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Rich Picture
__NOTOC__ Part of the soft systems methodology, rich pictures provide a mechanism for learning about complex or ill-defined problems by drawing detailed ("rich") representations of them. Typically, rich pictures follow no commonly agreed syntax, usually consist of symbols, cartoons, sketches or doodles and can contain as much (pictorial) information as is deemed necessary. The finished picture may be of value to other stakeholders of the problem being described since it is likely to capture many different facets of the situation, but the real value of this technique is the way it forces the creator to think more deeply about the problem and understand it well enough to express it pictorially (a process known as action learning). Rich pictures are a diagrammatic way of relating your own experiences and perceptions to a given problem situation through the identification and linking of a series of concepts. The creation of a rich picture provides a forum in which to think about a give ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soft Systems Methodology
Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an organised way of thinking and it can be used to tackle general problematic situations that arise in the real world and in the management of change by using action. Developed in England by academics at the Lancaster Systems Department, by utilising a ten-year action research programme.Checkland P.B. and Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems in Action, Wiley ev 1999 ed/ref> Overview The Development of ‘Soft Systems’ Thinking was first developed using earlier approaches at problem solving, In the 1960’s Systems thinking was only thought of with ‘Space age’ technology, to which was then thought to be extended to reach all ends of society, including civilian life. Peter Checkland and his many colleagues such as Brian Wilson were the first to develop this approach. Checkland himself stating that the system analysis of this kind should be seized upon by professional politicians for their own legitimate purposes. The primary use of SSM is in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mind Map
A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information into a hierarchy, showing relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the center of a blank page, to which associated representations of ideas such as images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those major ideas. Mind maps can also be drawn by hand, either as "notes" during a lecture, meeting or planning session, for example, or as higher quality pictures when more time is available. Mind maps are considered to be a type of spider diagram. Origins Although the term "mind map" was first popularized by British popular psychology author and television personality Tony Buzan, the use of diagrams that visually "map" information using branching and radial maps traces back centuries. These pictorial methods record knowledge and model systems, and have a long history ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systems Research And Behavioral Science
''Systems Research and Behavioral Science'' is a scientific journal for theory and research in the fields of systems sciences. It is the official publication of the International Federation for Systems Research. ''Systems Research and Behavioral Science'' originated from the merger of two journals, ''Systems Research'' (1974–1996) and ''Behavioral Science'' (1956–1996). The combined series commenced in January/February 1997 with volume 14, continuing the numbering of ''Systems Research''. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ... of 1.750, ranking it 65th out of 110 journals in the category "Social Sciences Interdisciplinary" and 194th of out of 226 journals in the category "Management" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and social science. The company publishes approximately 1,800 journals and 5,000 new books each year and their backlist encompasses over 70,000 titles. Routledge is claimed to be the largest global academic publisher within humanities and social sciences. In 1998, Routledge became a subdivision and imprint of its former rival, Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), as a result of a £90-million acquisition deal from Cinven, a venture capital group which had purchased it two years previously for £25 million. Following the merger of Informa and T&F in 2004, Routledge became a publishing unit and major imprint within the Informa "academic publishing" division. Routledge is headquartered in the main T&F office in Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfords ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthscan
Earthscan is an English-language publisher of books and journals on climate change, sustainable development and environmental technology for academic, professional and general readers. History The Earthscan Publications imprint was founded by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in the 1980s and was run from 1987 by Neil Middleton. After making a loss, Earthscan became an independent publisher, moving initially to Kogan Page, although still printing many books emanating from IIED research. These included ''Desertification'' (), by Alan Grainger, first published in 1982. ''Natural Disasters: Acts of God, or Acts of Man?'' () by Anders Wijkman and Lloyd Timberlake was published in 1984, and in May 1988 two titles were published: ''Women and Environment in the Third World'' (which discusses, among other topics, the Chipko movement) and ''The Greening of Aid''. In August 2009, Earthscan launched their ''Earthcasts'' series of free hour-long interactiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphic Facilitation
Graphic facilitation is the use of a combination of graphics such as diagrams, pictures, symbols, and writing to lead people toward a goal in meetings, seminars, workshops and conferences. The graphics are usually drawn by hand, by a person called a ''graphic facilitator'' who may create the graphics in real time during the event and may work alone or together with another person called a facilitator who aids the discussion. The article "A Graphic Facilitation Retrospective", written by David Sibbet in 2001, told the story of early pioneers of graphic facilitation who were inspired by architects (with understanding of large imagery), designers, computer engineers (who started to cluster information in a new way), art and psychology. Sibbet described that what at a glance "just" looked like graphics was much more: "It was also dance, and story telling, since the facilitator was constantly in physical motion, miming the group and its communication with movement, as well as commenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systems Engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function. Issues such as requirements engineering, reliability, logistics, coordination of different teams, testing and evaluation, maintainability and many other disciplines necessary for successful system design, development, implementation, and ultimate decommission become more difficult when dealing with large or complex projects. Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. It overlaps technical and human-centered disciplines such as industrial engineeri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Text File
A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flatfile) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In operating systems such as CP/M and MS-DOS, where the operating system does not keep track of the file size in bytes, the end of a text file is denoted by placing one or more special characters, known as an end-of-file marker, as padding after the last line in a text file. On modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Unix-like systems, text files do not contain any special EOF character, because file systems on those operating systems keep track of the file size in bytes. Most text files need to have end-of-line delimiters, which are done in a few different ways depending on operating system. Some operating systems with record-orientated file systems may not use new line delimiters and will primarily store text files with lines se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from Ancient Greek roots: "coordination", which consists of ''syn'', "together", and ''táxis'', "ordering". Topics The field of syntax contains a number of various topics that a syntactic theory is often designed to handle. The relation between the topics is treated differently in different theories, and some of them may not be considered to be distinct but instead to be derived from one another (i.e. word order can be seen as the result of movement rules derived from grammatical relations). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by several disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach called cognitive science. In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is: * Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the mind (mental objects) * Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) * Concepts as Fregean senses, where concepts are abstract objects, as opposed to mental ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diagram
A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Enlightenment. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto a two-dimensional surface. The word '' graph'' is sometimes used as a synonym for diagram. Overview The term "diagram" in its commonly used sense can have a general or specific meaning: * ''visual information device'' : Like the term " illustration", "diagram" is used as a collective term standing for the whole class of technical genres, including graphs, technical drawings and tables. * ''specific kind of visual display'' : This is the genre that shows qualitative data with shapes that are connected by lines, arrows, or other visual links. In science the term is used in both ways. For example, Anderson (1997) stated more generally: "diagrams are pictorial, yet abstract, repres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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