Codifying systemic design: A toolkit

In this paper we want to reflect on the use of toolkits as a codification strategy to fuel an expanding practice of ‘systemic design’. This critical reflection is rooted in the real‐life experience of bringing together two different sets of skills in the development of a Systemic Design Toolkit. Designers and concept‐driven system thinkers belong to different epistemic communities. While these fields of practice are arguably in the process of converging, in actual practice it proves to be a challenge to transcend their governing epistemological differences. What pragmatically unites these practitioners is their ambition to successfully codify a vast and layered knowledge base. A Systemic Design Toolkit is argued to offer promise as a ‘boundary object’ between the epistemic communities involved in creating the toolkit (the designers on the one hand and the conceptual system thinkers on the other) and between the toolkit developers and toolkit users. The paper closes with a tentative list of design criteria for systemic design toolkits

Modelling barred owl habitat in Northwestern Ontario

With its large home range, dependence on large decadent trees for nest cavities, and association with mature mixedwoods, the Barred Owl (Strix varia) is vulnerable to habitat loss from forest harvesting. Study objectives were to document Barred Owl habitat associations and to determine whether habitat selection could be described in terms of land cover classes derived from satellite imagery. Owl locations were determined by call playback survey near Fort Frances, in Northwestern Ontario. Forest characteristics were measured on all selected and random non-selected sites. Regression analysis identified forest type, height and fragmentation as predictors of Barred Owl presence. Trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides), white birch (Betula papyrifera) , red pine (Pinus resinosa) or white pine (Pinus strobus) mixedwoods were selected. Owl presence probability increased with canopy height and the proportion forested in 280 ha around a site. A GIS-based habitat map, created from satellite image-derived land cover classes, distinguished good and poor habitat regions. A long-term, landscape-level approach is required to ensure a continuing supply of Barred Owl habitat in Northwestern Ontario's working forest. This study demonstrated that Barred Owl habitat can be characterized by forest data widely available in digital format, and thus is well suited to supply assessment and forecasting in a GIS (Geographical information Systern)

Representation matrices for U(4)

We propose an algorithm for the numerical calculation of matrix elements of general U(4) group elements, applicable to large totally symmetric representations of U(4). A possible generalization to the U(6) case is pointed out

Workshop: Designing sustainable futures with the systemic design toolkit

The Systemic Design Toolkit team led a workshop at the 8th annual symposium of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD8), held at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. The workshop focused on the food waste in Chicago. Its goal was to design a set of interventions that would tackle this issue and introduce variations of such model, enabling it to work in different contexts of time and space

State of the art practice: Are we ready for Systemic Design Toolkits?

