Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980545
D. Elms
ABSTRACT Carmichael’s paper offers a framework for civil engineering systems work. The approach is rigorous. But equally rigorous should be the principles underlying the work, including a clear and unambiguous defining purpose and a careful attention to modelling principles. That is, a rigorous process is just as important as a rigorous framework. Suggested additions to the proposed framework are: purpose, information (including uncertainty and quality), modelling, topology and value.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980544
D. Elms
ABSTRACT The writer agrees with the main point of the paper which is to emphasise the need for civil engineering systems engineers to have ‘practical wisdom’. Insofar as this is not clearly defined the discussion offers an example from practice where practical wisdom was lacking. Blockley’s paper lists major challenges, including computerisation. The present discussion suggests others as important additions, with the most important omission being the ‘black swans’ of complex and unexpected problems. System thinking is well placed to tackle such issues.
{"title":"Discussion of ‘Practical wisdom in an age of computerisation’ by David Blockley","authors":"D. Elms","doi":"10.1080/10286608.2021.1980544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10286608.2021.1980544","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The writer agrees with the main point of the paper which is to emphasise the need for civil engineering systems engineers to have ‘practical wisdom’. Insofar as this is not clearly defined the discussion offers an example from practice where practical wisdom was lacking. Blockley’s paper lists major challenges, including computerisation. The present discussion suggests others as important additions, with the most important omission being the ‘black swans’ of complex and unexpected problems. System thinking is well placed to tackle such issues.","PeriodicalId":50689,"journal":{"name":"Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems","volume":"4 1","pages":"284 - 288"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88694067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980543
D. Carmichael
To this writer, it seems that a Civil Engineering Systems Body of Knowledge (‘Special Issue’ – Dias and Jowitt, 2020) cannot progress until there is agreement on the meanings of terms. Mature technical disciplines in the sciences, medicine and engineering have been able to develop because there is agreement on the meaning of terms. More recent disciplines such as popular management are not developing, and perhaps even going backwards, because terms are used differently by different people and differently by the same person within the one context; multiple uses and meanings for terms prevent understanding. Without agreement on meaning, the encoding and decoding present in two-way communication goes awry. Lay usage of terms and the multiple definitions found in dictionaries are not suitable for discipline-specific communication; for example, Carmichael (2016) shows the pitfalls with using dictionary meanings when referring to ‘risk’, Carmichael (2020a) highlights the confusion in using the term ‘objective’, and ‘uncertainty’ and ‘problem’ have different meanings among the Special Issue papers. The multiple meanings for words found in dictionaries are exploited by comedians, poets and playwrights, but inhibit a technical discipline’s development. And where English is not a person’s first language, the situation is exacerbated.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980550
D. Carmichael
Professor Blockley makes a pertinent observation, namely that of the ‘large differences of approach ranging at the extremes from formal (Carmichael) to the informal (Elms)’ within the contributions to the Special Issue. For Civil Engineering Systems to develop as a discipline, it is my belief that some underlying formal structure to knowledge is necessary and this is the thinking behind the BOK Framework proposed in Carmichael (2020). Certainly, not everything can be formalised, individuals will add their informality in any situation, some individuals have an inherent dislike of structure, and many people while maybe clever are not structured thinkers and happily co-exist with shuffled ideas, but an agreed underlying structure will be necessary at some stage in the development of Civil Engineering Systems, as it is in all wellestablished disciplines in engineering. Why not start developing that structure now? Professor Blockley mentions reductionism and emergentism, though the intent of the comments is unclear. Reductionism, to my understanding, attempts an explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual, constituent parts and their interactions. The interactions mean that the whole is not simplistically the sum of the parts. Emergentism, to my understanding, relates to studying systems at their highest level where the properties of the whole are more than the sum of the parts. Systems thinking incorporates reductionism and emergentism as described in the above senses, and this is embodied in the BOK Framework put forward (Carmichael, 2020). Interestingly, the terms reductionism or emergentism appear to be rarely mentioned in any discussion on Civil Engineering Systems, possibly because engineers prefer to explain the relationship between a system and its subsystems in plain terms, unencumbered largely by terms with non-agreed meanings. The historical presence of the terms reductionism and emergentism means that some people lean naturally towards systems-type thinking without any formal education or knowledge in systems. Of course, the terms and practices of reductionism and emergentism can be interpreted in multiple ways.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980542
