This work addresses the notion of compression ratios greater than what has been known for random sequential strings in binary and larger radix-based systems as applied to those traditionally found in Kolmogorov complexity. A culmination of the author's decade-long research that began with his discovery of a compressible random sequential string, the book maintains a theoretical-statistical level of introduction suitable for mathematical physicists. It discusses the application of ternary-, quaternary-, and quinary-based systems in statistical communication theory, computing, and physics.

AI for Digital Warfare explores how the weaponising of artificial intelligence can and will change how warfare is being conducted, and what impact it will have on the corporate world. With artificial intelligence tools becoming increasingly advanced, and in many cases more humanlike, their potential in psychological warfare is being recognised, which means digital warfare can move beyond just shutting down IT systems into more all-encompassing hybrid war strategies.

Information services are economic and organizational activities for informing people. Because informing is changing rapidly under the influence of internet-technologies, this book presents in Chapter 1 fundamental notions of information and knowledge, based on philosopher C.W. Churchman's inquiring systems. This results in the identification of three product-oriented design theory aspects: content, use value and revenue. Chapter 2 describes how one can cope with these aspects by presenting process-oriented design theory. Both design theory insights are applied in chapters on information services challenges, their business concepts and processes, their architectures and exploitation. The final chapter discusses three case studies that integrate the insights from previous chapters, and it discusses some ideas for future research. This book gives students a coherent start to the topic of information services from a design science perspective, with a balance between technical and managerial aspects. Therefore, this book is useful for modern curricula of management, communication science and information systems. Because of its design science approach, it also explains design science principles. The book also serves professionals and academics in search of a foundational understanding of informing as a science and management practice.

The Stafford Beer Classic Library "Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the worlds most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If...anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer...everyone in management...should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and...even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is a highly original book both in content and format. It presents thirteen 'arguments for change', these are linked by a personal commentary, and by a deeper, 'metalinguistic', commentary. Platform for Change is completely self-contained, does not deal at all with the nature of viable systems, but is directed towards the hope that our planet may yet remain viable -- and the human race survive.

This unique volume presents a new approach ??? the general theory of information ??? to scientific understanding of information phenomena. Based on a thorough analysis of information processes in nature, technology, and society, as well as on the main directions in information theory, this theory synthesizes existing directions into a unified system. The book explains how this theory opens new kinds of possibilities for information technology, information sciences, computer science, knowledge engineering, psychology, linguistics, social sciences, and education. The book also gives a broad introduction to the main mathematically-based directions in information theory. The general theory of information provides a unified context for existing directions in information studies, making it possible to elaborate on a comprehensive definition of information; explain relations between information, data, and knowledge; and demonstrate how different mathematical models of information and information processes are related. Explanation of information essence and functioning is given, as well as answers to the following questions: ??? how information is related to knowledge and data; ??? how information is modeled by mathematical structures; ??? how these models are used to better understand computers and the Internet, cognition and education, communication and computation.

This book is a useful text for advanced students of MIS and ICT courses, and for those studying ICT in related areas: Management and Organization Studies, Cultural Studies, and Technology and Innovation. As ICT's permeate every sphere of society-business, education, leisure, government, etc.-it is important to reflect the character and complexity of the interaction between people and computer, between society and technology. For example, the user may represent a much broader set of actors than 'the user' conventionally found in many texts: the operator, the customer, the citizen, the gendered individual, the entrepreneur, the 'poor', the student. Each actor uses ICT in different ways. This book examines these issues, deploying a number of methods such as Actor Network Theory, Socio-Technical Systems, and phenomenological approaches. Management concerns about strategy and productivity are covered together with issues of power, politics, and globalization. Topics range from long-standing themes in the study of IT in organizations such as implementation, strategy, and evaluation, to general analysis of IT as socio-economic change. A distinguished group of contributors, including Bruno Latour, Saskia Sassen, Robert Galliers, Frank Land, Ian Angel, and Richard Boland, offer the reader a rich set of perspectives and ideas on the relationship between ICT and society, organizational knowledge and innovation.

This book is a history of the future. It shows how our contemporary understanding of the Internet is shaped by visions of the future that were put together in the 1950s and 1960s. At the height of the Cold War, the Americans invented the only working model of communism in human history: the Internet. Yet, for all of its libertarian potential, the goal of this hi-tech project was geopolitical dominance: the ownership of time was control over the destiny of humanity. The potentially subversive theory of cybernetics was transformed into the military-friendly project of 'artificial intelligence'. Capitalist growth became the fastest route to the 'information society'. The rest of the world was expected to follow America's path into the networked future. Today, we're still being told that the Internet is creating the information society - and that America today is everywhere else tomorrow. Thankfully, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the DIY ethic of the Internet shows that people can resist these authoritarian prophecies by shaping information technologies in their own interest. Ultimately, if we don't want the future to be what it used to be, we must invent our own, improved and truly revolutionary future.

