A

• Adaptive capacity
  Adaptive capacity
  Adaptive capacity is the capacity of a system to adapt if the environment where the system exists is changing. It is applied to e.g., ecological systems and human social systems.As applied to ecological systems, the adaptive capacity is determined by :...
  
  : An important part of the resilience
  Resilience (network)
  In computer networking: “Resilience is the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults and challenges to normal operation.”These services include:* supporting distributed processing* supporting networked storage...
  
   of systems in the face of a perturbation, helping to minimise loss of function
  Structural functionalism
  Structural functionalism is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropology which sets out to interpret society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions...
  
   in individual human, and collective social and biological systems.

• Allopoiesis
  Allopoiesis
  Allopoiesis is the process whereby a system produces something other than the system itself. One example of this is an assembly line, where the final product is distinct from the machines doing the producing. This is in contrast with autopoiesis....
  
  is the process whereby a system produces something other than the system itself.

• Allostasis
  Allostasis
  Allostasis is the process of achieving stability, or homeostasis, through physiological or behavioral change. This can be carried out by means of alteration in HPA axis hormones, the autonomic nervous system, cytokines, or a number of other systems, and is generally adaptive in the short term...
  
  is the process of achieving stability, or homeostasis
  Homeostasis
  Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
  
  , through physiological or behavioral change.

• Autopoiesis is the process by which a system regenerates itself through the self-reproduction of its own elements and of the network of interactions that characterize them. An autopoietic system renews, repairs, and replicates or reproduces itself in a flow of matter and energy. Note: from a strictly Maturanian point of view, autopoiesis is an essential property of biological/living systems.

B

• Black box
  Black box
  A black box is a device, object, or system whose inner workings are unknown; only the input, transfer, and output are known characteristics.The term black box can also refer to:-In science and technology:*Black box theory, a philosophical theory...
  
  is a technical term for a device or system or object when it is viewed primarily in terms of its input and output characteristics.

• Boundaries: The parametric conditions, often vague, always subjectively stipulated, that delimit and define a system and set it apart from its environment.

C

• Cascading failure
  Cascading failure
  A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of a part can trigger the failure of successive parts.- Cascading failure in power transmission :...
  
  : failure in a system of interconnected parts, where the service provided depends on the operation of a preceding part, and the failure of a preceding part can trigger the failure of successive parts.

• Closed system
  Closed system
  -In physics:In thermodynamics, a closed system can exchange energy , but not matter, with its surroundings.In contrast, an isolated system cannot exchange any of heat, work, or matter with the surroundings, while an open system can exchange all of heat, work and matter.For a simple system, with...
  
  : a system which can exchange energy (as heat or work), but not matter, with its surroundings.

• Complexity
  Complexity
  In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
  
  : A systemic characteristic that stands for a large number of densely connected parts and multiple levels of embeddedness and entanglement. Not to be confused with complicatedness, which denotes a situation or event that is not easy to understand, regardless of its degree of complexity.

• Culture
  Culture
  Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
  
  : The result of individual learning processes that distinguish one social group of higher animals from another. In humans culture is the set of products and activities through which humans express themselves and become aware of themselves and the world around them.

D

• Development: The process of liberating a system from its previous set of limiting conditions. It is an amelioration of conditions or quality.

• Dissipative structure: A term invented by Ilya Prigogine to describe complex chemical structures undergoing the process of chemical change through the dissipation of entropy into their environment, and the corresponding importation of “negentropy” from their environment. Also known as syntropic systems
  Syntropy
  Syntropy is a second-generation object-oriented analysis and software design method developed at Object Designers Limited in the UK during the early 1990s. The goal in developing Syntropy was to provide a set of modelling techniques that would allow precise specification and would keep separate...
  
  .

E

• Embeddedness: A state in which one system is nested in another system.

• Emergence
  Emergence
  In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
  
  : The appearance of novel characteristics exhibited on the level of the whole ensemble, but not by the components in isolation.