D. Carmichael
A number of contributions in the Special Issue on a Civil Engineering Systems Body of Knowledge (‘Special Issue’ – Dias and Jowitt 2020), refer to education as it relates to systems, and systems thinking. For example, Masterton and Jeffrey (2020), Delatte (2020) and Jowitt (2020). Based on observations over many years, some personal views are expressed here on the topic. The observations have not been processed through the scientific method (Carmichael 2013), but they do have the support of much classroom testing and noting the behaviour of practising engineers. An observation (based on a finite sample) is put forward to generate thought and discussion within the systems community; not everyone may have observed the same or agree with it, while others may think it is self-obvious: Some people naturally think in terms of systems and some people do not naturally think in terms of systems. This has ramifications for systems education, any expectation of systems-type thinking from people, and the place of systems courses in a Civil Engineering programme. It appears that people are either configured or receptive to systems ideas, exampled by the Special Issue papers (even if the detail is not agreed with), or they are not. It also follows in a sort of corollary fashion that those who are not attuned to systems thinking will take issue with the above observation, or not appreciate that there is a difference between systems thinking and non-systems thinking. This is not a nature versus nurture argument. Some people may use the word ‘system’ (often where a more appropriate term should be used) and other system-discipline words, draw block diagrams with links, apply linear programming or some simulation package, etc and generally look and sound as though they are thinking systems, but underneath they are not thinking systems. Some publications may purport to be systems-based but they are not. There may also not be a realisation on the part of authors and reviewers that they are not truly systems people, though they may have a self-belief that they are. People who are not systems people seem not to be able to distinguish genuine systems thinking from non-genuine systems thinking, and people who do not naturally think in terms of systems cannot be successfully taught to be systems people. At best, they can be led in a direction. This viewpoint, of course, is difficult to prove because currently there is no accepted measure for systems thinking; this is expanded upon below. To illustrate, consider a parallel with ‘creativity’. People are either creative or not creative, even allowing for creativity manifesting itself in a variety of ways and pursuits. Oscar
《土木工程系统知识体系特刊》(“特刊”- Dias和Jowitt 2020)中的许多文章都提到了与系统和系统思维相关的教育。例如Masterton and Jeffrey (2020)， Delatte(2020)和Jowitt(2020)。根据多年来的观察，在此就这个问题发表一些个人看法。这些观察结果并没有通过科学的方法进行处理(Carmichael 2013)，但它们确实得到了许多课堂测试的支持，并注意到执业工程师的行为。提出了一个观察(基于有限样本)，以在系统社区内产生思考和讨论;并不是每个人都观察到相同或同意它，而其他人可能认为这是不言而喻的:有些人自然地从系统的角度来思考，有些人则不自然地从系统的角度来思考。这对系统教育、人们对系统型思维的任何期望以及系统课程在土木工程课程中的地位都有影响。看起来人们要么被配置好了，要么接受了系统的想法，例如特刊的论文(即使细节不一致)，要么他们不是。它还以一种必然的方式遵循，那些不适应系统思维的人将对上述观察提出质疑，或者不认识到系统思维和非系统思维之间存在差异。这不是先天与后天的争论。有些人可能会使用“系统”一词(通常应该使用更合适的术语)和其他系统学科词汇，绘制带有链接的框图，应用线性规划或一些模拟包等，通常看起来和听起来好像他们是思考系统，但实际上他们并不是思考系统。一些出版物可能声称是基于系统的，但它们不是。作者和审稿人可能也没有意识到他们不是真正的系统人员，尽管他们可能相信自己是。不是系统人的人似乎无法区分真正的系统思维和非真正的系统思维，而那些天生不从系统角度思考的人也无法被成功地培养成系统人。充其量，他们可以被引导到一个方向。当然，这种观点很难证明，因为目前还没有公认的衡量系统思维的标准;这将在下面展开。为了说明这一点，请考虑与“创造力”的相似之处。人要么有创造力，要么没有创造力，甚至允许创造力以各种方式和追求表现出来。奥斯卡
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980553
D. Elms
ABSTRACT Systems engineers require breadth. Three approaches are discussed. The first is to develop a clear goal in the form of the attributes of a well-educated civil engineering systems specialist (CESS) – what such an engineer would be like. The second, complementary to the first, proposes a goal in terms of what the ideal CESS could do well as a series of tasks or actions. The third is to produce a list of books whose reading would result in a well-educated CEES.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980547
D. Elms
ABSTRACT Jowitt’s paper suggests that civil engineering systems engineers require an ethical imperative and a set of specific attributes. The ethics should include a broad understanding of value and values. Attributes of a successful systems-capable civil engineer are listed in a table stemming from an international workshop. They can be summed up in terms of ASK: Attitude, Skills and Knowledge.
