Direct and significant narrations of the Human's past subsume so complex a multitude of problems (historical, anthropological, psychological, epistemological, etc) that, taking exception for some few areas, no formal, quantified and predictive theory of historical reconstitutions (understood in the classical, paradigmatic, sense of physical, quasi-physical or engineering disciplines) has, so far, been constructed. A first step towards overcoming this situation is outlined in the essay. The work is primarily (though not exclusively) devoted to historical/ scientific reconstitutions; special emphasis is laid upon the so called "domain of Natural Science". Throughout it a rather unconventional way of looking upon human's past achievements in that area is proposed, discussed and progressively developed: not as a mere repository of inventions and discoveries (as the usual historical approaches do), not as a simple reproduction of the possible cognitive processes which their authors used' (as the logistic reconstitutions seek) but rather as a cybernetic adaptative learning process (in the sense of G. PASK and H. VON FOESTER). The use of this approach allows, in particular: - to demonstrate that Science may be globally regarded as a (time-"space") growing system; - to give expression to this growth in terms, of an evolutionary model binding the approaches of PIAGET, WALLON, FREUD, HARTMANN etc (in which epistemological, contextual (social), psychological (conscious, unconscious) affective and cognitive paradigms are involved); - to describe this evolution in formal and quantifiable terms (using for it fuzzy "conditioned" automata theories); - to reproduce it in a special purpose cybernetic device (PASK's THOUGHTSTICKER system); - to perform historical experimentation (varying the value of the parameters, relationships and constraints by means of which the system is described). The essay ends with a practical application: the construction of an entailment-mesh of the First (or Greek) Image of Nature.

This study examined the effectiveness of a systemic cybernetic counselling approach with 3 females with bulimia nervosa. Bulimia nervosa is a relatively recent diagnosed condition (1980). Thus, little is known about the efficacy of different treatment approaches. The systemic cybernetic counselling approach (White; de Shazer) which informs family therapy represents a potentially powerful form of treatment in that it allows a complex construction of the problem. The research design employed a multiple (3) single case study approach with embedded units of analyses. The 3 women, aged 17 to 27, were seen over a 2-3 month period for 4-8 one hour sessions. Predicted patterns of non-equivalent dependent variables were compared with empirically based patterns over time. Continuous (including pre-, post-treatment and long-term follow up) assessment of frequency of bingeing/purging was established as well as ratings on other dependent variables - psychometric measures (Eating Disorders Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory), affective self reports and reports by others. Results show that all three clients eliminated bingeing/purging by post-treatment. Two clients maintained this improvement on all dependent measures at long-term follow up. The most marked improvements were associated with the least severe pre-treatment scores. In the case where the whole family attended counselling sessions, the number of sessions was reduced. On the basis of the results, systemic cybernetic counselling procedures hold promise for the successful treatment of bulimia nervosa.

This thesis uses Cybernetic Fruit: A Posthuman Fairytale (a show directed by Shauna MacDonald and Nico Wood) to explore notions of posthumanism. The thesis of this project is that every being possesses beingness (one could say, a soul), be it raccoon, raspberry, or rock; that nothing is perfect or ever can be, for perfection and imperfection (like order and disorder) are human constructions spun from human vantage points and seen with a human-level of resolution; that collaboration fosters propagation of a posthuman discourse and compassionate behavior; and finally, that staging philosophical inquiry, in the flesh and for the community, is a potent methodology for germinating new theoretical fruit.