• Enantiostasis
  Enantiostasis
  Enantiostasis is the ability of an open system, especially a living organism, to maintain and conserve its metabolic and physiological functions in response to variations in an unstable environment. Estuarine organisms typically undergo enantiostasis in order to survive with constantly changing...
  
  is the ability of an open system, especially a living organism
  Organism
  In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
  
  , to stabilize and conserve function in spite of an unstable environment.

• Entanglement
  Entanglement
  Entanglement may refer to:* Quantum entanglement* Orientation entanglement* Entanglement * Entanglement of polymer chains, see Reptation* Wire entanglement...
  
  : A state in which the manner of being, or form of existence, of one system is inextricably tied to that of another system or set of systems.

• Entropy
  Entropy
  Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
  
  : In physics, entropy is a measure of energy that is expended in a physical system but does no useful work, and tends to decrease the organizational order of the system.

• Environment: The context within which a system exists. It is composed of all things that are external to the system, and it includes everything that may affect the system, and may be affected by it at any given time.

• Evolution
  Evolution
  Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
  
  : A tendency toward greater structural complexity, ecological and/or organizational simplicity, more efficient modes of operation, and greater dynamic harmony. A cosmic process specified by a fundamental universal flow toward ever increasing complexity that manifests itself through particular events and sequences of events that are not limited to the domain of biological phenomenon, but extend to include all aspects of change in open dynamic systems with a throughput of information and energy. In other words, evolution relates to the formation of stars from atoms, of Homo sapiens from the anthropoid apes, and the formation of complex societies from rudimentary social systems.

• Evolutionary Systems: A form of systems design that responds to the need for a future-Design (ESD) creating design praxis, that embraces not only human interests and life-spans, but those on planetary and evolutionary planes as well. The primary vehicle for the implementation of ESD is the Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC).

F

• Feedback
  Feedback
  Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
  
  is a functional monitoring signal obtained from a given dynamic and continuous system. A feedback function only makes sense if this monitoring signal is looped back into an eventual control structure within a system. This monitoring shall be compared with a known desirable state. The difference between the feedback monitoring signal and the desirable state of the system gives the notion of error. The amount of error can guide corrective actions to the system in order to generate trends to bring the system gradually back to the desirable state.

H

• Heterarchy
  Heterarchy
  A heterarchy is a system of organization replete with overlap, multiplicity, mixed ascendancy, and/or divergent-but-coexistent patterns of relation...
  
  : An ordering of things in which there is no single peak or leading element, and which element is dominant at a given time depends on the total situation, often used in contrast to hierarchy, also a vertical arrangement of entities (systems and their subsystems), usually ordered from the top downwards rather than from the bottom upwards.

• Holarchy
  Holarchy
  A holarchy, in the terminology of Arthur Koestler, is a connection between holons – where a holon is both a part and a whole. The term was coined in Koestler's 1967 book The Ghost in the Machine...
  
  : A concept invented by Arthur Köestler
  Arthur Koestler
  Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
  
   to describe behavior that is partly a function of individual nature and partly a function of the nature of the embedding system, generally operating in a bottom upwards fashion.

• Holism
  Holism
  Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...
  
  : A non-reductionist descriptive and investigative strategy for generating explanatory principles of whole systems. Attention is focused on the emergent properties of the whole rather than on the reductionist
  Reductionism
  Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
  
   behavior of the isolated parts. The approach typically involves and generates empathetic
  Empathy
  Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
  
  , experiential, and intuitive
  Intuition (knowledge)
  Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
  
   understanding, not merely analytic understanding, since by the definition of the approach, these forms are not truly separable (as nothing is).

• Holon (philosophy)
  Holon (philosophy)
  A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine . Koestler was compelled by two observations in proposing the notion of the holon...
  
  : A whole in itself as well as a part of a larger system.

• Homeorhesis
  Homeorhesis
  Homeorhesis, derived from the Greek for "similar flow", is a concept encompassing dynamical systems which return to a trajectory, as opposed to systems which return to a particular state, which is termed homeostasis.-Biology:...
  
  is a concept encompassing dynamical systems which return to a trajectory, as opposed to systems which return to a particular state, which is termed homeostasis
  Homeostasis
  Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
  
  .

