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

PERCOLATION (Oriented) 2)

← Back

A percolation process submitted to some constraint, in space or in time.

In an abstract model, it is for instance possible to impede propagation in one or various defined directions.

Using the example of a forest fire, the direction of the wind may favour percolation in one direction and impede it in another one. It is altogether obvious that, when the percolation process implies the destruction of the affected elements, it will not be able to propagate itself again in zones where populations have already been devastated. Where the fire has raged, there are no more trees to burn and where the epidemics raged, the number of immunized or naturally resistant individuals is much higher than the one of the individuals who could yet succumb to the illness.

This phenomenon also shows up in the time dimension. A destroyed forest will need a long time to become again a combustible forest. In the case of epidemics, increasing survival of immune and immunized individuals at each resurgence of the epidemics lead normally to such a situation where the percolation threshold cannot be reached anymore, at least for long time.

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