Objects of studies of supra-disciplinary design and process science, research approaches and methodologies, state of the art of theories and practices, and future prospects. If mechanisms are a natural or established purposeful process flows, then how about the mechanisms to synthesize the knowledge and methods of mono-, inter-, multi- and trans-disciplinary sciences into a framework of supra-disciplinary research?

Dr. Yong Zeng is a full professor in the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering at Concordia University. He was a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in design science from 2004 to 2014. He received his PhD from Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Calgary in 2001. Zeng’s research aims to understand and improve creative design activities, which crosses engineering design, artistic creation, computer science, management science, linguistics, neurocognitive science, mathematical science, and epistemology. He has proposed a new design theory called Environment Based Design. His research includes the science of design, a methodology for innovative and creative design, neurocognitive model of design creativity, computer-aided conceptual design, and the interplay between linguistics and design creativity. He collaborates and consults with the aerospace industry, medical device design companies, construction companies, recruitment industry, and municipalities. He has been developing formal and experimental approaches to design research. He has been an Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science since January 2012 (IOS), Associate Editor of International Journal of Product Development (September 2011 - 2016, Inderscience), and an editorial board member of Computers in Industry since October 2011 (Elsevier).

Name of panelist:Prof. Dr. Murat M. Tanik

Information theoretical reformulation of Feynman’s Quantum Electrodynamics and its potential applications

A new mathematical formalism to represent complex systems is introduced. Existing particle and wave based models become special cases. An informal and practical participatory lecture will be given to show application and collaboration opportunities to the audience. Technical papers just published can be provided if interested.

Murat M. Tanik, PhD is a professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UAB. He holds Wallace R. Bunn Endowed chair. He also holds secondary positions at: Professor (S), Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering 1999 –. Professor (S), Biostatistics, School of Public Health 2003 -. Professor (S), Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering 2011 -. Senior Scientist (C), Nutrition Obesity Res Center (NORC), Nutrition Sciences Research 2006 -. Senior Scientist (C), Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, General Clinical Research Center 2014 -. Co-Director, UAB Center for Integrated Systems, https://sites.uab.edu/isc/. His research collaborators are Dr. Franks Skidmore MD and Dr. Lurong Pan, computational Chemist. His Co-director in the center is Dr. Donna Slovensky.

Name of panelist:Prof.em. Dr.mult. Imre Horváth

Supra-disciplinary research – Not a simple matter, but not impossible

In spite of the inherent complexity, supradisciplinary research makes it possible to address naturally-based and/or socially-based problematics and phenomena. It purposefully integrates monodisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research approaches and relies on the collaborative work of research teams and communities. Actually, supradisciplinary research places the layers of organization, management, and utilization above the traditional layers of competence development, execution of inquiry, and dissemination of the results. Systematic execution of supradisciplinary research needs a comprehensive and operationalizable conceptual framework. One example of this framework will be presented. The framework facilitates task management and competence allocation, as well as assessment and consolidation of the outcomes in a holistic manner.

Dr. Imre Horváth is an emeritus professor of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. In the last years, his research group focused on research, development and education of smart cyber-physical system design, with special attention to cognitive engineering. Prof. Horváth is also interested in systematic design research methodologies. He was the promotor of more than 20 Ph.D. students. He was first author or co-author of more than 430 publications. His scientific work was recognized by five best paper awards. He has a wide range of society memberships and contribution. He is past chair of the Executive Committee of the CIE Division of ASME. Since 2011, he is a fellow of ASME. He is member of the Royal Dutch Institute of Engineers. He received honorary doctor titles from two universities, and the Pahl-Beitz ICONNN award for internationally outstanding contribution to design science and education. Recently, he was distinguished by the 2019 lifetime achievement award of the ASME’s CIE Division. He has served several international journals as editor. He was the initiator of the series of International Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering (TMCE) Symposia. His current research interests are in various philosophical, methodological, and computational aspects of smart product, system, and service design, as well as in synthetic knowledge science and development of self-adaptive systems

Name of panelist:Prof. Dr. Sang Suh

Role of intelligence in supra-disciplinary science

In spite of the inherent complexity, supradisciplinary research makes it possible to address naturally-based and/or socially-based problematics and phenomena. It purposefully integrates monodisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research approaches and relies on the collaborative work of research teams and communities. Actually, supradisciplinary research places the layers of organization, management, and utilization above the traditional layers of competence development, execution of inquiry, and dissemination of the results. Systematic execution of supradisciplinary research needs a comprehensive and operationalizable conceptual framework. One example of this framework will be presented. The framework facilitates task management and competence allocation, as well as assessment and consolidation of the outcomes in a holistic manner.

