Toward Solving Complex Human Problems

Toward Solving Complex Human Problems PDF

Author: Brian E. White

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2020-12-18

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1000328902

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This book serves three basic purposes: (1) a tutorial-type reference for complex systems engineering (CSE) concepts and associated terminology, (2) a recommendation of a proposed methodology showing how the evolving practice of CSE can lead to a more unified theory, and (3) a complex systems (CSs) initiative for organizations to invest some of their resources toward helping to make the world a better place. A wide variety of technical practitioners—e.g., developers of new or improved systems (particularly systems engineers), program and project managers, associated staff/workers, funders and overseers, government executives, military officers, systems acquisition personnel, contract specialists, owners of large and small businesses, professional society members, and CS researchers—may be interested in further exploring these topics. Readers will learn more about CS characteristics and behaviors and CSE principles and will therefore be able to focus on techniques that will better serve them in their everyday work environments in dealing with complexity. The fundamental observation is that many systems inherently involve a deeper complexity because stakeholders are engaged in the enterprise. This means that such CSs are more difficult to invent, create, or improve upon because no one can be in total control since people cannot be completely controlled. Therefore, one needs to concentrate on trying to influence progress, then wait a suitable amount of time to see what happens, iterating as necessary. With just three chapters in this book, it seems to make sense to provide a tutorial introduction that readers can peruse only as necessary, considering their background and understanding, then a chapter laying out the suggested artifacts and methodology, followed by a chapter emphasizing worthwhile areas of application.

Discipline-Based Education Research

Discipline-Based Education Research PDF

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2012-08-27

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0309254140

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The National Science Foundation funded a synthesis study on the status, contributions, and future direction of discipline-based education research (DBER) in physics, biological sciences, geosciences, and chemistry. DBER combines knowledge of teaching and learning with deep knowledge of discipline-specific science content. It describes the discipline-specific difficulties learners face and the specialized intellectual and instructional resources that can facilitate student understanding. Discipline-Based Education Research is based on a 30-month study built on two workshops held in 2008 to explore evidence on promising practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This book asks questions that are essential to advancing DBER and broadening its impact on undergraduate science teaching and learning. The book provides empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences, explores the extent to which this research currently influences undergraduate instruction, and identifies the intellectual and material resources required to further develop DBER. Discipline-Based Education Research provides guidance for future DBER research. In addition, the findings and recommendations of this report may invite, if not assist, post-secondary institutions to increase interest and research activity in DBER and improve its quality and usefulness across all natural science disciples, as well as guide instruction and assessment across natural science courses to improve student learning. The book brings greater focus to issues of student attrition in the natural sciences that are related to the quality of instruction. Discipline-Based Education Research will be of interest to educators, policy makers, researchers, scholars, decision makers in universities, government agencies, curriculum developers, research sponsors, and education advocacy groups.

It's Not Complicated

It's Not Complicated PDF

Author: Rick Nason

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2017-05-08

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1487514786

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In the new knowledge economy, traditional modes of thinking are no longer effective. Compartmentalizing problems and solutions and assuming everything can be solved with the right formula can no longer keep pace with the radical changes occurring daily in the modern business world. It’s Not Complicated offers a paradigm shift for business professionals looking for simplified solutions to complex problems. In his straightforward and highly engaging style, Rick Nason introduces the principles of “complexity thinking” which empower managers to understand, correlate, and explain a diverse range of business phenomena. For example, why some new products go viral while others remain unnoticed, how office cliques develop despite collaborative work policies and spaces, how economic bubbles form, and how an unknown retiree foiled one of the most carefully planned product launches ever with a single letter to the editor of his local newspaper. Rather than consider complicated and complex as interchangeable terms, Rick Nason explains what complexity is, how it arises, and the errors in solving complex situations with complicated thinking. It’s Not Complicated provides managers with fresh, counterintuitive, and actionable models for dealing with challenging business problems.

Computational Intelligence, III

Computational Intelligence, III PDF

Author: G. Valle

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 1991-07-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0444597409

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In recent years AI has been experiencing a deep internal debate on the appropriateness of the symbolic-based paradigm and all of its consequences. While various symbolic representation schemes, as well as their integration, have been proposed, their limitations have continuously pushed researchers for improved versions or entirely new ones. New viewpoints such as the complex dynamic-based approach with neural nets can be regarded simply as new problem solving techniques with specific properties. Under this perspective, what seems to be important is the ability to combine heterogeneous representation and problem-solving techniques. Research on heterogeneous, intelligent systems goes hand in hand with research on specific problem solving methods and paradigms, therefore representing their conceptual and practical glueing element. The papers contained in this proceedings are just one instance of such awareness activity in the international scientific community.

