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

NODAL ACTIVITY 2)4)

← Back

The specific processes that take place at some defined points within a network.

The concept has been proposed by the sociologist A. STINCHCOMBE (1968, Ch.VI). This author, considering commercial and economic activities, emphazises the existence of critical "connections spots", where some specific operations, mostly related to transportation and communication, are done in a better and easier way.

Obviously, the need for efficiency in the displacement or any kind of commodities or knowledge within a system (existing or self-organizing) tends to favour nodal activity. The nodal activity model appears in the works on hexagonal space filling of W. CHRISTALLER (1933; 1937) and A. LÖSCH (1944; 1954).

It also permeates the works of the French historian F. BRAUDEL (1982), who shows the succesive nodes of commercial and financial activity in Western Europe from the 16th to the 18th century: Venice, Antwerp, Rotterdam, London, etc.

The concept is clearly related to the neural networks models.

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]

We thank the following partners for making the open access of this volume possible:

© 2020 BCSSS Contact/Imprint