Formal system

About: Formal system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2033 publications have been published within this topic receiving 44001 citations. The topic is also known as: logical calculus.

Reasoning about Uncertainty

Abstract: In order to deal with uncertainty intelligently, we need to be able to represent it and reason about it. In this book, Joseph Halpern examines formal ways of representing uncertainty and considers various logics for reasoning about it. While the ideas presented are formalized in terms of definitions and theorems, the emphasis is on the philosophy of representing and reasoning about uncertainty. Halpern surveys possible formal systems for representing uncertainty, including probability measures, possibility measures, and plausibility measures; considers the updating of beliefs based on changing information and the relation to Bayes' theorem; and discusses qualitative, quantitative, and plausibilistic Bayesian networks. This second edition has been updated to reflect Halpern's recent research. New material includes a consideration of weighted probability measures and how they can be used in decision making; analyses of the Doomsday argument and the Sleeping Beauty problem; modeling games with imperfect recall using the runs-and-systems approach; a discussion of complexity-theoretic considerations; the application of first-order conditional logic to security. Reasoning about Uncertainty is accessible and relevant to researchers and students in many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, economics (particularly game theory), mathematics, philosophy, and statistics.

The role of management control systems in creating competitive advantage: New perspectives

Abstract: For the last two decades, management control systems have been conceputalized in terms of implementing a firm’s strategy. This view fails to recognize, however, the power of management control systems in the strategy formulation process. Based on a 2 year field study, a new model is presented to show how interactive management control systems focus organizational attention on strategic uncertainties. This process is examined in two competing firms to illustrate how top managers use formal systems to guide the emergence of new strategies and ensure continuing competitive advantage.

Foundations of the Theory of Organization

Abstract: T RADES unions, governments, business corporations, political parties, and the like are formal structures in the sense that they represent rationally ordered instruments for the achievement of stated goals. "Organization," we are told, "is the arrangement of personnel for facilitating the accomplishment of some agreed purpose through the allocation of functions and responsibilities."' Or, defined more generally, formal organization is "a system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons."2 Viewed in this light, formal organization is the structural expression of rational action. The mobilization of technical and managerial skills requires a pattern of coordination, a systematic ordering of positions and duties which defines a chain of command and makes possible the administrative integration of specialized functions. In this context delegation is the primordial organizational act, a precarious venture which requires the continuous elaboration of formal mechanisms of coordination and control. The security of all participants, and of the system as a whole, generates a persistent pressure for the institutionalization of relationships, which are thus removed from the uncertainties of individual fealty or sentiment. Moreover, it is necessary for the relations within the structure to be determined in such a way that individuals will be interchangeable and the organization will thus be free of dependence upon personal qualities.3 In this way, the formal structure becomes subject to calculable manipulation, an instrument of rational action. But as we inspect these formal structures we begin to see that they never succeed in conquering the non-rational dimensions of organizational behavior. The latter remain at once indispensable to the continued existence of the system of coordination and at the same time the source of friction, dilemma, doubt, and ruin. This fundamental paradox arises from the fact that rational action systems are inescapably imbedded in an institutional matrix, in two significant senses: (i) the action system-or the formal structure of delegation and control which is its organizational expression-is itself only an aspect of a concrete social structure made up of individuals who may interact as wholes, not simply in terms of their formal roles within the system; (2) the formal system, and the social structure within which it finds concrete existence, are alike subject to the pressure of an institutional environment to which some over-all adjustment must be made. The formal administrative design can never adequately or fully reflect the concrete organization to which it refers, for the obvious reason that no abstract plan or pattern can-or may, if it is to be useful-exhaustively describe an empirical totality. At the same time, that which is not included in the abstract design (as reflected, for example, in a staff-and-line organization chart) is vitally relevant to the maintenance and development of the formal system itself. Organization may be viewed from two standpoints which are analytically distinct but which are empirically united in a context of reciprocal consequences. On the one hand, any concrete organizational system is an economy; at the same time, it is an adap* Manuscript received September 9, 1947. 'John M. Gaus, "A Theory of Organization in Public Administration," in The Frontiers of Public Administration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936), p. 66. 2 Chester I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), p. 73. 8 Cf. Talcott Parsons' generalization (after Max Weber) of the "law of the increasing rationality of action systems," in The Structure of Social Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, IT37), p. 7.52.

Automata-theoretic aspects of formal power series

Abstract: 675 clarity of the exposition and the precision, which leaves no room for uncertainty. The style has sometimes been characterized as austere or severe. It may, occasionally be also somewhat elliptic. The ideas are presented in a most economical fashion and the author does expect the reader to be able to fill in the more obvious details. This permits him to present the leading ideas in an uncluttered way. Finally, while the ultimate verdict on the work, like everything human, belongs to history, those of us, who were fortunate enough to have known Harold Davenport, cannot help remembering also the man. While much of what he was-cultured, articulate, logical-is indeed reflected in his work, not everything is. He was generous with his time and enjoyed (or at least seemed to enjoy) showing Cambridge to his guests. While, to judge by his students, his standards must have been very high, he was quite patient with the more common brand of mankind and made genuine efforts to make himself understood by the less sophisticated reader (see, e.g., his book "The Higher Arithmetic"). In fact, this reviewer can recall only one outburst of impatience (or indignation?) of Davenport: it was with mathematicians who claim results, but never publish their proofs, either because they don't have any, or in order to keep their methods as private property of a small group of close collaborators. No names were named. The reviewer wants to take this opportunity to thank Professor D. J. Lewis for a very helpful letter concerning Davenport which confirmed many and completed some of the reviewer's own recollections. In the early sixties, stimulated by the discoveries of M. P. Schûtzenberger, a number of researchers at the University of Paris contributed to a new

Inductive inference of formal languages from positive data

Abstract: We consider inductive inference of formal languages, as defined by Gold (1967) , in the case of positive data, i.e., when the examples of a given formal language are successive elements of some arbitrary enumeration of the elements of the language. We prove a theorem characterizing when an indexed family of nonempty recursive formal languages is inferrable from positive data. From this theorem we obtain other useful conditions for inference from positive data, and give several examples of their application. We give counterexamples to two variants of the characterizing condition, and investigate conditions for inference from positive data that avoids “overgeneralization.”