The word cybernetics has its roots in the Greek word \kybernetes" or \steers-man" and was coined by Norbert Wiener in 1948 to describe \the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine". The discipline focuses on the way various complex systems (animals/machines) steer towards/maintain their goals utilizing information, models and control actions in the face of various disturbances. For a given animal/machine, cybernetics considers all the possible behaviors that the animal/machine can exhibit and then enquires about the constraints that result in a particular behavior. The thesis focuses on the application of principles of cybernetics to the modeling and optimization of bioreactors and lies at the interface of systems engineering and biology. Specifically, it lies at the interface of control theory and the growth behavior exhibited by microorganisms. The hypothesis of the present work is that the principles and tools of control theory can give novel insights into the growth behavior of microorganisms and that the growth behavior exhibited by microorganisms can in turn provide insights for the development of principles and tools of control theory. Mathematical models for the growth of microorganisms such as stoichiometric, optimal and cybernetic assume that microorganisms have evolved to become optimal with respect to certain cellular goals or objectives. Typical cellular goals used in the literature are the maximization of instantaneous/short term objectives such biomass yield, instantaneous growth rate, instantaneous ATP production rate etc. Since microorganisms live in a dynamic world, it is expected that the microorganisms have evolved towards maximizing long term goals. In the literature, it is often assumed that the maximization of a short term cellular goal results in the maximization of the long term cellular goal. However, in the systems engineering literature, it has long been recognized that the maximization of a short term goal does not necessarily result in the maximization of the long term goal. For example, maximization of product production in a fed-batch bioreactor involves two separate phases: a first phase in which the growth of microorganisms is maximized and a second phase in which the production of product is maximized. An analogous situation arises when the bacterium E. coli passes through the digestive tract of mammals wherein it first encounters the sugar lactose in the proximal portions and the sugar maltose in the distal portions. Mitchell et al. (2009) have experimentally shown that when E. coli encounters the sugar lactose, it expresses the genes of maltose operons anticipatorily which reduces its growth rate on lactose. This regulatory strategy of E. coli has been termed asymmetric anticipatory regulation (AAR) and is shown to be beneficial for long term cellular fitness by Mitchell et al. (2009). The cybernetic modeling framework for the growth of microorganisms, developed by Ramakrishna and co-workers, is extended in the present thesis for modeling the AAR strategy of E. coli. The developed model accurately captures the experimental observations of the AAR phenomenon, reveals the inherent advantages of the cybernetic modeling framework over other frameworks in explaining the AAR phenomenon, while at the same time suggesting a scope for the generalization of the cybernetic framework. As cybernetics is interested in all the possible behaviors that a machine (which is, in the present case, microorganism) can exhibit, a rigorous analysis of the optimal dynamic growth behavior of microorganisms under various constraints is carried out next using the methods of optimal control theory. An optimal control problem is formulated using a generalized version of the unstructured Monod model with the objective of maximization of cellular concentration at a fixed final time. Optimal control analysis of the above problem reveals that the long term objective of maximization of cellular concentration at a final time is equivalent to maximization of instantaneous growth rate for the growth of microorganisms under various constraints in a two substrate batch environment. In addition, reformulation of the above optimal control problem together with its necessary conditions of optimality reveals the existence of generalized governing dynamic equations of the structured cybernetic modeling framework. The dynamic behavior of the generalized equations of the cybernetic modeling framework is analyzed further to gain insights into the growth of microorganisms. For growth of microorganisms on a single growth limiting carbon substrate, the analysis reveals that the cybernetic model exhibits linear growth behavior, similar to that of the unstructured Contois model at high cellular concentrations, under appropriate constraints. During the growth of microorganisms on multiple substitutable substrates, the analysis reveals the existence of simple correlations that quantitatively predict the mixed substrate maximum specific growth rate from single substrate maximum specific growth rates during simultaneous consumption of the substrates in several cases. Further analysis of the cybernetic model of the growth of S. cerevisiae on the mixture of glucose and galactose reveals that S. cerevisiae exhibits sub-optimal dynamic growth with a long diauxic lag phase and suggests the possibility for S. cerevisiae to grow optimally with a significantly reduced diauxic lag period. Since cybernetics is interested in understanding the constraints under which a particular machine (microorganism) exhibits a particular behavior, a methodology is then developed for inferring the internal constraints experienced by the microorganisms from experimental data. The methodology is used for inferring the internal constraints experienced by E. coli during its growth on the mixture of glycerol and lactose. An interesting question in the study of the growth behavior of microorganisms concerns the objective that the microorganisms optimize. Several studies aim to determine these cellular objectives experimentally. A similar question that is relevant to the optimization of fed-batch bioreactors is \what are the objectives that are to be optimized by the feed flow rate in various time intervals for the optimization of a final objective?" It was mentioned previously that the maximization of product production in a fed-batch bioreactor involves maximization of growth of microorganisms first and the maximization of product production later. However, such guidelines can only be stated for relatively simple bioreactor optimization problems and no such guidelines exist for sufficiently complex problems. For complex problems, the answer to the above question requires the formulation and solution of a genetic programming problem which can be quite challenging. An alternative numerical solution methodology is developed in the present thesis to address the above question. The solution methodology involves the specification of bioreactor objectives in terms of the bioreactor trajectory in the state space of substrate concentration-volume. The equivalent control law of the sliding mode control technique is used for finding the inlet feed ow rate that tracks the bioreactor trajectory accurately. The search for the best bioreactor trajectory is carried out using the stochastic search technique genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the developed solution methodology in determining the optimal bioreactor trajectory is demonstrated using three challenging bioreactor optimization problems.

