With the development of an Adaptive Ambient Empowerment tool for the Elderly (a2e2) a group of technicians and media psychologists confront the challenge to change habituated unhealthy life styles. The main goal is to increase physical activity in seniors who are at risk of acquiring or are already suffering from chronic diseases. The a2e2 system incorporates exergames and applies a daily struc...

Complexity science frequently addresses the self-referential aspects of complex adaptive systems. Recent research in organization theory similarly refers to these systems as autopoietic. This paper reformulates existing theories of organizational learning and knowledge in terms of autopoietic organization theory. Within this framework, communication is the basic organizational operation. Organi...

We face a global crisis of un-sustainability—we need to change trajectory, but have so far displayed a collective inability to do so. This article suggests that one reason for this is our entrenched approach to change, which has inappropriately applied mechanistic Newtonian assumptions to ―living‖ systems. Applying what has been learned about the behaviour of complex adaptive systems, we develo...

Newborn face perception is controversial, but the current evidence suggests that (a) newborns follow face-like schematic patterns further than similar patterns, (b) infants can learn individual faces soon after birth, and (c) full face processing abilities develop through months or years of experience with faces. Previous models have not adequately accounted for all three types of results. In p...

This article describes the outcomes of research that examined the practice of web information architecture (IA) in large organizations. Using a grounded theory approach, seven large organizations were investigated and the data were analyzed for emerging themes and concepts. The research finds that the practice of web IA is characterized by unpredictability, multiple perspectives, and a need for...

Learning Classifier System which replaces the genetic algorithm with the evolving cooperative population of discoverers is a focus of current research. This paper presents a modified version of XCS classifier system with self-adaptive discovery module. The new model was confirmed experimentally in a multiplexer environment. The results prove that XCS with the self-adaptive method for determinin...

Self-adaptive software is considered as the most advanced approach and its development attracts a lot of attention. Decentralization is an effective way to design and manage the complexity of modern self-adaptive software systems. However, there are still tremendous challenges. One major challenge is to unify decentrality with traditional self-adaptive implementation framework during design and...

BACKGROUND Psychological factors are important mediators of the differences between impairment and disability. The most commonly used measures of disability and psychological factors are lengthy and are usually administered as paper questionnaires. The aim of this study was to assess the correlation between perceived disability and psychological factors with use of the user-friendly, web-based ...

Based on some features of the immune system (the selection-based mechanism compatible with Edelman’s selectionist principle, self/nonself-reference and negative/positive selection), we proposed the immune algorithm. The algorithm proceeds in three steps: diversity generation, establishment of self-tolerance, and memorizing non-self. The algorithm may be used typically to deal with the system by...

Organizational fields undergo upheavals. Shifting industry boundaries, new network forms, emerging sectors, and volatile ecosystems have become the stuff of everyday organizational life. Curiously, profound changes of this sort receive scant attention in organization theory and research. Researchers acknowledge fieldwide flux, emergence, convergence, and collapse, but sidestep direct investigat...