Foreword
Our purpose in the 12th Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2008) is to provide, in these increasingly related areas, a multi-disciplinary forum, to foster interdisciplinary communication among the participants, and to support the sharing process of diverse perspectives of the same transdisciplinary concepts and principles.
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI) are being increasingly related to each other in almost every scientific discipline and human activity. Their common transdisciplinarity characterizes and communicates them, generating strong relations among them and with other disciplines. They work together to create a whole new way of thinking and practice. This phenomenon persuaded the Organizing Committee to structure WMSCI 2008 as a multi-conference where participants may focus on one area, or on one discipline, while allowing them the possibility of attending conferences from other areas or disciplines. This systemic approach stimulates cross-fertilization among different disciplines, inspiring scholars, originating new hypothesis, supporting production of innovations and generating analogies; which is, after all, one of the very basic principles of the systems’ movement and a fundamental aim in cybernetics.
WMSCI 2008 was organized and sponsored by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS), member of the International Federation of Systems Research (IFSR). IIIS is an organization dedicated to contribute to the development of the Systems Approach, Cybernetics, and Informatics potential, using both: knowledge and experience, thinking and action, for the:
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identification of synergetic relationships among Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, and between them and society;
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promotion of contacts among the different academic areas, through the transdisciplinarity of the systems approach;
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identification and implementation of communication channels among the different professions;
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supply of communication links between the academic and professional worlds, as well as between them and the business world, both public and private, political and cultural;
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stimulus for the creation of integrative arrangements at different levels of society, as well as at the family and personal levels;
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promotion of transdisciplinary research, both on theoretical issues and on applications to concrete problems.
These IIIS objectives have directed the organizational efforts of yearly WMSCI/ISAS conferences since 1995.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I extend our heartfelt thanks to the 701 members of the Program Committees (213 members of the WMSCI 2008’s PC and 488 members of the PCs related to the symposia organized in the context of WMSCI 2008) from 65 countries; to the 763 additional reviewers, from 80 countries; and to the 892 reviewers, from 73 countries, for their efforts in making the non-blind reviews; which contributed to the quality achieved in WMSCI 2008. A total of 2366 scholars, researchers and professionals made 5198 reviews, which generated an average of 4.89 reviews per submission (1064 submissions were received). Each registered author had access, via the conference web site, to the reviews that recommended the acceptance of their respective submissions. Each registered author could get information about: 1) the average of the reviewers evaluations according to 8 criteria, and the average of a global evaluation of his/her submission; and 2) the comments and the constructive feedback made by the reviewers, who recommended the acceptance of his/her submission, so the author would be able to improve the final version of the paper.
In the organizational process of WMSCI 2008, about 1064 papers/abstracts were submitted. These pre-conference proceedings include about 292 papers that were accepted for presentation. The organizers of the invited sessions accepted about 110 papers from the papers/abstracts submitted directly to them by the respective authors. Consequently, these pre-conference proceedings contain a total of 402 papers. I extend our thanks to the invited sessions’ organizers for collecting, reviewing and selecting the papers that will be presented in their respective sessions. The submissions were reviewed as carefully as time permitted, but they were not formally refereed, it is expected that most of them will appear in a more polished and complete form in scientific journals.
We also extend our gratitude to the focus symposia organizers, as well as to the co-editors of these proceedings, for the hard work, energy and eagerness they displayed preparing their respective sessions. We express our intense gratitude to Professor William Lesso for his wise and opportune tutoring, for his eternal energy, integrity, and continuous support and advice, as the Program Committee Chair of past conferences, and as Honorary President of WMSCI 2008, as well as for being a very caring old friend and intellectual father to many of us. We also extend our gratitude to Professor Belkis Sanchez, who brilliantly managed the organizing process.
Our gratitude to Professors Bela H. Banathy, Stafford Beer, George Klir, Karl Pribram, Paul A. Jensen, and Gheorghe Benga who dignified our past WMSCI conferences by being their Honorary Presidents. We also extend our gratitude to Drs. Dale W. Lick, H. John Caulfield, Louis H. Kauffman, Stuart A. Umpleby, Gary Metcalf, Yaroslav Sergeyev, Ranulph Glanville, Karl H. Müller, and Subhas C Misra for accepting to address the audience of the General Joint Plenary Sessions with keynote conferences, as well as to Professors Dale Zinn, Michael Savoie, Jorge Baralt, Sushil Archaya, Hsing-Wei Chu, Andrés Tremante, Friedrich Welsch, Thierry Lefevre, José Vicente Carrasquero, Angel Oropeza, and Freddy Malpica for chairing and supporting the organization of the focus symposia and conferences in the context of, or collocated with, WMSCI 2008. We also wish to thank all the authors for the quality of their papers.
We also extend our gratitude to Maria Sanchez, Juan Manuel Pineda, Juan Pinto, Dalia Sánchez, Riad Callaos and Marcela Briceño for their knowledgeable effort in producing the hard copy and CD versions of the proceedings.
Professor Nagib C. Callaos
WMSCI 2008 Conference General Chair