ArticleRead (9): Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication

Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication，By Warren Weaver, In Claude Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication，IL：The University of Illinois Press，1949

What are concepts the theory develops?

1. Deal with the statistical character of a whole ensemble of messages
2. In statistical terms the two words information & uncertainty are partners
3. “missing information”*==* the entropy *==* the language of arithmetic *==* the language of language

Indentify three levels of communication problems as table 1 shows:


Schematic diagram of a general communication system and three main categories of communication systems classification as figure 1 shows:


Schematic diagram of a general communication system: minor additions for Level B as figure 2 shows:


Note: This review was mainly completed as a homework while taking the Humanity Informatics Class lectured by Professor Ching-Chun Hsieh in Dec. 2006.

ArticleRead (8) :Information as sign: semiotics and information science

Information as sign: semiotics and information science, By Douglas Raber & John M. Budd, Journal of Documentation, 2003, 59, 5, pp.507-522

By the definition of Linguistic Sign from Fernand de Saussure (1959), Raber and Budd (2003) try to define information in two parts as “Text” and “Content” in parallel with Saussure’s sign (Signifier and Signified). Table 1 shows how Raber and Budd taking information as Saussure’s linguistic Sign. Table 2 illustrates why semiotics can be applied in information science.

Table 1: Information as Saussure’s Sign

Table 2: Information Science and Semiotics

Note: This review was mainly completed as a homework while taking the Humanity Informatics Class lectured by Professor Ching-Chun Hsieh in Jan. 2007.

ArticleRead (7): Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age.

Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age. By Richard O. Mason., MIS Quarterly, Vol.10 No.1,pp.5-12. Mar., 1986

Ever since Mason (1986) proposed to apply Privacy, Accuracy, Property and Accessibility (PAPA) to be the guiding principles of ethical issues in the information age, PAPA has been used widely in studies such as human behavior and information technology; information management, organization science, as well as the foundation of information security system designs. PAPA was ahead in its time, and still remains great impacts for us to take a profound thinking today by its three basic questions raised in the article:

1. Whether the kind of society being created is the one we want?
2. Should we pay sepcial concern on the PAPA issues since we are in the forefront of creating this new society?
3. Although information shape the intellectual capital, the weakness of building intellectual capital is that people's intellectual capital will decrease:

• whenever they lose their personal information without being compensated for it,
• when they are precluded access to information which is of value to them,
• when they have revealed information they hold intimate, or
• when they find out that the information upon which their living depends is in error.

Problems and Issues have been identified in table1; the final “should” and “should not” with some cases analysis for PAPA guiding principles are proposed in table 2. Until today, we have seen how information technology progress has been phenomenal. We also have been challenged by information ethical crisis we never had before. Could it be that a balance between human sentiment, issues of law and justice, and moral or ethical concerns emerged within PAPA of information age, we are still in the process of wondering, indeed.

Table1: Issues and Problems of PAPA


Table2: A question of Should or Should Not

Note: This review was mainly completed as a homework while taking the Humanity Informatics Class lectured by Professor Ching-Chun Hsieh in May 2007.