Foreword

Our purpose in the 15th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2011) 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 2011 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 2011 was organized and sponsored by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS), member of the International Federation for 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:

1. identification of synergetic relationships among Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, and between them and society;
2. promotion of contacts among the different academic areas, through the transdisciplinarity of the systems approach;
3. identification and implementation of communication channels among the different professions;
4. 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;
5. stimulus for the creation of integrative arrangements at different levels of society, as well as at the family and personal levels;
6. 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:

1. the 496 members of the Program Committee from 69 countries;
2. the 821 additional reviewers, from 86 countries, for their double-blind peer reviews;
3. 3. the 529 reviewers, from 68 countries, for their efforts in making the non-blind peer reviews. (Some reviewers supported both: non-blind and double-blind reviewing for different submissions).

A total of 2461 reviews made by 1350 reviewers (who made at least one review) contributed to the quality achieved in WMSCI 2011. This means an average of 6.29 reviews per submission (391 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 also 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 2011, about 391 papers/abstracts were submitted. These pre-conference proceedings include about 193 papers that were accepted for presentation from 40 countries. 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; it is expected that most of them will appear in a more polished and complete form in scientific journals.

This information about WMSCI 2011 is summarized in the following table, along with the other collocated conferences:

Conference	# of submissions received	# of reviewers that made at least one review	# of reviews made	Average of reviews per reviewer	Average of reviews per submission	# of papers included in the proceedings	% of submissions included in the proceedings
WMSCI 2011	391	1350	2461	1.82	6.29	193	49.36%
IMETI 2011	212	679	1431	2.11	6.75	88	41.51%
IMSCI 2011	276	856	2104	2.46	7.62	124	44.93%
CISCI 2011	388	973	2359	2.42	6.08	173	44.59%
TOTAL	1267	3858	8355	2.17	6.59	578	45.62%

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 2011, 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. Special thanks to Dr. C. Dale Zinn and Professor Jorge Baralt for co-chairing WMSCI 2011 Program Committee and to professors Andrés Tremante and Belkis Sánchez for co-chairing the Organizing Committee. We also extend our gratitude to Drs., Louis H. Kauffman, Leonid Perlovsky, Stuart A. Umpleby, Thomas Marlowe, Ranulph Glanville, Karl H. Müller, Shigehiro Hashimoto, T. Grandon Gill, Alec Yasinsac, Marta White Szabo, Jeremy Horne, Mario Norbis, Ham Chan, Felix Soto-Toro, Susu Nousala, and Dipl.-Math Norbert Jastroch, for accepting to address the audience of the General Joint Plenary Sessions with keynote conferences.

Many thanks to Drs. Dale Zinn, Jorge Baralt, 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 2011. We also wish to thank all the authors for the quality of their papers.

We extend our gratitude as well to Maria Sanchez, Juan Manuel Pineda, Leonisol Callaos, Dalia Sánchez, Keyla Guédez, Nidimar Díaz, Marcela Briceño, Cindi Padilla Louis Barnes, Sean Barnes, Marisela Jiménez, Noraima Castellano, Abrahan Marin, and Freddy Callaos for their knowledgeable effort in supporting the organizational process producing the hard copy and CD versions of the proceedings, developing and maintaining the software supporting the interactions of the authors with the reviewing process and the Organizing Committee, as well as for their support in the help desk and in the promotional process.

 

Professor Nagib C. Callaos
WMSCI 2011 General Chair