SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION

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SCIENCE ADMINISTRATION LECTURE 41 SCIENTIFIC
PARADIGM OF SYSTEMS ILLUSTRATIONS ENERGY
SYSTEMS LEONTIEFFS INPUT-OUTPUT ECONOMIC
MODEL FREDERICK BETZ PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY
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MODERN SYSTEM PARADIGM The concept of a 'system'
means to look at a thing, an object, with a view
to seeing it as a 'totality', displaying
'change', and encompassed in an 'environment'. A
description of a thing as a system captures a
things totality as transformations of system
states within a relevant environment. There are
two general forms of systems, closed and open
systems. A closed system has no input or output
to its environment. An open system has inputs
from its environment and outputs to its
environment. All organizations and societies are
open systems. Some physical objects are closed
system.
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The systems paradigm is focused upon change
particularly upon transformational
change. ------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------- PHIL
OSOPHICAL BACKGROUND CLASSICAL
PHILOSOPHY TRADITIONAL GREEK WORLD VIEW WORLD
AS TRANSIENCE HERCLITUS WORLD AS PERMANCE
PARMENIDES WORLD AS PERMANENCE IN UNDERLYING
FORMS -- PLATO WORLD AS BOTH PERMANENCE
TRANSIENCE -- ANAXAGORUS ------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
-------------- As we can see from the scientific
paradigm of mechanism modern physics is
philosophically a kind of Anaxagorian position.
There are both conservation laws and dynamical
forces in physics theory both permanence and
change.
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TRANSFORMATIONAL SYSTEMS
ENVIRONMENT
SYSTEM
INPUT
OUTPUT
CLOSED SYSTEM INPUT AND NO OUTPUT OPEN SYSTEM
-- INPUT AND OUTPUT
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A closed system does not have significant
outputs to its environment and may (or may not0
have significant inputs to the system from its
environment. A closed system is principally
described by transformations between internal
states of the system. For example, the earth
can be considered as an isolated planet
sustaining life only because of the input of
solar energy from the sun thereby described as
a closed system.
EARTH
Solar Energy Input
System
SUN
Environment
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ILLUSTRATION Energy Economy as a Closed
System Modern industrial societies are all based
on the economic utility of energy extraction from
nature. All energy in the economy on Earth
ultimately derives from nature in the hydrogen
fusion reactions of the sun. Radiant energy
from the sun powers the weather cycles on earth
that transfer water in a hydrological cycle from
the oceans to land and back to the oceans again.
Radiant energy from the sun plus rainfall from
the hydrological cycle powers the growth of
biomass. Biomass, ancient and modern, provides
energy sources to society in the form of coal,
petroleum, gas, and wood. In addition, the
hydrological cycle provides energy in the form of
hydroelectric power as rivers return water to the
ocean. Also wind and wave motion can provide
energy sources.
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Modern industrial societies are all based on the
economic utility of energy extracted from nature.
The energy we use on Earth ultimately derives
from nature in the hydrogen fusion reactions of
the sun a closed system.
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The first industrial-sector in the energy-chain
is the energy-extraction industrial sectors of
coal mining, petroleum exploration production,
timber, or wind/wave farming. Other industrial
sectors process energy for an economy in the form
of (a) electrical utilities that produce
electricity from burning, coal, uranium, or
petroleum, (b) oil refineries that process
petroleum into gasoline, diesel fuel and
petroleum lubricants. Then another set of
industrial sectors distributes energy through (a)
electrical power transmission networks, (b)
gasoline and diesel petroleum distribution
stations, (c) fuel oil distribution services, (d)
natural gas distribution networks. Through
this complicated scheme of natural cycles and
industrial sectors, economies acquire energy from
nature. Thus energy involves two kinds of
systems (1) natural systems to create the
sources of energy and (2) technological systems
to extract, process, and distribute energy to an
economy.
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Energy-producing industrial sectors acquire
energy through mining of coal and uranium,
exploration and production of gas and oil,
logging of timber, or wind- or wave-generation of
electricity.
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TYPES OF SYSTEMS NATURAL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY
SYSTEMS PRODUCT SYSTEMS PRODUCTION
SYSTEMS OPERATIONS SYSTEMS INFORMATION
SYSTEMS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS TRANSPORTATION
SYSTEMS POWER SYSTEMS ENVIRONMENTAL
SYSTEMS ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEMS BUSINESS
SYSTEMS GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS ECONOMIC
SYSTEMS EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS HEALTH
SYSTEMS MILITARY SYSTEMS JUDICIAL SYSTEMS
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In science, the system paradigm is essential to
physics in quantum mechanics. The system
paradigm is essential to biology as metabolic
pathways in the functioning of cells and as
physiology in the functioning of organisms and as
structural systems in the compositions of organic
bodies. The system paradigm is essential to
computer science as computational architectures
and processes. The system paradigm is essential
to the social science disciplines as economic
systems and as social systems and organizational
systems, and political and governmental
systems. In the engineering sciences, all
technologies are systems.
