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

CLUSTER 1)2)

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A more or less interacting gathering of elements within a common environment.

Clustering is the result of existing patterns of circulation within the environment, which tend to create more or less homogeneous local conditions, as opposed to global heterogeneous ones.

Clustering can as well be more or less local, i.e. in composite systems many local protoclusters may coexist, with only a very loose interaction (if any) until their concentration increases up to a critical threshold, where suddenly a global cluster appears through part or whole of the region. The increased closeness of the elements tends to trigger more interactions among them. This may lead to a higher level of organization, which in turn may become stabilized (frozen cores), or not.

Clusters can be observed among such diverse kinds of elements as stars and galaxies, plants and human settlements, political organizations and systems of ideas. Clustering is thus an important systemic concept.

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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