Accelerating human-computer interaction through convergent conditions for LLM explanation.

The article addresses the accelerating human-machine interaction using the large language model (LLM). It goes beyond the traditional logical paradigms of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) by considering poor-formalizable cognitive semantical interpretations of LLM. XAI is immersed in a hybrid space, where humans and machines have crucial distinctions during the digitisation of the interaction process. The author's convergent methodology ensures the conditions for making XAI purposeful and sustainable. This methodology is based on the inverse problem-solving method, cognitive modeling, genetic algorithm, neural network, causal loop dynamics, and eigenform realization. It has been shown that decision-makers need to create unique structural conditions for information processes, using LLM to accelerate the convergence of collective problem solving. The implementations have been carried out during the collective strategic planning in situational centers. The study is helpful for the advancement of explainable LLM in many branches of economy, science and technology.

Can therapeutic reassessment in ODF be based on management principles? / La réévaluation thérapeutique en ODF peut-elle s'appuyer sur les principes du management ?

Introduction: Re-evaluation of therapy is sometimes necessary during treatment. Rarely planned or desired, it is legitimate to look for a way to avoid it while carrying out the correction of the dysmorphosis as initially envisaged. Can the introduction of management into the therapeutic process, and particularly the principle of the feedback loop, make it possible to eliminate any therapeutic re-evaluation? Materials and Methods: After having defined management, cybernetics and the feedback loop as well as the framework for their application, we will look for ways to apply them to the dento-maxillo-facial orthopedics and will then study through historical practice the specific foundations of management and cybernetics in order to be able to conclude that these means are well adapted to our practice. We will rely on a set of historical, sociological and anthropological sources. Conclusions: Management is unsuitable for eliminating the need for therapeutic re-evaluation because, through the deployment of the organizational mode which is consubstantial with it, it is opposed to the institutional order of which any therapeutic approach is a part.

Introduction: La réévaluation de la thérapeutique est parfois nécessaire en cours de traitement ; rarement prévue, ni désirée, il est légitime de chercher un moyen de s'y soustraire tout en menant à bien la correction de la dysmorphose telle qu'initialement envisagée. L'introduction du management dans le processus thérapeutique, et en particulier le principe de la boucle de rétroaction, peut-il permettre de supprimer toute réévaluation thérapeutique ? Matériels et méthodes: Après avoir défini le management, la cybernétique et la boucle de rétroaction, ainsi que le cadre de leur application, nous chercherons les moyens de les appliquer à l'orthopédie dento-maxillo-faciale, puis nous étudierons à travers la pratique historique les fondements propres du management et de la cybernétique afin de pouvoir conclure à la bonne adaptation de ces moyens avec les fins de notre pratique. Nous nous appuierons sur un ensemble de sources historiques, sociologiques et anthropologiques. Conclusion: Le management est impropre à supprimer la nécessité de la réévaluation thérapeutique car, de par le déploiement du mode organisationnel qui lui est consubstantiel, il s'oppose à l'ordre institutionnel dont fait partie toute démarche thérapeutique.

ZotCare: a flexible, personalizable, and affordable mhealth service provider.

The proliferation of Internet-connected health devices and the widespread availability of mobile connectivity have resulted in a wealth of reliable digital health data and the potential for delivering just-in-time interventions. However, leveraging these opportunities for health research requires the development and deployment of mobile health (mHealth) applications, which present significant technical challenges for researchers. While existing mHealth solutions have made progress in addressing some of these challenges, they often fall short in terms of time-to-use, affordability, and flexibility for personalization and adaptation. ZotCare aims to address these limitations by offering ready-to-use and flexible services, providing researchers with an accessible, cost-effective, and adaptable solution for their mHealth studies. This article focuses on ZotCare's service orchestration and highlights its capabilities in creating a programmable environment for mHealth research. Additionally, we showcase several successful research use cases that have utilized ZotCare, both in the past and in ongoing projects. Furthermore, we provide resources and information for researchers who are considering ZotCare as their mHealth research solution.

Block-based teaching method based on cybernetics: a trial with 115 Chinese undergraduate medical students.