Authors and Panelists: Peter Jones (OCAD), Stefanos Monastiridis (Namahn), Alex Ryan (MaRS), Vanessa Toye (MaRS), Kristel Van Ael (Namahn), Philippe Vandenbroeck (shiftN) Empathy-Driven Social Innovation Changemakers Co-Design Transdisciplinary Youth Empowerment Education systems At the RSD5 symposium in Toronto (2016), Namahn and shiftN presented the first version of their Systemic Design toolkit and assessed its fit to practice in the conference workshop. Since then, the original authors have collaborated with Peter Jones (OCADU) and Alex Ryan (MaRS Discovery District) for continued development of the toolkit towards a mature version, ready for general use. A panel session was presented at the RSD7 Symposium in Torino to present the release version of the toolkit. Why a Systemic Design Toolkit? After 7 years of RSD symposia, we believed some concern could arise that the field might be too dominated by academic studio-led methods and projects. We had not seen a movement toward pragmatic practice development, applying the learning from RSD to preferred methods and guidelines. With this collaborative methods toolkit, we wish to offer the Systemic Design community a set of thinking-and-doing instruments. Changing a system requires the involvement of the actors within the system. We need their knowledge, capabilities and motivation to initiate and foster systemic change. This toolkit establishes a common understanding and language, enabling dialogue among the actors and other stakeholders, including a diverse designer team. It offers methods and hands-on tools for co-analysis of complex challenges, co-design of advanced concepts, and co-creation of systemic solutions. The methods and tools build upon the research of prominent systems thinkers and design thinkers such as Russell Ackoff, Donella Meadows and Christopher Alexander. The methods in the toolkit are explained by their prominent theories. The tools have been continuously improved during project work for clients and academic teaching by the authors. Many cases are available from the authors’ work in healthcare, government, and industry to demonstrate the fit of methods to these applications. Guidelines and Underlying Principles The toolkit was developed with the following principles in mind: • Participatory: “No single profession, group or organization can successfully address today’s societal challenges alone” (Sharon Matthias and Jess McMullin, RSD6). The application of Systemic Design demands the participation of stakeholders across existing social systems boundaries. Unlike other disciplines of design, Systemic Design has no model of the end user or consumer. It only has participants, who may live in different social systems that must be understood. • Anticipatory: All systems change leads us to a design for futures, but we must always ask “whose future?” The worldviews, goal and values of participants in multiple future contexts must be included and represented through foresight-led systemic design methods that enable stakeholders with variety of temporal reasoning capacities to equally contribute to future systems design. • Externalising Knowledge: A common understanding can only truly be achieved if the underlying thinking process is shared by all. The toolkit makes the underlying theoretical concepts and design decisions explicit. The (Nonaka and Takeuchi) SECI knowledge model (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) explains the diffusion of knowledge and uptake of new practices. • Presence Producing: Systemic Design is practiced through engaging activities that produce an intense feeling of “here and now” (Piotr Michura and Stan Ruecker, RSD6). During these activities, the participants challenge and shift the system boundaries towards new forms. • Empowering: The Systemic Design activities aim to help the participants to collectively make sense of the challenge and provide them with plans of action they can carry out in the systems they are ordinarily entangled in. The activities transform them into agents of change in their daily field of action. • Multi-level and Multi-perspective: The design process supported by the toolkit is distinguished by continuous modulation between levels of abstraction by alternately ‘zooming out’ of the system and ‘zooming in’ on the stakeholders. • Formative Contexts: The toolkit doesn’t aim to offer a well-defined sequence of methods but rather a grammar that allows the designers to bring the Systemic Design vocabulary (the methods and tools) together in a way that makes sense for a given project. The order of activities depends on the context of application and social dynamics of the moment, a process of designing for formative contexts (Ciborra, 2002). • Open-ended: Consequently, unlike other disciplines of design, Systemic Design is not bound to a specific outcome, be it a product or a service, or the creation of a single solution. Systemic Design aims at identifying, developing and stimulating interventions to change and self-adapt the system on the way. Panel Proposal A panel discussion was proposed to accomplish 3 aims: To announce the toolkit as a new resource included in the SDA membership launch, to share the toolkit in an open dialogue about its use and value, and to encourage dialogue about the state of the art of practice. The panel follow consisted of brief presentations from the authors, who self-moderated an interactive discussion with the audience to engage people in the following questions: • What makes the toolkit state of the art? What are the relevant criteria in practice to qualify a systemic design toolkit? • What other toolkits or “methods collections” exist today in the intersection of design and systems thinking? Are these actually state of the art or improved legacies? • What are the key practice areas in which the toolkit will be of value? Where will we see it deployed earliest? • How do we intend to enhance and update the toolkit? What feedback from the practice are we looking for? • Do we even need a toolkit? What are the alternatives to a structured methods collection? Future Development As a system of practice, the Systemic Design Toolkit is in its initial stages of development and use and is expected to continue in a dynamic state of constant evolution, incorporating ideas, theories and approaches from other contributors. To that end, the core team represented by the authors agreed to engage in a long-term collaboration aimed at sustainable bringing this body of knowledge to a higher level. REFERENCES Ciborra, C. (2002). The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems. Oxford University Press. Jones, P. (2014). Systemic design principles for complex social systems. In G. Metcalf (ed.), Social Systems and Design, Volume 1 of the Translational Systems Science Series, pp 91-128. Springer Japan. Matthias, S, & McMullin, J. (2017). Systemic Maturity Models and Multi-organization collaborations: the ACMHI Mentally Healthy Campus Maturity Model. Proceedings of RSD6 Symposium, Oslo, Norway. Michura, P, & Ruecker, S. (2017). Design as production of presence – systemic approach to re- designing novelty. Proceedings of RSD6 Symposium, Oslo, Norway. Nonaka, L., Takeuchi, H., & Umemoto, K. (1996). A theory of organizational knowledge creation. International Journal of Technology Management, 11(7-8), 833-845. Van Ael, K, & Vandenbroeck, P. (2016). Towards a Systemic Design Toolkit. Workshop and Proceedings of RSD5 Symposium, Toronto. Vandenbroeck, P. (2014). Working with Wicked Problems. King Baudouin Foundation, Brussels

Acyl-Protein Thioesterase 2 Catalizes the Deacylation of Peripheral Membrane-Associated GAP-43