{"title":"Discussion of Paul Jowitt’s paper ‘Systems and sustainability’","authors":"D. Elms","doi":"10.1080/10286608.2021.1980547","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10286608.2021.1980547","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Jowitt’s paper suggests that civil engineering systems engineers require an ethical imperative and a set of specific attributes. The ethics should include a broad understanding of value and values. Attributes of a successful systems-capable civil engineer are listed in a table stemming from an international workshop. They can be summed up in terms of ASK: Attitude, Skills and Knowledge.","PeriodicalId":50689,"journal":{"name":"Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems","volume":"4 1","pages":"305 - 308"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75382092","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980556
D. Elms
ABSTRACT Carmichael's discussion considers whether the discipline of Civil Engineering Systems can develop, and whether such development depends on a clear and agreed terminology. The answer to the first point is ‘yes,’ but though clear and well-agreed terminology is desirable, it is not strictly necessary because the underlying issue is the need for mutual understanding of and within the discipline rather than for agreed terminology. Restricting language could have undesirable side-effects.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980541
D. Blockley
The question ‘What is Civil Engineering Systems – CES?’was posed by the editors not as an attempt to arrive at a set of common definitions but more to foster conversation around the issues. The disparate contributions to this special edition have achieved that goal by exposing very large differences of approach ranging at the extremes from the formal (Carmichael) to the informal (Elms). The editors also ask what constitutes a ‘BOK’ – Body of Knowledge for CEES. This question begs many further questions such as what is ‘knowledge’ anyway when we cannot predict the behaviour of a deterministic non-linear hinged pendulum after just a few cycles? What is the role of science in engineering and how do they both relate to technology in an age when STEM is dominated in the minds of so many people by the S? What is uncertainty when so many theorists deny looking beyond statistics and probability to embrace ambiguity, incompleteness and unknown unknowns? How do we categorise and manage uncertainty to make our systems resilient, sustainable and robust against ‘surprises’ like banking collapses and pandemics never mind the challenges of climate change? How do we learn from mistakes when accidents and disasters like Grenfell follow similar patterns to previous disasters of history? How does CEES relate to the wider world of politics and economics and the arts? Should STEM be expanded to STEAMM to include the arts and medicine? The implied assumptions in the various papers about the questions seem to depend on the experiences of each author and their necessarily partial reading of the massive amount of material available to a modern researcher. That is natural and to be expected – but is incumbent on us all who follow a systems approach to embrace all relevant points of view (particularly the journals relating to civil engineering) and adapt and learn from them. That is the real value of this Special Issue. The editors compared contribution under nine headings (Jowitt and Dias Table 1). I looked at the responses of the authors to some other key system ideas which, for brevity I will restrict to just five – complexity, uncertainty, emergence, interdependence and learning. All authors refer to complexity but only Whyte et al discuss it in any depth although Jowitt differentiates between complicated as rich in detail and complex as rich in structure. No-one refers to the sense-making models called Cynefin which differentiate the complex and messy (high emergent uncertainty, interconnectedness and conflict) from the complicated (highly interconnected but well understood),
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Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10286608.2021.1980558
D. Elms
ABSTRACT This reply to David Blockley’s discussion addresses the issue of relevant knowledge, the need for an ability to learn, the distinction between types of system, the need to expand our understanding of uncertainty, implications for education and the incompleteness of the body of knowledge referred to in the BOK Special Issue of Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems.
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