A General, Yet Useful Theory of Information Systems

This tutorial presents and extends ideas presented in an article with the same title published recently in the Communications of AIS. (Alter, 1999). The basic idea is that the concept of “work system” provides an effective framework for studying almost any kind of information system. The meaning and significance of an information system is not in the information system itself, but rather, in the work system(s) it supports. The tutorial explains the elements of a work system and shows how the work system concept can be used as a common denominator for systems in operation and for projects. It shows how this concept can be used to understand topics including alternative roles of information systems, plumbing vs. content in information systems, success factors and other generalizations about systems, and various aspects of IS research

Systems Metaphysics: A Bridge from Science to Religion

\u27Systems theory\u27 is familiar to many as the scientific enterprise that includes the study of chaos, networks, and complex adaptive systems. It is less widely appreciated that the systems research program offers a world view that transcends the individual scientific disciplines. We do not live, as some argue, in a post-metaphysical age, but rather at a time when a new metaphysics is being constructed. This metaphysics is scientific and derives from graph theory, information theory, non-linear dynamics, decision theory, game theory, generalized evolution, and other transdisciplinary theories. These \u27systems\u27 theories focus on form and process, independent of materiality; they are thus relevant to both the natural and social sciences and even to the humanities and the arts. Concerned more with the complex than the very small or very large, they constitute a metaphysics that is centered in biology, and thus near rather than far from the human scale. Systems metaphysics forges a unity of science based on what is general instead of what is fundamental; it is thus genuinely about everything. It counters the nihilism of narrow interpretations of science by affirming the link between fact and value and the reality of purpose and freedom in the natural world. It offers scientific knowledge that is individually useful as a source of insight, not merely societally useful, as a source of technology. With the new world view that it brings, systems metaphysics contributes to the recovery of cultural coherence. It builds a philosophical bridge between science and religion that is informed by our understanding of living systems. It suggests a secular theodicy in which imperfection is lawful yet perfecting is always possible, and uses this perspective to analyze religions as systems. It provides scientific insights into traditional religious concepts, including those ideas that guide spiritual practice

Systems Metaphysics: A Bridge from Science to Religion [Presentation]

\u27Systems theory\u27 is familiar to many as the scientific enterprise that includes the study of chaos, networks, and complex adaptive systems. It is less widely appreciated that the systems research program offers a world view that transcends the individual scientific disciplines. We do not live, as some argue, in a post-metaphysical age, but rather at a time when a new metaphysics is being constructed. This metaphysics is scientific and derives from graph theory, information theory, non-linear dynamics, decision theory, game theory, generalized evolution, and other transdisciplinary theories. These \u27systems\u27 theories focus on form and process, independent of materiality; they are thus relevant to both the natural and social sciences and even to the humanities and the arts. Concerned more with the complex than the very small or very large, they constitute a metaphysics that is centered in biology, and thus near rather than far from the human scale. Systems metaphysics forges a unity of science based on what is general instead of what is fundamental; it is thus genuinely about everything. It counters the nihilism of narrow interpretations of science by affirming the link between fact and value and the reality of purpose and freedom in the natural world. It offers scientific knowledge that is individually useful as a source of insight, not merely societally useful, as a source of technology. With the new world view that it brings, systems metaphysics contributes to the recovery of cultural coherence. It builds a philosophical bridge between science and religion that is informed by our understanding of living systems. It suggests a secular theodicy in which imperfection is lawful yet perfecting is always possible, and uses this perspective to analyze religions as systems. It provides scientific insights into traditional religious concepts, including those ideas that guide spiritual practice

From the invalidity of a General Classification Theory to a new organization of knowledge for the millennium to come

Proceedings der 10. Tagung der Deutschen Sektion der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Wissensorganisation. Wien, 3-5 Juli 2006The idea of organizing knowledge and the determinism in classifícation structures implicitly involve certain limits which are translated into a General Theory on the Classifícation of Knowledge, given that classifícation responds to specific parameters and structures more than to a theoretical concept. The classifícation of things is a refiection of their classifícation by man, and this is what determines classifícation structures. The classifícation and organization of knowledge are presented to us as an artificial construct or as a useful fiction elaborated by man. Positivist knowledge reached its peak in the 20* century when science classifications and implemented classifícation systems based on the latter were to be gestated and Consolidated. Pragmatism was to serve as the epistemological and theoretical basis for science and its classifícation. If the classifícation of the sciences has given rise to clastification systems, the organisation and representation of knowledge has to currendy give rise to the context of the globalisation of electronic information in the hypertextual organisational form of electronic information where, if in information the médium ivas the message, in organisation the médium is the structure. The virtual reality of electronic information delves even deeper into it; the process is completed as the subject attempts to look for information. This information market needs standards of an international nature for documents and data. This body of information organization will be characterized by its dynamic nature. If formal and material structures change our concept of knowledge and the way it is structured, then this organization will undergo dynamic change along with the material and formal structures of the real world. The semantic web is a qualitative leap which can be glimpsed on tiie new knowledge horizon; the latter would be shaped with the full integration of contents and data, the language itself would include data and its rules of reason or representation system. The new organisation of knowledge points to a totally nCw conception; post-modern epistemology has yet to be articulated. In the 21 st century, the organization of electronic information is presenting a novel hypertextual, non-linear architecture that will lead to a new change in the paradigm for organization of knowledge for the mülennium to come.Publicad

