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

SCALE- FREE NETWORKS 2)

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A type of network that has many nodes (or hubs) with few links and some few nodes with many links. A.L. BARABASI (2002) has shown that many communication systems (whatever the nature of the communication) are scale-free networks. Among them he signals the Internet web, the food webs in ecosystems ("who eats whom"), the so-called "invisible college" among scientists (among them systemists and cyberneticians, we should add) and in biology, the complex grid of biochemical products that sustains any living being.

In this very Encyclopedia, a mapping of the cross-references would probably show out as a scale free network.

As a result of their peculiar topology, scale free networks are very resistant to not excessively extended random failures. On the other hand, any propagation of an effect can be modelized by a scale free network. An example is the AIDS pandemics.

Even one single bearer of the HIV can act as a hub in the network, i.e. as an efficient propagation agent in some specific geographic and social conditions. On the contrary, it seems that "cleaning" hubs in internet, could be a useful strategy against viruses.

→ Hexagonal space filling: Hub; Small world effect; Social system

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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