The purpose of my thesis is to analyse and focus on the very actual topic of the Internet and computer criminality. The reason I chose this topic for my research is growing development of technology resulting in the evolution of new types of crimes, which need to be regulated by the law. The thesis is composed of six chapters, each of them dealing with different aspects of the cybernetic criminality. Chapter one is introductory and mainly focuses on the definition of the basic terminology used in the thesis, like computer systems, data, computer crime, internet crime and most importantly cybercrime. Chapter two gives a brief historical background to the relationship between the evolution of the information and communication technology and the appearance of the cybernetic crime. Chapter three discusses on the specifics of the cybercrime by the means of description of the typical cybercriminal, his motives, and his victims and last but not least of the possible prevention measures. The last part of this chapter concentrates on problems resulting from the transnational nature of cybercrime, which creates jurisdictional issues. Chapter four is subdivided into three main parts and provides an outline of the relevant International legislation in the field of cybercrime. Part one deals with the main...

In my work, which comprises three basic chapters, I have focused on providing an overview of cybernetic criminality with a stress laid on contemporary criminal offences defined in the current Penal Code (Act No. 40/2009 Coll.). I make use of the fact these are new issues that - in some moments - afford an opportunity to formulate one's views even to a non-erudite student of faculty of law. In the introduction to the first chapter, I have indicated the fundamental concepts relating to cybercrime, inclusive of an attempt at the proper (narrower) definition of the cybernetic criminal offence. I have also mentioned international legal context of criminal sanctions for cybercrime and their impact upon the penal legislation in the Czech Republic. The first chapter is finalized by an overview of specific ways and techniques of attacks by cybercrime offenders. In the second chapter I have tried to outline the possible division of the cybernetic criminal offences into individual groups according to various different criteria - according to the manner of utilising of information and communication technologies by the perpetrator, to the subject of protected interest defined in the international Convention on Cybercrime, to the subject of protected interest applied in the Czech Penal Code, and to the...

Popular media, literature, and theory suggests that technology has induced a newly evolved, posthuman and postmodern (or "post-Enlightenment") cyborg consciousness. I suggest, as an alternative reading to the notion that we are evolving towards a disembodied posthuman state which will revolutionise what it means to be human, that the literature of cyborgs incorporates and reinscribes traditional narratives about human identity. This project analyses representative tropes of the cyborg in contemporary discourse from an explicitly historical perspective. Although dualisms such as mind/matter or soul/body are recognised in current theorising of the cyborg, little has been written about the historical relationship of mechanism and humanity in the ongoing discussion of cyborg mind/body ontology. The cyborg in much of our literature throughout a wide range of genres is represented by the exaggerated and horrifying effacement of human embodiment to embellish an underlying concern about the consequences to the human spirit when we can be reproduced by technological means. This thesis argues that much of the discourse about the novelty of the "postmodern" human-machine, however, is not unprecedented. Cyborg literature re-presents themes and concerns regarding the man-machine of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and continues to reflect a religious debate about the spirit within the material body. Beginning with current notions of the supposed obsolescence of the body, this thesis explores how the contemporary cyborg functions as a device to reflect traditional (frequently Christian) values. Drawing on eighteenth-century medical philosophy and the satirical literary responses to mechanist definitions of body and soul, I demonstrate literary connections between medical and literary metaphors of the Enlightenment man-machine and the postmodern cyborg in popular media, fiction, and theory. The debate surrounding eighteenth-century materialism, primarily metaphorical and analogical in its representation of the body's mechanisms, contributed directly to current notions of figurative disembodiment and the status of the human soul in contemporary literature. I conclude that the cyborg as a figure of literature does not indicate a revolutionary change in social consciousness but repeatedly is a device used to affirm traditional religious concepts of human reproduction, individual free will, spirit and body, and life after death.

