Topics in Systems

This book looks at many types of systems from various points of view, dealing with such topics as: how they are created, their features, how they serve us, the roles of the human, the systems approach, systems thinking, how we can maximize the benefits they provide, how to repair them, and how we are able to use them to solve our problems and improve our overall quality of life. This book is designed for engineers as well as all readers that are interested in the systems around them and their roles with respect to these systems. It is a broad-stroke overview of system level concepts and how they connect to one another. It includes fundamental notions related to types of systems, their attributes, their architectures, and their performance. It is hoped that this exploration of various kinds of systems will provide some insights that increase the help we get from the systems we build, and also reduce the number of systems that are not working for us.