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

BOOLEAN FUNCTION 2)

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"A logical switching rule which specifies the activity of a variable in response to all the possible combinations of activities in the input variables" (St. KAUFFMAN, 1993, p.65).

St. KAUFFMAN writes: "The Boolean function specifies for each possible combination of current activities of the input variables, the activity of the regulated variable at the next moment. For example, an element with two inputs might be active at the next moment if either one or the other or both inputs are active at the current moment" (1993, p.188).

There are two Boolean functions:

- The OR function, "which says that a variable will be active if any of its inputs variables is active" (Ibid).

- The AND function, which "declares that a variable will become active only if all its inputs are currently active" (Ibid.).

These very simple rules were enounced originally by George BOOLE and are of cardinal importance for any study of networks.

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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