Global Business

Global Business PDF

Author: Mahesh Joshi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-08-09

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 0192562479

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In the wake of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, globalization has found itself increasingly under the microscope. An active international discussion is underway, and the ideological viewpoint that the reversal of globalization and a return to protectionism and isolation will cure the world's ills is touted by many. In the midst of the growing prominence of international interconnectivity and contradicting attention attained by skewed misinformation about global impact, Global Business is a straightforward commentary on mega trends in globalization. With insights and observations from academics, practitioners, and practical thinkers from around the world Global Business demystifies the economic, social, and cultural impacts of globalism and globalization, and presents a balanced explanation of what is happening and how it affects everyone. It highlights that technology and change are not new, and explores the path taken to reach our current interconnected global state. It encourages a realistic examination of where we are and invites a dialogue on where we can go together.

Applied Innovation: A Handbook

Applied Innovation: A Handbook PDF

Author: Stephen A. Di Biase, Ph.d.

Publisher: Premier Insights LLC

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1505416876

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"Applied Innovation: A Handbook" outlines how a start-up CEO can take an innovation from concept to repeat sales including everything from the strategic elements of what innovation is to business models and intellectual property to how one sets up an advisory board etc. This work focuses on offering a road map for building a company from the ground up but can be applied to existing firms as well. The premise is that anyone can learn and apply the concepts of innovation in any part of their business and personal life if they know what is required.

Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences

Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences PDF

Author: Oren Harman

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-07-20

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 022657007X

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What are the conditions that foster true novelty and allow visionaries to set their eyes on unknown horizons? What have been the challenges that have spawned new innovations, and how have they shaped modern biology? In Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences, editors Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich explore these questions through the lives of eighteen exemplary biologists who had grand and often radical ideas that went far beyond the run-of-the-mill science of their peers. From the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who coined the word “biology” in the early nineteenth century, to the American James Lovelock, for whom the Earth is a living, breathing organism, these dreamers innovated in ways that forced their contemporaries to reexamine comfortable truths. With this collection readers will follow Jane Goodall into the hidden world of apes in African jungles and Francis Crick as he attacks the problem of consciousness. Join Mary Lasker on her campaign to conquer cancer and follow geneticist George Church as he dreams of bringing back woolly mammoths and Neanderthals. In these lives and the many others featured in these pages, we discover visions that were sometimes fantastical, quixotic, and even threatening and destabilizing, but always a challenge to the status quo.

Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities

Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities PDF

Author: Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Publisher: Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press)

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1888024534

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This Summer 2009 (VII, 3) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, is devoted to the theme “Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities.” As part of the journal’s continuing series critically engaging with C. Wright Mills’ “sociological imagination,” i.e., the proposition that the best way to theorize and practice sociology is via a continual conversation between the study of one’s personal troubles and that of broader public issues, the present issue turns its attention to fostering sociological re-imaginations in and of universities. Several faculty, recent graduates or alumni, and current undergraduate students advance insightful, critical perspectives about their own learning and teaching experiences and personal “troubles,” and broader university, disciplinary, and administrative “public issues” that in their view merit immediate attention in favor of fundamental rectifications of outdated procedures and educational habita that continue to persist at the cost of more creative, and in fact more scientific and rational, approaches to production and dissemination of knowledge. Contributors include: Satoshi Ikeda, Sandra J. Song, L. Lynda Harling Stalker, Jason Pridmore, Festus Ikeotuonye, Samuel Zalanga, Donald A. Nielsen, Anne Bubriski, Penelope Roode, Belle Summer, E. M. Walsh, Ann Marie Moler, Minxing Zheng, Andrew Messing, Jillian Pelletier, Christine Quinn, Trevor Doherty, Lisa Kemmerer, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.

The Logic of Professionalism

The Logic of Professionalism PDF

Author: Johan Alvehus

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2021-12-08

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1529206111

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This book discusses common management and work practices in professional service organizations. Alvehus opens important discussions on what it means to work, manage, and be managed in such professional organizations, casting light on classic conflicts. He takes everyday work as a starting point and adopts a critical view that focuses on challenges and struggles in both public and private settings. He offers new perspectives and key insights for the future of professionalism. Providing a comprehensive overview of the field, this book is an important guide for understanding how professionalism is maintained in today’s organizations. It will be essential reading for students and scholars of management and leadership.