The 14th INCOSE SA Conference will be held at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, conveniently situated close to all the central amenities in Pretoria and easily accessible from all major routes in Gauteng. |
The 15th Annual INCOSE SA Conference will be hosted in 2021
14th Annual INCOSE SA Conference 2018
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Dr Jan-Hendrik HofmeyrDistinguished Professor of Biocomplexity and Biochemistry, Centre for Complex Systems in Transition, STIAS, University of StellenboschThe Complexity of LifeWhat distinguishes living from non-living entities? This most basic of biological questions has led to a revolution in way we think about systems and complexity. The fundamental property that distinguishes the quick from the dead is the ability to autonomously synthesise all molecular machinery from nutrients obtained from its environment: a living organism is a molecular factory that can fabricate itself. The story of how this answer to our question was developed is a strand within the more general story of systems science—the key players were Nicholas Rashevsky, Robert Rosen, John von Neuman, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. In the hands of Robert Rosen it culminated in a new way of thinking about relations, causality and complexity. Using concepts from the mathematical field of category theory and the old Aristotelean categories of causation, he constructed a formal image of a functional component of any system in terms of a mapping that shows how efficient and formal cause act on material cause (input) to give final cause (output). The functional organisation of any system can be described as a network of such mappings. So doing, Rosen gave us not only a language to talk about the relational structure of any system, but also a way to distinguish simple, complicated and complex systems.Jan-Hendrik (Jannie) Hofmeyr has been a member of the Biochemistry Department since 1975. His research of the past 35 years has been in the field of computational systems biology where his main focus has been the understanding of regulatory design of metabolism. A recent interest is to seek a way of expressing formally the functional organisation of the cell in terms of a theory of molecular fabrication, which could form a theoretical foundation for both systems biology and nanotechnology. This interest has led him to a broader study of complex systems, which he pursued with the late philosopher of complexity Paul Cilliers. |
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David LongFounder and President of Vitech CorporationEvolving MBSE to Enable the Digital FutureWhile systems engineering continues to emphasize model-based systems engineering (MBSE), the greater community is shifting its focus to bigger issues—from model-based engineering to digital thread and now to digital engineering. We want to believe that these pieces will naturally come together to create a digital future for engineering, but that is not the case. We can continue to digitize for our own systems engineering purposes failing to consider the greater context and community, creating our own “digital divide” and largely ensuring the irrelevance of systems engineering. Or we can embrace the greater context and leverage digitization of systems engineering as an opportunity to connect disciplines and enable digital engineering—in the process advancing systems engineering as a discipline and delivering true value. It’s the choice of context and purpose, a choice that either furthers a disconnect or embraces the systems perspective to enable the digital future.For over 25 years, David has focused on helping organizations increase their systems engineering proficiency while simultaneously working to advance the state of the art. David is the founder and president of Vitech where he leads the team in delivering innovative, industry-leading methods and software (CORE™ and GENESYS™) to help organizations engineer next-generation systems. He co-authored A Primer for Model-Based Systems Engineering and frequently delivers keynotes and tutorials at industry events around the world. A committed member of the systems community and Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP), David was the 2014/2015 president of INCOSE. |
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Dr Pierre DurandHead: Evolution of Complexity Laboratory, University of WitwatersrandEvolutionary Transitions and the Search for LUCAOne of the properties of living systems is the tendency, on a macroevolutionary scale, to evolve increasing complexity. For example, a eukaryotic cell emerged from cooperating prokaryote cells. Single eukaryotic cells cooperated to evolve multicellular forms, which in turn can live in social groups such as bees and ants. These increases in biological complexity are called evolutionary transitions (sometimes, evolutionary transitions in individuality) because of the transition from one kind of biological level of complexity to another. We will explore the general mechanisms by which these transitions occur and how the new level of complexity is selected for. One of the evolutionary transitions was the origin of life itself. We will also summarize our current understanding of how life arose. It is now possible to sketch out a general framework, that is supported empirically and by genomic data, of how life arose from abiotic molecules. More specifically, how the very first biologically relevant molecules cooperated to form a primitive genome. This framework gives rise to fundamental questions. What is life and how should it be defined? How will we know when a putative form of life is discovered outside of our own biosphere, that it is actually a living system? By trying to understand the nature of LUCA (the last universal common ancestor) on earth, we can attempt to answer some of these questions.Pierre Durand is an evolutionary biologist at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He holds degrees from Wits University and Kings College, London and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona. His research focus is a curiosity-driven exploration of the evolution of biological complexity. The origin and evolution of primitive molecular networks, programmed death in unicellular organisms and multicellular life are themes in his research laboratory. |
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Dr Jeandrew Brink
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Dr Neil CroftDepartment of Informatics, University of PretoriaDistributed Ledgers and Blockchain Technology |
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Prof John Butler-AdamEditor-in-Chief, The South African Journal of Science, Academy of Science of South Africa |
The 14th INCOSE SA Conference will be held at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, conveniently situated close to all the central amenities in Pretoria and easily accessible from all major routes in Gauteng. |