• Homeostasis
  Homeostasis
  Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
  
  is that property of either an open system or a closed system
  Closed system
  -In physics:In thermodynamics, a closed system can exchange energy , but not matter, with its surroundings.In contrast, an isolated system cannot exchange any of heat, work, or matter with the surroundings, while an open system can exchange all of heat, work and matter.For a simple system, with...
  
  , especially a living organism
  Organism
  In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
  
  , which regulates its internal environment
  Milieu interieur
  Milieu intérieur or interior milieu, from the French, milieu intérieur, is a term coined by Claude Bernard to refer to the extra-cellular fluid environment, and its physiological capacity to ensure protective stability for the tissues and organs of multicellular living organisms.-Origin:Claude...
  
   so as to maintain a stable, constant condition.

• Human Activity Systems: Designed social systems organized for a purpose, which they attain by carrying out specific functions.

• Human Activity Systems: Designed social systems organized for a purpose, which they attain by carrying out specific functions.

I

• Isolated system
  Isolated system
  In the natural sciences an isolated system, as contrasted with an open system, is a physical system without any external exchange. If it has any surroundings, it does not interact with them. It obeys in particular the first of the conservation laws: its total energy - mass stays constant...
  
  : A system in which the total energy-mass is conserved without any external exchange happening.

L

• Lowerarchy: A specific type of hierarchy involving a ‘bottom up’ arrangement of entities such that the few are influenced by the many.

M

• Metastability
  Metastability
  Metastability describes the extended duration of certain equilibria acquired by complex systems when leaving their most stable state after an external action....
  
  is the ability of a non-equilibrium state to persist for some period of time.
• Model building: A disciplined inquiry by which a conceptual (abstract) representation of a system is constructed or a representation of expected outcomes/output is portrayed.

O

• Open system: A state and characteristics of that state in which a system continuously interacts with its environment. Open systems are those that maintain their state and exhibit the characteristics of openness previously mentioned.

P

• Process is a naturally occurring or designed sequence of changes of properties or attributes of an object or system.
• Process model: An organized arrangement of systems concepts and principles that portray the behavior of a system through time. Its metaphor is the “motion-picture” of “movie” of the system.

R

• Reductionism
  Reductionism
  Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
  
  : One kind of scientific orientation that seeks to understand phenomena by a) breaking them down into their smallest possible parts: a process known as analytic reductionism, or conversely b) conflating them to a one-dimensional totality: a process known as holistic reductionism.

S

• Self-organization
  Self-organization
  Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning...
  
  is a process in which the internal organization of a system
  System
  System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
  
  , normally an open system, increases in complexity
  Complexity
  In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
  
   without being guided or managed by an outside source.

• Self-organizing systems typically (though not always) display emergent properties
  Emergence
  In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
  
  .

• Steady state
  Steady state
  A system in a steady state has numerous properties that are unchanging in time. This implies that for any property p of the system, the partial derivative with respect to time is zero:...
  
  is a more general situation than Dynamic equilibrium
  Dynamic equilibrium
  A dynamic equilibrium exists once a reversible reaction ceases to change its ratio of reactants/products, but substances move between the chemicals at an equal rate, meaning there is no net change. It is a particular example of a system in a steady state...
  
  . If a system
  System
  System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
  
   is in steady state then the recently observed behaviour of the system will continue into the future. In stochastic systems, the probabilities that various states will be repeated will remain constant.

• Strong emergence
  Strong emergence
  Strong emergence is a type of emergence in which the emergent property is irreducible to its individual constituents. Some philosophers have proposed that qualia and consciousness demonstrate strong emergence...
  
  is a type of emergence
  Emergence
  In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
  
   in which the emergent property is irreducible to its individual constituents.

• Subsystem: A major component of a system. It is made up of two or more interacting and interdependent components. Subsystems of a system interact in order to attain their own purpose(s) and the purpose(s) of the system in which they are embedded.

• Suprasystem: The entity that is composed of a number of component systems organized in interacting relationships in order to serve their embedding suprasystem.

• Sustainability
  Sustainability
  Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
  
  : The ability of a system to maintain itself with no loss of function for extended periods of time. In human terms it is the creative and responsible stewardship of resources — human, Management natural, and financial — to generate stakeholder value while contributing to the well-being of current and future generations of all beings.

