing respect for the complexities of “human nature”, provide the basis for a new ideology which accords more closely with the realities of the human condition. A biologically grounded approach to social justice enables us to define a middle-ground between capitalism and socialism. I call this new ideology “fair shares” and I propose a normative framework that includes three complementary principles: (1) goods and services should be distributed to each according to his/her “basic needs”(which have a concrete biological foundation); (2) surpluses beyond the provision for our basic needs should be distributed according to “merit” (a principle which I will seek to clarify); and (3), in return, each of us is obliged to contribute to the “collective survival enterprise” in accordance with his/her ability (under the principle of reciprocity). Though none of these principles is new, in combination they constitute a biologically grounded ethical framework.

Transformative Process Using Critical Systemic Intervention in Banten Province, Indonesia

2026-05-15T22:10:30+00:00

This paper documents engagement with the community aimed at supporting social and environmental justice. A coastal community provides insights into the impacts of climate change where mangroves are under threat (resulting in storm surges) and where the downstream effects of inorganic fertilizers, plastic, and other debris impact marine life. Transformative potential lies in engaging coastal communities together with Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa and Universitas Padjadjaran to protect marine life, beaches, and mangroves – supporting a local circular green economy that sustains seaweeds, fish, and crustaceans, as well as ecotourism along the Cidurian–Cisadane river banks. In other areas, the pressure to make ends meet during and after the COVID-19 pandemic has been acutely felt by women and young people. Indebtedness to loan sharks during COVID-19, when small enterprises suffered, has placed additional pressure on vulnerable groups struggling to survive. This critical ethnography for transformative praxis argues that local communities should participate in multifaceted solutions to address the social and economic factors impacting coastal environments. The study offers practical insights into Banten’s coastal community dynamics with reference to climate change and the implications of “business-as-usual”. It contributes to discussions on developing a local circular green economy (with potential for ecotourism) and highlights how the pandemic’s economic pressures on women and youth call for inclusive, networked governance solutions.

Systemic Governance: A Systematic Review of the Use of Systems Thinking In Public Policy Governance Structure

2026-05-07T18:08:16+00:00

Governance increasingly faces problems whose complexity, interdependence, and pace exceed the reach of linear, control-based approaches. This paper investigates how Systems Thinking (ST) is used in public policy governance structures. Despite the growing use of ST in public policy governance, two main gaps remain in the literature. 1) The absence of a systematic mapping of how ST is operationalized in public policy governance and of the consolidation of its theoretical insights into integrated governance functions. 2) The limited integration between ST-based diagnostic insights and the prescriptive design of viable governance arrangements. To address these gaps, a systematic review of 48 documents was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, and the documents were retrieved from Web of Science, Scopus, and Elicit. The findings are synthesized along eight analytical dimensions: wicked problems, methodologies, system pathologies, frameworks, organizational learning, policy, governance systems, and variety and viability. These dimensions are consolidated into four governance functions: reframing the challenge, designing viable structures, operationalizing tools and guides, and enabling adaptive policy learning. The corresponding research gaps are identified. Building on this synthesis, the paper introduces the concept of cybernetic state capacity, defined as the integrated institutional ability to sense environmental variety, coordinate across recursive levels, learn from feedback, and adapt over time. The paper contributes to theory by mapping how ST is used in public policy governance and by framing four research gaps that orient a future research agenda focused on the prescriptive design of viable governance arrangements. The paper contributes to practice by clarifying, for three audiences, namely 1) policymakers, 2) public sector managers, and 3) governance researchers and consultants, the methodological resources, particularly the Viable System Model, Critical Systems Heuristics, Soft Systems Methodology, and System Dynamics, available when designing governance arrangements for complex policy domains.

Governance across Disciplines: A Narrative Review and Conceptual Synthesis

2026-05-03T18:44:09+00:00

Despite its widespread use, governance lacks a single, clear definition across different fields that study it. This article fills that gap with a cross-disciplinary review that combines insights from political science, public administration, systems science, and cybernetics. The review finds seven interconnected analytical dimensions—structural elements, mutual adjustment mechanisms, system issues, historical trends, coordination types, measurement methods, and metagovernance—organized into a four-group taxonomy and an integrated conceptual model. A simplified analytical map was created, based on the three-dimensional governance diamond, placing these dimensions within the relational structure of governance. This shows how history, definitions, measurement, system issues, and adjustment mechanisms together form a complex governance system. Governance is portrayed as a dynamic, multi-level process of social coordination, driven by feedback loops, different modalities, and ongoing interactions among the government, civil society, private sector, and environmental systems. The discussion highlights a key gap in current research: while existing frameworks describe governance at a single point in time, they rarely explain how these relationships evolve over time. Future studies could focus on analyzing governance over time to see how connections among actors and institutions form, strengthen, and change.

