Processes of Emergence of Systems and Systemic Properties

The following sections are included:

• Dedication

• PREFACE

• PROGRAM COMMITTEE

• CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

• CONTENTS

We review the ideas and experiments that established the onset of laser coherence beyond a suitable threshold. That threshold is the first of a chain of bifurcations in a non linear dynamics, leading eventually to deterministic chaos in lasers. In particular, the so called HC behavior has striking analogies with the electrical activity of neurons. Based on these considerations, we develop a dynamical model of neuron synchronization leading to coherent global perceptions.

Synchronization implies a transitory control of neuron chaos. Depending on the time duration of this control, a cognitive agent has different amounts of awareness.

Combining this with a stream of external inputs, one can point at an optimal use of internal resources, that is called cognitive creativity.

While coherence is associated with long range correlations, complexity arises whenever an array of coupled dynamical systems displays multiple paths of coherence.

What is the relation among the three concepts in the title? While coherence is associated with long range correlations, complexity arises whenever an array of coupled dynamical systems displays multiple paths of coherence. Creativity corresponds to a free selection of a coherence path within a complex nest. As sketched above, it seems dynamically related to chaos control.

The interaction of human cultures and the built environment allows a wide range of interpretations and has been studied inside the domain of many disciplines. This paper discusses three interpretations descending from a systemic approach to the question:

- architecture as an "emergence" of the settlement system;

- place (and space) as an "accumulator" of time and a "flux" of systems;

- landscape as one representation/description of the human settlement.

Architecture emerges as a new physical conformation or layout, or as a change in a specific site, arising from actions and representations of political, religious, economical or social powers, being shaped at all times by the material culture belonging to a specific time and place in the course of human evolution.

Any inhabited space becomes over time a place as well as a landscape, i.e. a representation of the settlement and a relationship between setting and people. Therefore, any place owns a landscape which, in turn, is a system of physical systems; it could be defined as a system of sites that builds up its own structure stemming from the orographical features and the geometry of land surfaces that set out the basic characters of its space.

Considering the impact on human beings and human activities of architectural decisions in the design of space for human habitation, this chapter discusses the increasingly evident and necessary confluence in contemporary times of many disciplines and human-oriented sciences, with architecture being the meeting ground to know emergent phenomena of human habitation. As both a general rubric and a specific phenomenon, architectural emergence is the chosen focus of discussion and other phenomena are related to it. Attention is given to the phenomena of architectural induction, emergence, and convergence as having strategic and explanatory value in understanding tensions between two competing mentalities, the global domineering nature-for-humans attitude, in opposition to the lesser practiced humans-for-nature attitude.

Interoperability in architecture illustrates contemporary instances of innovation. It aims, through the standardization of instruments and procedures (and especially through shared languages of/in IT tools and applications), at the optimization of interactions amongst agents and the work done.

It requires, within a consistently non-reductionist systemic approach: (1) interactions and activities of conscious government in/amongst its fundamental component parts (politics, technical aspects, semantics); (2) development of shared languages and protocols, to verify technical, poietic, etc., innovations which do not destroy accumulative effects and peculiarities (axiological, fruitional, etc.).

Cultural Heritage is comprehensible within an integrated vision, involving economic, cultural and ethic values, typical of not renewable resources. It is an open system that doesn't correspond just to monuments but is made by the complex interactions of a built environment. The systemic relationships between cultural goods (object, building, landscape), and their environmental context have to be considered of the same importance of the systemic relations established with stakeholders/observers.

A first partial answer to Cultural Heritage systemic nature has been the creation of "networks" of cultural institutions, that afterwards have been evolving in "cultural systems" and have been recently followed by "cultural districts".

The Cultural District model put forward a precise application for the theory of emergence. But its systemic nature presents also some problematical identifications.

For Cultural Heritage the point is not any more limited to "direct" actions. We must consider stakeholders/observers, feedback circuits, emergence of activation of social/cultural/human capital, more than that linked to the architectural design process.

Systemics approaches towards architecture, traditionally within a structuralist framework (especially within a technological environment), may evolve in a non-reductionist way through:

- non-reductive considerations of the role of human requirements in the definition of inhabited spaces;

- acceptance of the use-perception dialogical relationship, and more generally of the art-science nexus, as being characteristic of architecture.

Likewise, there are theoretical issues in the development of systemic, particularly within the discipline of architecture, including:

- the role of the observer, in the constructivist sense and within the exceptions of scientific realism;

- the unpredictability of emergence, with its related limits (of purely ontological significance).

Confronted with fast changing technologies and markets and with increasing competitive pressures, firms are now required to innovate fast and continuously. In order to do so, several firms superpose an intrapreneurial layer (IL) to their formal organization (FO). The two systems are in complex relations: the IL is embedded in the FO, sharing human, financial and technical components, but strongly diverges from it when it comes to representation, structure, values and behavior of the shared components. Furthermore, the two systems simultaneously cooperate and compete. In the long run, the organizational dynamics usually end to the detriment of the intrapreneurial layer, which remains marginal or regresses after an initial period of boom. The concepts of Multiple Systems and Collective Beings, proposed by Minati and Pessa, can help students of the firm adopt a different viewpoint on this issue. These concepts can help them move away from a rigid, Manichean view of the two systems' respective functions and roles towards a more fluid and elaborate vision of their relations, allowing for greater flexibility and coherence.

