Explores the concept of cataloging, analyzes its functions and operations, and holds that as a control system bibliographic organization is subject to the laws of cybernetics. The role of relevance and the limitations of some regulatory devices are examined. (FM)

Application of cybernetic laws and information processing principles suggests that traditional and modern teaching methods are radically incompatible, in the sense that techniques developed in the one cannot be transferred to the other without dislocation of the system as a whole. (Author/WBC)

In this article, the author looks to the past for trends in hardware, software, networking, and education and attempt to extrapolate where they are going and what their broad implications might be. However, there are many different ways that trends can be interpreted, and it is easy to pick trends that support one's thesis and ignore ones that…

Internet search has become a routine computing activity, with regular visits to a search engine--usually Google--the norm for most people. The vast majority of searchers, as recent studies of Internet search behavior reveal, search only in the most basic of ways and fail to avail themselves of options that could easily and effortlessly improve…

The author of this article believes that human survival depends upon the ability to develop and work with machines of high artificial intelligence. He lists uses of such machines, including terrestrial mining, outer space exploration, and other tasks too dangerous, too expensive, or too boring for human beings. (MA)

The paper describes a cybernetic computer-based instructional system, SOCRATES, the teaching model which led to its development, and some of the research accomplished with it. The acronym, SOCRATES, is System for Organizing Content to Review and Teach Educational Subject. It consists of a group of student input-output (I/O) stations wired to a…

An architectural computer system was developed using modern small scale computers, to ease the interaction and conflict within the design team during the design process. The original proposal included an information file, a mathematical building model, and a subsystems (electrical, cost estimating, etc.) model. Due to unanticipated problems, the…

The literature of knowledge is a very large system in the cybernetic sense of intractibility to control. Improving access to it needs some simplifying theory. A step in this direction is a hypothesis constructed from basic concepts. These include cybernetic concepts of variety and requisite variety; a version of the mathematical concept of…

Presents the results of a manual simulation, which consisted of a simple world model with several feedback loops, to emphasize the particular difficulty of the results of interpreting computer simulations using similar techniques. (CMV)

Available from: Comparative Administration Research Institute, Kent State University Press, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242. (IRT)

Explores the sociopolitical implications of the new epistemology and the Milan approach, concluding that, while second order cybernetics has greater potential to incorporate a radical social analysis, it has, nevertheless, failed to do so. The application of second order cybernetics in family therapy appears to be constrained by the sociopolitical…

Describes a model of instructional theory relevant to individualized distance education that is based on Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), behavior analysis, and the instructional systems development model (ISD). Systems theory is emphasized, and ISD and behavior analysis are discussed as cybernetic processes. (LRW)

After examining some elementary notions of action theory and cybernetics, this article analyzes the dynamics, clustering, and survival chances of vicious circles. It argues that the action perspective implies that many structural suboptimalities of organizations are caused by vicious circles. Eleven figures and 105 references are provided. (DCS)