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In this chapter, we discuss the developments of knowledge and technology bases to move from nano/micro sciences toward technology system for enriching human lives. We review the basic understanding and core technologies for enabling us to visualize, pick, place, manipulate and characterize nano/micro particles with a high degree of precision. We discuss manufacturing technologies and systemic integrations aimed toward seamlessly interface with larger length scale biological systems, e.g. cell, body etc. We then explore the potential of applying top-down system control scheme to guide information rich bio-complex systems toward desired destiny for therapeutic purpose.

The systems approach enjoyed a top spot among the minds of engineers, scientists, and managers during the early Lyndon Johnson administration. However, this trajectory of advocacy declined together with the reverses of the Vietnam War and the rise of a counterculture that associated large systems with the military, industry, and university complex, and with the Vietnam predicament. The decline in the popularity of the systems approach also resulted from the frequent failure of its practitioners to cope with complex urban problems involving political and social factors. Before this downward turn, however, an articulated systems approach unfolded that spawned new academic fields, new “sciences of management,” and new modes of engineering practice. This, in turn, brought to the surface a number of forms, including operations research, systems engineering, systems analysis, and system dynamics. Generally, it can be said that the systems approaches had their origins in the military realm and only that their application was only emphasized in the civil realm after 1960.

This chapter examines a particular set of technical and institutional developments during World War II to show how the radar, as a new instrument of perception, gave rise to a new approach to engineering systems. Combining servo-controlled gun directors with new radar sets raised problems of a system’s response to noise, the dynamics of radar tracking, and jittery echoes. Engineers from Bell Laboratories, together with their rivals and collaborators at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, learned to engineer the entire system’s behavior from the beginning, rather than just connecting individual, separately designed components. This new system logic reflected institutional relationships and evolved to suit their shifts, which meant designing the system around the radar, the system’s most critical component. By the end of the war, the MIT Radiation Laboratory ran the only successful effort to design a fully automatic radar-controlled fire control system, the Mark 56 Gun Fire Control System.

This chapter aims to examine a paradox. The computerization of technical systems is considered as one of the greatest technological success stories of the late twentieth century; however, it is also a matter of deep concern, even to many of those whose work has helped make it possible. This concern is best manifest in a statement found in a 1986 U.K. Cabinet Office report signed by C. A. R. Hoare, one of the world’s most influential computer scientists, which goes, “Nobody trusts a computer; and this lack of faith is amply justified.” The relevance of computerization to the spread of the systems approach goes beyond its role in enhancing the capacities and efficiency of technical systems, and therefore encouraging their dissemination. An incompatibility has emerged between computerization and a key aspect of the systems approach as manifest in other spheres of systems engineering.

This chapter presents a treatment of “retroactivity to interconnections.” It outlines some of the design challenges found in biomolecular systems from a systems engineering perspective, in particular, the problem of modularity. It proposes a framework for quantifying retroactivity at interconnections between transcriptional circuits and provides a mechanism to counteract retroactivity. This chapter reveals that simple cycles, involving phosphorylation and dephosphorylation, enjoy intrinsic insulation properties, and thus have the potential to serve as synthetic biomolecular insulation devices. It suggests that the design of the biomolecular circuit presents many challenges to systems and control engineers.

This chapter focuses on JPL's resumption of defense work in an effort to retain its staff, which declining NASA budgets could no longer support. These people had had a series of remarkable achievements in high-reliability spacecraft, which entailed not only systems engineering but also the development of new technologies. Examples of these technologies include hardware, such as charge-coupled devices in place of vidicons, and software, such as computer programs that provided autonomy for Voyager. Two technologies in this period exemplify the ingenuity and effort of JPL engineers: synthetic aperture radar and image processing. Both relied on and helped drive advances in data processing and thus demonstrate the increasing role of computers in opening up new fields of scientific knowledge.

This chapter argues that the dynamics produced by the rise of modularity in microelectronics, broadband networking, software, and digital content are increasingly about increasing speed and power with plunging costs, flexible combinations of inputs, and the spread of information and communication technology (ICT) intensive processes. It also addresses two metaphors for the future of the industry: the “systems engineering” metaphor and the “fashion industry” metaphor. The chapter suggests that both of these provide a broader range of insights into the implications of modularity. It shows that modularity reinforced the promise of digital technology, which enabled the microelectronic revolution of diverse processing power with inexpensive powerful terminals and massive storage to provide a powerful infrastructure for centralized and decentralized IT applications.