Though the question of the determinants of workgroup performance is one of the most central in organization science, precise theoretical frameworks and formal demonstrations are still missing. In order to fill in this gap the COD agent-based simulation model is here presented and used to study the effects of task interdependence and bounded rationality on workgroup performance. The first relevant finding is an algorithmic demonstration of the ordering of interdependencies in terms of complexity, showing that the parallel mode is the most simplex, followed by the sequential and then by the reciprocal. This result is far from being new in organization science, but what is remarkable is that now it has the strength of an algorithmic demonstration instead of being based on the authoritativeness of some scholar or on some episodic empirical finding. The second important result is that the progressive introduction of realistic limits to agents' rationality dramatically reduces workgroup performance and addresses to a rather interesting result: when agents' rationality is severely bounded simple norms work better than complex norms. The third main finding is that when the complexity of interdependence is high, then the appropriate coordination mechanism is agents' direct and active collaboration, which means teamwork.

Infradisciplinary, besides interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, applications, forms part of the definition of new company organizational models and, in particular, for networked-companies. Their related systemic connotations characterize them as collective beings, especially regarding the optimization of interactions between agents as well as context-specific interference.

Networked-companies in the building industry (chosen to illustrate the infradisciplinary values of the systemic approach towards company organizational models) require, due to their nature and particularities of context, certain specifications: behavioral microrules of an informal nature, suitable governance of their sector, etc. Their nature and particular context thus determine, especially in the systemic view, the need not only for an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, but also an infradisciplinary one.

The paper discusses economic analysis as a normative – as opposed to positive – science. Contrary to conventional economics, it argues that: the economy does not consist of markets alone; both the economy and markets are open systems. The organization of markets and other economic activities therefore depends on the interaction between the economy and the rest of society. What configuration holds in practice is a matter of public policy. In this perspective, public policy is an intrinsic part of economic analysis, not something that follows once the economy has been investigated.

The paper also argues that markets have a rationale of their own. As a consequence, public policy must define – or co-determine – the appropriate economic configuration not only by acting upon the institutional setup of markets but also by identifying those sections of the economy that should be coordinated by markets and those that should resort to other economic institutions.

The current work seeks to focus on the innovative work behavior and, in particular, on the stage of idea generation.

An important factor that stimulates the individual to carry out the various emergent processes of change and innovation within the organization is known as intrinsic motivation, but under certain conditions, the presence of different forms of extrinsic motivation, as external regulation, introjection, identification and integration, positively influences innovative behavior at work, specifically the creative stage of the process. Starting from this evidence, the organizational environment could be capable of stimulating or indeed inhibiting potential creativity and innovation of individuals.

About 100 individuals employees of a local government health department in Central Italy were given an explicit questionnaire. The results show that among external factors that effect the individual such as control, rewards and recognition for work well done, controlled motivation influences overall innovative behavior whereas autonomous motivation plays a significant role in the specific behavior of idea generation. At the same time, it must also be acknowledged that a clearly articulated task which allows an individual to identify with said task, seems to favor overall innovative behavior, whilst a task which allows a fair degree of autonomy influences the behavior of generating ideas.

Different approaches can be applied to assess the usability of a web application. Each one of them presents advantages and drawbacks, as well as cost-benefits trade-offs. This contribution contains a short review of the state-of-the-art in web usability assessment issues, by focusing on a new systemic approach, called "e-usability", designed to deal in a more integrated way with the human-computer interaction, so as to allow a more realistic assessment of web interfaces. The applied methodology is quick and doesn't need any artifact design or evaluation cost.

Cellular Automata are discrete dynamical systems capable to produce interesting and heterogeneous emergent behaviors even in spite of simple local rules of evolution. In this review paper, an evolutionary methodology for evolving models of complex natural macroscopic systems through Macroscopic Cellular Automata is focused. Two examples of applications to the simulation of lava and debris flows, when compared with real cases of study, have confirmed the goodness of the approach, both in qualitative and quantitative terms.

Actual organizations, in particular the ones which operate in evolving and distributed environments, need advanced frameworks for the management of the knowledge life cycle. These systems have to be based on the social relations which constitute the pattern of collaboration ties of the organization. We demonstrate here, with the aid of a model taken from the theory of graphs, that it is possible to provide the conditions for an effective knowledge management. A right way could be to involve the actors with the highest betweeness centrality in the generation of discussion groups. This solution allows the externalization of tacit knowledge, the preservation of knowledge and the raise of innovation processes.

Using the linguistic approach it is possible to generalize from a single example.

