This book is the second volume of a two-volume edition based on the International Society for Information Studies Summit Vienna 2015 on 'The Information Society at the Crossroads. Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information' (see summit.is4is.org).The book gives an up-to-date multiaspect exposition of contemporary studies in the field of information and related areas. It presents most recent achievements, ideas and opinions of leading researchers in this domain reflecting their quest for advancing information science and technology. With the goal of building a better society, in which social and technological innovations help make information key to the flourishing of humanity, we dispense with the bleak view of the dark side of information society.It is aimed at readers that conduct research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology, who develop or implement social or technological applications. It is also for those who have an interest in participating in setting the goals for the sciences of information and the social applications of technological achievements and the scientific results.

Introduction: omnipresence of information as the incentive for transdisciplinarity / Mark Burgin and Wolfgang Hofkirchner -- Part I. Theory of information -- How to produce a transdisciplinary information concept for a universal theory of information / Søren Brier -- Inaccessible information and mathematical theory of oracles / Mark Burgin -- Emergence of symbolic information by the ritualisation transition / R. Feistel -- The law of "information conversion and intelligence creation" / Yixin Zhong -- Topoi of systems : on the onto-epistemic foundations of matter and information / Rainer E. Zimmermann -- Part II. Philosophy of information -- Transdisciplinarity seen through information, communication, computation, (inter-)action and cognition / Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Daniel Kade, Markus Wallmyr, Tobias Holstein and Alexander Almér -- A unified science-philosophy of information in the quest for transdisciplinarity / Wu Kun and Joseph E. Brenner -- Natural information and spiritual information as an outcome of the transdisciplinary methodology / Basarab Nicolescu -- A new perspective on the existence and non-existence / Wu Tianqi -- Part III. Applications of information -- Information and the evolution of human communication / Manuel Bohn -- Information processing and Fechner's problem as a choice of arithmetic / Marek Czachor and Centrum Leo Apostel -- A few questions related to information and symmetries in physics / György Darvas -- The "sociotype" approach to social structures and individual communication : an informational exploration of human sociality / R. del Moral, J. Navarro, and P.C. Marijuán -- Information outliers and their detection / A. Duraj and P.S. Szczepaniak -- A physicist's perspective on how one converts observation into information / Robert W. Johnson -- The concept of systemic-resonance bioinformatics. resonances and the quest for transdisciplinarity / Sergey V. Petoukhov and Elena S. Petukhova -- Information society and apartheid in the context of evolutionary economics : perspectives from information theory / Rodrick Wallace and Mindy Thompson Fullilove -- Artificial and natural genetic information processing / Guenther Witzany

The book gives up-to-date, multi-aspect exposition of the philosophy and methodology of information, and related areas within the nascent field of the study of information. It presents the most recent achievements, ideas and opinions of leading researchers in this domain, as well as from physicists, biologists and social scientists. Collaboration of researchers from different areas and fields opens new perspectives for the understanding of information essential in the innovative development of science, technology and society.The book is meant for readers conducting research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology. The ideas presented give new insights for those who develop or implement scientific, technological or social applications. They are especially for those who are participating in setting the goals for science in general and sciences of information in particular.

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory. Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter (Commind) constrains the former (interactants), but the former fuels the latter. The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics.

This is the first attempt to delineate the synthetic field of the theoretical study of information, treating information as the basic phenomenon on the fundamental level of the world, encompassing nature, technology, individuals and society. The exploration of information is done within Info-computational approaches, to natural and social phenomena such as Bioinformatics, Information Physics, Informational Chemistry, Computational Physics, Cognitive and Social sciences, with special emphasis on interdisciplinary, crossdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge.The book presents results of collaboration across research fields within info-computational and info-structural frameworks, in attempt to better theoretically and conceptually capture the phenomenon of information and its dynamics (such as computation and communication), as they appear on different levels of organization, on different scales and in different contexts.

In today’s globalized world, viable and reliable research is fundamental for the development of information. Innovative methods of research have begun to shed light on notable issues and concerns that affect the advancement of knowledge within information science. Building on previous literature and exploring these new research techniques are necessary to understand the future of information and knowledge. The Handbook of Research on Connecting Research Methods for Information Science Research is a collection of innovative research on the methods and application of study methods within library and information science. While highlighting topics including data management, philosophical foundations, and quantitative methodology, this book is ideally designed for librarians, information science professionals, policymakers, advanced-level students, researchers, and academicians seeking current research on transformative methods of research within information science.

Transdisciplinary Research (TR) is an emerging field in the knowledge society for relating science and policy in addressing issues such as new technologies, migration, and public health. This handbook provides a structured overview of the manifold experiences gained in these fields. In the first part, 21 projects from all over the world present their research approaches. In the second part, cross-cutting challenges of TR are discussed in reference to the same projects.