• Synchrony: Also synchronicity
  Synchronicity
  Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner...
  
  . In engineering; concurrence of periods and/or phases; simultaneity of events or motions: contemporaneous occurrences. In evolutionary systems thinking; a fortunate coincidence of phenomenon and/or of events.

• Synergy: Also system. Synergy
  Synergy
  Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.The term synergy comes from the Greek word from , , meaning "working together".-Definitions and usages:...
  
   is the process by which a system generates emergent properties resulting in the condition in which a system may be considered more than the sum of its parts, and equal to the sum of its parts plus their relationships. This resulting condition can be said to be one of synergy.

• Syntony: In evolutionary systems thinking; evolutionary consonance; the occurrence and persistence of an evolutionarily tuned dynamic regime. Conscious intention aligned with evolutionary purpose; more loosely, the embodiment and manifestation of conscious evolution; a purposeful creative aligning and tuning with the evolutionary flows of one’s milieu. In traditional radio engineering; resonance.

• Syntropy
  Syntropy
  Syntropy is a second-generation object-oriented analysis and software design method developed at Object Designers Limited in the UK during the early 1990s. The goal in developing Syntropy was to provide a set of modelling techniques that would allow precise specification and would keep separate...
  
  The process of negentropy
  Negentropy
  The negentropy, also negative entropy or syntropy, of a living system is the entropy that it exports to keep its own entropy low; it lies at the intersection of entropy and life...
  
  -importation. A syntropic system is a dissipative structure.

• Systems design
  Systems design
  Systems design is the process of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces, and data for a system to satisfy specified requirements. One could see it as the application of systems theory to product development...
  
  A decision-oriented disciplined inquiry that aims at the construction of a model that is an abstract representation of a future system.

• Soft Systems Methodology:

W

• Weak emergence
  Weak emergence
  Weak emergence is a type of emergence in which the emergent property is reducible to its individual constituents.This is opposed to strong emergence, in which the emergent property is irreducible to its individual constituents....
  
  is a type of emergence
  Emergence
  In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
  
   in which the emergent property is reducible to its individual constituents.

• White box
  White box testing
  White-box testing is a method of testing software that tests internal structures or workings of an application, as opposed to its functionality...
  
  is a technical term for a device or system analyzed or tested based on knowledge of its internal structure (compare to Black box
  Black box
  A black box is a device, object, or system whose inner workings are unknown; only the input, transfer, and output are known characteristics.The term black box can also refer to:-In science and technology:*Black box theory, a philosophical theory...
  
  ).

• Wholeness: In reference to systems, the condition in which systems are seen to be structurally divisible, but functionally indivisible wholes with emergent properties.

See also

• Glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms
  Glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms
  This glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms covers all versions of UML. Individual entries will point out any distinctions that exist between versions.-A:...
  
  
• List of basic science topics
• List of glossaries
• List of types of systems theory

External links

• Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems from the Principia Cybernetica
  Principia Cybernetica
  Principia Cybernetica is an international cooperation of scientists in the field of cybernetics and systems science, especially known for their Principia Cybernetica Web website...
  
   Web.
• The ASC Glossary of Cybernetics by the American Society for Cybernetics
  American Society for Cybernetics
  The American Society for Cybernetics is an American non-profit scholastic organization for organization for the advancement of cybernetics as a science and the interdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis of cybernetics. The society contributes to the cooperation around the research and...
  
  
• [ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/Nodes/Cybernetics_glossary.txt ASC Glossary on Cybernetics and Systems Theory] by Stuart Umpleby
  Stuart Umpleby
  Stuart Anspach Umpleby is an American cybernetician and a professor in the Department of Management and Director of the Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning in the School of Business at the George Washington University....
  
   (ed.) from the American Society for Cybernetics.
• International Encyclopedia of Cybernetics and Systems, edited by Charles François
  Charles François
  Charles François, , is a Belgian administrator, editor and scientist in the field of cybernetics, systems theory and systems science, internationally known for his main work the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics.- Biography :...
  
  , (1997) München: K. G. Saur.