The problem in defining generalization is considered by examining some core aspects, such as (a) the extent of the domain of validity of a property, (b) the transformation between different non-equivalent representations and (c) the respective representations of different observers and their relationships, i.e., a dynamic theory of relationships between levels of observation as introduced by the Dynamic Usage of Models (DYSAM). The purpose of this paper is to better clarify the conceptual framework of generalization in order to be able to set the context for a General Theory of Emergence as meta-theory, using models of models (as for logical openness) and interacting hierarchies. After considering some approaches used to generalize and focussing upon the purpose of General System Theory for generalizing, we examine some concrete approaches, such as DYSAM, for building up a General Theory of Emergence with specific theories of disciplinary emergence as particular cases.

In a previous paper (Uncertainty and the Role of the Observer, co-authored with G. Minati and A. Trotta, Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Italian Systems Society in publication by Springer), we focused on the deep epistemological contribution of the Italian mathematician Bruno de Finetti (1906 - 1985), from a systemic point of view. He considered the probability of an event nothing but the degree of believe of the observer in its occurrence, relating this degree of believe to the information available, in that moment, to the observer. He pointed out how, when considering probability, we need to focus on the role of the observer expressing the degree of believe and how S/He can construct a system of coherent probabilities. The purpose of this paper is to show how this subjective conception of probability is based on assuming a systemic framework, even in cases of conditional events. Regarding this, we underline how the fundamental conceptual and methodological tool is the well-known Bayes Theorem. With reference to this theorem, we will be introducing examples to show how its usage is not only crucial in generating probabilities suitable for the emergence of a system of coherent evaluations, but even able to explain some paradoxical aspects.

The behaviour of coherent structures emerging as outcome of a phase transition can be ruled by classical or by quantum laws. The latter circumstance depends in a critical way on the relative importance of quantum fluctuations which, in turn, depends on the numerical value of Planck's constant. In this paper we explore the consequences of the hypothesis according to which there are different kinds of Planck's constant, each one related to the kind of interaction entering into play in the specific phase transition. Within this paper we dealt with the simplest case, in which we have only two Planck's constants: the usual one, interpreted as related to electromagnetic interactions, and another, related to gravitational interactions. We feel this framework should be useful to describe cosmological phase transitions, such as galaxy and star formation, as well as the birth of black holes. According to our hypotheses, these emerging coherent structures should be ruled by suitable quantum laws (expressed, for instance, by a suitable kind of Schrödinger equation), including a "gravitational" Planck's constant. Even if the present paper deals with the particular case of gravitational interactions, it seems that its methodology could be useful even to study other kinds of emergent phenomena.

We introduce some core principles related to systems thinking: interaction, establishment of systems through organization and self-organization (emergence), and the constructivist role of the observer including the use of language. It is not effective to deal with systemic properties in a non-systemic way, by adopting a reductionist way of thinking, i.e., when properties acquired by systems are considered as properties possessed by objects. We consider the reduced language adopted in consumer societies as functional to maintain consumerist attitude. In consumer societies, language is suitable for maintaining people in the role of consumers with a limited ability to design and create. In this context freedom is intended as freedom of choice. To counteract this reduced language, we propose the diffusion of suitable games, cartoons, comics and pictures, images, concepts and words which can enrich everyday language, especially that of young people, and provide an effective way for inducing some elementary aspects of systems thinking in everyday life. The purpose is to have a language to design and develop things and not merely to select from what is already available. We list a number of proposals for the design of such games, stories and pictures.

This paper explores the concept of organizations as complex human activity systems, through the perspectives of alternative systemic models. The impact of alternative models on perception of individual and organizational emergence is highlighted. Using information systems development as an example of management activity, individual and collective sense-making and learning processes are discussed. Their roles in relation to information systems concepts are examined. The main focus of the paper is on individual emergence in the context of organizational systems. A case is made for the importance of attending to individual uniqueness and contextual dependency when carrying out organizational analyses, e.g. information systems analysis. One particular method for contextual inquiry, the framework for Strategic Systemic Thinking, is then introduced. The framework supports stakeholders to own and control their own analyses. This approach provides a vehicle through which multiple levels of contextual dependencies can be explored and allows for individual emergence to develop.

Job satisfaction and organizational commitment have long been identified as relevant factors for the well-being of individuals within an organization and the success of the organization itself. As the well-being can be, in principle, considered as emergent from the influence of a number of factors, the main goal of a theory of organizations is to identify these factors and the role they can play. In this regard job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been often identified with structural factors allowing an organization to be considered as a system, or a wholistic entity, rather than a simple aggregate of individuals. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that job satisfaction has a significant, direct effect on determining individuals' attachment to an organization and a significant but indirect effect on their intention to leave a company. However, a complete assessment of the role of these factors in establishing and keeping the emergence of an organization is still lacking, due to shortage of measuring instruments and to practical difficulties in interviewing organization members.

