Abstract accepted: 6th World Conference on Complex Systems - WCCS 2026

April, 20-22, 2026

Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Ben Guerir-Marrakech, Morocco

About Us

Building on the success of previous editions, we are delighted to announce WCCS26, organized by the Chair of Complexities ∞ Humanities - UM6P and the Moroccan Society of Interdisciplinary Studies, with technical sponsorship from IEEE. This conference remains a premier international platform where researchers and Ph.D. students come together to share cutting-edge research, address emerging challenges, and explore new frontiers in complex systems and interdisciplinary science.

WCCS26 fosters collaboration and debate on the most advanced methodologies and approaches for understanding, modeling, simulating, predicting, and mastering societal, ecological, biological, and engineered complex systems. By bringing together experts from diverse disciplines, the conference bridges theory and real-world applications, driving scientific progress and innovation.

Join us for a stimulating exchange of ideas at WCCS26!

WCCS26 Theme :

Navigating Contemporary Complexity:
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Economic, Social,
Political, and Environmental Challenges

Conference Topics (But not limited to...) :

• Foundations and Approaches to Complex Systems
• Social and Economic Complexity
• Complexity in the Anthropocene
• Biological Complexity: From Cells to Societies
• Complexity in Health and Medicine
• Philosophical Dimensions of Complexity
• Complex Systems With Artificial Intelligence
• Complexity in Emerging Technologies
• Grand Challenges in Complexity Science
  
  

Continued at: https://wccs-conference.org/wccs26/#call

See also: 'complexity'

n.b. I am attending (unsponsored) as an independent scholar and researcher; and by abstract alone.

Hodges' model: A tool to watch the complications of Care

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

How many complications here?
... here?	"Despite its achievement, Vacheron Constantin has not filed a patent, on the Chinese perpetual calendar, saying it doesn't want to reveal details." p.S9. ... and here too?

Foulkes, N. Inside Vacheron's exclusive cabinet of complications, Watches & Jewellery, Financial Times, 9 April 2024, p.4.

Image and text: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/introducing-vacheron-constantin-berkley-grand-complication

The Complications, 1 Through 63

"There's likely some part of you that's curious about each of the 63 functions that have totaled a record-breaking level of complication. I'll list the functions below, broken down by type, to simplify things.

Time measurement (9 Total): 1. Regulator-type hours, minutes, and seconds for mean solar time 2. Retrograde second for mean solar time 3. Day and night indication for reference city 4. Visible spherical armillary tourbillon regulator with spherical balance spring 5. Armillary sphere tourbillon 6. World time indication for 24 cities 7. Second time zone hours and minutes (on 12 hours display) 8. Second time zone day and night indication 9. System to display the second time zone for the Northern or Southern hemispheres

Gregorian Perpetual Calendar (7 Total): 10. Gregorian perpetual calendar 11. Gregorian days of the week 12. Gregorian months 13. Gregorian retrograde date 14. Leap-year indication and four-year cycle 15. Number of the day of the week (ISO 8601 calendar) 16. Indication for the number of the week within the year (ISO 8601 calendar).

Chinese Perpetual Calendar (11 Total): 17. Chinese perpetual calendar 18. Chinese number of the day. 19. Chinese name of the month 20. Chinese date indication 21. Chinese zodiac signs 22. 5 elements and 10 celestial stems 23. 6 energies and 12 earthly branches 24. Chinese year state (common or embolismic) 25. Month state (small or large) 26. Indication for the Golden number within the 19-year Metonic cycle 27. Indication for the date of the Chinese New Year in the Gregorian calendar.
Chinese Agricultural Perpetual Calendar (2 Total): 28. Chinese agricultural perpetual calendar. 29. Indications of seasons, equinoxes, and solstices with solar hand.

Astronomic Calendar (9 Total): 30. Sky chart (calibrated for Shanghai) 31. Sidereal hours 32. Sidereal minutes 33. Sunrise time (calibrated for Shanghai) 34. Sunset time (calibrated for Shanghai) 35. Equation of time 36. Length of the day (calibrated for Shanghai) 37. Length of the night (calibrated for Shanghai) 38. Phases and age of the moon, one correction every 1027 years.

Split-seconds Chronograph (4 Total): 39. Fifths of a second chronograph (1 column wheel) 40. Fifths of a second split-second chronograph (1 column wheel) 41. 12-hour counter (1 column wheel) 42. 60-minute counter.

Alarm (7 Total): 43. Progressive alarm with single gong and hammer striking 44. Alarm strike/silence indicator 45. Choice of normal alarm or carillon striking alarm indicator 46. Alarm mechanism coupled to the carillon striking mechanism 47. Alarm striking with choice of grande or petite sonnerie 48. Alarm power-reserve indication 49. System to disengage the alarm barrel when fully wound.

Westminster Carillon (8 Total): 50. Carillon Westminster chiming with 5 gongs and 5 hammers 51. Grande sonnerie passing strike 52. Petite sonnerie passing strike 53. Minute repeating 54. Night silence feature (between 22.00 and 08.00 hours – hours chosen by the owner) 55. System to disengage the striking barrel when fully wound 56. Indication for grande or petite sonnerie modes 57. Indication for silence / striking / night modes.

Additional features (6) 58. Power-reserve indication for the going train 59. Power-reserve indication for the striking train 60. Winding crown position indicator 61. Winding system for the double barrels 62. Hand-setting system with two positions and two directions 63. Concealed flush-fit winding crown for the alarm mechanism."

Also: Naas, R. New and extremely complicated. Watches. The New York Times International Edition, April 9, 2024, p.S9

Craftsmanship. "It took a watchmaker a year to assemble the Complication's 2,877 parts, including 31 hands, nine discs and 245 jewels." p.S9. Plus, quote regards the question of a patent.

Vacheron Constantin

(Just to be clear - this post, as with all others is not paid/sponsored.)

Of Bodies and Persons

individual
|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

	Three-body problem
Three-Person problem

 

https://www.britannica.com/science/three-body-problem

 

The Art & Science of Health: [conceptual scraps iii]

In clinical administration and informatics the question of 'ownership of information' is one of what I've described as legacy problems. Here's a stab at a definition:

A legacy problem is characterised by being:

An aspiration that presents as a problem due to its scale, complexity, and the fact that they are passed-on from one generation of professionals to another. As such legacy problems are common across disciplinary and professional groups. They are embedded within professional education, teaching, learning, practice, management and are expressed in successive  policy developments and within public and media discourse. In scale legacy problems are inherited by new learners and governments.

This is admittedly a broad brush treatment - and a work in progress (I focus upon and list the characteristics). Here, I'm not concerned with the whys and wherefores, or the minutiae. (Perhaps this post is a result of not burn-out(!?) but professional and organisational exposure otherwise known as experience?)

Clinically then legacy problems include:

• integrated care;

- across physical, mental health and social care
- between disciplines (location, co-working - teams)
- as experienced by the patient, carer (as proxy)
- financially

• holistic care;
• person centred care;
• reflective practice;
• critical thinking;

To these we can add:

• the electronic health record
• and as mentioned above 'ownership' of the record (as a whole and the data within).

The question is - are the above being miscategorised? Are they problems or features of healthcare that no matter how much you might wish you cannot dodge them?

Records are critical to the definitions of being a professional and professionalism - public safety, care planning and delivery, accountability, responsibility, research... Perhaps though the existence and consequent longevity of the above are bound to give rise to their analogues and not just their solution, but how they are framed?

Comprehensive record anyone and is that a computer before me...?

What are your thoughts - h2cmng@yahoo.co.uk I'd be pleased to hear from you. Can you add to the list?

To be continued ... [ and there's the legacy conundrum that is the National Health Service? ]

See also:

Daniel Bayley: The problem with Patient Online and the NHS App
Related posts i & ii:

The Art & Science of Health: [conceptual scraps i]

The Art & Science of Health: [conceptual scraps ii]

Book Review: [ii] Health System Redesign - How to Make Health Care Person-Centered, Equitable, and Sustainable

Part 1 gets straight to the matter of "challenging the orthodoxy" with a two page introduction to complexity and health. Part 1 covers:

• systems sciences
• visualization of complex systems (Capra's vortex metaphor)
• understanding the co-existence of different degrees of complexity and their dynamics within complex adaptive organisations based on Kurtz and Snowden's Cynefin model.
• health as a "complex adaptive experiential state"

All four points here are very pertinent to where we are in health and healthcare (the book rightly stresses this differentiation) and current and ongoing 21st century issues. The use of Capra helps to distinguish scale and the levels inevitably existent, experienced, and described in health and healthcare systems.

If you are familiar with Hodges' model and the Cynefin model, then the answer is yes - seeing the Cynefin model did make me hoot. (I remember Dave Snowden's work from Plaxo and a presentation he did in Lancaster back in 2007). More importantly, part 1 introduces where the focus needs to be to facilitate change; on the core driver of the system, the system's long-term direction, a specific system view and the need for a solid grounding in theoretical and applied approaches. This is were the visual tools and producing a view - perspective are so important. Chapter 2 contrasts the simple scientific world view and the complex scientific. The reader is asked to consider numerous background points, from the colloquial meaning of complex/complexity to the scientific. How do the words 'complex' and 'complicated' differ? At small scale the result is greater certainty BUT loss of context, while at the large scale we find greater uncertainty AND loss of detail.

Figure 2.3 shows the key features of complex systems (also indicating the dynamics - '+' '-'):

• System boundaries
• Interconnectedness
• Feedback
• Impact of starting (initial) condition

Some of the figures point to their means of creation "The essence of systems thinking" (Figure 2.4) produced through Insightmaker. Sturmberg's seeks to ground the discussion too by reference to the everyday. Table 2.1 runs through how systems can be related to the experience of a 'Long day at work'. Addenda are put to immediate effect with a reference to a map of the history of complexity science; the philosophy of complex adaptive systems; and the complexity and difficult questions.

As already suggested Chapter 3 on the visualisation of complex adaptive systems had my attention. The vortex metaphor (Capra) seems trite on first encounter, but it works.* The four different ways to map a system:

1. Systems map
2. Influence map
3. Multiple case diagram
4. Sign graph diagram

are quite important as if you can take the explanations onboard you really will be on the way to fully understanding and utilising theoretical and applied approaches. The learning here is allied with understanding common system dynamic behaviours which are also illustrated and explained. Figure 3.4 shows the Cynefin framework, which is still in my head. The Cynefin model deals with the continua of:

• uncertain - certain
• non-linear - linear

• Contrasts - Learning and Teaching
• and four quadrants that combine what is complex, knowable or complicated, chaos, and known or obvious (simple). The three references here span 1996-2003.

At chapter 4 - I was worried - 'Defining Health' (now there's a task) but this is also interesting, rewarding and well placed. Core notions of health are tabled (4.1) from 1911 to 2007. Health is distinguished from dis-ease. I must follow up the footnote on p.59 Marja Jylhä and her framework of self-perception of health. 

The illustrations on pp.60-61 are frustrating.

Very!

Not because they shouldn't be there, but because they are a gift that remain (as far as I am aware) unrealised in respect of those of us working in the humanities. We still lack the visualisation tools that we need.

If I mention Figure 4.1 "The somato-psycho-socio-semiotic model of health" you will get the drift and overlap with Hodges' model. There is more with 4.2 on Attractors in Health and Illness and the system dynamics of health. The political attractor is missing (and its 'gravitational' impact) in this rendering, but the barriers to progress are also raised at the book's end. Given the topic of health, the text is not science light, with the physiology of health and disease also used to explain points, so we have, gene networks, the autonomic nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and bioenergetics in the mitochondrion. While not in-depth the potential application across external factors-personal experiences and internal mechanisms are demonstrated. The role of the patient, public and carers are central today and realised to various degree in theory, practice, management and policy. Self-rated health is briefly mentioned and with community health and health services utilisation this closes part 1.

More to follow...

Sturmberg JP. Health System Redesign. How to Make Health Care Person-Centered, Equitable, and Sustainable. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2018.

See also first part...