Cybernetics and systems in the 1980s

Abstract

Considers the material impact of computers and cybernetics in the 1980s.

A review of the recent contribution of systems thinking to operational research and management science

“…Indeed, individual disciplines such as cybernetics and GST have had a crucial influence on the birth and development of various modern subjects such as: control theory, computer science, information theory, automata theory, artificial intelligence and artificial neural networks, cognitive science, computer modelling and simulation, dynamical systems, and artificial life (Rudall 2000;Rudall 2002), while practical methodologies such as system dynamics and SSM have been applied to a wide range of domains. (de Water, Schinkel et al 2007).…”

“…Information systems (Garrity 2001;McBride 2005;Mora, Gelman et al 2007;Porra, Hirschheim et al 2005;Wainwright and Waring 2004) Medicine and public health (McCubbin and Cohen 1999;McSherry 2004;Pronk and Boucher 1999;Wieman and Wieman 2004) Natural environment (Hjorth 2003;Kropff, Bouma et al 2001;Lister 1998;Meinke, Baethgen et al 2001;Proulx 2007) (Espinosa et al 2008;Espinosa and Walker 2006;Hipel et al 2007;Ozbolt et al 2004) Sustainability (Chan and Huang 2004;Espinosa, Hamden et al 2008;Espinosa and Walker 2006;Johannessen and Hauan 1994;Kouloura 2007;Zhong et al 2006) Supply chain, production, projects (Achterbergh et al 2003;Brewis 2002;Herrmann, Bergmann et al 2008;Jenner 1998;Leonard 1992;Plenert 1995;Rudall 2000;Shaw et al 2004) Other applications…”

“…More recently, much has been made of the advent of computing technology and re-emergence of cybernetics over the last 20 years (Rudall 2000;Rudall 2002). More generally, areas such as fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, neural networks, and adaptive systems, which were relatively unexplored thirty or even ten years ago, are now dominating the scope of cybernetics and OR (Dowsland 1996;Kobbacy et al 2007;Rudall 2004;Rudall and Mann 2008;Tilebein 2006).…”

“…Cybernetics studies the flow of information through a system and the way in which that information is used by the system as a mean of controlling itself (Ashby 1956). Today, cybernetics has a broad range of areas of application, including biocybernetics, biomedical systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, adaptive systems large-scale socio-economic systems, man-machine systems, and systems science (Johannessen 1998;Rudall 2000;Tilebein 2006;Vallee 2003), -all of which are based on Wiener's interdisciplinary cybernetics concepts.…”