Dr. Sang Suh is a Regents Professor of Texas A&M University System and a Professor of Computer Science at Texas A&M University – Commerce, USA. His primary research interests are in the areas of artificial intelligence, human computer interaction, data mining, knowledge and data engineering, machine reasoning and computing education. He has over 30 years of experience in scholarly and research activities developing practical industrial applications in those areas with special focus on convergence to transdisciplinary applications. Dr. Suh published 6 books and more than 120 research papers in those areas. He has been recognized for his international leadership in building strong computational and transdisciplinary science and education community with his dedicated contribution of service in various capacities including international conferences and workshops.

Name of panelist:Prof. Dr. Kyoung-Yun Kim

Learning science and technologies for future manufacturing workforce

It is crucial that we recognize the role of manufacturing workers has had in building manufacturing capabilities. Investment in innovative, smart manufacturing processing methods, industrial cyber-physical systems, automation technologies, and information/operational technical has advanced manufacturing connectivity, automation, and operational efficiency. Most manufacturers identify the primary cause of today’s worker shortage as a “shifting skill set due to the introduction of new advanced technology and automation.” This talk will review this pressing need and discuss how learning science, which requires contributions from cognitive science, computer science, education phycology, anthropology, linguistics, engineering, and some other areas, should be positioned to equip future manufacturing workforce.

Kyoung-Yun Kim is a professor in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Wayne State University, where he directs the Computational Intelligence and Design Informatics (CInDI) Laboratory. Dr. Kim’s research focuses on design science; design informatics; semantic assembly design; welding and joining; and smart manufacturing. He has received external funding from federal agencies including NSF, NIST, DMDII, NIDRR, VA-CASE, DOD, and DOE, and several industry partners. He is the Director of the Smart Manufacturing Demonstration Center (SMDC) and a Site Director for the NSF Industry and University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) for e-Design. Dr. Kim is a Fellow of the Society of Design and Process Science and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science. He received the top-cited article award (2005-2010) from Journal CAD and the 2003 IIE Transactions Best Paper Award. One of his articles was selected as Classics in Manufacturing and Machinery by Google Scholar. Dr. Kim served as the General Chair of FAIM 2022 (31st International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing) and the conference theme was Human-Data-Technology Nexus in Intelligent Manufacturing and Next Generation Automation. Dr. Kim was an invited professor at Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM), France, in 2017 and was a visiting professor at Kyung Hee University, South Korea, in 2014.

Name of panelist:Prof.em. Dr. Thomas Wang

A multicriteria optimization approach to causal inquiries in healthcare: Design and evaluation of an ai-based decision support system

Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a major impact on healthcare. While advances in the sharing and analysis of medical data result in better and earlier diagnoses and more patient-tailored treatments, data management is also affected by trends such as increased patient-centricity (with shared decision making), self-care (e.g., using wearables), and integrated care delivery. The way in which health services are delivered is being revolutionized through the sharing and integration of health data across organizational boundaries. Via AI, researchers can provide new approaches to merge, analyze, and process complex/digital data and gain more actionable insights, understanding, and knowledge at an individual and population level. The increasing use of AI in healthcare provides many new and interesting possibilities, but also causes issues around trust (the “black box” problem) and privacy. The paper intends to show how AI will impact healthcare and discuss both advantages and disadvantages, as well as what solutions there are to solve potential problems in the design and application of causal modeling. The following topics relevant to SDPS as a Supra Science will be presented and discussed: (a) A rationale for advocating patient-centric care management in improving population health, (b) Data management or data integration in AI healthcare applications, including current, emerging and future applications, (c) Causal analysis and confirmation methods, (d) Simultaneity in optimization of healthcare efficiency and effectiveness, (e) Multilevel analytic design and prediction, and (f) Design and evaluation of parsimonious decision support systems.