First step in the nuclear inverse Kohn-Sham problem: From densities to potentials

Nuclear density functional theory (DFT) plays a prominent role in the understanding of nuclear structure, being the approach with the widest range of applications. Hohenberg and Kohn theorems warrant the existence of a nuclear energy density functional (EDF), yet its form is unknown. Current efforts to build a nuclear EDF are hindered by the lack of a strategy for systematic improvement. In this context, alternative approaches should be pursued and, so far, an unexplored avenue is that related to the inverse DFT problem. DFT is based on the one-to-one correspondence between Kohn-Sham (KS) potentials and densities. The exact EDF produces the exact density, so that from the knowledge of experimental or ab initio densities one may deduce useful information through reverse engineering. The idea has already been proved to be useful in the case of electronic systems. The general problem should be dealt with in steps, and the objective of the present work is to focus on testing algorithms to extract the Kohn-Sham potential within the simplest ansatz from the knowledge of the experimental neutron and proton densities. We conclude that, while robust algorithms exist, the experimental densities present some critical aspects. Finally, we provide some perspectives for future works

Academic Skill Learning and the Problem of Complexity I: Creational Purposeful Integrated Capability at Skill (CPICS)

Physical and mental skills are intended to achieve success at acting purposefully. As capability at any skill increases, the need to adjust details of application to complexity of context and goals will increase as well. It will become more and more important to prepare mentally for what I now term Creational Purposeful Integrated Capability at Skill (CPICS). This paper develops what I mean by CPICS. Theory concerning Complex Dynamical Systems (CDS) such as the brain and other evidence points to the likelihood that the mental operations by which our brain produces any kind of skillful behavior cannot remain constant, but rather must develop through stages for skill to progress most profitably. Using early stages of math learning as an example, I propose that what can hold back some students at development of a skill is that even if presented with all the information need for progress, some students have not yet discovered how to make the most useful mental restructuring that is also needed. This paper proposes and discusses as an example details of what may be especially useful restructuring for early stages of math skill learning. This example is then taken as helping to identify the more general type of restructuring that is especially useful for addressing complexity of application that produces CPICS at every stage of skill improvement

Local Orthogonal Rectification: A New Tool for Geometric Phase Space Analysis

Local orthogonal rectification (LOR) provides a natural and useful geometric frame for analyzing dynamics relative to manifolds embedded in flows. LOR can be applied to any embedded base manifold in a system of ODEs of arbitrary dimension to establish a corresponding system of LOR equations for analyzing dynamics within the LOR frame. The LOR equations encode geometric properties of the underlying flow and remain valid, in general, beyond a local neighborhood of the embedded manifold. Additionally, we illustrate the utility of LOR by showing a wide range of application domains. In the plane, we use the LOR approach to derive a novel definition for rivers, long-recognized but poorly understood trajectories that locally attract other orbits yet need not be related to invariant manifolds or other familiar phase space structures, and to identify rivers within several example systems. In higher dimensions, we apply LOR to identify periodic orbits and study the transient dynamics nearby. In the LOR method, %in $\R^n$ for any $n$, the standard approach of finding periodic orbits by solving for fixed points of a Poincar\'{e} return map is replaced by the solution of a boundary value problem with fixed endpoints, and the computation provides information about the stability of the identified orbit. We detail the general method and derive theory to show that once a periodic orbit has been identified with LOR, the LOR coordinate system allows us to characterize the stability of the periodic orbit, to continue the orbit with respect to system parameters, to identify invariant manifolds attendant to the periodic orbit, and to compute the asymptotic phase associated with points in a neighborhood of the periodic orbit in a novel way. Finally, we generalize the definition of rivers beyond planar systems, and demonstrate a fundamental connection between canard solutions in two-timescale systems and generalized rivers. We will again use a blow-up transformation on the LOR equations, which provides a useful decomposition for studying trajectories' behavior relative to the embedded base curve

Improving Sedative-Hypnotic Prescribing in Older Hospitalized Patients: Provider-Perceived Benefits and Barriers of a Computer-Based Reminder