BACKGROUND: Class attendance is important for academic performance. Personal interactions between teachers and students are difficult in large classes; the number of medical undergraduate students in China ranges from dozens to over 100. It is important for teachers to control the teaching process to improve student attendance and participation. METHODS: Two classes of fourth-year undergraduate medical students, with each class comprising 115 students, participated in the study. One class, the trial group, was taught by the block-based teaching method based on cybernetics. This study was conducted with three of the courses in the Introduction to Oncology subject, and the trial group's courses included several blocks. Each block had a test paper that the students responded to immediately in class using the Internet. The teacher obtained feedback from the students when the rate of correct responses to block-test questions was less than 90%. The teacher adjusted the teaching in the following blocks according to the feedback information. The other class, the control group, was taught using the traditional lecture-based teaching method. RESULTS: The average attendance in the trial group was 104/115 (90.43%), and that in the control group was 83/115 (72.17%) (p = 0.0003). The teacher adjusted the teaching three times in the radiotherapy course owing to the complex ideas. After feedback, information on chemotherapy for the upper body was adjusted once, as was that on chemotherapy for the lower body, owing to students' attitudes. The average total score of the trial group was 86.06 ± 17.46 and that of the control group was 80.38 ± 6.97 (p = 0.041). Questionnaire I showed that the trial group students' attendance and participation were better than in the control group. Questionnaire II showed that the block-based teaching method based on cybernetics was approved by the students. CONCLUSIONS: The block-based teaching method based on cybernetics used in medical classes with large numbers of Chinese undergraduate students had positive effects.

Modeling autopoiesis and cognition with reaction networks.

Maturana and Varela defined an autopoietic system as a self-regenerating network of processes. We reinterpret and elaborate this conception starting from a process ontology and its formalization in terms of reaction networks and chemical organization theory. An autopoietic organization can be modelled as a network of "molecules" (components) undergoing reactions, which is (operationally) closed and self-maintaining. Such organizations, being attractors of a dynamic system, tend to self-organize-thus providing a model for the origin of life. However, in order to survive in a variable environment, they must also be resilient, i.e. able to compensate perturbations. According to the "good regulator theorem" this requires some form of cognition, i.e. knowing which action to perform for which perturbation. Such cognition becomes more effective as it learns to anticipate perturbations by discovering invariant patterns in its interactions with the environment. Nevertheless, the resulting predictive model remains a subjective construction. Such implicit model cannot be interpreted as an objective representation of external reality, because the autopoietic system does not have direct access to that reality, and there is in general no isomorphism between internal and external processes.

Developing an agent-based model to minimize spreading of malicious information in dynamic social networks.

This research introduces a systematic and multidisciplinary agent-based model to interpret and simplify the dynamic actions of the users and communities in an evolutionary online (offline) social network. The organizational cybernetics approach is used to control/monitor the malicious information spread between communities. The stochastic one-median problem minimizes the agent response time and eliminates the information spread across the online (offline) environment. The performance of these methods was measured against a Twitter network related to an armed protest demonstration against the COVID-19 lockdown in Michigan state in May 2020. The proposed model demonstrated the dynamicity of the network, enhanced the agent level performance, minimized the malicious information spread, and measured the response to the second stochastic information spread in the network.

The therapeutic decision as a reason of quarrel / La décision thérapeutique comme objet de dispute.

Introduction: The therapeutic decision usually is a regalia prerogative of the practitioner. However it seems to be contested. Materials and Methods: From three definition of sovereignty, given by classical author of political science and the observations of the current practices and needs (new attitude and need of the patients, changes in training's methods, use of new numeric tools) is illustrated this phenomenon of the decisions making field's degradation. Conclusion: Without a resistance to all current form of concurrence in the field of therapeutic decision, a transformation of the profession of practitioner in dento-maxillo-facial orthopedics on a simple executive or animator of the care process in this field is expected. The practitioner awareness and a reenforcement of the training resources could limit the impact.

Introduction: La décision thérapeutique est classiquement une prérogative régalienne du praticien. Il semble pourtant qu'elle lui soit actuellement disputée. Matériels et méthodes: À partir de trois définitions de la souveraineté, tirées d'auteurs classiques des sciences politiques, ainsi que de l'observation des pratiques et demandes actuelles (nouvelles attitudes et demandes des patients, changements des méthodes de formation, utilisations de nouveaux outils informatiques), nous illustrerons ce phénomène d'érosion du champ décisionnaire. Conclusion: Sans une résistance à toutes les formes actuelles de concurrences œuvrant dans le champ de la décision thérapeutique, une transformation du métier de praticien en orthopédie dento-maxillo-faciale en un simple emploi d'exécutant ou d'animateur du processus de soins dans cette discipline est à prévoir. Une prise de conscience des praticiens et un renforcement des moyens de formation permettraient d'en limiter l'impact.

Synthetic cell research: Is technical progress leaving theoretical and epistemological investigations one step behind?