The present study aims to give a further contribution to what is currently known about the relationship between job satisfaction and affective commitment by using a group of professionals, all at management level. A questionnaire to measure these constructs, following a pilot study, was designed and administered to 1042 participants who were all professionals and had the title of industrial manager or director.

The factors relating to job satisfaction and the predictive value of these factors (to predict an employee's emotional involvement with their organization) were simultaneously tested by a confirmative factorial model. The results were generalized with a multi-sample procedure by using models of structural equations. This procedure was used to check whether these factors could be considered or not as causes producing the measured affective commitment.

The results showed that the four dimensions of job satisfaction (professional development, information, remuneration and relationship with superiors) are not equally predictive of affective commitment. To be more specific, the opportunity of professional development or growth provided by a company was shown to be the best predictor of affective commitment. This seems to suggest that, as expected, the emergence of organizations could be a true emergence, not reducible to a sum of single causes. Implications, future lines of research and limitations are discussed.

A number of studies showed how the set up of an involving and motivating work environment represents a source for organizational competitive advantage: in this view organizational climate (OC) research occupies a preferred position in current I/O psychology. The present study is a review carried out to establish the breadth of the literature on the characteristics of OC assessment considered in a systemic perspective. An organization with a strong climate is a work environment whose members have similar understanding of the norms and practices and share the same expectations.

OC should be considered as a sort of emergent entity and, as such, it can be studied only within a systemic perspective because it is linked with some organizational variables, in terms of antecedents (such as the organization's internal structure and its environmental features) and consequences (such as job performance, psychological well-being and withdrawal) of the climate itself. In particular, when employees have a positive view of their organizational environment, consistently with their values and interests, they are more likely to identify their personal goals with those of the organization and, in turn, to invest a greater effort to pursue them: the employees' perception of the organizational environment is positively related to the key outcomes such as job involvement, effort and performance.

OC analysis could also be considered as an effective Organizational Development (OD) tool: in particular, the Survey Feedback, that is the return of the OC survey results, could be an effective instrument to assess the efficacy of specific OD programs, such as Team Building, TQM and Gainsharing.

The present study is focused on the interest to investigate all possible variables which are potential moderators of the climate - outcome relationship: therefore future researches in the OC field should consider a great variety of organizational variables, considered in terms of antecedents and effects of OC, and OC studies should be conducted as cross-level and multilevel researches.

Within the systemic framework of Environmental Psychology (Bechtel and Churchman, 2002) and following Urry (2002) and Pearce's approaches (2005), the aim of this research is to investigate within the context of urban tourism which world views emerge from a Discourse Analysis (Edwards, Potter, 1993). of the speech of native and non-native Sardinian residents. It addresses the issue of how social-physical diversity might be preserved (the problem of tourism sustainability, Di Castri, Balaji, 2002).

In this regard, forty in-depth narrative interviews of inhabitants with short- and long-term residential experience in Cagliari (Italy) were conducted and examined (Discourse Analysis). It was found that the native and non-native's rhetorical devices expressed similar representations of urban places, but in diverse relationship to social and place identity. Their environmental transitions were based on the tourist gaze, or the functional view and heritage pride. This displays some basic central dimensions of sustainable tourism.

There are different approaches to model a computational system, each providing a different Semantics. We present a comparison between different approaches to Semantics with the aim of identifying which peculiarities are needed to provide a system with a uniquely interpretable Semantics. We discuss different approaches, namely Description Logics, Artificial Neural Networks, and Databases, and we identify classification (the process of building a taxonomy) as a common trait. However, in this paper we also argue that classification is not enough to provide a system with a Semantics, which emerges only when relations between classes are established and used among instances. Our contribution also analyzes additional features of the formalisms that distinguish the approaches: closed vs. open world assumption, dynamic vs. static nature, the management of knowledge, and the learning process. We particularly focus on the open/closed world assumption, providing real world modeling examples to highlight the differences, and the consequences of one choice vs. the other. We also consider an important difference: in symbolic systems the notion of Semantics is 'declared' by means of axioms, rules, or constraints, whereas in subsymbolic ones the notion of Semantics emerges according to the evolution of a modeling system.

Even though simulation models are the dominant paradigm in cognitive science, it has been argued that Galilean models might fare better on both the description and explanation of real cognitive phenomena. The main goal of this paper is to show that the actual construction of Galilean models is clearly feasible, and well suited, for a special class of cognitive phenomena, namely, those of human computation. I will argue in particular that Turing's original formulation of the Church-Turing thesis can naturally be viewed as the core hypothesis of a new empirical theory of human computation. This theory relies on bidimensional Turing machines, a generalization of ordinary machines with one-dimensional tape to two-dimensional paper. Finally, I will suggest that this theory might become a first paradigm for a general approach to the study of cognition, an approach entirely based on Galilean models of cognitive phenomena.

Visual recognition of faces is an essential behavior of humans: we have optimal performance in everyday life and just such a performance makes us able to establish the continuity of actors in our social life and to quickly identify and categorize people. This remarkable ability justifies the general interest in face recognition of researchers belonging to different fields and specially of designers of biometrical identification systems able to recognize the features of person's faces in a background.

