An assessment of DREAM, appendix E

The design realization, evaluation and modelling (DREAM) system is evaluated. A short history of the DREAM research project is given as well as the significant characteristics of DREAM as a development environment. The design notation which is the basis for the DREAM system is reviewed, and the development tools envisioned as part of DREAM are discussed. Insights into development environments and their production are presented and used to make suggestions for future work in the area of development environments

Mapping Big Data into Knowledge Space with Cognitive Cyber-Infrastructure

Big data research has attracted great attention in science, technology, industry and society. It is developing with the evolving scientific paradigm, the fourth industrial revolution, and the transformational innovation of technologies. However, its nature and fundamental challenge have not been recognized, and its own methodology has not been formed. This paper explores and answers the following questions: What is big data? What are the basic methods for representing, managing and analyzing big data? What is the relationship between big data and knowledge? Can we find a mapping from big data into knowledge space? What kind of infrastructure is required to support not only big data management and analysis but also knowledge discovery, sharing and management? What is the relationship between big data and science paradigm? What is the nature and fundamental challenge of big data computing? A multi-dimensional perspective is presented toward a methodology of big data computing.Comment: 59 page

Extending Two-Dimensional Knowledge Management System Theory with Organizational Activity Systems\u27 Workflow Dynamics

Between 2005 and 2010 and across 48 countries, including the United States, an increasing positive correlation emerged between national intellectual capital and gross domestic product per capita. The problem remains organizations operating with increasingly complex knowledge networks often lose intellectual capital resulting from ineffective knowledge management practices. The purpose of this study was to provide management opportunities to reduce intellectual capital loss. The first research question addressed how an enhanced intelligent, complex, and adaptive system (ICAS) model could clarify management\u27s understanding of organizational knowledge transfer. The second research question addressed how interdisciplinary theory could become more meaningfully infused to enhance management practices of the organization\u27s knowledge ecosystem. The nature of this study was phenomenological to gain deeper understanding of individual experiences related to knowledge flow phenomena. Data were collected from a single historical research dataset containing 11 subject interviews and analyzed using Moustakas\u27 heuristic framework. Original interviews were collected in 2012 during research within a military unit, included in this study based on theme alignment. Organizational, knowledge management, emergent systems, and cognition theories were synthesized to enhance understandings of emergent ICAS forces. Individuals create unique ICAS flow emergent force dynamics in relation to micro- and macro-meso sensemaking and sensegiving. Findings indicated individual knowledge work significantly shapes emergent ICAS flow dynamics. Collectively enhancing knowledge stewardship over time could foster positive social change by improving national welfare

A complexity approach to defining urban energy systems

Urban energy systems have been commonly considered to be socio-technical systems within the boundaries of an urban area. However, recent literature challenges this notion in that it urges researchers to look at the wider interactions and influences of urban energy systems wherein the socio-technical sphere is expanded to political, environmental and economic realms as well. In addition to the inter-sectoral linkages, the diverse agents and multilevel governance trends of energy sustainability in the dynamic environment of cities make the urban energy landscape a complex one. There is a strong case then for establishing a new conceptualisation of urban energy systems that builds upon these contemporary understandings of such systems. We argue that the complex systems approach can be suitable for this. In this paper, we propose a pilot framework for understanding urban energy systems using complex systems theory as an integrating plane. We review the multiple streams of urban energy literature to identify the contemporary discussions and construct this framework that can serve as a common ontological understanding for the different scholarships studying urban energy systems. We conclude the paper by highlighting the ways in which the framework can serve some of the relevant communities

