ECONOMICS AND GENERAL SYSTEMS†

Empirical estimates for the radii, velocity distribution, rotation periods and masses of galaxies are compared with predictions derived from a self-similar cosmological model previously presented by the author. This model also predicts the existence of an undiscovered class of stellar objects that may account for the enigmatic "dark matter", which is known to be the dominant constituent of galaxies but which has yet to be identified.     

TOPOLOGICAL METHODS FOR SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SYSTEMS†

Abstract

Methods based in algebra and geometry are introduced for the mathematical formulation of problems in the social and behavioral sciences. Specifically, the paper introduces the main concepts of singularity theory, catastrophe theory and q-analysis for the characterization of the global structure of social systems. Applications in urban land development, electric power generation and international conflict are given to illustrate the methodology. The paper concludes with an outline for a general mathematical theory of surprises, together with a program for investigating the systemic property of resilience.     

REQUISITE VARIETY IN THE SYSTEMS AND CONTROL SCIENCES†

Trends in the systems and control sciences are discussed in relation to certain results in cybernetics. In particular, optimal control theory is reviewed in the light of practical engineering requirements and servomechanism theory is considered in the light of Ashby's law of requisite variety.     

THE SYSTEMS APPROACH TO A NEW WORLD VIEW†

The use of the system approach in relation to an evaluation of man and society which will contribute to the emerging world civilization (a new worldview) is explored, with particular emphasis on the question of long range goals for mankind. Gerald Feinberg's The Prometheus Project is reviewed, together with the new trends which Willis Harman calls The New Copernican Revolution. Man is emerging as the creator of his own destiny, consciously or unconsciously, and man's image of the future is a key to that future coming into being.     

OLD TRENDS AND NEW TRENDS IN GENERAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH†

Ludwig von Bertalanffy. as well as many of the other pioneers of systems theory, was motivated in large part by the problems or theoretical biology. This fact reflects the unique role which biology plays in the sciences. The character of biological explanations, and the relation of organic problems to other realms of human activity, is reviewed in this context, and some of the fundamental remaining problems are pointed out. It is suggested that these problems will play a dominant role in systems research in the future, as they have in the past.     

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRUE AND ESTIMATED POSSIBILISTIC SYSTEMS AND THEIR RECONSTRUCTIONS†

This paper is a theoretical contribution to reconstructability analysis of possibilistic systems. A method to estimate a given possibility distribution from the associated observations is derived based on the one-to-one correspondence between possibility distributions and their basic probability assignments. It is shown that in this estimation the possibility value for a state is proportional to the frequency of the state in the observations which are drawn from nested state subsets. The order preservation relationship between a given (true) possibility distribution and its estimation is derived. Based on this preservation property, it is shown that the order in the distance from an original possibilistic overall system of their unbiased reconstructions from two alternative reconstruction hypotheses (structures) is preserved in the estimated systems domain. Particularly, it is proved that systems conceptualized in terms of possibility theory possess an important property: if a possibilistic system is perfectly reconstructable from a specific reconstruction hypothesis, then a system estimated from any data produced by the former system is also perfectly reconstructable from the same hypothesis.     

AN EDUCATIONAL DESIGN FOR ‘SHIFTING’ DEGENERATE SOCIAL SCIENCE PARADIGMS: AN APPLICATION OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY

This paper develops a general systems rationale for the design of a social science educational programme. The functions of science may be defined in terms of influencing the state of the human condition, i.e. the relationship between man and his environment. An educational structure for realizing these aims for any particular (empirical) social science consists of two primary categories: methodological and meta-methodological. The former is directly related to the empirical question of “managing” the human conditions whilst the latter is concerned with constructing systems of appraisal for “guiding” methodological change. Thus the function of meta-methodological studies is to build in adaptive or innovative properties in the educational design. The general rationale of this paper provides a coherent way of organizing so-called inter-disciplinary studies. The ideas are illustrated with reference to the design of degree studies in Accounting and Financial Management.     

AN EDUCATIONAL DESIGN FOR ‘ SHIFTING’ DEGENERATE SOCIAL SCIENCE PARADIGMS: AN APPLICATION OF GENERAL SYSTEMS THEORY

This paper develops a general systems rationale for the design or a social science educational programme. The functions of science may be defined in terms of influencing the state of the human condition, i.e. the relationship between man and his environment. An educational structure for realizing these aims for any particular (empirical) social science consists of two primary categories: methodological and meta-methodological. The former is directly related to the empirical question of “ managing” the human conditions whilst the latter is concerned with constructing systems of appraisal Tor “ guiding” methodological change. Thus the function of meta-methodological studies is to build in adaptive or innovative properties in the educational design. The general rationale of this paper provides a coherent way of organizing so-called inier-disciplinary studies. The ideas are illustrated with reference to the design of degree studies in Accounting and Financial Management     

PROBLEMS ON FEEDBACK CONTROL OF UNCERTAIN SYSTEMS: A THEORETICAL INTERPRETATION†

Abstract

The main problem in control theory is the definition of the optimal control law that must be applied to a physical system in order to obtain a desired behaviour. A general approach to this problem is developed, in order to explain the consideration of Rapoport that: “.feedback loops suggest that information is somehow fed into the system, or that the system obtains information about itself.” To this extent, the meanings of “system” and approximating “model” are properly clarified. The correct use of an observer, as the device which measures the uncertainty about the internal structure of the system and about the environmental influences on the system itself, is defined. The concept of “equilibrium” of a controlled system is introduced and some necessary and sufficient conditions in order that such an equilibrium may be reached, are stated.     