Advancements in the research on so-called "synthetic (artificial) cells" have been mainly characterized by an important acceleration in all sorts of experimental approaches, providing a growing amount of knowledge and techniques that will shape future successful developments. Synthetic cell technology, indeed, shows potential in driving a revolution in science and technology. On the other hand, theoretical and epistemological investigations related to what synthetic cells "are," how they behave, and what their role is in generating knowledge have not received sufficient attention. Open questions about these less explored subjects range from the analysis of the organizational theories applied to synthetic cells to the study of the "relevance" of synthetic cells as scientific tools to investigate life and cognition; and from the recognition and the cultural reappraisal of cybernetic inheritance in synthetic biology to the need for developing concepts on synthetic cells and to the exploration, in a novel perspective, of information theories, complexity, and artificial intelligence applied in this novel field. In these contributions, we will briefly sketch some crucial aspects related to the aforementioned issues, based on our ongoing studies. An important take-home message will result: together with their impactful experimental results and potential applications, synthetic cells can play a major role in the exploration of theoretical questions as well.

'Anarchist technologies': Anarchism, cybernetics and mutual aid in community responses to the COVID-19 crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic that gripped the world since the end of 2019 has been felt most immediately both as a health crisis and an economic, social and political crisis. Secondary impacts of social distancing and lockdown in many countries have put strains on people's capacities to provide essential food and medicines for themselves and their families. In response, outside of centralised government and voluntary sector frameworks, local mutual aid groups have emerged around the world as a primary site of community resilience. Given mutual aid's strong links to the anarchist political tradition, for example in its identification by Kropotkin as a factor in evolution, this article suggests that these new mutual aid groups can be understood best through the related concept of self-organisation. Tying anarchist approaches to mutual aid and self-organisation together, it is argued that cybernetics and Stafford Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) offer useful tools in helping both academic analysis and on-the-ground practice assess and improve the effectiveness of mutual aid in and beyond the COVID-19 crisis. The article offers a qualitative thematic analysis of anarchist and related texts published during the pandemic that reflect on mutual aid practice. In doing so, it highlights some of the challenges and tensions such self-organised mutual aid practice might face and proposes a participatory research agenda drawing on Beer's VSM.

On the history of neuroscience research in the Max Planck Society, 1948-2002-German, European, and transatlantic perspectives: Introduction.

To further our understanding of the transformations of the modern, globalized world, historical research concerning the twentieth century must acknowledge the tremendous impact that science and technology exerted and continue to exert on political, economic, military, and social developments. To better comprehend a global history of science, it is also crucial to include Germany's most prominent research organization: The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG). Despite the existence of numerous institute chronicles and selected anniversary editions, the overall development of the MPG-historically situated in more than 80 institutes with more than 250 research service departments (of which approximately 50 have reached into the wider field of neuroscience, behavioral science, and cognitive science)-it remains largely terra incognita from a scholarly perspective. From June 2014 to December 2022, the Research Program on the History of the Max Planck Society (GMPG) opened previously neglected vistas on contemporary history, academic politics, and economic developments of the Federal Republic of Germany and its international relations by raising questions such as these: Who were the key scientific actors? In what networks did they work? In what fields had the MPG paved the way for cutting-edge innovations? What were its successes and where did it fail? In what ways were its institutional structures connected to its scientific achievements and its historical legacies? What is specific about the MPG in comparison to other national institutions in and outside of Germany? These questions relate to the emerging interdisciplinary field of the neurosciences. They refer in part to the MPG's founding years-from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s-which faced significant challenges for a "normalization process" in biomedical research and the burgeoning field of neuroscience. This special issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences is composed of an introduction, five articles, and two neuroscience history interviews. It reflects on the multifold dimensions of behavioral psychology, brain research, and cognitive science developments at the MPG since its beginning through the reopening of several former Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. After World War II, the extra-university research society-named in honor of physicist Max Planck (1858-1947)-was eventually established in the British Occupation Zone in 1946, in the American Zone in 1948, and in 1949 in the French Zone, unifying the MPG as the successor umbrella organization of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes (KWIs), now transformed into Max Planck Institutes. Chronologically, the research period covered in this special issue ranges from 1948 to 2002.

The Quest for Cognition in Purposive Action: From Cybernetics to Quantum Computing.

