132,484 research outputs found
Can Intellectual Processes in the Sciences Also Be Simulated? The Anticipation and Visualization of Possible Future States
Socio-cognitive action reproduces and changes both social and cognitive
structures. The analytical distinction between these dimensions of structure
provides us with richer models of scientific development. In this study, I
assume that (i) social structures organize expectations into belief structures
that can be attributed to individuals and communities; (ii) expectations are
specified in scholarly literature; and (iii) intellectually the sciences
(disciplines, specialties) tend to self-organize as systems of rationalized
expectations. Whereas social organizations remain localized, academic writings
can circulate, and expectations can be stabilized and globalized using
symbolically generalized codes of communication. The intellectual
restructuring, however, remains latent as a second-order dynamics that can be
accessed by participants only reflexively. Yet, the emerging "horizons of
meaning" provide feedback to the historically developing organizations by
constraining the possible future states as boundary conditions. I propose to
model these possible future states using incursive and hyper-incursive
equations from the computation of anticipatory systems. Simulations of these
equations enable us to visualize the couplings among the historical--i.e.,
recursive--progression of social structures along trajectories, the
evolutionary--i.e., hyper-incursive--development of systems of expectations at
the regime level, and the incursive instantiations of expectations in actions,
organizations, and texts.Comment: accepted for publication in Scientometrics (June 2015
The Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix, . . ., and an N-tuple of Helices: Explanatory Models for Analyzing the Knowledge-based Economy?
Using the Triple Helix model of university-industry-government relations, one
can measure the extent to which innovation has become systemic instead of
assuming the existence of national (or regional) systems of innovations on a
priori grounds. Systemness of innovation patterns, however, can be expected to
remain in transition because of integrating and differentiating forces.
Integration among the functions of wealth creation, knowledge production, and
normative control takes place at the interfaces in organizations, while
exchanges on the market, scholarly communication in knowledge production, and
political discourse tend to differentiate globally. The neo-institutional and
the neo-evolutionary versions of the Triple Helix model enable us to capture
this tension reflexively. Empirical studies inform us whether more than three
helices are needed for the explanation. The Triple Helix indicator can be
extended algorithmically, for example, with local-global as a fourth dimension
or, more generally, to an N-tuple of helices
The Effects of Technology and Innovation on Society
Various models of the information society have been
developed so far and they are so different from country to
country that it would be rather unwise to look for a single, allencompassing definition. In our time a number of profound
socio-economic changes are underway. The application of these
theories and schools on ICT is problematic in many respects.
First, as we stated above, there is not a single, widely used
paradigm which has synthesised the various schools and theories
dealing with technology and society. Second, these fragmented
approaches do not have a fully-fledged mode of application to the relationship of ICT and (information) society. Third, SCOT,
ANT, the evolutionary- or the systems approach to the history of technology when dealing with information society – does not take into account the results of approaches studying the very essence of the information age: information, communication and
knowledge. The list of unnoticed or partially incorporated
sciences, which focuses on the role of ICT in human information
processing and other cognitive activities, is much longer
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