Recounting the history of the study of organization conflict, the book presents alternative views to the traditional positivistic approach and the traditional assumption that conflict is destructive. The book also focus on the individual, showing how predisposition or skills impact on conflict in the organization, and vice versa.

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world’s most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA.

"If…anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer … everyone in management…should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and … even elegant diagrams." The Economist Awarded the 1966 Lanchester Prize by the Operations Research Society of America for the best work published in 1966 in the field of management science this book has been regarded as a ‘Classic’ ever since.

"in the literature of management there is nothing to be compared with it…" Operational Research Quarterly

"This superb book is one of the very best I have ever read on management science." Management Science

"A brilliant book… which rose far above the ruck of jargon-ridden ephemera. This is a study—profound, wide ranging, witty, graceful and self-critical of the working of managerial systems…" The Sunday Times

"The sheer scale and scope of Beer’s book would rate it management text of the year in any list" The Statist

"Decision and Control is a major work, both elegant and erudite." The Guardian

"Beer’s imagination and enthusiasm stimulate those with whom he works to seek and cause improvements…" The Director

Deal with information and uncertainty properly and efficiently using tools emerging from generalized information theory
Uncertainty and Information: Foundations of Generalized Information Theory contains comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of results that have emerged from a research program begun by the author in the early 1990s under the name "generalized information theory" (GIT). This ongoing research program aims to develop a formal mathematical treatment of the interrelated concepts of uncertainty and information in all their varieties. In GIT, as in classical information theory, uncertainty (predictive, retrodictive, diagnostic, prescriptive, and the like) is viewed as a manifestation of information deficiency, while information is viewed as anything capable of reducing the uncertainty. A broad conceptual framework for GIT is obtained by expanding the formalized language of classical set theory to include more expressive formalized languages based on fuzzy sets of various types, and by expanding classical theory of additive measures to include more expressive non-additive measures of various types.
This landmark book examines each of several theories for dealing with particular types of uncertainty at the following four levels:
* Mathematical formalization of the conceived type of uncertainty
* Calculus for manipulating this particular type of uncertainty
* Justifiable ways of measuring the amount of uncertainty in any situation formalizable in the theory
* Methodological aspects of the theory
With extensive use of examples and illustrations to clarify complex material and demonstrate practical applications, generous historical and bibliographical notes, end-of-chapter exercises to test readers' newfound knowledge, glossaries, and an Instructor's Manual, this is an excellent graduate-level textbook, as well as an outstanding reference for researchers and practitioners who deal with the various problems involving uncertainty and information.An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.

The book is a unique exploration of a spectrum of unexpected analogs to psychopathologies likely to afflict real-time critical systems, written by a specialist in the epidemiology of mental disorders. The purpose of this book is to develop a set of information-theoretic statistical tools for analyzing the instabilities of real-time cognitive systems at those varying scales and levels of organization, with special focus on high level machine function.The book should be of particular interest to both industry and academic scientists, and government regulators, concerned with driverless cars on intelligent roads. Many of the same concerns also afflict high-end automated weapons systems. The book should appeal to students, researchers, and industrial and governmental administrators facing the design, operation, and maintenance of real time critical systems ranging across manufacturing facilities, transportation, finance, and military operations.

This absorbing book provides a broad introduction to the surprising nature of change, and explains how the Law of Unintended Consequences arises from the waves of change following one simple change. Change is a constant topic of discussion, whether be it on climate, politics, technology, or any of the many other changes in our lives. However, does anyone truly understand what change is?Over time, mankind has deliberately built social and technology based systems that are goal-directed - there are goals to achieve and requirements to be met. Building such systems is man's way of planning for the future, and these plans are based on predicting the behavior of the system and its environment, at specified times in the future. Unfortunately, in a truly complex social or technical environment, this planned predictability can break down into a morass of surprising and unexpected consequences. Such unpredictability stems from the propagation of the effects of change through the influence of one event on another.The Nature of Change explains in detail the mechanism of change and will serve as an introduction to complex systems, or as complementary reading for systems engineering. This textbook will be especially useful to professionals in system building or business change management, and to students studying systems in a variety of fields such as information technology, business, law and society.

For the Love of Cybernetics: Personal Narratives by Cyberneticians is a collection of personal accounts that offer unique insights into cybernetics via the personal journeys of nine individuals. For the authors in this collection, cybernetics is not their "area of interest"-it is how they think about what they do, and it is their practice. Ray Ison, Bruce Clarke, Frank Galuzska, Paul Pangaro, Klaus Krippendorff, Peter Tuddenham, Lucas Pawlik, Bernard Scott, and Jocelyn Chapman differ in their lineage, emphasis, and engagement with cybernetics. What they have in common is that they share the belief that cybernetics is not a tool to apply here and there, but a unifying way of seeing the world that transforms how we behave, thus increasing possibilities for positive systemic change. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal, World Futures.