Norbert Wiener and Nikolai Bernstein set the stage for a worldwide multidisciplinary attempt to understand how purposive action is integrated with cognition in a circular, bidirectional manner, both in life sciences and engineering. Such a 'workshop' is still open and far away from a satisfactory level of understanding, despite the current hype surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI). The problem is that Cognition is frequently confused with Intelligence, overlooking a crucial distinction: the type of cognition that is required of a cognitive agent to meet the challenge of adaptive behavior in a changing environment is Embodied Cognition, which is antithetical to the disembodied and dualistic nature of the current wave of AI. This essay is the perspective formulation of a cybernetic framework for the representation of actions that, following Bernstein, is focused on what has long been considered the fundamental issue underlying action and motor control, namely the degrees of freedom problem. In particular, the paper reviews a solution to this problem based on a model of ideomotor/muscle-less synergy formation, namely the Passive Motion Paradigm (PMP). Moreover, it is shown how this modeling approach can be reformulated in a distributed manner based on a self-organizing neural paradigm consisting of multiple topology-representing networks with attractor dynamics. The computational implication of such an approach is also briefly analyzed looking at possible alternatives of the von Neuman paradigm, namely neuromorphic and quantum computing, aiming in perspective at a hybrid computational framework for integrating digital information, analog information, and quantum information. It is also suggested that such a framework is crucial not only for the neurobiological modeling of motor cognition but also for the design of the cognitive architecture of autonomous robots of industry 4.0 that are supposed to interact and communicate naturally with human partners.

A cybernetic theory of autism: Autism as a consequence of low trait plasticity.

OBJECTIVE: According to Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T), personality traits reflect variation in the parameters of evolved cybernetic mechanisms, and extreme manifestations of these traits correspond to a risk for psychopathology because they threaten the organism's ability to pursue its goals effectively. Our theory of autism as a consequence of low Plasticity extends CB5T to provide a cybernetic account of the origin of autistic traits. The theory argues that, because all psychological competencies are initially developed through exploration, typical development requires sensitivity to the incentive reward value of the unknown (i.e., the unpredicted). According to CB5T, motivation to explore the unknown is the core function underlying the metatrait Plasticity, the shared variance of Extraversion and Openness/Intellect. This theory makes predictions regarding the downstream developmental consequences of early low Plasticity, and each prediction maps well onto autistic symptomatology. METHOD: We surveyed 387 people. Measures included the Autism Quotient (AQ) scale and International Personality Item Pool items that are indicators of Plasticity and Stability. RESULTS: The association between AQ and Plasticity was ß = -.64. CONCLUSION: A strong negative correlation between Plasticity and AQ suggests ASD may be closely linked to a low sensitivity to the incentive reward value of the unknown.

The intrinsic cybernetics of large complex systems and how droughts turn into floods.

The cyber-physical nature of engineering systems requires the smooth integration of decision making across soft and hard infrastructure. This need is common to any systems where decision making considers multiple complex systems such as the climate, the natural and built environment, and the dynamics of large organisations. As an example, in the Anthropocene, acute droughts and floods cannot only be imputed to more extreme variations of the climate patterns, but also to the alteration of the habitable environment and of the resources that support it, hence to their governance and management. In this discussion paper we present arguments about the extent to which the natural environment is modified to support urbanisation. We expose the cyber-physical nature of large infrastructure systems taking as an example the events of the 2011 Brisbane flood and the operations of the damming system of the river Brisbane. Using literature resources and data, we show how flood defence devices had to provide for a population of almost 2 million people, while being engineered when the population was less than one million, with increase in water withdrawal mainly due to residential utilities. We show how the cyber-physical aspects of the problem materialised in moth-long delays in the governance and management structure and made the flood event transcend the boundary of a purely climatic or engineering incident. Looking beyond the Brisbane example, our conclusions point at overcoming the discontinuity between operation, management and political layers when operating on cyber-physical systems such as freshwater networks.

Exploring the Principles， Limitations， and Error-Correction Methods of Traditional Chinese Medicine's Empirical Thinking / 中医杂志

From the perspective of cybernetics， this study investigated the fundamental principles of empirical thinking in traditional Chinese medicine， encompassing six stages： experience input and storage， experience extraction and activation， experience combination and reconstruction， judgment and decision-making based on experience， and experience evaluation and feedback. The potential limitations of empirical thinking in clinical applications were analyzed， mainly manifested as “individuality”， “superficiality”， “conservatism”， “prioritizing commonality over individuality”， and “cognitive inertia”. To overcome these limitations， this paper also explored strategies and methods for clinical error-correction from four points： the integration of rational and empirical thinking， the reinforcement of feedback mechanisms and transcendent correction， the integration of individualization and quantity-quality balance， and the management and transference of tacit knowledge under empirical thinking.