Addiction Recovery within Relational and Communicative Systems of Meaning and Possibility

2026-06-04T21:35:58+00:00

Addiction recovery is often understood as something an individual achieves through willpower and/or treatment. Whilst it is important to recognise the personal effort and agency involved, attention shifts here toward how recovery also emerges within relational and communicative systems of meaning and possibility. From this framing, recovery is understood as realised, supported, and enacted within such systems and where experiences such as stigma, compassion, belief, and hope are held between us shaping conditions for human living. This topic is relevant to systems science as it explores how systems theory may be applied in practice to understand ways of relating with people that can enhance wellbeing and flourishing in everyday life.

What might be meant by relational and communicative systems of meaning and possibility? How might such systems be noticed within the context of addiction recovery? These questions are explored through first-person action research grounded in the author’s experience of working in communities, alongside second-person action research within a co-operative inquiry with mothers in recovery over a two to three year period. Finally, the enactment of the researcher within the research process itself is reflexively considered. If meaning and possibility emerge within relational and communicative systems, then what might this invite within the practice of research itself? What if researchers understand themselves not as standing outside what they study, but as relationally situated participants whose ways of attending, interpreting and responding also participate in shaping what becomes meaningful, imaginable, and possible? The author reflects on how such understandings were sensed and enacted within her own research practice of this topic.

This research contributes to systems science by extending understandings of human flourishing and ecologies of humanness, inviting attention to the relational and communicative systems of meaning and possibility we co-create together and from which our being and becomings emerge.

Critical Autism Studies as a Catalyst for Transforming Higher Education Moving Beyond Normative Inclusion

2026-05-26T21:11:22+00:00

This conceptual paper examines whether inclusive leadership, while valuable for promoting belonging, uniqueness, and psychological safety, is sufficient to meet the needs of neurodiverse populations in higher education institutions. The central research question asks: Can inclusive leadership paradigms alone create truly neurodiverse-affirming higher education environments, or is a transformative theoretical framework needed? The study adopts a dual theoretical lens—Inclusive Leadership theory and Critical Autism Studies (CAS). Inclusive leadership emphasizes participatory decision-making, stakeholder engagement, and systemic inclusion, yet research reveals its limitations in addressing structural ableism, tokenism, and superficial inclusion. CAS offers a transformative, decolonial, and justice-oriented framework that reframes from autism as a socially and politically constructed identity, centering autistic voices in policy, curriculum, and institutional change. As a conceptual analysis, this paper synthesizes peer-reviewed literature across leadership studies, disability studies, and neurodiversity research, identifying key epistemological gaps and overlaps between the two frameworks. The methodology involves thematic analysis of scholarly sources to compare the capacity of inclusive leadership and Critical Autism Studies to address systemic barriers, stigma, and deficit-based models. Preliminary findings suggest that while inclusive leadership provides a foundation for fostering inclusive climates, it often lacks the critical, emancipatory lens necessary to dismantle entrenched ableist structures. Critical Autism Studies, by contrast, offers actionable pathways for co-produced policy, culturally affirming pedagogy, and institutional transformation. The implications are significant for higher education leaders, policymakers, and educators: integrating CAS into inclusive leadership models may bridge the gap between inclusive rhetoric and authentic neurodiverse affirmation. Such integration can move institutions from reactive accommodation toward proactive cultural change that validates neurodiverse identity, fosters genuine belonging and sustains inclusive ecosystemic transformation.

A Sociotechnical Systems Analysis of Vaccine Accessibility for Young Mothers in a Kenyan Referral Hospital

2026-06-04T08:03:56+00:00

Public health vaccination programmes evaluate access through coverage metrics, treating the clinic as a neutral delivery point. This paper argues that in/accessibility for young mothers is systemic, produced by the configuration of the sociotechnical system constituting the maternal and child health clinic. This paper draws on a systems science perspective grounded on assemblage ethnography guided by Actor-Network Theory, conducted at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya in 2026. The paper maps human and non-human system components and analyses how interactions generate in/equities for young mothers aged 18 to 24. Seven component categories are identified: spatial configurations, documentary artefacts, cold-chain infrastructure, procedural instruments, informational materials, cultural protective objects, and post-vaccination pharmaceuticals. Each is an active system element whose feedback dynamics determine whether vaccination is genuinely or merely formally available. The weighing scale processes anthropometric data through a Z-score mechanism with no human override. The clinic booklet depends on literacy, a property the system design ignores. Post-vaccination care depends on purchasing capacity that informal settlement mothers do not uniformly possess. A pharmacy closure redirected vaccinated infants through a general outpatient area, a design failure with epidemiological consequences. Equity failures are structural, produced by assemblage configuration rather than individual actors. Redesign, specifically relocating pharmacy services, integrating antipyretics into the free package, sharing anthropometric data with mothers, and producing materials in the community language, addresses these failures directly. The paper demonstrates that systems science offers a practical diagnostic and redesign framework for healthcare delivery constraints in low-resource settings.