The future obviously matters to us. It is, after all, where we'll be spending the rest of our lives. We need some degree of foresight if we are to make effective plans for managing our affairs. Much that we would like to know in advance cannot be predicted. But a vast amount of successful prediction is nonetheless possible, especially in the context of applied sciences such as medicine, meteorology, and engineering. This book examines our prospects for finding out about the future in advance. It addresses questions such as why prediction is possible in some areas and not others; what sorts of methods and resources make successful prediction possible; and what obstacles limit the predictive venture.

Nicholas Rescher develops a general theory of prediction that encompasses its fundamental principles, methodology, and practice and gives an overview of its promises and problems. Predicting the future considers the anthropological and historical background of the predictive enterprise. It also examines the conceptual, epistemic, and ontological principles that set the stage for predictive efforts. In short, Rescher explores the basic features of the predictive situation and considers their broader implications in science, in philosophy, and in the management of our daily affairs.

We are surrounded by information. Even the most routine situations in which we find ourselves conceal a hidden information flow. Every step we take, a host of signals meet us, providing information about what is happening in other parts of reality. The cherry tree in bloom reveals that spring has arrived. The footprint left on wet sand indicates that someone has walked along the beach. A red traffic light signals that we must bring our car to a halt. In The Phenomenon of Information, author Mario Perez-Montoro addresses the problems of providing a theoretical explanation of how a signal carries informational content, how to identify its characteristics, and how to define the mechanisms for describing it. To do this, Perez-Montoro examines several theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of information: the mathematical theory of communication, Dretske's approach, and the relational theory of meaning. A critique of these efforts leads to the author's definition of informational content, named "the extensional approach," which is designed to overcome the conceptual limitations of the previous theories. The author proposes that his definition might serve as a basis on which a satisfactory analysis of the concept of information can be developed.

Offers Both Standard and Novel Approaches for the Modeling of SystemsExamines the Interesting Behavior of Particular Classes of Models Chaotic Modelling and Simulation: Analysis of Chaotic Models, Attractors and Forms presents the main models developed by pioneers of chaos theory, along with new extensions and variations of these models. Using more than 500 graphs and illustrations, the authors show how to design, estimate, and test an array of models. Requiring little prior knowledge of mathematics, the book focuses on classical forms and attractors as well as new simulation methods and techniques. Ideas clearly progress from the most elementary to the most advanced. The authors cover deterministic, stochastic, logistic, Gaussian, delay, Henon, Holmes, Lorenz, Roessler, and rotation models. They also look at chaotic analysis as a tool to design forms that appear in physical systems; simulate complicated and chaotic orbits and paths in the solar system; explore the Henon-Heiles, Contopoulos, and Hamiltonian systems; and provide a compilation of interesting systems and variations of systems, including the very intriguing Lotka-Volterra system. Making a complex topic accessible through a visual and geometric style, this book should inspire new developments in the field of chaotic models and encourage more readers to become involved in this rapidly advancing area.

This textbook for courses in Embedded Systems introduces students to necessary concepts, through a hands-on approach. LEARN BY EXAMPLE - This book is designed to teach the material the way it is learned, through example. Every concept is supported by numerous programming examples that provide the reader with a step-by-step explanation for how and why the computer is doing what it is doing. LEARN BY DOING - This book targets the Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller. This platform is a widely popular, low-cost embedded system that is used to illustrate each concept in the book. The book is designed for a reader that is at their computer with an MSP430FR2355 LaunchPadTM Development Kit plugged in so that each example can be coded and run as they learn. LEARN BOTH ASSEMBLY AND C - The book teaches the basic operation of an embedded computer using assembly language so that the computer operation can be explored at a low-level. Once more complicated systems are introduced (i.e., timers, analog-to-digital converters, and serial interfaces), the book moves into the C programming language. Moving to C allows the learner to abstract the operation of the lower-level hardware and focus on understanding how to "make things work". BASED ON SOUND PEDAGOGY - This book is designed with learning outcomes and assessment at its core. Each section addresses a specific learning outcome that the student should be able to "do" after its completion. The concept checks and exercise problems provide a rich set of assessment tools to measure student performance on each outcome.

