Cybernetics studies in Romania

Citation

Rudall, B.H. (1999), "Cybernetics studies in Romania", Kybernetes, Vol. 28 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1999.06728baa.001

Cybernetics studies in Romania

Keywords Automation, Cybernetics, Research and development

Abstract Presents reports and surveys of selected current research and development in systems and cybernetics. They include: Cybernetics studies in Romania; Management cybernetics; Nanofabrication; Global information access; Web publishing revolution?; Innovations in systems and cybernetics.

Cybernetics studies in Romania

An insight into cybernetics studies and research in Romania is given by the Academy of Economic Studies of the Faculty of Cybernetics, Statistics and Economic Informatics which is in Bucharest (Economic Computation and Economic Cybernetics Studies and Research, 15-17 Calea Dorobantilor, Bucharest, Romania. Tel: 211 64 50; E-mail: iva a kyber.ase.ro). By producing its journal Economic Computation and Economic Cybernetics Studies and Research, which is sponsored by the Romanian Institute of Research and Development, it provides the world's cybernetics community with an overview of cybernetic endeavour in the country.

A recent issue of the journal contains a number of papers that will be of interest to cyberneticians, particularly economic cyberneticians and systemists. Mathematical economics provides a powerful tool in the study of economic systems. In his paper "Mathematical economics of capitalism" (second part ­ follows the first part of his book and will be followed by later parts), Professor Dr Andrei Popovici approaches the economic system as a mass-energy process. He describes the process of capital production by its components (variable and constant capital) and as a whole, including the relation between wages and surplus-value fixed and circulating capital, technical and value composition of capital. He also studies the process of capital accumulation on individual (plant), industrial branch and social (country) levels. The author can be contacted at the University of Bucharest.

Dr Ion Ivan from the Economic Informatics Department of the Academy of Economic Studies in his published paper looks at aspects of software product customising and suggests several solutions in order to accomplish it.

The numerous examples he gives highlights the interests of software engineers in the country and confirms the view that such problems are universal. By presenting, through numerous examples, both the advantages and the drawbacks of various software products customising methods we begin to realise that this is an important growth area. His references are to fellow Romanian software papers which also emphasise that customising leads to growth of programmers' performances with their efficiency increasing considerably. A high degree of product program reuse is reported because of the greater product number generation according to the user specification.

This journal has published a number of papers which take a cybernetic approach to the analysis of stock volatility. Drs M. Zaharia and A. Hospodar in their contribution to the Economic Academy's publication say that the volatility series can be strongly non-linear. They propose a non-linear model to be used, and say that the empirical evidence suggests that large returns of a financial asset are followed by large returns and small returns by smaller ones. Whether this is significant or not is discussed. The dynamics they believe can be described by the state-dependent model presented.

Fuzzy models provide important ways of analysing systems. Dr Georgescu of the University of Craiova writes in his paper of the estimation of fuzzy regression models with possibilistic constraints, using quadratic programming. He introduces what is described as a new formal criterion called the decoupling principle which, he believes, allows us to naturally extend theprojection theorem into a fuzzy regression framework. He also explores the algorithmic consequences which follow from such theoretical considerations for various situations and concrete problems.

Some implementations of MATLAB are also given by Dr Georgescu. Scientists will be interested in the cybernetical aspect of mental activity introduced by Dr Alin Gilbert Sumedrea of the Romanian Academy. Under the title of "A mathematical method of quantifying some aspects connected to themental activity" the contributed paper looks at the possibility of quantifying them.

Further consideration shows that this is to be done by the use of group theory, the quantical theory and the invariants theory.

What is called the metrics of mental activity is obtained, as are:

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  the equation with partial derivation of the mental activity;

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  the interaction power of mental activity;

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  the information capacity to disturb us;

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  the wave function of mental activity;

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  the psychological experience and the saturation limits of the psychological experience.

These aspects of the estimation of mental activity have been tackled with cybernetics in view; this could not be achieved without mathematical formalisation and the researcher concludes the paper with consideration of "the quantum character of the mental activity".