A Closed-Loop System for Dental Plaque Management: Integrating Automated UV Image Analysis with Clinical Decision Feedback

2026-05-16T21:22:38+00:00

Current dental plaque assessment relies on subjective visual scoring (e.g., Turesky index), leading to high inter-operator variability (reported k = 0.4-0.6) and poor feedback loops for longitudinal monitoring. This represents a failure in the healthcare system's ability to provide consistent, actionable data for preventive care. This work presents a human-in-the-loop system for plaque quantification that integrates UV illumination with user-assisted tooth delineation and CIE-LAB color-space analysis. The system implements a five-level nested feedback architecture (pixel, tooth, session, longitudinal, population), positioning the clinician as an adaptive agent within the loop. User-drawn contours define the system boundary, while adaptive thresholding (Otsu's method) on the enhanced b* channel provides core quantification. Real-time adjustable parameters establish a clinician-guided feedback loop, consistent with Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, allowing clinician adjustments to match environmental variability in enamel reflectivity, saliva-induced specular reflections, and plaque maturation. A continuous plaque-coverage percentage P is computed prior to ordinal mapping to the Turesky modification of the Quigley-Hein Index (grades 0-5). Validation on clinical images demonstrated discrimination of 13.4% differences among teeth receiving identical Grade 3 scores revealing differences undetectable in routine visual scoring. By converting visual impressions into a quantitative, repeatable process embedded within a cybernetic human-machine framework, this system enables a Learning Health System where longitudinal data can inform preventive policies. The architecture generalizes to other domains that rely on visual assessment (e.g., wound healing, skin lesions), and its structured metrics can support population-level surveillance. The proposed approach offers a practical pathway to integrate objective oral hygiene metrics into digital health records, improving patient feedback, supporting clinical research, and enabling population-level public health surveillance.

Human-in-the-Loop Cybernetic Integration of Coprime-Array AQA Learning and Beam-Adaptive Imaging for Wireless Dental Plaque Quantification

2026-05-20T12:56:12+00:00

Advancing health diagnostics requires systems that coordinate heterogeneous sensing, communication, and inference under real-world uncertainty. This work presents a cyber--physical--social architecture for wireless dental-plaque quantification. The system integrates three core components: (i) machine-learning-based Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) estimation using coprime antenna arrays, (ii) adaptive beamforming for directional reception, and (iii) a UV-based imaging pipeline fed by wirelessly transmitted intraoral images. The AoA subsystem employs a Random Forest regressor trained on narrowband snapshots, enabling the receiver to dynamically steer its beam toward the emitting endoscope---a closed-loop cybernetic mechanism that compensates for multipath, patient movement, and hardware impairments (phase drift, gain imbalance, I/Q mismatch) typical of clinical environments. The estimator meets clinically motivated thresholds (MAE , RMSE , ) even at the low refresh rates (1-10 Hz) of power-constrained medical devices. Improved link reliability from beam alignment directly enhances the quality of received UV dental images, which are processed via CIE-LAB transformation, UV enhancement, and adaptive thresholding for plaque quantification. Clinician-guided contouring introduces a human-in-the-loop regulatory pathway that ensures robustness to occlusion, saliva reflections, and anatomical variability. By coupling ML-driven AoA detection, adaptive beamforming, and clinician-guided analytics, the proposed architecture forms a multi-level feedback system demonstrating how convergent Systems Science can deliver scalable, objective, and preventive oral-health assessment within a Learning Health System framework.

Research Participation in a (Conflictual) Field of Relationality Concerning Farmers and Pastoralists in Northern Uganda

2026-05-02T08:57:30+00:00

Conducted in the post civil-war context of Northern Uganda, this study explored certain land-related conflicts between farmers and pastoralists using a transformative and Indigenous paradigmatic lens. By drawing on an Indigenous relational ontology, a dialogic and participatory research approach was employed. This involved four focus group discussion sessions with 53 participants overall. In addition, two follow up community workshops for the purpose of knowledge sharing, validation and dissemination were conducted. In doing this, the study explored how relationally-directed dialogue could engender mutual understanding and support conflict transformation in the region. The key findings indicate that the dialogic engagement enabled participants to recognize interdependencies, reframe adversarial narratives and co-develop contextually-grounded strategies for coexistence which includes improved land management practices, communication mechanisms and culturally-informed norms of interaction. In the paper we, explain our accountabilities (along with the research participants/co-researchers) as hoping to constructively influence the dynamic of relations. That is, we understood that we ourselves were interwoven in the (changing) system of relations through our involvement.

