Systems science

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The System Science deals with the relationships and interactions in systems .

target

The aim of systems science is to analyze the structure of a system in order to understand the behavior of the system and to be able to make statements about future developments. The System Science proceeds from the fact that similar structures in different disciplines occur, making it an Interdisciplinary Science . For example, from mathematical biology, simple models for population dynamics in the economy can be transferred to the market and its saturation with a new product (cf. logistic growth ).

Areas

Systems science can be divided into the following areas:

In most cases, this subdivision cannot be identified exactly, the boundaries of the areas are fluid. However, one can note some of the main characteristics of each area.

The systems theory treats rather basic principles and definitions , such as what is actually meant by a system. The aim is as general a system term as possible that can be applied to problems in a wide variety of disciplines.

The system analysis deals specifically with the behavior and structure of systems. Important methods here are modeling and simulation . The modeling techniques range from word models to mathematical models , e.g. B. differential equation systems or agent-based models , which often also enable a simulation of the system behavior . The different models complement each other and mostly build on each other.

The system technology (or cybernetics ), however, is more involved in managing and controlling interest of mostly technical systems. Control engineering is closely related to system engineering in connection with technical systems .

The motto of systems science, appropriately adopted by Aristotle , is " The whole is more than the sum of its parts " . This should point out that knowing the properties of individual system components does not allow conclusions to be drawn about the behavior of the overall system. This phenomenon is called emergence and the model of this holistic approach is called holism .

See also

literature

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