Complex/Harmonious System Engineering Viewed in the Light of General Systems Theory

In recent years, much discussion of “Complex systems” has been made in various research fields. As my main research area is the complex/harmonious systems engineering, I have, on many occasions, been asked to explain it by those who are interested in this area. When encountering such a seemingly straightforward question, it is not always easy to give a simple answer.

Although some indicate that “It is important to define the basic concepts, however, it could turn out to be just playing with words if not done properly”, it is still important to consider the philosophy behind the complex/harmonious systems. Thus in this paper, the main ideas of the complex and harmonious systems are summarized based on the past literature, and then the concept of the complex/harmonious systems is clarified based on the discussion of systems from the general systems theory.

It has been ten years since the Laboratory of The Harmonious Systems Engineering at the Graduate School of Engineering of Hokkaido University was established. Activities of the Laboratory show how the complex/harmonious systems engineering can apply to solve for problems in various fields. The following topics will be presented:

1. 1.

   Complex Harmonious Systems Technology

2. 2.

   DNA computing

3. 3.

   Multiagent systems

4. 4.

   Autonomous Flying Blip

5. 5.

   Medical informatics

6. 6.

   Tourism informatics

Authors and Affiliations

1. Hokkaido University, Kita-Ku, Kita 14, Nishi 9, Sapporo, 06-0824, Japan

   Azuma Ohuchi PhD (Professor of the Graduate School of Information Technology)

Editors and Affiliations

1. Dept. of Computer Science, Oklahoma State University, North Greenwood Avenue 700, 74106, Tulsa, USA

   Ajith Abraham

2. Dept. of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, Mizumoto-cho 27-1, 050-8585, Muroran, Hokkaido, Japan

   Yasuhiko Dote

3. Dept. of Computational Science and Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, 464-8601, Nagoya, Aichi-ken, Japan

   Takeshi Furuhashi

4. Institut für Sicherheits-/Prüftechnik, Fraunhofer IPK Berlin, Pascalstr. 8-9, 10587, Berlin, Germany

   Mario Köppen

5. Division of Complex Systems Technology Graduate School of Engineering, University of Hokkaido, N-13, W-8 060 KITA-KU, Sapporo, Japan

   Azuma Ohuchi

6. PRESTO Japan Science & Technology Corp. GSSM, University of Tsukuba, 3-29-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, 12-0012, Tokyo, Japan

   Yukio Ohsawa

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