Socio-Technical Evolution toward Sustainable Agriculture 5.0: A Systemic Framework for Global Food Digital Twins and Supply Chain Viability

2026-06-01T10:07:02+00:00

The global agri-food system faces critical viability challenges. With population approaching 9.7 billion by 2050, current supply chains exhibit systemic inefficiencies. Digital Twins, virtual replicas enabling real-time optimization, remain fragmented and inaccessible to smallholder farmers in the Global South, where mobile data costs consume 4.5% of monthly income, double the UN threshold. The search of mitigations requires the application of systems approach principles, as agri-food systems are complex, adaptive, and autopoietic self-regenerating living systems requiring integration of ecological feedback, technological capacity, and human agency. Traditional engineering approaches fail by treating supply chains as mechanistic rather than viability-critical socio-technical wholes. This paper synthesizes peer-reviewed literature (2021–2026) from Scopus-indexed journals on Digital Twins, Agriculture 5.0, technological drivers, and adoption barriers. The synthesis was triangulated with public datasets from FAO, World Bank, Eurostat, and Horizon Europe projects. Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, the Viable System Model, and autopoiesis were applied to design a four-layer Global Food Digital Twin architecture with continuous Digital Thread integration. The framework demonstrates how hybrid physics-based and data-driven models match environmental complexity while remaining locally adaptable. Evidence shows Digital Twins achieve 25% water efficiency gains, 22% productivity increases, and 12–30% cost reductions. The approach operationalizes classical cybernetics into agri-food governance, centering data sovereignty, digital justice, and stakeholder participation as core design principles. Five policy recommendations translate findings into actionable SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) pathways for implementation.

Re-Imagining our Future World with a Focus on Arts, Crafts and Organics

2026-05-15T21:20:26+00:00

The second paper reflects on our work in progress in forested rural communities and a regional wetlands community . Our systemic action research proposal uses community engagement to address and integrate the following ways of knowing. The paper draws on a forthcoming volume, titled “ All life communicates” The paper discusses aspects of the project. Our work addresses the concern that not only are we living beyond our limits as a human species we are using the resources of other species on which we are dependent. In order to ‘learn for life’, the community of practice (COP) spans projects in Indonesia and South Africa with graduates, their students, colleagues and members of the community. The ancient societies such as those in Ciptagler (West Java, Indonesia) and Bady (Bantam Province, Indonesia) and the resilient communities in South Africa led by Dzomo la Mupo are inspiring intergenerational learning with young people. We have chosen to work in Africa and Indonesia, two developing nations that share a colonial legacy of colonisation. The case study areas also share concerns associated with the following, namely: high rates of urbanisation, habitat and species loss, displacement and the risks associated with climate change, such as food, water and energy security.

The potential implications of our research for future learning and educational policies is to set up learning communities as multispecies hubs that work together to enable local green circular economies The common good needs to be supported by democratic engagement using metalogues and structured democratic dialogues. Our area of concern is 1. Learning lessons from communities that have food security and are self-reliant. 2. How to protect these communities 3. Applying the lessons to support local green circular economies in other communities.

Re-Imagining our Future World: A Reflection on why Values that Support Biological Life, Human Creativity and Democracy Matter

2026-05-15T21:04:21+00:00

This paper is one of two companion papers and a mini symposium paper detailed in a forthcoming volume titled ‘All life communicates: Addressing Species Apartheid with Indigenous Custodians.” The volume details participatory design with Indigenous custodians and local communities to support multispecies relationality The research is rooted in a community of practice spanning many cultures and ways of knowing. We try to work with one another and with nature in a way that are regenerative and not exploitative to promote local food security, creativity, community engagement and the protection of the local environment through projects that foster arts, crafts and organic growing.

The Systemic Interventionist approach detailed in ‘All Life Communicates’, is based on working on ‘what if scenarios’ with members of the CoP to enable them to think about their relationships with other species. Those of us who call ourselves ‘critical systemic thinkers and practitioners’ are not seeking a total, unified system. We realize this would be hubris and problematic as a starting point for engaging in a responsible development that seeks to work with diverse stakeholders on complex, wicked problems – which by definition comprise many interrelated variables that are seen differently by different stakeholders. Could an awareness of interbeing enable people to address social and environmental justice by addressing AI and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policies? We are part of one multi-species energy system within a shared habitat. The driving force for evolution is adaptation according to Dawkins (2009:332). The elements of life are sorted through the ages according to whether they are adapted to the local environment. If this is the case, then we human beings living in developed societies are no longer well adapted to our environment. We need to learn and re-learn the lessons we have forgotten from communities that appear to be better adapted, and we need to learn carefully with them. We face the potential of destroying biological life.