BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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ALPHABET 2)

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"An ordered set of characters which can be combined to form the ensembles, words or expressions of a language or to represent data" (K. KRIPPENDORFF, 1986, p.2)

Many kinds of alphabets are in existence: the very numerous different alphabets of written and spoken languages, the conventional combinations based on a binary code, and even the 20 basic amino-acids of DNA and RNA chains.

To express that an alphabet is an "ordered set" means that it corresponds to differentiated symbols and that its use is constrained by defined rules. For example "chtch" is a sound and a letter in Russian and the combinations "mb", "ng", or "nz" are admitted in Kiswahili, but none of these are normally used in English.

Any alphabet is thus a specific system.

In a sense, any taxonomy that uses a kind of ordering base of classification to be applied on the combinations of a limited number of well defined elements, could be considered an alphabet.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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