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

SMALL WORLD EFFECT 2)4)

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A property of a network interconnection grid in which some apparently unrelated and widely separated elements turn out to be directly connected.

This is a general characteristic of many networks, whose importance has been emphasized by D. WATTS in a recent book (1999).

It appears when a few (even very few) elements have long-range connections, which put in contact some widely separated ones.

This is an intermediary state between networks wherein elements are only connected to their close neighbours and those wherein some elements are globally connected in a random way. Some few long-range connections in a network allow for the swift and efficient long-distance propagation of initially local effects. A limited number of this type of connections introduces specific constraints in the network. This should not be the case if too many long-range connections would be introduced in a completely random way. (R. MATTHEWS, 1998, p.7)

The presence of constraints in "small worlds" networks introduces a kind of fuzzy global communication ordering, even if the network lacks an organizational center.(R. MATTHEWS, 1999, p.27). This could be for example the case of the general brain organization, or the world's scientific research community. In both cases, a reduced number of specific long distance links is enough to create a global coherence when each of the linked elements has its own regional or specific network of connections whereby or wherefrom it can relay any information.

Small world models could be very useful for the study of the present globalization trends in ecology, economy, communication networks, business, politics, social organization, cultural evolution, etc.

The small world model can be useful in widely different situations, as for ex. in epidemiology, in brain studies, in electronic circuits, in communication and energy distribution networks (… and their failures!), in fads and fashion propagation phenomena, etc…

→ Hypercube architecture

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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