Related papers: Open at the Top; Open at the Bottom; and Continual…
Correctness is a necessary condition for systems to be effective in meeting human demands, thus playing a critical role in system development. However, correctness often manifests as a nebulous concept in practice, leading to challenges in…
An important use of computational systems is updating the state of an object while preserving some set of invariants. That object might be a file, a row in a database, or perhaps an entry in a distributed system. Its invariants may place…
Computing systems are omnipresent; their sustainability has become crucial for our society. A key aspect of this sustainability is the ability of computing systems to cope with the continuous change they face, ranging from dynamic operating…
Computer systems have evolved over the years starting from sizable, single-user, slow, and expensive machines to multi-user, fast, cheaper, and small-sized machines. The use of multi-user computer networks has given rise to a new paradigm…
A concept of "evolving categories" is suggested to build a simple, scalable, mathematically consistent framework for representing in uniform way both data and algorithms. A state machine for executing algorithms becomes clear, rich and…
We analyze the fate of dynamical systems that consist of two kind of processes. The first type is supposed to perform a certain function by processing information at a required high accuracy, which is, however, limited to less than 100…
Living systems exhibit a range of fundamental characteristics: they are active, self-referential, self-modifying systems. This paper explores how these characteristics create challenges for conventional scientific approaches and why they…
Information theoretic analysis of large evolved programs produced by running genetic programming for up to a million generations has shown even functions as smooth and well behaved as floating point addition and multiplication loose entropy…
Software systems impact society at different levels as they pervasively solve real-world problems. Modern software systems are often so sophisticated that their complexity exceeds the limits of human comprehension. These systems must…
Biological systems are generally complicated and/or complex. In the former approach, one sets up a model with a large number of parameters to describe the system in detail. The latter approach focuses on understanding the universal aspects…
The interaction between natural selection and random mutation is frequently debated in recent years. Does similar dilemma also exist in the evolution of real networks such as biological networks? In this paper, we try to discuss this issue…
We have evolved an IT system that is ubiquitous and pervasive and integrated into most aspects of our lives. Many of us are working on 4th and 5th level refinements in efficiency and functionality. But, we stand on the shoulders of those…
Much research that analyzes the evolution of a software ecosystem is confined to its own boundaries. Evidence shows, however, that software ecosystems co-evolve independently with other software ecosystems. In other words, understanding the…
In many cases, it is more profitable to apply existing methodologies than to develop new ones. This holds, especially, for system development within the cyber-physical domain: until a certain abstraction level we can (re)use the…
We are communicating with computers on two different levels. On upper level we have a very flexible system of windows: we can move them, resize, overlap or put side by side. At any moment we decide what would be the best view and reorganize…
Systems are typically made from simple components regardless of their complexity. While the function of each part is easily understood, higher order functions are emergent properties and are notoriously difficult to explain. In networked…
There is a lack of formalism for some key foundational concepts in systems engineering. One of the most recently acknowledged deficits is the inadequacy of systems engineering practices for engineering intelligent systems. In our previous…
The framework of Modern Theory of Critical State Transitions considers the relation between different levels of organization in complex systems in terms of Critical State Transitions. A State Transition between levels entails changes of…
The hierarchical topology is a common property of many complex systems. Here we introduce a simple but generic model of hierarchy growth from the bottom to the top. Therein, two dynamical processes are accounted for: agent's promotions to…
Systems are growing into more complex ones for developing and maintaining. Existing systems which do not have much in common on the first look are connected, due to the technical progress, even if it was never intended that way. It is an…