31th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases

Information modelling is becoming more and more important topic for researchers, designers, and users of information systems.The amount and complexity of information itself, the number of abstractionlevels of information, and the size of databases and knowledge bases arecontinuously growing. Conceptual modelling is one of the sub-areas ofinformation modelling. The aim of this conference is to bring together experts from different areas of computer science and other disciplines, who have a common interest in understanding and solving problems on information modelling and knowledge bases, as well as applying the results of research to practice. We also aim to recognize and study new areas on modelling and knowledge bases to which more attention should be paid. Therefore philosophy and logic, cognitive science, knowledge management, linguistics and management science are relevant areas, too. In the conference, there will be three categories of presentations, i.e. full papers, short papers and position papers

Fabricate 2020

Fabricate 2020 is the fourth title in the FABRICATE series on the theme of digital fabrication and published in conjunction with a triennial conference (London, April 2020). The book features cutting-edge built projects and work-in-progress from both academia and practice. It brings together pioneers in design and making from across the fields of architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation. Fabricate 2020 includes 32 illustrated articles punctuated by four conversations between world-leading experts from design to engineering, discussing themes such as drawing-to-production, behavioural composites, robotic assembly, and digital craft

A General Theory of Emergence in Engineered Systems

Engineered systems are designed to satisfy specific needs and produce explainable/predictable results. But despite this intent, engineered systems don’t always do what they are designed to do once they are implemented. Some engineered systems produce properties and behaviors that are not clearly explainable or predictable by the properties of their components. This is a problem recognized in government and private sectors as having broad ranging financial and security consequences. It is also the essence of the emergence phenomena. A review of the literature reveals two significant gaps in the current body of knowledge on emergence as it pertains to engineered systems: 1) no conceptual model that reconciles conflicting aspects of emergence; and 2) no explanation of system factors and their relationships that affect the occurrence of emergence. The gaps are addressed in this dissertation through research using a methodology that incorporates rationalist inductive methods with modeling & simulation frameworks. Where other research and models of emergence focus on entity or agent behavior; the research in this dissertation takes place from a systems perspective. The focus is on system level behaviors and system factors as they pertain to the occurrence of emergent effects. Generally accepted thermodynamic principles and axioms for chemical reactions are used to develop scientific analogies for factors in engineered systems. A theory is derived consisting of six factors that are determinants in a mathematical model of a tipping point at which emergent effects will occur in engineered systems: 1) interoperability; 2) concentration of components; 3) component degrees of freedom; 4) variety of system regulators; 5) rate of information received vs transmitted by the system; and 6) relative amount of information received by the system vs a threshold for change in the system configuration. The theory and its implications are explored in simulation experiments. Other products and contributions of the research include: a) an ontology of emergence concepts; b) a unifying definition of emergence; and c) a system dynamics model of emergence in engineered systems