The thesis explores the relationships between knowledge and knowing in contemporary 21st century information society, using the foundation of the Faculty of Media Design & New Media Art at the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti in Milano as a research apparatus. This Faculty was established between 2003 and 2012, in Milano, Italy. The starting point of the research was established in the hypothesis that technics have tertiarised memory (Stiegler B., 1994), that knowledge is always founded on an ontological pessimism (Queneau R., 1933, Lyotard F., 1979) and on a perpetual process of the generation of meaning (Gadda C., 1923-29, Foucault M., 1966). Knowledge is always and inevitably linked to the technics with which it is passed on. Pedagogy becomes a questioning of the object of knowledge, which transmutes into a definition of the ways it can be visualised. This research then, setting out from a pessimistic position in relation to knowledge and truth, amplifies them to infinite possible forms and therefore causes a dual shift of philosophy towards art and of pedagogy towards hermeneutics. The methodology consisted of a textual and visual description of a territory in a cartography of meaning, seen as the relation between intuition and the way in which practices as knowledges, arts, form remnants.

Partindo da hipótese de que as tecnologias digitais são simultaneamente meios e ambientes capazes de influenciar e viabilizar a emergência de um pensamento arquitetônico pronto a incorporar a complexidade, o objetivo do presente trabalho é ampliar a compreensão acerca das interfaces entre complexidade e processos de design em arquitetura. No percurso de construção dessa abordagem, buscamos entender a abrangência da mudança colocada pela complexidade, seu histórico, e seus princípios fundamentais, obtendo subsídios para definir critérios de seleção e análise de exemplos da emergência da complexidade em arquitetura, focalizando os processos de design. Utilizamos um recorte temporal em dois períodos – décadas de 1960 e 1970, e décadas de 1990 e 2000 –, distinguindo dois momentos específicos intrinsecamente conectados. A intenção é contribuir para uma compreensão efetiva da arquitetura não apenas, ou principalmente, como objeto, mas como um sistema complexo–organizado e, sobretudo, organizante. / Assuming digital technologies simultaneously as media and environment that influence and make feasible the emergence of an architectural thought ready to incorporate the complexity, the goal of this work is to increase the understanding circa interfaces between complexity and architectural design processes. This approach draws on understanding the scope of the change brought by complexity, its historical, and its fundamental principia, aiming to achieve subsides for defining criteria to analyze and select examples of complexity emergence in architecture, focusing on design process. Two periods of time were selected – from 1960s to 1970s and, from 1990s to 2000s –, distinguishing two specific moments closed related. The intention is to contribute for an effective understanding of architecture not merely or specifically as object, but as a complex system, simultaneously organized and organizer.

This thesis proposes a way in which architecture and the built environment might work to integrate human consciousness and natural process. A theoretical design entitled Landscope is presented as a responsive, sustainable landscape that offers understanding of nature through active observation, interpretation and transformation of the environment. The design proposal is situated at the edge of Hamilton Harbour, Ontario, Canada, adjacent to the existing facilities of the National Water Research Institute. Two extended studies accompany the design proposal. The first, Water, presents a poetic exploration of cosmic, responsive, and connective qualities of water relating to nature and technology. The second study, Connected Fields, focuses on the visionary American engineer Buckminster Fuller and his ‘Geoscope’ project, a geodesic dome designed to act as a monitoring and control centre for global material and resource flows. This section also includes a discussion of general conceptions of the world, focusing on key twentieth-century conceptions of the Biosphere, Gaia, and the Noösphere. Historical theories of environmental perception are discussed including Gestalt psychology and technical systems of observation. Drawing upon this cultural material, the thesis attempts to open boundaries that separate nature and technology, encouraging a complex, mutually dependent relationship between these traditionally separate realms. The general pursuit is a cybernetic and virtual model for environmental and ontological hybridity, involving an evolution of consciousness at both individual and global scales.