DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS MODELLING

OVERVIEW AND INTRO

24 May 2010SEABISC/SICSA

Paola Di MaioISTCS

University of Strathclyde, DMEM

Contents

• About me/background• About these slides• Digital Ecosystems• Socio-Technical Systems• Current work• SEABICS Wishlist

ABOUT ME• Early career and background in Information Management,

Languages, Economics, Business (socio-technical systems) (BAHons)

•  Worked as London based science and technology correspondent 1995-2000 (eventually I got an MSc in Information Systems)

• Systems Thinking (everything is a system) for me has always been a personal inclination to think 'out of the box‘ and consider systemic aspects of everything (i.e. root cause analysis technique, which is as simple as children asking WHY) – (considered a behavioral disorder when you are a grown up)

• Attended my first lecture on General Systems Theory, 1993 at UNAM Mexico (International Relations) 1932-68 General System theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, Ludwig von Bertalanffy

• Since then, legitimately developed systemic thinking. Manage to solve problems outside my domain by using system approach Worked in publishing, education, research, IT , engineering, management

• Now Everything is a  system (when I worked in process design, everything was a process) Doing a PhD in SysEng

MY WORK AND RESEARCHLecturer and applied resercher in:

Knowledge Based SystemsInformation ManagementKeeping an eye out on various thingsSocio-Technical Systems (also with the SICSA group)Networking! (also with the SCONE)

Founder of ISTCS.org (2010)Writing doctoral thesis in Systems EngineeringMember of INCOSE (systems engineering council)and part of various other entities

Currently delivering a systems engineering and socio technical systems lectures and courses, hire me to teach a class!

ABOUT THESE SLIDES

The slides presented here contain merely pointers from recent work/presentations delivered elsewhere

Not intended as a structured/logical research questionbut to give a flavour of some of the topics I am working on

The purpose of these slides is to engage SEABIS audience into some of the research areas, and hopefully stimulate some discussion/joint work

SYSTEMS, ECOSYSTEMS, DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTSThe basis of my research is 'systems', in particular socio-technical systems (organisations, society, people and their interaction with new technologies)

Too often 'complex systems' science is studied, modelled and represented from a mathematics/linear logic perspectives

But neither maths nor linear logic are sufficient to model human and socio-technical behaviours

My work is aimed at developing artefacts to support the research of socio-technical systems

COMMONALITIES

Systems principles apply to all systems. Ecosystems are referred to as the environment/habitats.Therefore take a system of system perspective. We however distinguish between 'natural systems' and 'artificial systems'. Natural ecosystems are open, as they need constant input/output flows to maintain their internal equilibrium.They rely on a degree of open boundaries to support (interaction) Artificial ecosystems simulate most dynamics of the natural ones, but do not rely on open boundaries, therefore their internal equilibrium is established by controlled input/outputs

Natural Ecosystem *the real world (?)

Digital Ecosystem(Data and Information about the real world, possibly

becoming a world in itslelf?)

CO EVOLUTION, patterns of modified behaviours through constant information exchange

Knowledge Ecosystems(where organisations often fail to exchange)

Intelligence as collective socio technical system property

• Important parts of our intelligence reside in collective properties, not individual properties

• Important parts of our personal cognitive processes are caused by unconscious and automatic processes such as signaling and mimicry.

• Modeling humans as a distributed, network-based intelligence and then layer on individual cognitive processes is a radical change of emphasis for most researchers. (Alex Pentland, MIT)

 COMPLEX SYSTEM

• Emergence results from dynamic combination of a system components, and based on the dependence of the whole on its parts, and their parts mutual interdependence and specialization.

• Pattern formation: are the visible, outcomes of and the common principles behind matching behaviors.

• Paradoxes. Diverse and heterogeneous components of a system can results in contrasting and sometimes opposed characteristics both being present , such as simplicity and complexity, order and disorder, random and predictable behavior,

VERY IMPORTANT!Shared Vocabularies

• To do this work we need some shared language

• Different kinds of vocabularies: (taxonomies thesauri, glossary data dictionary)

• Shared vocabulary is generally a controlled vocabulary

Controlled Vocabulary Paradox:No single definition of what a CV is

* A carefully selected set of terms - words and phrases - such that each concept from the domain of discourse is described using only one term in ...en.wiktionary.org/wiki/controlled_vocabulary

* A set of standard subject terms used by a database to describe the subject content of the items cited within the database. Many, if not most, databases use a controlled vocabulary. These controlled vocabularies vary from database to database. ...www.clarion.edu/395/63165/

…. many other definitions of what a controlled vocabulary is …

KEY: SHARING DATA/INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE

Shared Vocabulary Levels

• Syntax (schema, xml, rdf)• Semantics (meanings)• Conceptual (representation)• Pragmatic (use)• Procedural (common processes)

SEABIS WISHLISTGreat to have found a local community of practice

Let's make sure efforts are not just 'notional'

Would like to bring some of the knowledge we have from research into practice: into our schools, universities, communities and into society at large

Institutions are stuck and chocking on bureaucracy, so we have to become 'research entrepreneurs' to do what we want to do

Informal and non bureaucratic opportunities to work and collaborate for common goals very welcome!

A LOT OF WORK AHEAD!

• Thank you for listening!• Look me up to find out more links to my work• Thank you SICSA/SEABIS for the

opportunities ahead• Shall we work together on something?• Questions, comments, suggestions

Paola.dimaio at g/mai'l