Communication in organizations: the heart of information systems

We propose a theory characterizing information systems (IS) as language communities which use and develop domain-specific languages for communication. Our theory is anchored in Language Critique, a branch of philosophy of language. In developing our theory, we draw on Systems Theory and Cybernetics as a theoretical framework. "Organization" of a system is directly related to communication of its sub-systems. "Big systems" are self-organizing and the control of this ability is disseminated throughout the system itself. Therefore, the influence on changes of the system from its outside is limited. Operations intended to change an organization are restricted to indirect approaches. The creation of domain-specific languages by the system itself leads to advantageous communication costs compared to colloquial communication at the price of set-up costs for language communities. Furthermore, we demonstrate how our theoretical constructs help to describe and predict the behavior of IS. Finally, we discuss implications of our theory for further research and IS in general. Keywords: Language Critique, language communities, communication, self-organization, IS researc

Endogenously Emergent Information Systems

This paper analyzes the concept of “emergence” in the context of information systems and discusses its implications to the IS research. The analysis shows that this literature as¬sumes emergence to be an outcome of exogenous, although, complex design agency, largely omitting endogenous emergence, rising from the complexity of the information system and its operational interaction with its environment. Reflecting the IS perspective, the paper reviews research on endogenous emergence conducted especially in Computer Science and Software Engineering

A universal theory of social groups: the actor-system-dynamics approach to agents, rule regimes, and interaction processes

Drawing on multi-level, dynamic systems theory in sociology which has been developed and applied in institutional, organizational, and societal analyses, we formulate a general theory of social groups. This social systems approach has not been previously applied in the group area. We claim that this particular systems approach can be systematically and fruitfully applied to small as well as large groups to understand and analyze their functioning and dynamics. In this article, we refer to a group as an aggregation of persons/social agents that is characterized by (1) shared group identity, (2) a shared rule regime (collective culture) shaping and regulating their roles and role relationships and group behavioral outputs (3) its bases of membership and adherence or commitment to the group, its identity and rule regime, (4) its technologies and material resources used in group interactions, 2 performances, and productions (5) it shared places (situations for interaction), and (6) its times for gathering and interacting. The theory identifies three universal bases on which any human group or social organization, including small groups, depends and which motivate, shape and regulate group activities and productions (Section II). The bases are group requisites – necessary for group “functioning” and interacting in more or less orderly or coherent ways, realizing group as well as possibly members’ goals and maintaining and reproducing the group. The group bases consist of, first, a rule regime or social structural base; second, an agential base of group members socialized or partially socialized carriers of and adherents to the group’s rule regime; of importance here are involvement/participation factors motivating member to adhere to, accept, and implement the rule regime; third, there is a resource base, technologies and resources self-produced and/or obtained from the environment, which are essential to key group activities. In the theory presented here in Section II, a social group is not only characterized by its three universal bases but by its universal functions, group actions and outputs -- its interactions and productions/performances and their outcomes and developments including the impact of their productions on the group itself (reflexivity) and on its environment (see Figure 1). These outputs, among other things, maintain/adapt/develop core group Bases (or possibly unintentionally undermine/destroy them). Thus, groups can be understood as action/interaction systems producing goods, services, incidents and events, experiences, developments, etc. for themselves and possibly for the larger environment on which they depend for resources, recruits, goods and services, legitimation, etc. The theory identifies the six (6) universal system functions of groups. A major distinctive feature in our systems approach is the theory of rule regimes, specifying the finite universal rule categories (ten distinct categories) that characterize every functioning social group or organization. A rule regime, while an abstraction is carried, applied, adapted, and transformed by concrete human agents, who interact, exchange, exercise power, and struggle within the group, in large part based on the rule regime which they maintain, adapt, and transform. We emphasize not only the systemic character of all functioning groups – universally their three bases and their six output functions together with feedback dynamics -- but also the differentiating character of any given group’s particular rule configuration. The article ends with a discussion of two major theoretical implications: (1) the identification and analyses of any given group’s particular rule configuration which characterize that group and is sustained under relatively stable internal and external conditions (Section III); for illustrative purposes we present in Section IV a selection of few simple rule configurations that characterize several diverse types of groups. (2) the transformation of group bases and their interaction/production functions. The theory enables from a single framework the systematic description and comparative analysis of a wide diversity of groups, as illustrated in Sections III and IV