Due to interdisciplinary nature of this topic in this contribute we deal with face recognition through a comprehensive approach with the purpose to reproduce some features of human performance, as evidenced by studies in psychophysics and neuroscience, relevant to face recognition. This approach views face recognition as an emergent phenomenon resulting from the nonlinear interaction of a number of different features. For this reason our model of face recognition has been based on a computational system implemented through an artificial neural network.

This synergy between neuroscience and engineering efforts allowed us to implement a model that had a biological plausibility, performed the same tasks as human subjects, and gave a possible account of human face perception and recognition. In this regard the paper reports on an experimental study of performance of a SOM-based neural network in a face recognition task, with reference both to the ability to learn to discriminate different faces, and to the ability to recognize a face already encountered in training phase, when presented in a pose or with an expression differing from the one present in the training context.

This paper deals with the problem of understanding anticipation in biological and cognitive systems. It is argued that a physical theory can be considered as biologically plausible only if it incorporates the ability to describe systems which exhibit anticipatory behaviors. The paper introduces a cognitive level description of anticipation and provides a simple theoretical characterization of anticipatory systems on this level. Specifically, a simple model of a formal anticipatory neuron and a model (i.e. the τ-mirror architecture) of an anticipatory neural network which is based on the former are introduced and discussed. The basic feature of this architecture is that a part of the network learns to represent the behavior of the other part over time, thus constructing an implicit model of its own functioning. As a consequence, the network is capable of self-representation; anticipation, on a macroscopic level, is nothing but a consequence of anticipation on a microscopic level. Some learning algorithms are also discussed together with related experimental tasks and possible integrations. The outcome of the paper is a formal characterization of anticipation in cognitive systems which aims at being incorporated in a comprehensive and more general physical theory.

According to Evolutionary Game Theory decision making in games with incomplete information should be viewed as an emergent phenomenon. However, the adoption of this framework tells us nothing about the concrete modeling of the emergence of decisions within specific games. In this paper we took into consideration the case of Iterated Prisoner Dilemma Game (IPDG). In this regard we compared the outcomes of computer simulations of three different decision making models, two of which implemented through particular neural network architectures, with experimental data coming from observations about the behavior in IPDG of human players. The comparison was based on the use of a Genetic Algorithm, which let us know the best parameter values, for each kind of model, granting for the best reproduction of the observed pattern of experimental data. We found that the best fit was obtained by a model directly taking into account the inner expectancies of each player. This result suggests that the emergence of decision cannot be described by resorting to the simplest models of self-organization. More complex models are needed, including a detailed account of the operation of player's cognitive system.

Burnout phenomenon emerges from a constellation of factors which cannot be described in terms of cause-effect relationships. This study investigated levels of burnout in nurses working in Critical Care Units with a systemic approach, giving evidence of relation between nurses staff burnout and psychosocial workplace factors. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between job burnout in emergency and intensive care nurse with specific areas of work life in their organizations, using Maslach and Leiter work life model [23].

A cross-sectional survey was designed using the Italian version of the "Organizational Checkup System" in a sample of 180 Italian nurses.

Results showed that high burnout levels were strongly related to high demands, low control, low fairness, lack of social support, and individual disagreement on values in the workplace. High professional efficacy levels were instead correlated to professional reward and leadership involvement.

The article concludes by suggesting the possible areas for intervention in order to prevent job burnout and building job engagement.

The unstoppable acceleration of the scientific and technological development that is revolutionizing our socioeconomic systems in recent years has made the critical aspects and the inadequacy of medical epistemology more and more evident. Several elements have underlined the insufficiency of traditional ethical points of reference in Medicine, like the change of individual needs, the technical possibility of long-term management of heavy diseases, the change of the social and health systems caused by the interaction of different ethnic groups and cultures, several problems linked to the fair distribution of resources in regime of fiscal scarcity involving all the industrialized countries of our world. This brought to the necessity for Medicine to modify its coordinates, adjusting them on the person, and not on the disease.

In order to reach this objective, the author strategically suggests Systemics as the epistemological guidance of the knowledge process, which can make the scientific method operate in an ethical and cultural horizon centered on the human being valorization, on the respect of his/her needs and the respect of his/her environment.

A systemic approach of the medical thought can allow the re-orientation of the clinical look from a biological to a biographic one, the re-definition of the aim of the medical intervention as the restoration and support of self-organizing and self-regulating processes of the biological system, the achieving of a social and health expenditure's saving through a major appropriateness of prescription and an inherent preventive valence of medical interventions, the offer of new and larger horizons for the development of scientific research.

