36,493 research outputs found
Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition
Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of
industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of
knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New
developments in information processing and information communication
technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions,
representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective,
multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative
work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences,
sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary
unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the
descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process
of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied
domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their
design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and
various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user
experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions.
When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from
different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing
common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our
environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces
for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of
transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics.
We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our
different research fields that include information studies, computability,
human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and
philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for
Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and
Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor
Systemic: A Testbed For Characterizing the Detection of Extrasolar Planets. I. The Systemic Console Package
We present the systemic Console, a new all-in-one, general-purpose software
package for the analysis and combined multiparameter fitting of Doppler radial
velocity (RV) and transit timing observations. We give an overview of the
computational algorithms implemented in the Console, and describe the tools
offered for streamlining the characterization of planetary systems. We
illustrate the capabilities of the package by analyzing an updated radial
velocity data set for the HD128311 planetary system. HD128311 harbors a pair of
planets that appear to be participating in a 2:1 mean motion resonance. We show
that the dynamical configuration cannot be fully determined from the current
data. We find that if a planetary system like HD128311 is found to undergo
transits, then self-consistent Newtonian fits to combined radial velocity data
and a small number of timing measurements of transit midpoints can provide an
immediate and vastly improved characterization of the planet's dynamical state.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication on PASP. Additional
material at http://www.ucolick.org/~smeschia/systemic.ph
Sustainability Debt: A Metaphor to Support Sustainability Design Decisions
Sustainability, the capacity to endure, is fundamental for the societies on our planet. Despite its increasing recognition in software engineering, it remains difficult to assess the delayed systemic effects of decisions taken in requirements engineering and systems design. To support this difficult task, this paper introduces the concept of sustainability debt. The metaphor helps in the discovery, documentation, and communication of sustainability issues in requirements engineering. We build on the existing metaphor of technical debt and extend it to four other dimensions of sustainability to help think about sustainability-aware software systems engineering. We highlight the meaning of debt in each dimension and the relationships between those dimensions. Finally, we discuss the use of the metaphor and explore how it can help us to design sustainability-aware software intensive systems
Systemic Innovation in a Distributed Network Paradox or Pinnacle?
Previous research has suggested that there is a dichotomy of organisational practices: companies involved in autonomous or modularised innovations, it is argued, benefit from decentralised approaches where coordination primarily takes place through the marketplace, whereas the benefits of systemic innovation are said to be appropriated best by centralised organisations. However, case studies of subcontractors to the Danish wind turbine industry suggest that the ability to meet heterogeneous demands plays an important role for the success of different forms of organisational practices in relation to innovation. The modularised versus systemic architecture approach therefore appears to be a too sweeping dichotomy for describing what can better be perceived as an array of different practices for balancing innovation contribution with the ability of individual firms to appropriate innovation benefits – and a heterogeneous market perception is a core element in building and sustaining this ability.Organisational Forms, Innovation System, Knowledge Complementarities, Value Appropriation
Information technology as boundary object for transformational learning
Collaborative work is considered as a way to improve productivity and value generation in
construction. However, recent research demonstrates that socio-cognitive factors related to fragmentation of specialized knowledge may hinder team performance. New methods based on theories of practice are emerging in Computer Supported Collaborative Work and organisational learning to break these knowledge boundaries,
facilitating knowledge sharing and the generation of new knowledge through transformational learning. According to these theories, objects used in professional practice play a key role in mediating interactions. Rules and methods related to these practices are also embedded in these objects. Therefore changing collaborative
patterns demand reconfiguring objects that are at the boundary between specialized practices, namely boundary objects. This research is unique in presenting an IT strategy in which technology is used as a boundary object to facilitate transformational learning in collaborative design work
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Information systems: a cyborg discipline?
This paper argues for a model of information systems in terms of cyborgs – a boundary-crossing mixture of the technical and the social. The argument for this model is substantiated from the personal experience of the author, presented as examples of being a cyborg researcher within a disciplinary context. Lessons for information systems are drawn
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Security-Informed Safety: Supporting Stakeholders with Codes of Practice
Codes of practice provide principles and guidance on how organizations can incorporate security considerations into their safety engineering lifecycle and become more security minded
The Invisible Power of MacHines Revisiting the Proposed Flash Order Ban in the Wake of the Flash Crash
Technological innovation continues to make trading and markets more efficient, generally benefitting market participants and the investing public. But flash trading, a practice that evolved from high-frequency trading, benefits only a select few sophisticated traders and institutions with the resources necessary to view and respond to flashed orders. This practice undermines the basic principles of fairness and transparency in securities regulation, exacerbates information asymmetries and harms investor confidence. This iBrief revisits the Securities and Exchange Commission\u27s proposed ban on the controversial practice of flash trading and urges the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to implement the ban across the securities and futures markets. Banning flash trading will not impact high-frequency trading or other advantageous innovative trading practices, and will benefit all market participants by making prices and liquidity more transparent. In the wake of the May 6, 2010 flash crash and the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, now is an opportune time for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to implement the ban
A Platform for Automating Chaos Experiments
The Netflix video streaming system is composed of many interacting services.
In such a large system, failures in individual services are not uncommon. This
paper describes the Chaos Automation Platform, a system for running failure
injection experiments on the production system to verify that failures in
non-critical services do not result in system outages.Comment: Conference publicatio
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