Foreword

Engineering activities are based on the development of new Knowledge (Scientia), new 'made things' (Techné), and/or new ways of working and doing (Praxis). Scientia, Techné, and Praxis are three important dimensions of a comprehensive conception of Engineering as a whole. Engineering, as Scientia, is mostly developed in academia; as Techné, is practiced in industry generating technological innovations; and as Praxis, is carried out in technical and non-technical organizations, supporting managerial activities and technical procedures, via methodical and methodological design and implementation. This is why Engineering provides one of the most solid academic and professional substrata for bridging among universities, industries and governments.

Publications and conferences related to Engineering are usually oriented to one of its three dimensions. While this is an adequate thing to do when disciplinary focus is sought, it does not represent Engineering as a whole and it misses the very important synergic relationships among the three kinds of engineering activities mentioned above. This is why a group of scholars, professionals, and consultants, in the field of engineering, considered the possibility of organizing a conference where presentations would not be reduced to one specific Engineering dimension, but would foster the participation of academics, practitioners, and managers in the three dimensions of Engineering, in the same conference, so they can synergistically interact with each other. A consequence of this purpose is the organization of IMETI 2009, where submissions were accepted for the presentation of:

• New knowledge (Engineering as scientia);
• New products and services, i.e. technological innovations (Engineering as techné);
• New technical and managerial methods and methodologies (Engineering as praxis);
• New meta-engineering (Engineering of Engineering activities) knowledge, innovations, and methodologies.

The 6th International Conference on Cybernetics and Information Technologies, Systems and Applications (CITSA 2009) and The 7th International Conference on Computing, Communications and Control Technologies (CCCT 2009) have been organized in the context of IMETI 2009, because both are mainly oriented to Engineering and Technology. Both of them are International Multi-Conferences organized with the purpose of providing a communicational forum to researchers, engineers, practitioners, developers, consultants, and end-users of computerized, communications, and/or control systems and technologies in the private and the public sectors. This multi-disciplinary forum provides the opportunity to share experience and knowledge by facilitating discussions on current and future research and innovation. Participants can explore the implications of relationships between new developments and their applications to organizations and society at-large.

One of the primary objectives of CITSA 2009, CCCT 2009 and, in general, IMETI 2009 is to promote and encourage interdisciplinary cross-fertilization and knowledge communication. They encourage systemic thinking and practice, including the analogical thinking that characterizes the Systems Approach, which is, in most cases, the required path to logical thinking, scientific hypothesis formulation, and new design and innovation in engineering.

CITSA 2009 and CCCT 2009 are spin-offs from the International Conference on Information Systems, Analysis and Synthesis (ISAS), and the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI) which are yearly events that have been held in the last 15 years as a forum for Information Systems researchers, practitioners, consultants, and users who have been interchanging ideas, research results, and innovations in the area of Information Systems. Analytical as well as synthetical thinking represent the conceptual and methodological infrastructures that support the papers presented in ISAS conferences. Synthetical thinking supported papers in the Information Systems area, as well as in its relationships (analogies, "epistemic things", "technical synthetical objects", hybrid systems, cross-fertilization, etc.) with other areas. The Organizing Committees of IMETI/CITSA/CCCT 2009 invited authors to submit original works, analogy-based hypothesis, innovations, experience-based reflections and concepts, specific problems requiring solutions, case studies, and position papers that explore the relationships among the disciplines of computers, communications and control, and the social and industrial applications within these fields.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I extend our heartfelt thanks to:

1. the 522 members of the Program Committees (124 members of the IMETI 2009’s PC and 398 members of the PCs related to the conferences and symposia organized in the context of IMETI 2009) from 63 countries;
2. the 1610 additional reviewers, from 98 countries, for their double-blind peer reviews;
3. the 978 reviewers, from 71 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 3556 reviews made by 1833 reviewers (who made at least one review) contributed to the quality achieved in IMETI 2009. This means an average of 4.92 reviews per submission (723 submissions were received). 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 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 IMETI 2009, including CITSA 2009 and CCCT 2009, about 723 papers/abstracts were submitted. These pre-conference proceedings include about 199 papers that were accepted for presentation. The organizers of the invited sessions accepted about 8 papers from the papers/abstracts submitted directly to them by the respective authors. Consequently, these pre-conference proceedings contain a total of 207 papers, from 41 countries. We 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 probably appear in a more polished and complete form in scientific journals.

This information about IMETI 2009 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 2009	712	2176	3456	1.59	4.85	255	35.81%
IMETI 2009	723	1833	3556	1.94	4.92	207	28.63%
IMSCI 2009	363	942	1734	1.84	4.78	129	35.54%
CISCI 2009	615	1565	3156	2.02	5.13	184	29.92%
TOTAL	2413	6516	11902	1.83	4.93	775	32.12%

We are also grateful 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 Honorary President of WMSCI 2009 and its collocated conferences, 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. Special thanks to Dr. C. Dale Zinn for chairing CCCT 2009 Program Committee (PC) and for co-chairing IMETI 2009 PC, to Professor Hsing-Wei Chu for co-chairing the IMETI 2009 PC and being General Co-Chair of CCCT 2009; to Professor Michael Savoie for being Co-General Chair of CCCT 2009 and CITSA 2009; to Professor José Ferrer for chairing th CITSA 2009 Organizing Committee; to professors Andrés Tremante and Belkis Sánchez for co-chairing the IMETI 2009 Organizing committee. We also extend our gratitude to Drs. W. Curtiss Priest, H. John Caulfield, Louis H. Kauffman, Ray Bareiss, Stuart A. Umpleby, Michael Lissack, Michael Savoie, Ranulph Glanville, and Karl H. Müller, for accepting to address the audience of the General Joint Plenary Sessions with keynote addresses, as well as to Professors 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, IMETI 2009. We also wish to thank all the authors for the quality of their papers.

We also extend our gratitude to María Sánchez, Juan Manuel Pineda, Juan Pinto, Leonisol Callaos, Dalia Sánchez, Keyla Guédez, Riad Callaos, Marcela Briceño and Mabel Escobar Ortiz for their knowledgeable effort in supporting the organizational process and for producing the hard copy and CD versions of the proceedings.

 

Professor Nagib C. Callaos,
IMETI 2009 General Chair