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Consider the idea of systems in biology. We
recall that modern biology began with the
invention of the microscope which allowed
biologists to identify the cellular structure of
organisms. Each cell can be thought of as a
system, an entity. In single-celled organisms,
the cells environment is the surroundings from
which it gains nutrients to survive. The cell has
a boundary, cell wall (through which nutrients
and waste can pass) and an internal structure.
The internal structure includes a nucleus which
functions to divide the cell in reproduction and
other components, such as mitochondria which
provide metabolic processes within the cell.
In a multi-celled organism, a cells
environment is the adjacent cells and any
circulatory system bringing it nutrients and
removing cellular waste. The idea of system in
biology proceeds up different scales, from a
cellular system to an organ system, to the
process systems (such as circulatory, neural
systems, etc) to the organism. Social biology
then continues to describe a scale of systems
larger than that of an individual organism to
families, clans, tribes, groups, organizations,
etc.
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SYSTEMS IN ECONOMICS
An illustration of the use of the system paradigm
in economics is the input-output model of an
economy proposed b Wassily Leontief. Leontief
describes the total production (Pi) from an
economic sector (such as manufacturing or
agriculture) and traces that quantity of
production Pi as it is distributed into the
economy for consumers (Ci) or for other
industrial sectors (Xij) or exported to other
countries (Eij). Then a Leontief input-output
equation describing the economy as sectors can be
written as Pi SUMJ(Ci Xij Eij) .
This is read as the quantity of production Pi in
the i-th economic sector is distributed to (a)
consumers of the i-th products and (b) industrial
consumption and (c) exports -- with the summation
(SUMJ) taken over all other j-th economic sectors
and all the other j-th countries. In
mathematical notation, the quantities of P and C
are vectors and the quantities of X and E are
matrices.
System is a basic paradigm in the discipline of
economics to describe the production and
distribution of products in sectors of a national
economy.
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Wassily Leontief (1905-1999) was born in St
Petersberg, Russia. He entered the University of
Leingrad in 1921 and earned a master's degree in
economics. In 1925, he left Russia for political
reasons. In Germany, he entered the University
of Berlin and obtained a doctorate in economics
in 1925. In 1931, he went to the United
States, and began teaching at Harvard University
in 1932. In 1949, Leontieff modeled data on the
U.S. economy, which divided the economy into 500
sectors. In 1973, he won a Nobel Prize in
Economics, and in 1975, he joined New York
University.
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The idea of system is central to all the social
sciences. For example in management science, the
term 'socio-technical' systems was introduced to
indicate systems in which technologies and human
interacted to provide system processes.
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Systems Theory In the twentieth century, there
arose a new philosophical school about change
stasis which called itself systems theory.
This term was popularized by Karl von Bertalanffy
(1901-1972). He was an Austrian professor of
biology at the University of Vienna from 1934-48.
In 1968, he published a book called General
System Theory, which was a seminal book to that
movement. Also about the same time, another
seminal book to the systems school was published
by Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), called
Cybernetics. Wiener graduated from Harvard in
1912 with a Ph.D. thesis on mathematical logic.
Later he focused upon robotics and automata,
which he called cybernetics a forerunner of
artificial intelligence.
Other persons interested in the idea of systems
have included people not only in biology and
automata and computer science but also in
sociology and in engineering and management. But
taken all together, these constitute a school of
thought in the history of ideas -- a school
focused upon how central the idea of a system is
to many disciplines. So there is no real
systems 'theory' (in the sense of physical or
chemical or biological theory). But there is a
school of thought' which emphasizes 'systems'
as a perspective, as a scientific paradigm.
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This difference about 'system' as a theory or as
a 'perspective' has been noted by Ervin Laslo.
In a preface to von Bertalanffys book, Laslo
wrote The original concept of general system
theory was Allgemeine Systemtheorie. . . . Now
Theorie . . . has a much broader meaning in
German than the closest English word theory . .
. . When von Bertalanffy spoke of Allgemeine
Systemtheorie, it was consistent with his view
that he was proposing a new perspective, a new
way of doing science. . . . Von Bertalanffy
opened up something much broader and of much
greater significance than a single theory . . .
he created a new paradigm for the development of
theories. (Laszlo in Von Bertalanffy, -----).
(Ervin Laszlo, )
It is in Laszlos sense of systems as a
'perspective' that we are here using the term.
As an intellectual framework, 'system' is a
paradigm of science.