Knowledge And Systems Science

This book discusses technology and systems to create valuable ideas from data through the construction of knowledge. The primary concern is to make better decisions about economic and management issues in today’s information-flooded society. Human creative activity is in the realm of soft technology, with no physical entity to operate. Focusing on the ability of knowledge as judgment power, this definition results: “Knowledge technology is soft technology that underpins the human creative activities of converting data and information into knowledge, creating new ideas based on that knowledge and validating those ideas.” That definition includes a wide range of soft technologies developed in informatics, management studies, and systems science. The knowledge system creates ideas from data and knowledge through knowledge technologies. Based on the proposition that knowledge emerges by the interaction between explicit and tacit knowledge, another definition is possible: “The knowledge system is a system that promotes interaction between codified and personalized knowledge and creates ideas for solving a specific problem.” Codified knowledge includes data and information, while personalized knowledge is empirical knowledge or wisdom that is difficult to put into words. Building a knowledge system requires mathematical or intelligent knowledge technology and participatory knowledge technology to create or manage codified knowledge and personalized knowledge. For example, a company builds cross-sectional knowledge systems by gathering human resources from various departments, according to the purpose, as in new product development or sales promotion. Chapter 1 defines knowledge technology and the knowledge system and organizes the challenges in their development, while Chapters 2 through 9 introduce mathematical or intelligent knowledge technologies by researchers at the forefront of knowledge technology development.

The International Journal of Knowledge and Systems Science (IJKSS) serves as a multi-disciplinary platform and adopts a systems approach to the theory and practice of managing information and people in knowledge intensive activities and processes, emphasizing the understanding of humans and their environment as part of interacting systems from both soft and hard systems science. As a quarterly journal that publishes theoretical, experimental, and experiential papers, practice notes, case studies, and innovative methodologies, IJKSS provides a forum for academicians, scientists, practitioners, and industry professionals to integrate diversity and fragments of knowledge.

Integrating ideas from the fields of systems science and knowledge science, Knowledge and Systems Science: Enabling Systemic Knowledge Synthesis shows how to create and justify various pieces of knowledge systemically. Written by one of the foremost experts in this area, the book presents approaches for the systemic integration of knowledge, which can help solve complex problems today and in the future. After discussing issues of systemic knowledge synthesis, the book emphasizes the importance of the human dimension in problem solving and introduces a new integrated systems approach called the informed systems approach. It also covers mathematical information aggregation techniques. Moving on to knowledge science concepts and approaches, the book discusses organizational and academic knowledge creation models and considers a sociological interpretation of the knowledge integration system. To support knowledge science as an academic discipline, the author explains how to justify knowledge and summarizes a theory of knowledge synthesis (construction) systems. Through case studies of technology archiving, academic research evaluation, demand forecasting of perishable foods, and other real-world concerns, this book demonstrates the use of new knowledge-based methods in addressing a variety of complex issues. It also illustrates the importance of acquiring a systemic view through trained intuition.

As branches of research and knowledge continue to expand, platforms for gathering and understanding new information become important aspects of organizational improvement. Contemporary Knowledge and Systems Science provides emerging research on the methods and applications of knowledge systems in social science, economics, and technological developments. While highlighting topics such as knowledge retention, organizational information, and evolutionary algorithms, this publication explores the different types of new knowledge from a systems perspective. This book is an important resource for researchers, academics, practitioners, and graduate-level students seeking current research on the connections between technology and information in order to manage new data.

This pioneering text provides a comprehensive introduction to systems structure, function, and modeling as applied in all fields of science and engineering. Systems understanding is increasingly recognized as a key to a more holistic education and greater problem solving skills, and is also reflected in the trend toward interdisciplinary approaches to research on complex phenomena. While the concepts and components of systems science will continue to be distributed throughout the various disciplines, undergraduate degree programs in systems science are also being developed, including at the authors’ own institutions. However, the subject is approached, systems science as a basis for understanding the components and drivers of phenomena at all scales should be viewed with the same importance as a traditional liberal arts education. Principles of Systems Science contains many graphs, illustrations, side bars, examples, and problems to enhance understanding. From basic principles of organization, complexity, abstract representations, and behavior (dynamics) to deeper aspects such as the relations between information, knowledge, computation, and system control, to higher order aspects such as auto-organization, emergence and evolution, the book provides an integrated perspective on the comprehensive nature of systems. It ends with practical aspects such as systems analysis, computer modeling, and systems engineering that demonstrate how the knowledge of systems can be used to solve problems in the real world. Each chapter is broken into parts beginning with qualitative descriptions that stand alone for students who have taken intermediate algebra. The second part presents quantitative descriptions that are based on pre-calculus and advanced algebra, providing a more formal treatment for students who have the necessary mathematical background. Numerous examples of systems from every realm of life, including the physical and biological sciences, humanities, social sciences, engineering, pre-med and pre-law, are based on the fundamental systems concepts of boundaries, components as subsystems, processes as flows of materials, energy, and messages, work accomplished, functions performed, hierarchical structures, and more. Understanding these basics enables further understanding both of how systems endure and how they may become increasingly complex and exhibit new properties or characteristics. Serves as a textbook for teaching systems fundamentals in any discipline or for use in an introductory course in systems science degree programs Addresses a wide range of audiences with different levels of mathematical sophistication Includes open-ended questions in special boxes intended to stimulate integrated thinking and class discussion Describes numerous examples of systems in science and society Captures the trend towards interdisciplinary research and problem solving

This book has a rather strange history. It began in Spring 1989, thirteen years after our Systems Science Department at SUNY -Binghamton was established, when I was asked by a group of students in our doctoral program to have a meeting with them. The spokesman of the group, Cliff Joslyn, opened our meeting by stating its purpose. I can closely paraphrase what he said: "We called this meeting to discuss with you, as Chairman of the Department, a fundamental problem with our systems science curriculum. In general, we consider it a good curriculum: we learn a lot of concepts, principles, and methodological tools, mathematical, computational, heuristic, which are fundamental to understanding and dealing with systems. And, yet, we learn virtually nothing about systems science itself. What is systems science? What are its historical roots? What are its aims? Where does it stand and where is it likely to go? These are pressing questions to us. After all, aren't we supposed to carry the systems science flag after we graduate from this program? We feel that a broad introductory course to systems science is urgently needed in the curriculum. Do you agree with this assessment?" The answer was obvious and, yet, not easy to give: "I agree, of course, but I do not see how the situation could be alleviated in the foreseeable future.

Scientific investigation in the service industry has produced a major effect on productivity and quality in order to lead to new services. With ever-evolving internet technologies and information environments, system science and knowledge science seem to be an effective tool for service innovation in the 21st century. Progressive Trends in Knowledge and System-Based Science for Service Innovation illustrates new approaches to service innovation and new methodologies from the knowledge science and system science perspectives. Practitioners and researchers interested in knowing more about practical theories and successful examples in service science will find this book to be a vital asset to their studies.

The originality of this book, which deals with such a new subject matter, lies in the application of methods and concepts never used before – such as ontologies and taxonomies, as well as thesauri - to the ordering of knowledge based on primary information. Chapters in the book also examine the study of ontologies, taxonomies and thesauri from the perspective of systematics and general systems theory. Ontologies, Taxonomies and Thesauri in Systems Science and Systematics will be extremely useful to those operating within the network of related fields, which includes documentation and information science. Ontologies and Taxonomy Knowledge classification Systems Thesauri