BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTRIBUTORS STAFFORD BEER is an international consultant in the management sciences. For twenty years he was a manager himself, and has held the positions of company director, managing director, and Chairman of the Board. He is currently a director of the British software house, Metapraxis Ltd. In part-time academic appointments, he is visiting professor of cybernetics at Manchester University in the Business School, and adjunct professor of social sciences at Pennsylvania University in the Wharton School, where his previous position was in statistics and operations research. He is President of the World Organization of General Systems and Cybernetics, and holds its Wiener Memorial Gold Medal. His consultancy has covered small and large companies, national and international agencies, together with government-based contracts in some fifteen countries. He is cybernetics advisor to Ernst and Whinney in Canada. Publications cover more than two hundred items, and nine books. He has exhibited paintings, published poetry, teaches yoga, and lists his recreations as spinning wool and staying put in his remote Welsh cottage. Address: Prof.Stafford Beer Cwarel Isaf Pont Creuddyn Llanbedr Pont Steffan Dyfed SA48 8PG UK ERNST VON GLASERSFELD was born in 1917 of Austrian parents, went to school in Italy and Switzerland, briefly studied mathematics in Zuerich and Vienna, and survived the war as a farmer in IrelaMd. In 1948 he joined the research group of Silvio Ceccato who subsequently founded the Center for Cybernetics in Milan. In 1963 he received a contract from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research for work in computational linguistics, and in 1966 he and his team moved to Athens, Georgia. Since 1970 he has taught cognitive psychology at the University of Georgia. His principal interests are conceptual analysis, epistemology, and the development of number concepts in children. He is currently working on a book on the constructivist theory of knowledge. Address: Prof.Ernst von Glasersfeld University of Georgia Dept. of Psychology 149 180 Shadybrook Drive Athens, GA 30605 USA VLADIMIR A. LEFEBVRE was born in the USSR and received his diplomas from Moscow State University: first at the mechanics-mathematical department (equivalent of M.S.), then at the psychology department (equivalent of Ph.D.). His book Conflicting Structures was published in Moscow in 1967 and 1973. An English version of this book entitled The Structure of Awareness was published in 1977 in translation by Anatol Rapoport. In his recent book Algebra of Conscience, D.Reidel, 1982, Lefebvre describes a mathematical model of ethical cognition which establishes some formal connections between an individual's inner world and his behavior. Since 1974 Dr. Lefebvre has lived in the USA, and currently he is research psychologist at the School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine. Address: Dr.Vladimir A Lefebvre University of California, Irvine School of Social Sciences Irvine, CA 92717 USA DENNIS MEADOWS received his B.A. in chemistry from Carleton College and his Ph.D. in management from MIT, where he served on the faculty for three years. Since 1972 he has been on the faculty of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. He directs the Resource Policy Center, an interdisciplinary institute that specializes in the application of microcomputers in the design of tools for management education and decision support. Prof. Meadows has served as a lecturer and consultant on computer simulation and policy analysis in over 20 countries; in the US he has worked for many industrial, federal, and state organizations. He has written five books on aspects of computer-based analysis; he was director of the million dollar development program that led to the creation of the long-range energy forecasting model still used by the US Department of Energy to project energy prices through the end of the century. Address: Prof.Dennis Meadows Resource Policy Center Thayer School of Engineering Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 USA HELGA NOWOTNY holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University, New York. She has been head of the Department of Sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, and spent one year of research at King's College, Cambridge, before becoming the Executive Director of the UN-affiliated European Centre for Social Welfare in 1974, where she still is at present. She has been guest professor at the University of Bielefeld and in 1981/82 Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Since 1982 she has also been assistant professor at the University of 150 Vienna and in 1985 she was elected Chairperson of the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences of the European Science Foundation. Her major publications are "Kernenergie - Gefahr oder Notwendigkeit", "Nineteeneightyfour: Science between Utopia and Dystopia" (edited with E.Mendelsohn), "Social Concerns for the 80 ' ies", and numerous articles in social studies of science and science policy. Address: Dr.Helga Nowotny European Centre for Social Welfare Training and Research Sponsored by the United Nations Berggasse 17 1090 Vienna Austria ROBERT ROSEN: Date of Birth, June 27, 1934; Place of Birth, Brooklyn, New York, USA. Degrees: B.A. (Mathematics), Brooklyn College, 1955; M.A. (Mathematics) Columbia University 1956; Ph.D. University of Chicago (Mathematical Biology) 1959, (N. Rashevsky, Major Professor). Positions: Research Associate, Committee on Mathematical Biology, University of Chicago, 1960-63; Assistant Professor, 1963-66. Associate Professor, Depts. of Mathematics and Biophysical Sciences, State Uni versi ty of New York at Buffalo, 1966-70; Professor, 1970-76. Associate Director, Center for Theoretical Biology, SUNYAB, 1972-74; Acting Director, 1974-76. Killam Professor, Dalhousie University, 1975-80; Professor of Physiology & Biophysics 1980 - present. Major Research Interests: Regulation and Control in Biological Systems; Physical Basis of Morphogenesis; Elaboration of Homologies between Biological and Social Systems. Address: Dr.Robert Rosen Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics Faculty of Medicine Dalhousie University Sir Charles Tupper Medical BId. Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H7 Canada ROBERT TRAPPL is professor and head of the Department of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, University of Vienna. He holds a PhD in psychology (minor: astronomy), a diploma in sociology, and is engineer for electrical engineering. Since 1970, he has been president of the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies, and has been annually reelected in this capacity. In 1984 he was elected president of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). When, in 1984, the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence was founded, he was appointed its first director. The few moments that he is not engaged in "directoral" or "presidential" activities, he writes scientific papers (some 80), edits or co-edits books (14), edits journals ("Cybernetics and Systems", "Applied Artificial Intelligence: An International Journal"), does pantomime, and enjoys life. 151 Address: Prof.Robert Trappl Department of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence University of Vienna Freyung 6 1010 Vienna Austria LEN TRONCALE is Director of the Institute for Advanced Systems Studies at California State University, Pomona. His doctorate was earned in cell and molecular biology. He has taught courses in these specialties as well as evolution, genetics, and systems science. Dr. Troncale is currently Vice-President and Managing Director of the Society for General Systems Research (SGSR), and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). He has delivered guest. lectures at Universities and Institutes in a dozen countries. His contribution to this volume was prepared while he was visiting professor at the Department of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Vienna, Austria. Dr. Troncale's research interests are in Linkage Propositions between Systems Concepts, Empirical Refinement of Hierarchy Theory, Research on a Theory of Emergence, and Methods of Education in the Systems Sciences. Address: Prof.Len Troncale Institute for Advanced Systems Studies Calif. State Polytechnic Univ. 3801 West Temple Avenue Pomona, CA 91768 USA STUART A. UMPLEBY is an associate professor of management science at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received his Ph.D. from there in Communications in 1975 with the dissertation on "Some Applications of Cybernetics to Social Systems." Between 1977 and 1980 he was principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant that enabled about 60 cyberneticians and systems theorists from the US, Canada, and Europe to communicate with each other via an electronic information exchange system. Prof. Umpleby's chief interests are cybernetics and group decision-making methods. He has published widely on these subjects. In addition he has taught courses in system dynamics, artificial intelligence and space industrialization. He is a member of various professional socie,ties and was President of the American Society for Cybernetics from 1980 to 1982. Address: Prof.Stuart A. Umpleby George Washington University Dept. of Management Science Washington, DC 20052 USA 152 FRANCISCO J.VARELA was born in Chile in 1946, and has held a doctoral degree in biological sciences from Harvard University since 1970. His interests