BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

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The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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AGENT ( Meta-) 1)4)

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"An agent who is capable of some sort of meta-level reasoning about the multi-agent community". (M. PECHOUCEK et al., 2000, p. 659)

The authors state that the meta-agent neither controls the community nor serves as a communication centre". It is thus neither a controller, nor a "black board"

The authors distinguish two types of meta-agent's activity:

- static observation

- dynamic observation"

Through static observation the meta-agent obtains a "state of affairs" picture

By dynamic observation, it may predict for ex. an "approaching critical overload of an agent"(note: or possibly of the whole system)

On the other hand "from the point of view of the meta-agents impact on the community we distinguish two principal roles:

"- Passive role: the meta-agent does not influence the community life-cycle…it (merely) provides the user with the information on how the community evolves in time…The meta-agent playing a passive role does not have any means how to modify directly the multi-agent community.

"- Active role: the meta-agent affects directly some other-agents within the community. Here the meta-agent usually revises (by directly delivered messages) the local knowledge bases of the agents. The proper active role should be ensured by means of dynamic observation" (p. 659-60)

→ Multi-agents system

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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