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Presentations on Neocybernetics

There are some presentations that may help to see the Neocybernetic Big Picture ...

  • Tutorial presentation pdf given at The 6th IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation (CIRA'05) in Espoo, Finland, June 27-30, 2005.
  • Invited presentation pdf given to bioinformatics and genetics experts and system biologists at The 3rd Oulu Summer School in Bioprocess Engineering and NeoBio Seminar (OSSiBE3) in Oulu, Finland, June 6-9, 2005.
  • Invited presentation pdf given to neuroscience and information science researchers at "NeuroCafe" at TKK in March 31, 2006.
  • Seminar presentation pdf given to graduate-level systems engineering students in September 22, 2006.


Publications on Neocybernetics

The new science of neocybernetics was officially introduced at the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Conference, Sep. 1-3, 2004 (STeP'04). The basic material is presented in the following STeP papers:

  • The basic intuitions are presented in step1.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, Vol. 1 pdf. It is shown how concrete analyses of a Hebbian neuron grid can offer intuitions of how distributed systems can coordinate themselves in general.
  • More general views of how a cybernetic system is connected to its environment and what kind of universal properties it has is explained in step6.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, electronic version pdf. The concepts of entropy and information offer a good framework for understanding the properties of such systems.
  • In step4.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, Vol. 1 pdf it is explained what kind of consequences there are on observation data when a system being observed is cybernetic; it is also shown how a neuron can constitute the atom of semantics in mental representations.
  • The cybernetic networks are studied in step5.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, Vol. 3 pdf. Often, the dependencies are multiplicative - such probabilistic networks can be also studied in the same framework, resulting in non-strictly-power-law distributions.
  • As a concrete application example, in step2.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, Vol. 2 pdf it is shown how the cybernetic intuitions can be applied in a distributed agent system - so that distribution brings some real added value that cannot be predicted applying centralized approaches.
  • The above studies concentrated on populations - but the balances can also be based on constraints, so that the emergent models are based on the remaining degrees of freedom. In Proc. STeP'04, electronic version these approaches are applied to complex process optimization.
  • The homeostatic balance within a cell is an extreme example of constraints-governed systems. The processes of life (metabolic and genetic) are discussed in step3.pdf, Proc. STeP'04, Vol. 1 pdf. It may turn out that even the questions concerning the origin of life can be studied from a fresh point of view.

In autumn 2006, Oct. 25-27, at the Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI'06 in Espoo, Finland) and at the simultaneous Finnish AI Conference (STeP'06) the topic of "Elastic Systems" - another view at neocybernetics - was introduced:

  • Elastic systems as another view at complexity: Basic theory (SCAI presentation pdf, Proceedings pp. 201-208 pdf).
  • Role of models and control in elastic systems (STeP presentation pdf, Proceedings pp. 67-74 pdf).
  • Case example: Grid of Hebbian neurons implementing assumed functionalities (SCAI poster, Proceedings pp. 232-239 pdf).
  • Application of DOF-based modeling: Data-based modeling of nickel plating (STeP presentation, Proceedings pp. 97-102 pdf).
  • Further application to a metabolic system: Neocybernetic modeling of a biological cell (SCAI presentation, Proceedings pp. 209-216 pdf).
  • Industrial-scale application to "evolution" in an "artificial cell" (SCAI presentation, Proceedings pp. 217-224 pdf).
  • Emergence of ordering in elastic sensor / actuator networks (SCAI presentation, Proceedings pp. 225-231 pdf).

There is something new pdf in 2008 - again presented at Finnish AI Conference (STeP'08), Espoo, Finland, August 20-22 - now under the name "Adaptive Tension Systems":

There also exists some additional technical and mathematical background material to get insight into the tools and intuitions, published as research reports in Control Engineering Laboratory of Helsinki University of Technology: