The application of Systems Thinking principles to Systems Engineering is synergistic, resulting in superior systems, products, and designs. However, there is little practical information available in the literature that describes how this can be done. In this paper, we analyze 12 major Systems Engineering failures involving bridges, aircraft, submarines, water supplies, automobiles, skyscrapers, and corporations and recommend Systems Thinking principles, tools, and procedures that should be applied during the first few steps of the System Engineering design process to avoid such catastrophic Systems Engineering failures in the future.

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Systems thinking is an approach to reasoning and treatment of real-world problems based on the fundamental notion of ‘system.’ System here refers to a purposeful assembly of components. Thus, systems thinking is aimed at understanding relationships between components and their overall impact on system outcomes (i.e., intended and unintended) and how a system similarly fits in the broader context of its environment. There are currently several distinct flavors of systems thinking, both in practice and scholarship; most notably in the disciplines of systems science, systems engineering, and systems dynamics. Each of these, while similar in purpose, has a distinct history and a rich set of methods and tools for various application contexts. The WPI Systems Thinking Colloquium held on 2 October 2019 was aimed at exploring the diversity of perspectives on systems thinking from these disciplines. The colloquium brought together world-renowned experts from both industry and academia to share insights from their research and practice. This paper offers a compilation of summaries of the presentations given.

In this paper we summarize the research on Systems Thinking for business management and explore several examples of business failures due to a lack of application of Systems Thinking, with an ultimate goal of offering a Systems Thinking approach that is useful to all levels of management. Although there is significant literature aimed at facilitating Systems Thinking in organizational management, there remains a lack of adoption of Systems Thinking in mainstream business practice. This is perhaps because the literature does not reduce high-level Systems Thinking principles to hands-on, practical protocols that are accessible for typical managers, thus limiting the working application of Systems Thinking concepts to researchers and consultants who specialize in the field. The goal of this work is to not only elaborate on the high-level ideals of System Thinking, but also to articulate a more precise and practical hands-on approach that is useful to all levels of business managers.

Pulsed laser irradiation of trans-10,ll-dibromodibenzosuberone, I, in room-temperature benzene and acetonitrile solutions resulted in efficient debromination to yield dibenzosuberenone, II. In benzene, the transient absorption due to the bromine atom (Br')-benzene -complex was observed, while in acetonitrile with added Br" the transient absorption due to Br2*~was detected. In both cases, transient production was instantaneous, indicating that Br* is a primary photoproduct. Transient actinometric experiments using the benzophenone triplet state as a standard and Br2*~a s the Br* probe allowed the determination of the quantum yield for Br* production, = 2.4± 0.6. In acetonitrile, in the presence of the H-atom donor, 2-propanol, Br'-Br* recombination to give Br2 competes with H-atom abstraction to yield the acid HBr. Under high-intensity laser irradiation, recombination and H-atom abstraction are competitive, while under low flux laser or UV lamp irradiation, H-atom abstraction is very efficient. In the presence of 1-3 M 2-propanol, acid formation was found to be nearly quantitative.