Thomas T.H. Wan, Ph.D., MHS, is a professor emeritus of the School of Global Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Currently, he is a visiting distinguished professor of the Department of Healthcare Administration and Medical Informatics at the Kaohsiung Medical University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography at the University of Georgia and received the MHS degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. In the past fifty years, he has been on the faculties of Cornell University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Virginia Commonwealth University, and UCF. His research expertise includes healthcare informatics, population health, long-term care research, and health systems analysis. He received a major NIH research grant to assess Affordable Care Act on rural health disparities and outcomes, a research grant from the Pabst Foundation for evaluating the use of a web-based artistic toolkit for reducing caregiving burden for caregivers of Alzheimer and related disorders, and a research grant from the Florida Hospital Creation Health Center to perform systematic review and meta-analysis of human factors influencing therapeutic outcomes of polychronic conditions. The effectiveness of care management innovations and practice for chronic diseases can be understood and achieved by modifying risk factors for avoiding readmissions. In 2021, he earned an U.S. Patent for Heart Failure Readmission Evaluation and Prevention Systems and Methods. He has published a total of 14 books, 250 articles, and 24 book chapters. He and Dr. Varadraj Gurupur earned a patent from the United State Patent and Trademark Office on Heart Failure Readmission Evaluation and Prevention System and Methods in 2018.

Name of panelist:Prof. Dr. Ying-Chyi Chou

Using machine learning tool to explore the relationship between the personal finance handing capability and the early-onset dementia.

Most of the research on the early prediction of Alzheimer's disease is based on learning ability and memory ability as the main observation factors. Therefore, our research chooses from the deterioration of the financial ability of Alzheimer's disease. Starting from the discussion of the diseases, it is used to find out the main problems of people with dementia. This research focuses on the personal financial capacity effects on early-onset dementia. Using the financial capacity instrument with bills, taxes, and shopping are key factors to determine early-onset dementia. Facilitate early detection and early treatment

Dr. Ying-Chyi Chou served as a distinguished professor in Department of Business Administration, Tunghai University, Taiwan. She received a Ph.D. in Business and Management from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Her publications have appeared in International Journal of Business & Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Science Education International, Management and Applied Economics, Energy Efficiency, Quality & Quantity, among others. She has received the International Collaboration Research Award in Service Science presented by the Service Science Society of Taiwan and The Sayling Wen Cultural & Educational Foundation in 2014. Dr. Chou served as the Vice Dean for the Office of Academic Affairs and the Chair of Department of Business Administration at Tunghai University. Dr. Chou’s research focuses on Human Resource Management, Decision Science, Healing/Friendly Environment, and Performance Management, Service Management. Currently, Dr. Chou is a director of Center for Healing Environment Administration and Research (HEAR), Tunghai University, and a Visiting Scholar in Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University.

Name of panelist:Prof. Dr. Patrick HangHui Then

Are constructivism and behaviorism relevant in ensuring supra-disciplinary design and process science a success?

Educators embrace both constructivism and behaviorism among others as their main theories of learning. Russian psychologist Vygotsky’s constructivism views human development as a socially mediated process. When researchers and engineers talk about objects of studies, research approaches, methodologies in practice, have they forgotten the most important component of all design and process science? In my opinion, human is the most important mediator that dictates the success or failure of design and process science. Trust, integrity, and gratitude are the underlying human characters that determines success of supra-disciplinary design and process science. If all humans in the processes were replaced by chatGPT or any other chatBot, will any supra or inter or trans disciplinary collaboration work? I believe the answer is obvious. But, how many people are thinking less of win-win proposition while working with other colleagues from same and varying disciplines? What if punishment and rewards are in place to reward more individuals who think and act on win-win proposition? Behaviorism and constructivism may remain the underpinning cornerstone for successful supra-disciplinary design and process science.

Professor Patrick Then heads School of Information and Communication Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus and Health Informatics cluster at Swinburne Melbourne Data Science Institute. He is the founder and director of Centre for Digital Futures. He is the thought leader in health informatics and digital health research and development. He has established his unique partnership in both research and entrepreneurial projects with healthcare service providers from both public and private sectors since more than a decade ago. His research in digital health has spanned across chronic disease management, especially in cardiology and diabetes, to public health management notably covid19 surveillance and management. On top of academic and research recognition, his innovative works in managing covid19 has been recognised by the Sarawak state government and Sarawak State Health Department. He is a key opinion leader who is highly sought-after by local media such as Astro, The Star, The Borneopost and TV Sarawak. He holds distinguished roles as the Board member of Sarawak Development Institute, Vice President of Society for Design and Process Science USA, interview panel of the prestigious Yayasan Tun Taib scholarship, technical committee of Malaysian Standards’ Software and System Engineering. He is a Fellow of European Society of Cardiology, Fellow of Society for Design and Process Science, Senior Member of IEEE, and Senior Member of Australian Computer Society.