Statistical dynamic models of social systems: The general theory

1978 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Bowers
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Hart ◽  
Moira R. Dillon ◽  
Andrew Marantan ◽  
Anna L. Cardenas ◽  
Elizabeth Spelke ◽  
...  

AbstractGeometric reasoning has an inherent dissonance: its abstract axioms and propositions refer to infinitesimal points and infinite straight lines while our perception of the physical world deals with fuzzy dots and curved stripes. How we use these disparate mechanisms to make geometric judgments remains unresolved. Here, we deploy a classically used cognitive geometric task - planar triangle completion - to study the statistics of errors in the location of the missing vertex. Our results show that the mean location has an error proportional to the side of the triangle, the standard deviation is sub-linearly dependent on the side length, and has a negative skewness. These scale-dependent responses directly contradict the conclusions of recent cognitive studies that innate Euclidean rules drive our geometric judgments. To explain our observations, we turn to a perceptual basis for geometric reasoning that balances the competing effects of local smoothness and global orientation of extrapolated trajectories. The resulting mathematical framework captures our observations and further predicts the statistics of the missing angle in a second triangle completion task. To go beyond purely perceptual geometric tasks, we carry out a categorical version of triangle completion that asks about the change in the missing angle after a change in triangle shape. The observed responses show a systematic scale-dependent discrepancy at odds with rule-based Euclidean reasoning, but one that is completely consistent with our framework. All together, our findings point to the use of statistical dynamic models of the noisy perceived physical world, rather than on the abstract rules of Euclid in determining how we reason geometrically.


2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (4/2020) ◽  
pp. 151-170
Author(s):  
Milorad Djuric ◽  
Djordje Stojanovic

Niklas Luhmann articulates the basic elements of his authentic theoretical position as criticism of, as he calls them, classical sociology or classical organisation theory. While within these orientations, (social) systems are mainly interpreted as centralised entities whose structures are stabilised by purpose determined at the top, Luhmann, in his general theory of social systems privileges internal differentiation in which subsystems autonomously define their purposes, making society more flexible and capable of responding to environmental challenges. In that sense, the main intention of this paper is the creation of cognitive interest for the notions of complexity and flexibility, i.e. for the issue of subsystem autonomy, as the important elements of Luhmann’s general theory of social systems. Our premise is that the establishment of subsystem autonomy is not a matter of mere, a priori, theoretical and/or practical arbitrariness, nor does it mean an introduction into deconstruction of the system, but it represents a necessary step in the creation of successful responses of the social system to problems arising from the immense and dynamic complexity of its own environment. In other words, through the process of internal differentiation, by establishing subsystem autonomy, the social system increases its own complexity, i.e. ability to adjust to the environment. Thus, challenges arising from the environment are not transferred to the whole, but localised and processed in the appropriate, autonomous parts of the system. By so increasing its internal complexity, the system undeniably acquires the necessary flexibility, or capability for a faster and more efficient creation of alternative.


Author(s):  
Yu Cheng Liu

This essay examines the concept of medium and other medium/media theories. Compared to the emphasis Marshall McLuhan and Joshua Meyrowitz place on the direct impact of the media on how people understand the world, the major theme of this paper is that such impact cannot be regarded as so direct, and their theories can be reframed with Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory. Thus, we can distinguish the medium system from the psychological and other social systems, and at the same time structurally couple with them. The concept of the medium system has not been envisioned by Luhmann; he constructed and explained a general theory of society and of social systems. In spite of this, his theoretical insights provide the basis for extension of his work to frame the medium theory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 304 ◽  
pp. 01007
Author(s):  
Isroil Jumanov ◽  
Olim Djumanov ◽  
Rustam Safarov

Constructive approaches, principles, and models for optimizing the identification of micro-objects have been developed based on the use of combined statistical, dynamic models and neural networks with mechanisms for filtering noise and foreign particles of images of medical objects and pollen grains. Algorithms for learning neural networks under conditions of a priori insufficiency, uncertainty of parameters, and low accuracy of data processing are investigated. The mechanisms of contour selection, segmentation, obtaining the boundaries of segments with hard and soft thresholds, filtering using the morphological features of the image have been developed [1]. Mechanisms for recognition and classification of images, adaptation of parameter values, tuning of the network structure, approximation and smoothing of random emissions, bursts in the image contour are proposed. A mechanism for suppressing impulse noise and noise is implemented based on various filtering methods, preserving the boundaries of objects and small-sized parts. Mathematical expressions are obtained for estimating the identification errors caused by nonstationarity, inadequacy of approximation, interpolation, and extrapolation of the image contour. A software package for the recognition and classification of micro-objects has been developed. The results were obtained for correct, incorrect recognition, as well as rejected pollen samples, which were synthesized with cubic, biquadratic, interpolation spline-functions and wavelet transforms.


2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domenico Tosini

The main purpose of this article is to present the fundamental concepts of a theory of social systems, with special reference to the concepts of medium and form, and their application in sociology. By challenging the indifference and opposition shown by most contemporary sociologists to the ontological and theoretical questions of social theory (e.g. in the case of micro-sociologists’ aversion to Parsons), systems theory has, from the beginning, represented an attempt at an analysis focusing on the fundamental concepts (and on their coherent relations) of a general theory of society. Ignoring the elaboration of these concepts may be tantamount to reducing sociology to countless collections of facts of a limited informative value. Indeed, only an adequate conceptual framework will suffice. Certain recent developments in systems theory offer useful tools. Some of these developments are illustrated in this article, which marshals a network of concepts, each dealing with specific aspects relating to sociological analysis.


1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-29
Author(s):  
Otto Pöggeler ◽  

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