A new approach for the validation of conceptual holonic constructions

The concepts of holon and holarchy were first applied in the manufacturing world to develop Holonic Manufacturing Systems. Since then, they have been used in many fields and have proved to be applicable concepts for developing applications in any business area. Resulting applications are based on conceptual holonic constructions. Like any model, a holarchy needs to be validated under real circumstances. Such validation assures the quality of the holarchy before it is implemented. In general, validation research tends to target: 1) the specific types of holons handled in each proposal and/or the selected development paradigms; and 2) algorithm performance rather than architecture quality. This paper proposes and evaluates a methodology that focuses on the quality of the architecture. This methodology is able to validate any holonic architecture built to meet trade requirements. Moreover, this is a general-purpose methodology. Therefore, the methodology would be valid for any domain and would not be invalidated by holon types and/or implementation paradigms emerging, changing or falling into disuse. For this purpose, we consider holonic architectures as conceptual models, using the pure holon and holarchy concepts and passing up not only any specific implementation paradigm but also any set of specific holon types

Understanding Integral Peace Leadership in Practice: Lessons and Learnings from Women PeaceMaker Narratives

Integral peace leadership is an emergent framework that creates space for just change by challenging violence and aggression while building positive systems and structures. This article utilizes a deductive qualitative analysis strategy to critically examine the proposed concepts of integral peace leadership to determine their saliency for peacebuilding practice. Utilized to study these concepts are 10 Women PeaceMakers’ narratives. Results indicate that 25 of the 35 concepts studied across four quadrants were relevant in the women’s peace leadership work, with an additional six concepts revealed. The analysis demonstrates that the concepts of integral peace leadership are present in the work of the Women PeaceMakers, with evidence of each woman engaging in work in all of integral peace leadership’s four quadrants. The study findings offer lessons for those wishing to engage in integral peace leadership teaching and practice and point to the need for additional practice-based research to further define and refine integral peace leadership

Hierarchical Self-awareness and Authority for Scalable Self-integrating Systems

System self-integration from open sets of components provides the basis for open adaptability to unpredictable environments. Hierarchical architectures are essential for enabling such systems to scale, as they allow to compromise between processing detailed knowledge in parallel and coordinating parallel processes from a more abstract viewpoint; recursively. This position paper aims to bring to the fore the following key design aspect of such hierarchical systems: how should the authority of decision and action be assigned across hierarchical levels, with respect to the self-awareness capabilities of these levels, The difficulty lays in that all levels lack knowledge, which may be key to certain decisions, because lower levels have detailed knowledge but within a narrow scope (good for local customisation), and higher levels have a broader scope but no details (good for global coordination). We highlight the most obvious authority schemes available and discuss their advantages and shortcomings: top-down, bottom-up, and iterative (yoyo). We discuss three detailed application examples from our previous work on hierarchical systems, pointing-out the knowledge and authority schemes employed and the possible alternatives. This provides a basis for offering system designers the necessary understanding and tools for taking the appropriate decisions with respect to the distribution of self-awareness capabilities and authority of decision and action across hierarchical system levels

mWater Prototype 3

This report concerns the application of a regulated open Multi-Agent System (MAS), mWater, that uses intelligent agents to simulate a flexible water-right market. Our simulator focuses on demands and, in particular, on the type of regulatory (in terms of norms selection and agents behaviour), and market mechanisms that foster an efficient use of water while also trying to prevent conflicts among parties. In this scenario, a MAS plays a vital role as it allows us to define different norms, agents behaviour and roles, and assess their impact in the market, thus enhancing the quality and applicability of its results as a decision support tool.Botti Navarro, VJ.; Garrido Tejero, A.; Giret Boggino, AS.; Noriega, P.; Gimeno, J. (2013). mWater Prototype 3. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/3212

mWater prototype #2 analysis and design

mWater is a regulated open MAS that uses intelligent agents to manage a flexible water-right market. One of the main goals of mWater is to be used as a simulator to assist in decision-taking processes for policy makers. Our simulator focuses on demands and, in particular, on the type of regulatory (in terms of norms selection and agents behaviour), and market mechanisms thatBotti Navarro, VJ.; Criado Pacheco, N.; Garrido Tejero, A.; Gimeno, J.; Giret Boggino, AS.; Noriega, P. (2013). mWater prototype #2 analysis and design. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/3212

The effects of culture on manufacturing organisation in Zimbabwe

Less Industrialised Countries (LICs) are faced with globalisation of Manufacturing and business organisations, a reorganisation that requires use of new manufacturing systems and business organisation concepts like Agile corporation, Virtual organisation, Networks of Business Structures, Holonic and Bionic manufacturing organisation, just to name a few, all taking advantage of developments in electronic communication systems, computers and transportation networks which have reduced the distance between the customer, supplier and the manufacturer. LICs are likely to remain the candidates of further underdevelopment if manufacturing and business organisations ignore these necessary changes. It is therefore the aim and objective of this research to investigate the influence of culture on manufacturing and business organisation and propose ways and procedures where possible for the LICs to take advantage of these modem manufacturing systems and technologies, which seem to offer their advantages at lower capital costs as compared to what AMTs used to offer. [Continues.

Generic architectures for open, multi-objective autonomic systems:application to smart micro-grids

Autonomic features, i.e. the capability of systems to manage themselves, are necessary to control complex systems, i.e. systems that are open, large scale, dynamic, comprise heterogeneous third-party sub-systems and follow multiple, sometimes conflicting objectives. In this thesis, we aim to provide generic reusable supports for designing complex autonomic systems. We propose a formalisation of management objectives, a generic architecture for designing adaptable multi-objective autonomic systems, and generic organisations integrating such autonomic systems. We apply our approach to the concrete case of smart micro-grids which is a relevant example of such complexity. We present a simulation platform we developped and illustrate our approach via several simulation scenarios

Clare W. Graves and the Turn of Our Times

Clare W. Graves (1914 – 1986) was a psychologist and visionary who pioneered an evolutionary theory of human values. Based on research concerning differing views of “what is a mature human being,” he developed the idea of a universal progression of value-structures. According to the theory both individuals and societies may be placed in this progression. This paper attempts to summarize Graves’ ideas and his influences on others, while grappling with what I see as some of his theory’s most important problems. Refinements are proposed that bear on the theory as a whole, with a particular focus on how it applies to contemporary postmodernism