Foreword
Our purpose in the
8th Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
(SCI 2004) 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 SCI 2004 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, generating analogies,
and provoking innovations; which is, after all, one
of the very basic principles of the system’s movement
and a fundamental aim in cybernetics.
SCI 2004 was organized and sponsored by the International
Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS), a 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:
a) identification of synergetic relationships among
the three aforementioned areas and between them and
society;
b) promotion of contacts among the different academic
areas, through the transdisciplinarity of the systems
approach;
c) identification and implementation of communication
channels among the different professions;
d) supply of communications links between the academic
and professional worlds, as well as between them and
the business world, both public and private, political
and cultural;
e) stimulus for the creation of integrative arrangements
at different levels of society, as well as at the family
and personal levels;
f) promotion of transdisciplinary research, both on
theoretical issues and on applications to concrete problems.
These IIIS objectives have directed the organizational
efforts of SCI/ISAS conferences, since 1995.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I extend our
heartfelt thanks to the approximately 250 members of
the Program Committee, from 60 countries, the 100 invited
sessions’ organizers and to the 2200 additional
reviewers for their reviewing efforts which made possible
the quality achieved in SCI 2004. The approximately
1200 papers published in these proceedings have been
approved in the blind reviewing process from about 2250
submitted papers (including extended abstracts and condensed
first drafts). We extend our gratitude to all Scholars/Researchers,
from 130 countries, who participated in the organization
of SCI 2004 as Program Committee members, reviewers,
and papers’ authors or co-authors.
We also extend our gratitude to the invited sessions
and 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. Our gratefulness is also extended to the sponsoring
organizations which have made the conference possible,
to Professor William Lesso, for his eternal energy,
integrity, nice style and good nature while serving
as the chair of the Program Committee, to Professor
Belkis Sanchez who managed brilliantly the organizing
process and Eng. Maria Sanchez, Eng. Juan Manuel Pineda,
Tec, Sheyla Lecue Eng. Roberto Rodrigues, Eng. Riad
Callaos, Tec. Michel Naranjo and Ms. Nancy Castellano
for their knowledgeable effort in producing the hard
copy and CD versions of the proceedings.
Our gratitude to Professors Bela H. Banathy, Stafford
Beer, George Klir, Karl Pribram and Paul A. Jensen,
who dignified our past SCI conferences as their Honorary
Presidents, as well as to Professors Dale Zinn, Michael
Savoie and Wesley Barnes for accepting to address the
audience of the plenary sessions with keynote conferences.
We express our expression of intense gratitude to Professor
William Lesso for his wise and opportune tutoring, for
his continuous support and advice as the Program Committee
Chair, as well as for being a very caring old friend
and intellectual father to many of us. We also wish
to thank all the authors for the quality of their papers.
Thanks to this kind of papers’ quality we have
grown from 45 papers (in 1995 Baden-Baden Conference)
to about 1200 papers this year, and to about 1400 papers
in collocated and related conferences, also organized
by IIIS.
Professor
Nagib C. Callaos
SCI
2004 Conference General Chair