Background: Older adults are commonly prescribed sedative-hypnotic (SH) medications when hospitalized, yet these drugs are associated with important adverse effects such as falls and delirium. Objective: To identify provider-perceived benefits or barriers of a computer-based reminder regarding appropriate use of SH medications. Design: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants and setting: Thirty-six house staff physicians at a university hospital. Measurements: Information was collected regarding the experiences of prescribing an SH using a computer order entry system with a reminder intervention. Clinicians were asked about their perceptions of the reminder and what they found most and least useful about it. Responses were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Results: The 36 participants (including 29 interns) had prescribed an SH medication for a hospitalized patient over age 65 years. Three themes associated with benefits of a computer reminder were identified: increasing awareness of safety, including risk of delirium, falls, and general patient safety risks; usefulness of information technology; and the value of the educational content, including geriatric pharmacology review and nonpharmacologic treatment options. Barriers included the demands of the reminder with regard to time needed to read the reminder, the role of clinician experience with regard to preserving clinical autonomy, and the information content of the reminder, including its being too basic or not relevant for a particular patient. The mean satisfaction rating for the reminder was 8.5 (±0.9 SD), with 10 indicating high satisfaction. Conclusions: Improving decision support systems involves an understanding of how clinicians respond to real-time strategies encouraging better prescribing

Generalists, Specialists, and the Best Experts: Where do Systems Thinkers Fit In?

GENERALIST / SPECIALIST: A generalist is someone who has studied a little bit of everything, and in the end knows nothing well in particular. By contrast, a specialist is someone who has studied a single subject, and as a consequence does not even know his own subject, because every item of knowledge is related to other components of the whole system. The good scholar or scientist--like the good chef, manager, clinician, or orchestra conductor--is an expert in one field or craft, and knowledgeable in many. Like a mouse, he can explore the details of a terrain; and, like an owl, he can also soar to get a good view of the landscape--mice and all. He is capable of learning new subjects as needed, as well as placing every particular subject in a wide context and a long-term perspective. He is thus open to multiple inputs and capable of multiple outputs. In sum, the best expert is the specialist turned generalist. This holds in all fields of thought and action, particularly in philosophy. -- Mario Bunge, Philosophical DictionaryBunge\u27s definitions of the generalist, the specialist, and the best expert are thought-provoking (and may provoke other responses as well). Are systems practitioners, analysts, and theorists generalists, specialists, or the best experts? Because systems science concerns itself with general theories (e.g. graph theory, information theory, control theory, game theory, etc.) that can be applied to a wide range of problems, it appears to be a generalist field; but systems science has its own contributors, jargon, and history and is not widely studied (at least in the U.S.), and so appears to be a specialist field as well. And yet many of the early contributors to the systems project such as von Bertalanffy, Boulding, Wiener, and Ashby did indeed fit Bunge\u27s definition of the best expert, as all were specialists turned generalists. Since systems science is mostly taught at the graduate level, perhaps Bunge\u27s position is an implicit assumption in the systems field.You may not agree with all of Bunge\u27s assertions (or the conjecture above), but it is clear the views of the mice and the owls are needed for most (if not all) problems. Is the systems view that of the owls or that of mice in owl clothing? The answer may be fuzzy and a good starting point for our discussion. Perhaps a more interesting question is this: How we can use systems thinking to improve our problem solving abilities? A quick look at the jobs graduates of the PSU Systems Science Graduate Program have gone on to (https://www.pdx.edu/sysc/resources-jobs) makes it clear that systems principles are applicable in all kinds of fields. It is also clear that systems science can be useful for framing and solving global problems related to economics, energy, climate, and politics. So whether generalist or specialist--or whether one can meet the criteria Bunge requires of a best expert--what roles can a systems thinker fill?Here are a few questions to get the discussion going: Are you interested in being a general problem solver, or do you have a specific (i.e. specialized) problem you\u27d like to solve using systems thinking? Can you describe an instance when your knowledge of systems science gave you an insight you would not otherwise have had? What roles can systems theorists, analysts, and practitioners play in national and global debates? Do (or will) the public, politicians, and other experts accept systems thinkers as experts? Can (or do) systems practitioners and theorists act as liasons between specialists or between specialists and the public? Can you think of a field or a problem that is not being considered from a systems perspective but should be? (Extra credit) Can you think any field in which systems science would not be useful? This discussion can also be an opportunity for new students to ask questions about the systems field and discuss what they hope to gain with systems science knowledge, and for other students, graduates, and faculty to share their insights and experiences about the systems field and what they have gained from their systems science knowledge.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/systems_science_seminar_series/1043/thumbnail.jp

What is "system": the information-theoretic arguments

The problem of "what is 'system'?" is in the very foundations of modern quantum mechanics. Here, we point out the interest in this topic in the information-theoretic context. E.g., we point out the possibility to manipulate a pair of mutually non-interacting, non-entangled systems to employ entanglement of the newly defined '(sub)systems' consisting the one and the same composite system. Given the different divisions of a composite system into "subsystems", the Hamiltonian of the system may perform in general non-equivalent quantum computations. Redefinition of "subsystems" of a composite system may be regarded as a method for avoiding decoherence in the quantum hardware. In principle, all the notions refer to a composite system as simple as the hydrogen atom.Comment: 13 pages, no figure