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are emergent phenomena resulting from exposure to a traumatic event that causes actual or threatened death or injury and produces intense fear, helplessness, or horror. In order to assess the role of different factors contributing to this kind of emergent phenomenon prevalence rates across gender, cultures, and samples exposed to different traumas are examined. Risk factors for PTSD, including pre-existing individual-based factors, features of the traumatic event, and post-trauma interventions are examined as well. Several characteristics of the trauma, related to cognitions, post-trauma social support and therapeutic interventions for PTSD are also considered. Further work is needed in order to analyze the inter-relationships among these factors and underlying mechanisms. The chaotic nature of traumatic processes, the multiple and interactive impacts on traumatic events require a comprehensive perspective aimed at planning effective interventions. Treatment outcome studies recommended the combined use of training and therapies as first-line treatment for PTSD.

369 patients, selected within a set of 1215 outpatients, were studied. The data were clustered into two set: the baseline set and the endpoint set. The clinical parameters had a higher variability at the baseline than at the endpoint. 4 to 5 factors were extracted in total group and 3 subgroups (190 "affective", 34 type-B personality, 166 without any of both disorders). In all subgroups there was a background pattern of 6 components: 3 components confirming the trifactorial temperamental model of Cloninger; 1 component related to the quality of social relationships; 2 components (that are the main components of factorial model about in all groups) relating to quality of life and adjustment self perceived by patients, and to pattern of dysfunctional behavior, inner feelings, and thought processes externally evaluated. These background components seem to aggregate differently in the subgroups in accordance to the clinical diagnosis. These patterns may be interpreted as expression of an increased "coherence" among parameters due to a lack of flexibility caused by the illness. The different class of illness can be further distinguished by intensity of maladjustment, that is related to the intensity of clinical signs just only at the baseline. These data suggest that the main interfering factors are clinical psychopathology at baseline and stable personality traits at endpoint. This persistent chronic maladjustment personality-driven is evidenced after the clinical disorder was cured by treatment. An interpretative model is presented by the author.

Recalling the decomposition methodology, the complexity of the decomposition process is described. The complexity of a system is connected with the depth reached in the decomposition process. In particular the number of subsystems and the number of active relations present in a decomposition are the elements used to define a complexity index. Some considerations about the decompositions sequences allow to put in evidence some basic properties useful to define the maximum values of complexity. Given some hypotheses about the relation patterns due to the starting steps in the decomposition process the range for each decomposition level is evaluated through computer simulations. In addition some connections with other knowledge contexts, as graph theory, are presented.

"Visible universe" is a spherical matter crust that rotates at a convenient speed around a central massive body which represents a black-hole. In addition it expands itself in all radial directions. Such structure was first postulated in 2004 and now is fully confirmed by experimental observations from the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) released by NASA in March 2007. Using stability theory (ST) we explain present state and future evolution up to final reach of a stable dynamical equilibrium. We present a consistent set of closed form equations that determine basic quantities as radius, age, Hubble constant, mass, density and "missing mass". At the end of the expansion the number of typical stars of visible universe will be equal to the Avogadro Number.

Starting from an enough shared definition of "complex system", we describe the hierarchies of levels and the emergent phenomena within a system, by resorting to concepts of measure and measure invariance. Through recursive functions, we introduce a mathematical representation allowing to show how symmetries, hierarchical structures and emergent properties take place.

In the last decades, the interactions between the infrastructures of a country gained increasing importance and consequently people started to acquire consciousness of their mutual interdependencies. This situation became evident in the last years when a number of large blackouts occurred in U.S.A. and in Europe and portions of electric power systems collapsed and forced other infrastructures to collapse as a consequence.

The paper reports a brief description of critical infrastructures, recalling some properties as safety, security, emergency, vulnerability and stability. Then, the implications of these characteristics in control actions are briefly evaluated. The need to build a reference model useful to analyze and to simulate the phenomena connected with critical infrastructures is discussed.

Investigating these concepts as emergence of properties may be a chance; this point of view may be useful to identify and to evaluate a systemic approach to deal with critical infrastructures problems. Some remarks about the complexity of the problems involved in managing the interaction between critical infrastructures are finally reported.

In this article we analyse the problem of downward causation in emergent systems. Our thesis, based on constructivist epistemological remarks, is that downward causation in synchronic emergence cannot be characterized by a direct causal role of the whole on the parts, as these levels belong to two different epistemological domains, but by the way the components are related: that is by their organization. According to these remarks downward causation, considered as relatedness, can be re-expressed as the non-coincidence of the operations of analysis and synthesis performed by the observer on the system.

This paper deals with the feasibility of a general theory of changes occurring both in nonbiological and in biological world. The aim of this theory should be that of classifying, describing, and forecasting the consequences of changes, as well as of finding the conditions which ensure a possibility of controlling them. The most important sub-case of this investigation would consist in a general theory of emergence, clarifying whether the latter could be or not obtained through a suitable generalization of physical theory of phase transitions. We will argue that this enterprise could be feasible, provided actual theoretical framework holding in physics be enlarged in a suitable way, so as to include phenomena not reducible to particles interacting through force fields of immutable nature.

