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

STRUCTURES (Types of) 2)

← Back

Two basic types of structures seem to appear in all classes of systems:

- Cellular structures, as for example in crystals, vegetal tissues, beehives, and hexagonal organization in human occupancy of space.

- branching structures in electric discharges, growing crystals, trees, neuron networks, and hierarchic organization in human systems.

Cellular structures seem to result from strong environmental constraints leading to an involution process.

Branching structures, result of oriented bottom-up or top-down processes, with constraints dominant in a favored direction. Branching structures can be mathematically modelled by anastomic networks.

These structures appear to be mostly stable, at least at the human level of perception. In fact, when they maintain themselves, it is through permanent self-reproduction.

A third class of structures are the interconnected looped structures, characteristic in complex systems, wherein rules controlling the numerous possible interactions lead to (generally imperfect) organizational closure, with more or less periodic (or chaotic) self-reproduction. This type of structures has been researched by M. KARSKY (1993, p.1412-21).

This author applied the looped structures model to what he calls "delayed catastrophes".

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