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The World Organisation of
Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC),
Excerpt from the WOSC website pages
(2008)
The World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC), or
"Organisation Mondiale pour la Systémique et la Cybernétique (OMSC)", is a federation of
national associations and institutions devoted to systems or cybernetics, with
English, French and Russian as official languages. It was founded in 1969 by
Professor J. Rose (+), who was Director-General until 1987,
when this role passed to Professor Robert Vallée
and John Rose became Honorary Director of the organisation.
Dr Norbert Wiener is the President in Memoriam. Professor Stafford Beer was
the President until his death in August 2002.
WOSC Secretariat
More details about the work of WOSC can be obtained from
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Dr Alex Andrew, Director-General,
95 Finch Road, Earley, Reading RG6 7JX, UK
Telephone and FAX: +44 118 9269328
alexandrew@tiscali.co.uk
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:
Professor R. Vallée, President,
2 rue de Vouillé, 75015 Paris, FRANCE
Telephone and FAX: +33 1 45.33.62.46
r.vallee@afscet.asso.fr
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Board of Directors
From the spring of 2004, WOSC has been restructured, and the Director-General
is now Dr Alex Andrew (UK), with Professor Robert Vallée (France) as President.
The Director-General is
assisted by a Board of Directors in promoting
"Systems Theory and Cybernetics" in the 37 countries that are involved.
Communication between Countries
Kybernetes is the official journal of WOSC. It was
founded in
1972 and since 1988 has been published by MCB University Press. Congresses have
been held every three years since the first in London in 1969. Subsequent events
have been in Oxford (1972), Bucharest (1975), Amsterdam (1978), Mexico City
(1981), Paris (1984), London (1987), New York (1990), New Delhi (1993), again
Bucharest (1996). again London (1999), Pittsburgh (2002), Maribor (2005)
Norbert Wiener Institute
The Institute will supplement the work of the Secretariat by allowing the
interaction of individuals and national organisations to be continuous.
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Norbert Wiener
1894-1964 |
In honour of Dr Norbert Wiener and to mark the centenary of his birth, the
Institute has been named the Norbert Wiener Institute.
The Director of the Institute is Professor Brian H. Rudall
Origin of Cybernetics
The formal birth of the subject of Cybernetics was the publication in 1948 of
the book Cybernetics by Dr Norbert Wiener, with the subtitle: "Communication
and Control in the Animal and the Machine" (published by Hermann & Cie,
Paris and Wiley & Sons, New York). The
ideas arose from collaboration of Wiener with Warren McCulloch and others
including Walter Pitts. After the death of Warren McCulloch in 1969, his wife
compiled a set of "Collected Works" which unfortunately has not been widely
distributed because of the financial failure of the publisher. A
Contents
list can be seen here. Another major contributor to the field, and a friend of Warren McCulloch, was
Donald
MacKay who has a list of references to his early work as attached.
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Honorary Fellowships
WOSC has established a limited number of Honorary Fellowships for eminent
scientists in the fields of cybernetics, systems, computers and related
disciplines. For the list, see below.
Board of Directors
The Director-General of WOSC is Dr Alex Andrew
(UK) who is assisted by a Board of Directors in promoting
systems theory and cybernetics in the countries that are
involved.
The members of the Directorate are:
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President
Prof. Robert Vallée (France)
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Vice-President
Director of the Norbert Wiener Institute
of
the WOSC
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Prof. Brian H. Rudall
(UK) |
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Director-General
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Dr. Alex Andrew
(UK) |
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Founder and Honorary Director
+ Prof. J. Rose (UK)
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President in Memoriam
Dr Norbert Wiener (USA)
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Past-President in Memoriam
Prof. Stafford Beer (UK) |
- Dr Constantin Bilciu (USA)
- Professor Dwijesh Dutta Majumder (India)
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Directors
- Professor Raúl Espejo (UK)
- Professor Nan-chon Hu
(P.R. of China)
- Professor Amaranto Lopes Pereira (Brazil)
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- Professor Mohamed Najim (Morocco)
- Martin Smith (UK)
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Honorary
The following have accepted the WOSC
invitation:
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D. Gabor, Nobel Laureate (UK), In
M.
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B.D. Josephson, Nobel Laureate (UK)
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L. Pauling, Nobel Laureate (USA), In
M.
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I. Prigogine, Nobel Laureate (Belgium), In
M.
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H.A. Simon, Nobel Laureate (USA), In
M.
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Evelyne Andreewsky (France), In
M.
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A.M. Andrew, Reading (UK)
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A. Balevski, Bulgarian Acad. Sci. (Bulgaria)
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S. Beer, Manchester Business School (UK), In
M.
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J. Bigelow, Princeton Inst. Adv. Stud. (USA)
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Zdislaw Bubnicki, (Poland), In
M.
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C. Chagas, Vatican Acad. Sci. (Brazil)
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A. Danzin, I.N.R.I.A. (France)
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D. Drimer, Ecol. Univ. Bucharest (Romania)
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R. Ericson, Soc. Gen. Syst. Res. (USA)
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R. Espejo, Univ. Lincolnshire (UK)
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F.H. George, Brunel Univ. (UK), In
M.
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F. Geyer, Centre Co-ord. Res. Soc. Sci. (Netherlands)
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A. Ghosal, SOMAC (India)
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Fellowships
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T.C. Helvey, Univ. Tenn. (USA), In
M.
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C. Hammer, Sperry-Univac (USA), In
M.
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Kozesnik, Cze.-Slo. Acad. Sci., In
M.
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L. Kumar, Goverm. of India (India)
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M. Manescu, Acad. Econ. Stud. (Romania)
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M.D. Mesarovic, West. Res. Univ. (USA)
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Matjaz Mulej, Maribor (Slovenia)
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M. Nalecz, Pol. Acad. Sci. (Poland)
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E. Nicolau, Polytch. Inst. Bucharest (Romania), In
M.
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J.D. Palmer, IEEE (USA)
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S. Ramo, T.R.W. Inc. (USA)
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B.H. Rudall, U. North Wales (UK)
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J.G. Santesmases, A.E.I.A. (Spain)(In M.)
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Sifeng Liu (P.R. of China)
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Yi Lin (USA)
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M. Valentinuzzi, Inst. Cyber. (Argentina)
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R. Vallée, Univ. Paris-Nord. (France)
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Sir G. Vickers (UK), In
M.
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L.A. Zadeh, Univ. Cal. (USA)
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J. v.d. Zouwen, F. Univ. Am. (Netherlands)
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Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal
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C. Pert (2000)
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A. M. Andrew (2008)
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