Social Network Analysis as a Cybernetic Modelling Facility for Participatory Design in Technology-Supported College Curricula.

Despite iterative learning design being increasingly implemented, such approaches are often delineated by well-defined periods of design/implementation. However, second-order cybernetics, which suggests a participatory approach to learning design, involves responsively adapting learning environments to meet students' needs, treating them as agentic participants in the classroom. In our mixed methods study, we investigate whether such a process can facilitate egalitarian participation and collaborative interactions in a technology-assisted classroom. We use the example of a graduate psychology class of 17 students and suggest that adaptation of live-chat activities by a participant observer on the Reddit social media platform that supplemented the in-person lecture dynamically, using a network analysis and qualitative ethnography as a modelling facility mimicked the ongoing feedback loops of social media platforms, enabling students to use social media with a critical eye, and engage in productive collaboration. Our quantitative results present network graphs for weekly eigen centrality to understand the egalitarian nature of the network, and transitivity to understand the likelihood for collaboration between more than two agents. Our qualitative results elaborate selected Reddit posts, and weekly field notes to explain how redesigning the chat weekly helped augment lecture-based discussion with the instructor and critique of student presentations, spurring egalitarian participation through a space-place dialectic. Students also provided end-semester feedback that was analyzed using inductive coding, to design future courseware.

Complex Problems and Dealing with them on a Research Methods Course in a Business School.

This study offers a conceptual explanation of a holistic methodology that has utility in how we engage with complex situations. This is the VIPLAN Methodology developed by Raul Espejo and first published in 1988. A case is presented that evaluates whether this methodology has impact when tacitly embedded in a postgraduate research methods course. The underlying argument is that research can be usefully viewed as a form of engagement in complex problem situations, with one challenge being to make sense of situational complexity and establish the question. Thus, it becomes appropriate to introduce the principles underpinning this methodology into a research methods course in order to develop student understanding of how to move from making sense of the situation to a clearly defined problem that is then handled. The study examines a research methods course delivered annually over a period of three years, but drawing upon data from the previous two years, permitting a five year perspective. The evidence from this study in the form of marks attained and proposal - dissertation topics, indicates that this more holistic approach to a research methods course has a positive impact, especially in terms of establishing a research question. It is concluded that the introduction of the principles underpinning this methodology into a research methods course does enhance the student ability to handle complex situations.

Professor Josef Charvát and Informatics.

Professor Josef Charvát, a prominent internist and endocrinologist, has been following the issues of cybernetics and computers from the very beginning. In the difficult times of the 1950s, he was heavily involved in the organization of seminars and meetings of workers in technical and medical fields interested in cybernetics. Later, in his books for the general public, he foresaw a significant application of computers in medicine. His predictions are quite accurate even 50 years after the publication of these ideas.

Counting with Cilia: The Role of Morphological Computation in Basal Cognition Research.

"Morphological computation" is an increasingly important concept in robotics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of the mind. It is used to understand how the body contributes to cognition and control of behavior. Its understanding in terms of "offloading" computation from the brain to the body has been criticized as misleading, and it has been suggested that the use of the concept conflates three classes of distinct processes. In fact, these criticisms implicitly hang on accepting a semantic definition of what constitutes computation. Here, I argue that an alternative, mechanistic view on computation offers a significantly different understanding of what morphological computation is. These theoretical considerations are then used to analyze the existing research program in developmental biology, which understands morphogenesis, the process of development of shape in biological systems, as a computational process. This important line of research shows that cognition and intelligence can be found across all scales of life, as the proponents of the basal cognition research program propose. Hence, clarifying the connection between morphological computation and morphogenesis allows for strengthening the role of the former concept in this emerging research field.

Personal mental health navigator: Harnessing the power of data, personal models, and health cybernetics to promote psychological well-being.

Current digital mental healthcare solutions conventionally take on a reactive approach, requiring individuals to self-monitor and document existing symptoms. These solutions are unable to provide comprehensive, wrap-around, customized treatments that capture an individual's holistic mental health model as it unfolds over time. Recognizing that each individual requires personally tailored mental health treatment, we introduce the notion of Personalized Mental Health Navigation (MHN): a cybernetic goal-based system that deploys a continuous loop of monitoring, estimation, and guidance to steer the individual towards mental flourishing. We present the core components of MHN that are premised on the importance of addressing an individual's personal mental health state. Moreover, we provide an overview of the existing physical health navigation systems and highlight the requirements and challenges of deploying the navigational approach to the mental health domain.