"... any system s may be modeled, at any given instant, as the quadruple

u(s) = <C(s), E(s), S(s), M(s)> where

• C(s) = Composition: Collection of all the parts of s;

• E(s) = Environment: Collection of items , other than those in s, that act on or are acted upon by some or all components of s;

• S(s) = Structure: Collections of relations, in particular bonds, among components of s or among these and items in its environment E(s);

• M(s) = Mechanism: Collection of processes in s that make it behave the way it does

Slots and Values
ref	34-5
source	Unnamed