This book is a venture in the worlds of modeling and of metamodeling. At this point, I will not reveal to readers what constitutes metamodeling. Suf fice it to say that the pitfalls and shortcomings of modeling can be cured only if we resort to a higher level of inquiry called metainquiry and metadesign. We reach this level by the process of abstraction. The book contains five chapters from my previous work, Applied General Systems Theory (Harper and Row, London and New York, First Edition 1974, Second Edition 1978). More than ten years after its publication, this material still appears relevant to the main thrust of system design. This book is dedicated to all those who are involved in changing the world for the better. In a way we all are involved in system design: from the city manager who struggles with the problems of mass transportation or the consolidation of a city and its suburbs to the social worker who tries to provide benefits to the urban poor. It includes the engineer who designs the shuttle rockets. It involves the politician engaged in drafting a bill to recycle containers, or one to prevent pesticide contamination of our food. The politician might even need system design to chart his or her own re-election campaign.

This book is a definitive introduction to models of computation for the design of complex, heterogeneous systems. It has a particular focus on cyber-physical systems, which integrate computing, networking, and physical dynamics. The book captures more than twenty years of experience in the Ptolemy Project at UC Berkeley, which pioneered many design, modeling, and simulation techniques that are now in widespread use. All of the methods covered in the book are realized in the open source Ptolemy II modeling framework and are available for experimentation through links provided in the book. The book is suitable for engineers, scientists, researchers, and managers who wish to understand the rich possibilities offered by modern modeling techniques. The goal of the book is to equip the reader with a breadth of experience that will help in understanding the role that such techniques can play in design.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Workshopon Design, Modeling, and Evaluation of Cyber Physical Systems, CyPhy2016, held in conjunction with ESWeek 2016, in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, inOctober 2016. The 9 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 14 submissions. They broadly interpret, from a diverse set of disciplines, the modeling, simulation, and evaluation of cyber-physical systems with a particular focus on techniques and components to enable and support virtual prototyping and testing.

This book addresses system design, providing a framework for assessing and developing system design practices that observe and utilise reuse of system design know-how. The know-how accumulated in the companies represents an intellectual asset, or property ('IP').

This book is a result of the ISD'99, Eight International Conference on Infonnation Systems Development-Methods and Tools, Theory, and Practice held August 11-13, 1999 in Boise, Idaho, USA. The purpose of this conference was to address the issues facing academia and industry when specifying, developing, managing, and improving infonnation systems. ISD'99 consisted not only of the technical program represented in these Proceedings, but also of plenary sessions on product support and content management systems for the Internet environment, workshop on a new paradigm for successful acquisition of infonnation systems, and a panel discussion on current pedagogical issues in systems analysis and design. The selection of papers for ISD'99 was carried out by the International Program Committee. Papers presented during the conference and printed in this volume have been selected from submissions after fonnal double-blind reviewing process and have been revised by their authors based on the recommendations of reviewers. Papers were judged according to their originality, relevance, and presentation quality. All papers were judged purely on their own merits, independently of other submissions. We would like to thank the authors of papers accepted for ISD'99 who all made gallant efforts to provide us with electronic copies of their manuscripts confonning to common guidelines. We thank them for thoughtfully responding to reviewers comments and carefully preparing their final contributions. We thank Daryl Jones, provost of Boise State University and William Lathen, dean, College of Business and Economics, for their support and encouragement.

This book contains all refereed papers accepted during the 14th International Conference on Complex Systems Design & Management CSD&M 2023 that took place in Beijing, People’s Republic of China by the end October 2023. Mastering complex systems requires an integrated understanding of industrial practices as well as sophisticated theoretical techniques and tools. This explains the creation of an annual go-between European and Asian forum dedicated to academic researchers and industrial actors working on complex industrial systems architecting, modeling and engineering. These proceedings cover the most recent trends in the emerging field of complex systems, both from an academic and professional perspective. A special focus was put this year on “New Trends in Complex Systems Engineering.” The CSD&M series of conferences were initiated under the guidance of CESAM Community in Europe, managed by CESAMES. Its Asian version took place in Singapore for three consecutive sessions during 2014 and 2018. The fourth Asian edition was held in Beijing in hybrid with the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CSAA) as the co-organizer in 2021. Since 2023, its European and Asian conferences merge into one, taking place in China and Europe in turn. CESAM Community aims in organizing the sharing of good practices in systems architecting and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and certifying the level of knowledge and proficiency in this field through the CESAM certification. The CESAM systems architecting, and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) certification is especially currently the most disseminated professional certification in the world in this domain through more than 3,000 real complex system development projects on which it was operationally deployed and around 10,000 engineers who were trained on the CESAM framework at international level.

This book proposes a Metamodel for heritage-based urban development, based on urban morphology, governance theory, and the metamodeling concept of John P. Van Gigch. Building on international policies such as the 2011 Recommendation for Historic Urban Landscapes and the results of the 2016 Urban Habitat III Conference, cultural heritage is now regarded as a potential resource for sustainable urban development. While more and more evidence of the potential benefits of cultural heritage for sustainable development has been published, this book is the first to develop and design a Metamodel that can be universally applied in a wide variety of settings. The Metamodel was developed using grounded theory and design research methodology and is based on three successful case-models from European contexts. The book includes three application scenarios that elaborate how the metamodel can be used to design, evaluate, and improve processes where cultural heritage is a starting point for sustainable urban development.