HIERARCHIES (Properties of) 2)
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According to B. WALLISER: "The properties of hierarchies may be studied from three viewpoints:
"- their organization is arborescent, the nodes being formed from homogeneous or heterogeneous objects and the characteristical relations connect every object, in principle in an exclusive way, to some immediately superior object. Moreover the tree is generally characterized by its depth (number of levels) and its extension (average number of descendants per object);
"- their workings result of the complementary or alternative behavior of the different entities, and of the concrete interactions between levels (interactions of various types and frequencies). The global structure is sometimes related to some environment, itself hierarchical, with communication at each level;
"- their evolution includes the initial upbuilding which quite naturally takes place by successive levels, but also includes either the ulterior rebuilding related to the modular modification or replacement of the elements, or a restructuration or reordering of the network of their relations" (1991,p.75).
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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