We first discuss the concept of structure to differentiate between structural and systemic properties. Within this framework we discuss processes of establishing structures, such as phase transitions, organization and self-organization. The paper introduces concepts and insights about the process of Acquiring Properties (AP) in systems, not just possessing properties. The last point relates to establishing, sustaining and managing new properties in emergent and organizational systems. In the Appendix we briefly discuss this approach for the concept of mind possessed by living matter.

The growth of protocells is discussed under different hypotheses (one or more replicators, linear and nonlinear kinetics) using a class of abstract models (Surface Reaction Models). A method to analyze the dynamics of successive protocell generations is presented, and it is applied to the problem of determining whether the duplication times of the protocell itself and of its genetic material eventually tend to a common value. The importance of the phenomenon of emergent synchronization for sustained protocell population growth and for evolvability is discussed.

Random Boolean networks provide a way to give a precise meaning to the notion that living beings are in a critical state. Some phenomena which are observed in real biological systems (distribution of "avalanches" in gene knock-out experiments) can be modeled using random Boolean networks, and the results can be analytically proven to depend upon the Derrida parameter, which also determines whether the network is critical. By comparing observed and simulated data one can then draw inferences about the criticality of biological cells, although with some care because of the limited number of experimental observations. The relationship between the criticality of a single network and that of a set of interacting networks, which simulate a tissue or a bacterial colony, is also analyzed by computer simulations.

With reference to the restricted two-body problem we show that Stability Theory (ST) and Special Relativity (SR) can be joined together in a new theory that explains a large class of physical phenomena (e.g. black-holes, cosmological dynamics) and overcomes the dualism between SR and General relativity (GR). After recalling the main features of ST (from the Method of Lyapunov to more recent developments up to analysis of fractals) we determine the canonic relativistic equations of the restricted two-body problem. A substantial novelty with respect to noted formulations is pointed out: three state variables (and not two only) are needed for "defining" said equations. They include variable v (magnitude of the rotation speed) in addition to radius and to radial speed. By means of eigenvalue analysis and by application of the Lyapunov theorem on stability in the first approximation we show that linearized system analysis gives a necessary condition only for stability: the radius must be greater than half the Schwarzschild radius. The derivation of a sufficient condition passes through the definition of a convenient Lyapunov function that represents the "local energy" around a given Equilibrium Point. Such derivation is deferred to Part II and results in the proof that the Schwarzschild radius actually represents the reference stable radius of the two-body problem.

We point out a sufficient condition for existence of a stable attractor in the two-body restricted problem. The result is strictly dependent on making reference to relativistic equations and could not be derived from classical analysis. The radius of the stable attractor equals the well known Schwarzschild radius of General Relativity (GR). So we establish a bridge between Special Relativity (SR) and GR via Stability Theory (ST). That opens one way to an innovative study of black-holes and of the cosmological problem. A distinguishing feature is that no singularities come into evidence. The application of the Direct Method of Lyapunov (with a special Lyapunov function that represents the local energy) provides us the theoretical background.

The emergence of the phase locking among the electromagnetic modes and the matter components on an extended space-time region is discussed. The stability of mesoscopic and macroscopic complex systems arising from fluctuating quantum components is considered under such a perspective.

The substitution of knowledge to information as the entity that organizations process and deliver raises a number of questions concerning the nature of knowledge. The dispute on the codifiability of tacit knowledge and that juxtaposing the epistemology of practice vs. the epistemology of possession can be better faced by revisiting two crucial debates. One concerns the nature of cognition and the other the famous mind-body problem. Cognition can be associated with the capability of manipulating symbols, like in the traditional computational view of organizations, interpreting facts or symbols, like in the narrative approach to organization theory, or developing mental states (events), like argued by the growing field of organizational cognition. Applied to the study of organizations, the mind-body problem concerns the possibility (if any) and the forms in which organizational mental events, like trust, identity, cultures, etc., can be derived from the structural aspects (technological, cognitive or communication networks) of organizations. By siding in extreme opposite positions, the two epistemologies appear irreducible one another and pay its own inner consistency with remarkable difficulties in describing and explaining some empirical phenomena. Conversely, by legitimating the existence of both tacit and explicit knowledge, by emphasizing the space of human interactions, and by assuming that mental events can be explained with the structural aspects of organizations, Nonaka's SECI model seems an interesting middle way between the two rival epistemologies.

The classical theories about communication have different views on the relevance of the requirement of the intentionality of the communicative agent. The composition of these views seems to be problematic since it leads to incompatible outcomes when we try to classify communicative behaviors. Some approaches, in order to build a synthesis, shift on the addressee the task of detecting the intentionality and thus cannot account for a number of interesting communicative phenomena. The systemic perspective instead, through the circularity of the inferences on system elements and the sharing of the attributes and the overall communicative characteristics of the system, defines, specifies and more generalizes the concept of communication, enabling to better single out the variety of phenomena connected to it and to catch the emergence of their communicative value.

