Computer-Assisted Careers Guidance Systems as Decision Support Systems

'Decision support systems' are computer systems which are aimed at improving decisions made by managers. An examination of the literature on decision support systems suggests that there are similarities between these systems and computer-aided careers guidance systems. These similarities —and differences -are explored, and a number of ways in which each approach might learn from the other are suggested.     

History-containing Systems

This contribution summarizes two papers about transgenerational issues published twenty years ago. The ideas and practices which remain useful and unmodified are distinguished from those which have been changed or discarded over the ensuing decades. The helpfulness of the anthropological concept of sociality in integrating narrative therapy and social construction with transgenerational concepts is also discussed.     

Heterogeneous Fibring of Deductive Systems Via Abstract Proof Systems

Fibring is a meta-logical constructor that applied to two logicsproduces a new logic whose formulas allow the mixing of symbols.Homogeneous fibring assumes that the original logics are presentedin the same way (e.g via Hilbert calculi). Heterogeneous fibring,allowing the original logics to have different presentations(e.g. one presented by a Hilbert calculus and the other by asequent calculus), has been an open problem. Herein, consequencesystems are shown to be a good solution for heterogeneous fibringwhen one of the logics is presented in a semantic way and theother by a calculus and also a solution for the heterogeneousfibring of calculi. The new notion of abstract proof systemis shown to provide a better solution to heterogeneous fibringof calculi namely because derivations in the fibring keep theconstructive nature of derivations in the original logics. Preservationof compactness and semi-decidability is investigated.     

Deontic Interpreted Systems

We investigate an extension of the formalism of interpreted systems by Halpern and colleagues to model the correct behaviour of agents. The semantical model allows for the representation and reasoning about states of correct and incorrect functioning behaviour of the agents, and of the system as a whole. We axiomatise this semantic class by mapping it into a suitable class of Kripke models. The resulting logic, KD45_n ^i-j, is a stronger version of KD, the system often referred to as Standard Deontic Logic. We extend this formal framework to include the standard epistemic notions defined on interpreted systems, and introduce a new doubly-indexed operator representing the knowledge that an agent would have if it operates under the assumption that a group of agents is functioning correctly. We discuss these issues both theoretically and in terms of applications, and present further directions of work.     

A Systems Dilemma

The current shift of interest, reflected in public policy, from the production of goods to the provision of services, has caused a major re-examination of the nature of the services the individual can expect from his society. This re-examination is producing a number of insights, some of them shocking. In particular, we are learning that many of the systems we have created to deliver services are, in the name of “progress” and “civilization,” contributing to the conditions of human distress they were designed to alleviate. Much has been written lately about how service systems of one kind or another subvert their announced goals—how a welfare system perpetuates poverty, or how the medical profession creates iatrogenic illness. There has not been very much written, however, about how several systems inadvertently combine in their day to day operations in such a way as to frustrate each others' activities, and how, in so doing, they destroy in varying degrees the lives of people, or render it difficult for them to improve their lives. We have all been much too tightly locked in our own niches by training, experience, and various types of private interest to see this kind of interlock. It comes into sharp perspective only when one studies the problems of a single person in terms of his total life space, his “ecology.” This paper represents an effort to describe one such situation in a family as viewed from a community health services program designed to approach human crises as ecological phenomena, and to explore and respond to them within this framework. We have found that the best way to organize our view of the environmental field people move in is according to the diverse systems which make it up, so we have labeled our theoretical base “ecological systems theory.” ( 1 ) What is of particular interest to the behavioral scientist in the situation described is that neither individual nor family diagnosis, nor the contributions of the larger systems (in this case a housing system and a system of medical care) will, if viewed separately, explain the state of the man in question. Only when the contributions of all of these systems are made clear, and their interrelationships explored, do the origins of the phenomena described begin to emerge.     

Memory Evolutive Systems

This is a review of the book ‘Memory Evolutive Systems; Hierarchy, Emergence, Cognition’, by A. Ehresmann and J.P. Vanbremeersch. I welcome the use of category theory and the notion of colimit as a way of describing how complex hierarchical systems can be organised, and the notion of categories varying with time to give a notion of an evolving system. In this review I also point out the relation of the notion of colimit to ideas of communication; the necessity of communications to be symbolic representations; and the use of an analogy with mathematics to spell out some of the necessities of such a mode of communication to be powerful, robust and efficient.     

On Finitely-Valued Inference Systems

A proof-theoretical analysis of finite-valuedness in the domain of cumulative inference systems is presented.     

Psychological Trait Resilience Within Ecological Systems Theory: The Resilient Systems Scales

This project describes the development of the Resilient Systems Scales, created to address conceptual and methodological ambiguities in assessing the ecological systems model of resilience. Across a number of samples (total N = 986), our findings suggest that the Resilient Systems Scales show equivalence to a previously reported assessment (Maltby, Day, &; Hall, 2015 Maltby, J., Day, L., &; Hall, S. (2015). Refining trait resilience: Identifying engineering, ecological, and adaptive facets from extant measures of resilience. PLoS ONE, 10(7), e0131826. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131826[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in demonstrating the same factor structure, adequate intercorrelation between the 2 measures of resilience, and equivalent associations with personality and well-being. The findings also suggest that the Resilient Systems Scales demonstrate adequate test–retest reliability, compare well with other extant measures of resilience in predicting well-being, and map, to varying degrees, onto positive expression of several cognitive, social, and emotional traits. The findings suggest that the new measure can be used alongside existing measures of resilience, or singly, to assess positive life outcomes within psychology research.     

Systems theory and psychotherapy

All systems behave, interact, vary in their level of complexity, and are related in subsystem-suprasystem hierarchical relationships. The behaviour of the whole system is more complex than the sum of its parts. Systems are seen to evolve in complexity along a continuum from nonliving matter, to simple living matter with the ability to reproduce itself, and on to organisms with increasing levels of complexity and consciousness.