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.

About

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.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

CONNECTION MODES 2)

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Connections among elements can be arranged in a number of different ways:

On line: The elements are connected in such a way that each one is linked only with its antecedent and its successor on a line. This is a very limited and restrictive way to connect elements.

Ring: The elements are still connected on line, but the last one is again connected with the first one as its successor. Rings may allow for feed-back, for catalysis, for organizational closure and for hypercycles.

Tree: The elements are arranged in such a way that each one becomes a node with one connection upstream and one, two, or generally more downstream. Hierarchies can be represented by trees.

Crossbar: In this arrangement, every element is connected to every other one. However, the number of connections grows as the square of the number of elements. Without constraints, structures of this kind become clogged and generally undefined for any specific use.

Three or more dimensional structures: as for example cubic or hypercubic nets. This mode of connection allows for constraints by tradeoffs between the number of direct connections permitted to each element and the minimum and maximum length of the communication line between two elements not directly connected. Every structure of this type is a net.

Nets of nets: Such three or more dimensional nets can be interconnected. This mode allows for many local nets to become integrated with in a global one, while maintaining some autonomy and specialization. Brains, connection machines and societies are probably amenable to be thus modelled.

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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