Portal:Systems science
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Complex systems approach |
Systems science is an transdisciplinary[1] field that studies the nature of systems—from simple to complex—in nature, society, cognition, engineering, technology and science itself. To systems scientists, the world can be understood as a system of systems. The field aims to develop interdisciplinary foundations that are applicable in a variety of areas, such as psychology, biology, medicine, communication, business management, engineering, and social sciences.
Systems science covers formal sciences such as complex systems, cybernetics, dynamical systems theory, information theory, linguistics or systems theory. It has applications in the field of the natural and social sciences and engineering, such as control theory, operations research, social systems theory, systems biology, system dynamics, human factors, systems ecology, systems engineering and systems psychology. Themes commonly stressed in system science are (a) holistic view, (b) interaction between a system and its embedding environment, and (c) complex (often subtle) trajectories of dynamic behavior that sometimes are stable (and thus reinforcing), while at various 'boundary conditions' can become wildly unstable (and thus destructive). Concerns about Earth-scale biosphere/geosphere dynamics is an example of the nature of problems to which systems science seeks to contribute meaningful insights.
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An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a economy. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community.
An economic system is a type of social system. The mode of production is a related concept. All economic systems must confront and solve the four fundamental economic problems:
- What kinds and quantities of goods shall be produced: This fundamental economic problem is anchored on the theory of pricing. The theory of pricing, in this context, has to do with the economic decision-making between the production of capital goods and consumer goods in the economy in the face of scarce resources. In this regard, the critical evaluation of the needs of the society based on population distribution in terms of age, sex, occupation, and geography is very pertinent.
- How goods shall be produced: The fundamental problem of how goods shall be produced is largely hinged on the least-cost method of production to be adopted as gainfully peculiar to the economically decided goods and services to be produced. On a broad note, the possible production method includes labor-intensive and capital-intensive methods.
- How the output will be distributed: Production is said to be completed when the goods get to the final consumers. This fundamental problem clogs in the wheel of the chain of economic resources distributions can reduce to the barest minimum and optimize consumers' satisfaction.
- When to produce: Consumer satisfaction is partly a function of seasonal analysis as the forces of demand and supply have a lot to do with time. This fundamental economic problem requires an intensive study of time dynamics and seasonal variation vis-a-vis the satisfaction of consumers' needs. It is noteworthy to state that solutions to these fundamental problems can be determined by the type of economic system. (Full article...)
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This image illustrates part of the Mandelbrot set fractal. The size of the JPEG file encoding the bitmap of this image is more than 17 kilobytes (approximately 140000 bits). The same file can be generated by a computer program much shorter than 140000 bits, however. Thus, the Kolmogorov complexity of the JPEG file encoding the bitmap is much less than 140000.
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Selected biography -
Béla Heinrich Bánáthy (Hungarian: Bánáthy Béla; December 1, 1919 – September 4, 2003) was a Hungarian-American linguist, and Professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley. He is known as founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program, established the International Systems Institute in 1982, and was co-founder of the General Evolutionary Research Group in 1984.
He grew up in largely rural Hungary and served in the Hungarian military during World War II. When Russia invaded Hungary in April 1945, he and his family fled to Allied-occupied Austria and lived in a displaced persons camp for six years. In 1951, they emigrated to Chicago, sponsored by the Presbyterian church. Within the year his former commanding officer suggested to the U.S. government that they hire Bánáthy as a Hungarian instructor at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. While living in Monterey, he founded the White Stag Leadership Development Program. (Full article...)
Did you know
- ... that the Austrian American Heinz von Foerster in 1960 in Science magazine stated, that the human population would reach "infinity" and he proposed a formula for predicting future population growth.
- ... that American systems theorist Debora Hammond in the new millennium explores new ways of thinking about complex systems that support more participatory forms of social organization?
- ... that the American neurophysiologist Ralph W. Gerard late 1940s developed an intracellular recording microelectrode, that revolutionized research in neurobiology?
- ... that self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source?
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