Contents:
Preface Part I: Theory Personalized Chapter 1: Theory Retrospective Chapter 2: Theory Favorites Chapter 3: Theory Fashion Chapter 4: Framing Theory Chapter 5: Inside The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism Chapter 6: Consolidating Theory (Interview) Chapter 7: Theory, Literature, and Literary Studies Today (Interview) Part II: Cultural Studies Practiced Chapter 8: Criticizing Globalization: The Case of Pierre Bourdieu Chapter 9: The New Economic Criticisms: The Rise of the Lilliputians Chapter 10: Postmodern Fashion Chapter 11: Blues Southwestern Style Chapter 12: Postmodern Interdisciplinarity Appendix Notes Index Olesen, and Nina Lykke

An effective blend of carefully explained theory and practical applications, this text imparts the fundamentals of both information theory and data compression. Although the two topics are related, this unique text allows either topic to be presented independently, and it was specifically designed so that the data compression section requires no prior knowledge of information theory.

The treatment of information theory, while theoretical and abstract, is quite elementary, making this text less daunting than many others. After presenting the fundamental definitions and results of the theory, the authors then apply the theory to memoryless, discrete channels with zeroth-order, one-state sources.

The chapters on data compression acquaint students with a myriad of lossless compression methods and then introduce two lossy compression methods. Students emerge from this study competent in a wide range of techniques. The authors' presentation is highly practical but includes some important proofs, either in the text or in the exercises, so instructors can, if they choose, place more emphasis on the mathematics.

Introduction to Information Theory and Data Compression, Second Edition is ideally suited for an upper-level or graduate course for students in mathematics, engineering, and computer science.

Cyber and its related technologies such as the Internet was introduced to the world only in late 1980s, and today it is unimaginable to think of a life without it. Despite being ubiquitous, cyber technology is still seen as an enigma by many, mainly due to its rapid development and the high level of science involved. In addition to the existing complexities of the technology, the level of threat matrix surrounding the cyber domain further leads to various misconceptions and exaggerations. Cyber technology is the future, thus forcing us to understand this complex domain to survive and evolve as technological beings. To understand the enigma, the book analyzes and disentangles the issues related to cyber technology. The author unravels the threats that terrorize the cyber world and aims to decrypt its domain. It also presents the existing reality of cyber environment in India and charts out a few recommendations for enhancing the country's cyber security architecture. Further, the book delves into detailed analysis of various issues like hacking, dark web, cyber enabled terrorism and covert cyber capabilities of countries like the US and China. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Patrice Flichy offers a profound analysis of the social shaping and impact of the major communication technologies of the last 200 years. From the semaphore and telegraph to contemporary information technologies, Dynamics of Modern Communication focuses on the relationship between technological and social change. Particular emphasis is put on four processes: the birth of the modern state at the end of the eighteenth century; the development of stock markets; the transformation of private life in the modern nuclear family; and the individualism of the late twentieth century. Exploring the interaction of technology and social context - for example, in the move from public methods of communication to more private and individualized forms - Flichy exposes the gap between the original conception of a technology and its end use after the interplay of political, economic and consumer forces.

New practical techniques for nonlinear system research and evaluation

Nonlinear Systems Techniques and Applications provides the most practical techniques currently available for analyzing and identifying nonlinear systems from random data measured at the input and output points of the nonlinear systems. These new techniques require only one-dimensional spectral functions that are much simpler to compute and apply than previous nonlinear procedures. The new results show when and how to replace a wide class of single-input/single-output nonlinear models with simpler equivalent multiple-input/single-output linear models. While other techniques are usually restricted to Gaussian data, the new techniques developed here apply to data with arbitrary probability, correlation, and spectral properties.

Numerous examples used in the book are based on the analysis of real physical data passing through real nonlinear systems in the fields of oceanography, automotive engineering, and biomedical research.

For practicing engineers and scientists involved in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, electrical, mechanical, oceanographic, and other activities concerned with nonlinear system analysis, Nonlinear Systems Techniques and Applications is the essential reference work in the field.

Vilfredo Pareto was one of the great systems theorists of the 20th century, embracing economics, psychology, sociology and politics. In this work, Michael McLure takes as his subject of study the rapport between Pareto's economic and sociological theories, and consequently illuminates the role of economics in public policy development. A central theme running through this book is the overarching role of the "mechanical analogy" in all of Pareto's work. Important aspects and implications of Pareto's work considered by the author include: relations between pure economic theory and general sociology; the problem of collective economic welfare; the juxtaposition of Pareto's political sociology to Buchanan's public choice/constitutional economics; Pareto and methodology; and implications for public policy and government

The expertise of a professional mathmatician and a theoretical engineer provides a fresh perspective of stability and stable oscillations. The current state of affairs in stability theory, absolute stability of control systems, and stable oscillations of both periodic and almost periodic discrete systems is presented, including many applications in engineering such as stability of digital filters, digitally controlled thermal processes, neurodynamics, and chemical kinetics. This book will be an invaluable reference source for those whose work is in the area of discrete dynamical systems, difference equations, and control theory or applied areas that use discrete time models.