Death of Professor Zdzislaw Bubnicki

Citation

(2006), "Death of Professor Zdzislaw Bubnicki", Kybernetes, Vol. 35 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2006.06735gaf.002

Death of Professor Zdzislaw Bubnicki

We received the following announcement of the death of Professor Bubnicki and extend our condolances to his colleagues and friends at the Institute of Information Science and Engineering at Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland. He was a much-esteemed contributor to this journal and to the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics. His paper “Uncertain variables as a tool for analysis and decision making in uncertain knowledge-based systems” is published in memoriam in this special issue of invited papers presented at the 13th WOSC International Congress of Cybernetics and Systems, Maribor, Slovenia 2005.

Founder and for many years Director of the Institute of Information Science and Engineering at Wroclaw University of Technology, Co-founder of the Faculty of Computer Science and Management in Wroclaw University of Technology; senior member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), President of PAS – Wroclaw Branch (1991-1998), chairman of scientific councils of the Institute of Computer Science in PAS (1987-1989) and the Systems Research Institute in PAS (since 1990), President of the Committee of Automation and Robotics in PAS (since 1988) and member of the Committee of Informatics in PAS, member of a working group in the Polish Committee for Scientific Research (1997-2000); Polish representative in IFIP General Assembly and in IFIP Artificial Intelligence Committee, member of technical committees in IFIP and IFAC, Polish representative in Administrative Council of European Union Control Association EUCA, member of executive boards of the International Association of Science and Technology for Development IASTED (Canada) and the International Institute for General System Studies IIGSS (USA); Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Systems Science, initiator and chairman of international conferences SYSTEMS SCIENCE (starting from 1973); visiting professor and participant of international conferences, among others in: USA, Japan, Canada, India, P.R. China, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico and most European countries.

Professor Bubnicki was one of the most outstanding contemporary Polish scientists, a creator of the worldwide recognized Wroclaw scientific school of computer science and control systems, a successful supervisor of 45 PhD students, of which 16 currently hold a professor's position.

Plate 1 Professor Zdzislaw Bubnicki

Professor Bubnicki has developed new research directions in the field of computer and control science, in particular, in the area of: discrete control systems, identification and pattern recognition in complex systems, control of operation systems, expert systems and knowledge-based computer decision systems, artificial intelligence and uncertain systems. The main results – new stability conditions for uncertain discrete systems, identification and recognition algorithms in complex systems and their applications, logic-algebraic method and its applications to knowledge-based systems, new methods of learning in knowledge-based systems, uncertain variables and their applications to computer decision systems with uncertain knowledge, allocation problems under uncertainty in computer and manufacturing systems – have been published in more than 250 papers and articles, in nine books (Analysis and Decision Making in Uncertain Systems received Book of the Year Award), and presented at many international congresses.

Professor Bubnicki as an excellent and active scientist and educator was a member of many national and international scientific associations, including Polish Academy of Sciences (senior member), Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (foreign member), World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics WOSC (honorary member), IEEE (senior member), and received multiple national and international distinctions and awards, e.g. many awards of the Ministry of Higher Education, IFIP Silver Core Award, Best Paper Award at conferences CASYS in Belgium, Distinguished Leadership in Science and Education Award, Life-long Achievement Award and Distinguished Professor – from the International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics IIAS (Canada).

Honorary title of doctor honoris causa was given to Professor Bubnicki by Szczecin University of Technology, Military University of Technology and Poznan University of Technology.

In the deceased we have lost not only a well-known and respected scientist and organizer of research activity, but also a marvelous and unforgettable teacher, initiator, guide and supervisor of our research, education and organization work.

Professor Bubnicki passed away on the 12 March 2006 at the age of 68.

Colleagues and friends from the Institute of Information Science and Engineering, Wroclaw University of Technology