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

LIMIT 1)2)4)

The farthest boundary or constraint on someprocess, subsystem or system.

The limit is that which separates a system from its environment, or environmental conditions, in space and/or in time. A limitless system could not be a system at all. Limits may however be elusive in various ways: In space, a system has generally a field of influence whose boundaries are sometimes difficult to establish, and may be variable.

In time, periodical (or a-periodical) variations may expand or contract the limits of a system. The ignorance of this basic feature can be the cause of very serious problems. An example is the imprudent occupation or use of the flood plains in river valleys. Another was the occupancy by uninformed British colonists of Kikuyu highland in Kenya from which Kikuyu people had to retreat after the rinder pest epidemics of the 1890's.

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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