Music, compared to other complex forms of representation, is fundamentally characterized by constant evolution and a dynamic succession of structure reference models. This is without taking into account historical perspective, the analysis of forms and styles, or questions of a semantic nature; the observation rather refers to the phenomenology of the music system. The more abstract a compositional model, the greater the number and frequency of variables that are not assimilated to the reference structure; this "interference" which happens more often than not in an apparently casual manner, modifies the creative process to varying but always substantial degrees: locally, it produces a disturbance in perceptive, formal and structural parameters, resulting more often than not in a synaesthetic experience; globally, on the other hand, it defines the terms of a transition to a new state, in which the relations between elements and components modify the behavior of the entire system from which they originated. It is possible to find examples of this phenomenon in the whole range of musical production, in particular in improvisations, in the use of the Basso Continuo, and in some contrapuntal works of the baroque period, music whose temporal dimension can depart from the limits of mensurability and symmetry to define an open compositional environment in continuous evolution.

The watercolor illusion is characterized by a large-scale assimilative color spreading (coloration effect) emanating from thin colored edges. The watercolor illusion enhances the figural properties of the colored areas and imparts to the surrounding area the perceptual status of background. This work explores interactions between cortical boundary and surface processes by presenting displays and psychophysical experiments that exhibit new properties of the watercolor illusion. The watercolor illusion is investigated as supporting a new principle of figure-ground organization when pitted against principles of surroundedness, relative orientation, and Prägnanz. The work demonstrated that the watercolor illusion probes a unique combination of visual processes that set it apart from earlier Gestalt principles, and can compete successfully against them. This illusion exemplifies how long-range perceptual effects may be triggered by spatially sparse information. All the main effects are explained by the FACADE model of biological vision, which clarifies how local properties control depthful filling-in of surface lightness and color.

New types of apparent motion effects depending on continuities and discontinuities placed along continuous or discontinuous boundaries are here illustrated. These effects suggest that global grouping processes (i.e., proximity, good continuation) may affect the local motion signals, and they are affected by them. The bidirectional interaction between local and global motion signals may be considered as the phenomenal result of a feedback between local and global motion processes.

In recent years, a number of studies that have examined how social experiences are related to children's theory of mind development, have found that: (1) the frequency of mothers' mental state utterances used in mother-child picture-book reading, is correlated with children's theory of mind abilities; (2) mothers' use of cognitive terms is related more strongly to children's theory of mind performances than the mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Adrian, Clemente, Villanueva, Rieffe, 2005; Ruffman, Slade, Crowe, 2002; Taumoepeau, Ruffman, 2006; Dunn, 2002). Despite the evidence for the role of mothers' language, there is disagreement over how exactly it improves children's theory of mind development. In short, mentalistic comments contain distinctive words, grammatical constructions and pragmatic features. The question is, however, which factor is critical (de Rosnay, Pons, Harris, Morrell, 2004).

The present study addresses this issue and focuses on relationship between mothers' mental state terms and children's performances in theory of mind tasks (emotion understanding and false belief tasks).

Mothers were asked to read some pictures to 10 children between 3;0 and 5;0.

Among the different mental state references (perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral and communicative), it was found that the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words were significantly associated with children's mental lexicon. In addition, emotional terms correlated positively with children's false belief performance. Kind of emotional words that are used by the mothers with reference to the Italian language will be discussed.

In recent years, the idea that innovation is one of the determining factors in the efficacy and survival of organizations has been strongly consolidated. Individuals and groups within the various organizations undertake specific creative activities with the express intention of deriving direct benefits from the changes with regard to the generational phase of ideas. Innovative Work Behavior (IWB) is a complex behavioral pattern which consists of a set of three different tasks, namely, idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization.

Considering the scant attention that has been paid to date to the potentially different role of antecedent factors in the various phases of innovative behavior, the aim of the present work was to examine the combined conflicting and supportive roles on innovation within the three stages of IWB. The results obtained from a sample of 110 Public Elementary School teachers confirm, as expected, that in the realization phase there are a positive influence from conflicting and supportive roles on innovation and a positive influence from support for innovation also in the phase of idea promotion; whereas, unexpectedly, a positive influence from conflicting is exercised in the phases of idea generation.

Partisans of the constructivist approach to mathematics education, such as Brousseau or Chevallard, developed an accurate theoretical framework in which didactical systems are viewed in a systemic perspective. What they somewhat fail to draw, however, is a sharp distinction between role variables – concerning the roles played in the didactical interaction by the individual elements of the system (Student-Teacher-Knowledge) – and contextual variables – concerning the action on the learning process of the system as a whole.

Our research in progress on 2nd graders' word problem solving strategies applies the previous dichotomy to class management strategies adopted by teachers. Partial evidence collected so far points to the tentative conclusion according to which, contextual variables being equal, differences in teaching styles and methods may deeply reshape the role component of didactical systems. If we take into careful account this distinction, we can shed additional light into some hitherto unexplained phenomena observed in the literature.