An acylation/deacylation cycle is necessary to maintain the steady-state subcellular distribution and biological activity of S-acylated peripheral proteins. Despite the progress that has been made in identifying and characterizing palmitoyltransferases (PATs), much less is known about the thioesterases involved in protein deacylation. In this work, we investigated the deacylation of growth-associated protein-43 (GAP-43), a dually acylated protein at cysteine residues 3 and 4. Using fluorescent fusion constructs, we measured in vivo the rate of deacylation of GAP-43 and its single acylated mutants in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-K1 and human HeLa cells. Biochemical and live cell imaging experiments demonstrated that single acylated mutants were completely deacylated with similar kinetic in both cell types. By RT-PCR we observed that acyl-protein thioesterase 1 (APT-1), the only bona fide thioesterase shown to mediate deacylation in vivo, is expressed in HeLa cells, but not in CHO-K1 cells. However, APT-1 overexpression neither increased the deacylation rate of single acylated GAP-43 nor affected the steady-state subcellular distribution of dually acylated GAP-43 both in CHO-K1 and HeLa cells, indicating that GAP-43 deacylation is not mediated by APT-1. Accordingly, we performed a bioinformatic search to identify putative candidates with acyl-protein thioesterase activity. Among several candidates, we found that APT-2 is expressed both in CHO-K1 and HeLa cells and its overexpression increased the deacylation rate of single acylated GAP-43 and affected the steady-state localization of diacylated GAP-43 and H-Ras. Thus, the results demonstrate that APT-2 is the protein thioesterase involved in the acylation/deacylation cycle operating in GAP-43 subcellular distribution

Political leaders' identity leadership and civic citizenship behavior:The mediating role of trust in fellow citizens and the moderating role of economic inequality

Identity leadership captures leaders efforts to create and promote a sense of shared group membership (i.e., a sense of “we” and of “us”) among followers. The present research report tests this claim by drawing on data from 26 countries that are part of the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project to examine the relationship between political leaders' identity leadership and civic citizenship behavior (N = 6787). It also examines the contributions of trust and economic inequality to this relationship. Political leaders' identity leadership (PLIL) was positively associated with respondents' people-oriented civic citizenship behaviors (CCB-P) in 20 of 26 countries and civic citizenship behaviors aimed at one's country (CCB-C) in 23 of 26 countries. Mediational analyses also confirmed the indirect effects of PLIL via trust in fellow citizens on both CCB-P (in 25 out of 26 countries) and CCB-C (in all 26 countries). Economic inequality moderated these effects such that the main and indirect effects of trust in one's fellow citizens on CCB-C were stronger in countries with higher economic inequality. This interaction effect was not observed for CCB-P. The study highlights the importance of identity leadership and trust in fellow citizens in promoting civic citizenship behavior, especially in the context of economic inequality.</p

Identity Leadership, Employee Burnout and the Mediating Role of Team Identification: Evidence from the Global Identity Leadership Development Project

Do leaders who build a sense of shared social identity in their teams thereby protect them from the adverse effects of workplace stress? This is a question that the present paper explores by testing the hypothesis that identity leadership contributes to stronger team identification among employees and, through this, is associated with reduced burnout. We tested this model with unique datasets from the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project with participants from all inhabited continents. We compared two datasets from 2016/2017 (n = 5290; 20 countries) and 2020/2021 (n = 7294; 28 countries) and found very similar levels of identity leadership, team identification and burnout across the five years. An inspection of the 2020/2021 data at the onset of and later in the COVID-19 pandemic showed stable identity leadership levels and slightly higher levels of both burnout and team identification. Supporting our hypotheses, we found almost identical indirect effects (2016/2017, b = −0.132; 2020/2021, b = −0.133) across the five-year span in both datasets. Using a subset of n = 111 German participants surveyed over two waves, we found the indirect effect confirmed over time with identity leadership (at T1) predicting team identification and, in turn, burnout, three months later. Finally, we explored whether there could be a “too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect for identity leadership. Speaking against this, we found a u-shaped quadratic effect whereby ratings of identity leadership at the upper end of the distribution were related to even stronger team identification and a stronger indirect effect on reduced burnout

Modular Organization and Combinatorial Energetics of Proline–Tyrosine Nuclear Localization Signals

Proline–tyrosine nuclear localization signals (PY-NLSs) are recognized and transported into the nucleus by human Karyopherin (Kap) β2/Transportin and yeast Kap104p. Multipartite PY-NLSs are highly diverse in sequence and structure, share a common C-terminal R/H/KX2–5PY motif, and can be subdivided into hydrophobic and basic subclasses based on loose N-terminal sequence motifs. PY-NLS variability is consistent with weak consensus motifs, but such diversity potentially renders comprehensive genome-scale searches intractable. Here, we use yeast Kap104p as a model system to understand the energetic organization of this NLS. First, we show that Kap104p substrates contain PY-NLSs, demonstrating their generality across eukaryotes. Previously reported Kapβ2–NLS structures explain Kap104p specificity for the basic PY-NLS. More importantly, thermodynamic analyses revealed physical properties that govern PY-NLS binding affinity: (1) PY-NLSs contain three energetically significant linear epitopes, (2) each epitope accommodates substantial sequence diversity, within defined limits, (3) the epitopes are energetically quasi-independent, and (4) a given linear epitope can contribute differently to total binding energy in different PY-NLSs, amplifying signal diversity through combinatorial mixing of energetically weak and strong motifs. The modular organization of the PY-NLS coupled with its combinatorial energetics lays a path to decode this diverse and evolvable signal for future comprehensive genome-scale identification of nuclear import substrates