Organization and Pedagogy of Complexity deals with real systems, their architecture, and speaks of those who design, develop and maintain them.
After a summary of the architecture proposed by Daniel Krob, president of CESAMES in Paris, France, the book focuses on the sensor and effector equipment that routes and converts the system’s information to the place where it is processed. These are the equivalent of the system’s sense organs. It also analyzes the roots of complexity from the perspective of combinatorics: in real systems, everything comes down to cases and/or configurations being validated in greater or lesser numbers, but which must be kept under control.
This book presents two case studies, giving a global vision of complexity. Finally, it presents a prospective approach that brings the engineering of artificial systems closer to that of biological systems, based on first-hand information provided by Philippe Kourilsky, Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France.
Part 1. The Organic Component of Systems.
Introduction to Part 1.
1. Elements of Systemics: Systems Architecture.
2. Natural Functions.
3. Emergent Properties: System Integration.
Part 2. A Complex World.
Introduction to Part 2.
4. Phenomenology of Complexity.
5. The Roots of Complexity: Inaccessible Numbers.
6. Walking through Complexity.
Part 3. Examples of Systemics and Complexity.
Introduction to Part 3.
7. Systemic Aspects of the French Electrical System.
8. Systemic Aspects of Project Systems.
Jacques Printz is an Associate Professor at the Université Catholique de Lille (Chair of “Ethics, Technology and Humanism”) and a member of the ETHICS laboratory, France. He is also an Emeritus Professor of the Cnam, France, where he was Chair of Software Engineering until 2009.