THINGS†

A concept of concrete object, or thing, is built that turns out to subsume the special concepts of thing found in the sciences. The construction proceeds in three stages. In the first, the concept of a substantial individual is introduced as anything that can combine with other individuals. The set of individuals is assigned the semi-group structure, and a number of notions, in particular those of part and of aggregate, are defined. In the second phase the notion of a substantial property, as different from that of attribute, is characterized. It is construed as a function on the set of substantial individuals. The assumption is made that properties are all definite and that they can conjoin but not disjoin; nor are negative properties countenanced. Further, the notions of.property precedence and of property neighbourhood are defined. It is postulated that substantial properties come in clusters. Laws are counted as special properties, namely as functional relations among substantial properties. In the third stage the notion of state is introduced and a thing is defined as a substantial individual equipped with all its possible states. Natural kinds or species are then defined with the help of the concept of a law, namely as the sets of things satisfying certain laws. The real world is assumed to be unique and to be constituted by things alone. Finally the notion of a concrete system is defined as a set of things together with the set of connections among them. The paper employs elementary logical, algebraic and set theoretical notions, and is hoped to belong in exact philosophy.     

Pumping languages †

We study some pumping properties and the classes of languages having these properties. We describe how these classes are interrelated and related to the Chomsky hierarchy of languages. We further study their closure properties.     

FORE SYSTEMS创新纪录

FORE系统 公司的OC—12 PCI网卡在 Tolly Group性 能基准测试中, 传输流量超过 1Gbps, ForeRunnerHE 622ATM网卡, 支持工业标准的加长包并且可在不增加CPU负载的情况下达到高速吞吐。 1998年5月4日,全球智能网络解决方案供应商FORE系统公司宣布,ForeRunnerHE 622 ATM PCI总线网卡在最近的一系列测试中,性能上打破了所有纪录。该测试是由一个名为Tolly Group     

东芝AS100

现在但凡是家搞IT的公司都在搞平板电脑,咱们先不说那些Made in China（山寨）的,数得出名号的就包括三星、东芝、摩托罗拉等等等等。这次地主拿到了东芝的AS100,这玩意儿在网上号称是iPad的对手,     

Optimal non-linear estimation†

For the non-linear estimation problem with non-linear plant and observation models, white gaussian excitations and continuous data, the state-vector a posteriori probabilities for prediction and smoothing are obtained via the 'partition theorem'. Moreover, for the special class of non-linear estimation problems with linear models excited by white gaussian noise, and with non-gaussian initial state, explicit results are obtained for the a posteriori probabilities, the optimal estimates and the corresponding error-covariance matrices for filtering, prediction and smoothing. In addition, for the latter problem, approximate but simpler expressions are obtained by using a gaussian sum approximation of the initial state-vector probability density. As a special case of the above results, optimal linear smoothing algorithms are obtained in a new form.     

Wiener-Poisson control problems†

A one-dimensional Wiener plus independent Poisson control process has an integrated, discounted non-quadratic cost function with asymmetric bounds on the non-anticipative control, assumed to be a function of the current state. A Bellman equation and maximum principle for partial differential-difference equations may be used to obtain the optimal closed-loop control if some assumptions on the asymptotic behaviour of certain partial differential-difference equations are met. The finite and infinite integral cases are treated separately.     

Variable-structure coherent systems†

The notion of coherent systems plays an essential role in conventional reliability theory. A system is said to be coherent if all of its components are relevant and the system reliability is improved as the component reliabilities are improved. However, in many complex systems or networks, not all the components are unconditionally relevant. As a result, in this paper we introduce the notion of variable-structure coherent systems to describe those systems that extensively exist and demonstrate essentially distinct features not observed in conventional coherent systems. A variable-structure coherent system consists of a number of substructures that are each a coherent system in conventional sense themselves. We then analyze the structural properties of variable-structure coherent systems; define the system operational profile, the system reliability, and the system structural profile. We study the system life distribution, the substructure importance, and the component importance. Finally, we deal with phase-cyclic systems in the context of variable-structure coherent systems.     

On practical stability†

In this paper, a class of non-linear non-autonomous systems with multiple non-linearities is considered. Sufficient conditions are developed for a type of practical stability with specified settling time. The conditions are independent of the actual Form of the non-linear characteristics so that they can be interpreted as conditions for ‘absolute’ practical stability. The stability test is reduced to verification of the Hurwitz property of a constant matrix. This makes the stability analysis of the considered class of non-linear systems convenient for machine computations

The proposed practical stability analysis is applied to a third-order system with several non-linearities.     

Absolute extrema-seeking procedures †

A universal algorithm is presented in the paper which makes it possible to find out whether a given relative extremum of a scalar-valued function of a vector argument is also the absolute one and, if not, to find a point at which a relative extremum-seeking procedure can be restarted in order that a better relative extremum—i.e. one at which the given function takes a less, alternatively greater, value—may be obtained. Repeated application of the described procedure in combination with an arbitrary relative extremum-seeking procedure leads to determining the absolute extremum. The possibility of application to stochastic and integer programming problems is discussed.