Portal:Systems science



The systems science portal

Complex systems approach

Systems science is an transdisciplinary[1] field that studies the nature of systems—from simple to complex—in nature, society, cognition, engineering, technology and science itself. To systems scientists, the world can be understood as a system of systems. The field aims to develop interdisciplinary foundations that are applicable in a variety of areas, such as psychology, biology, medicine, communication, business management, engineering, and social sciences.

Systems science covers formal sciences such as complex systems, cybernetics, dynamical systems theory, information theory, linguistics or systems theory. It has applications in the field of the natural and social sciences and engineering, such as control theory, operations research, social systems theory, systems biology, system dynamics, human factors, systems ecology, systems engineering and systems psychology. Themes commonly stressed in system science are (a) holistic view, (b) interaction between a system and its embedding environment, and (c) complex (often subtle) trajectories of dynamic behavior that sometimes are stable (and thus reinforcing), while at various 'boundary conditions' can become wildly unstable (and thus destructive). Concerns about Earth-scale biosphere/geosphere dynamics is an example of the nature of problems to which systems science seeks to contribute meaningful insights.


A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment.

Payment systems are used in lieu of tendering cash in domestic and international transactions. This consists of a major service provided by banks and other financial institutions. Traditional payment systems include negotiable instruments such as drafts (e.g., cheques) and documentary credits such as letters of credit. With the advent of computers and electronic communications, many alternative electronic payment systems have emerged. The term electronic payment refers to a payment made from one bank account to another using electronic methods and forgoing the direct intervention of bank employees. Narrowly defined electronic payment refers to e-commerce—a payment for buying and selling goods or services offered through the Internet, or broadly to any type of electronic funds transfer. (Full article...)

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This image illustrates part of the Mandelbrot set fractal. The size of the JPEG file encoding the bitmap of this image is more than 17 kilobytes (approximately 140000 bits). The same file can be generated by a computer program much shorter than 140000 bits, however. Thus, the Kolmogorov complexity of the JPEG file encoding the bitmap is much less than 140000.

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Edward René David Goldsmith (8 November 1928 – 21 August 2009), widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, was an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher.

He was a member of the prominent Goldsmith family, the eldest son of Major Frank Goldsmith, and elder brother of the financier James Goldsmith. Edward Goldsmith was also the founding editor and publisher of The Ecologist. Known for his outspoken views opposing industrial society and economic development, he expressed a strong sympathy for the ways and values of traditional peoples. (Full article...)

Did you know

  • ... * and next a science of action, called "Interactive management".
  • ... that the American ecologist Howard T. Odum in 1950 gave a novel definition of ecology as the study of large entities (ecosystems) at the "natural level of integration".
  • ... that the Yugoslavian Mihajlo D. Mesarovic in 1970s wanted to provide a unified and formalized mathematical approach to all major systems concepts.
  • ... that the American biologist Christopher Langton in the late 1980s is one of the founders of the field of artificial life.

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