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The first detailed study of this most important class of systems which contain internal predictive models of themselves and/or of their environments and whose predictions are utilized for purposes of present control. This book develops the basic concept of a predictive model, and shows how it can be embedded into a system of feedforward control. Includes many examples and stresses analogies between wired-in anticipatory control and processes of learning and adaption, at both individual and social levels. Shows how the basic theory of such systems throws a new light both on analytic problems (understanding what is going on in an organism or a social system) and synthetic ones (developing forecasting methods for making individual or collective decisions).
This book illuminates results from a wide-ranging, landmark study of global leaders and their world-class companies that proves that managers must understand, respect, and learn from a variety of national cultures to be successful--at home and abroad. 10 photos.
This guide presents eight principles of leadership - vision, trust, participation, learning, diversity, creativity, integrity and community - along with the stories of 36 leaders whose experiences demonstrate the principles in action.
A psychologist and leadership expert explains how to harness the right level of anxiety Most of us see anxiety as a bad thing, so at the first sign of it we try to fight back or run away. But according to Robert Rosen, this outdated view ignores one of the most powerful forces in business: Anxiety helps us concentrate, learn, relate to people, think more creatively, and deliver better results. Of course, too much anxiety causes fear, chaos, and loss of morale. But too little leads to stagnation and a false sense of security. It’s like a rubber band: If you pull it too hard, it breaks. If you don’t pull it hard enough, you fail to maximize its potential. Finding the happy medium between p...
Why are living things alive? As a theoretical biologist, Robert Rosen saw this as the most fundamental of all questions-and yet it had never been answered satisfactorily by science. The answers to this question would allow humanity to make an enormous leap forward in our understanding of the principles at work in our world. For centuries, it was believed that the only scientific approach to the question "What is life?" must proceed from the Cartesian metaphor (organism as machine). Classical approaches in science, which also borrow heavily from Newtonian mechanics, are based on a process called "reductionism." The thinking was that we can better learn about an intricate, complicated system (...
Compiling twenty articles on the nature of life and on the objective of the natural sciences, this remarkable book complements Robert Rosen's groundbreaking Life Itself--a work that influenced a wide range of philosophers, biologists, linguists, and social scientists. In Essays on Life Itself, Rosen takes to task the central objective of the natural sciences, calling into question the attempt to create objectivity in a subjective world and forcing us to reconsider where science can lead us in the years to come.
How ordinary managers in any economy can do extraordinary things to build sustainable growth engine The Catalyst speaks to all managers who have ever been handed ambitious growth targets but little guidance on how to hit them. Managers like you who, year in and year out, face “the terror of the plug.” The boss expects you to deliver a daunting revenue target but offers little advice on how to get there. Even worse is “growth gridlock,” when your company won’t support your great ideas until you prove they’re good–which is impossible since you can’t get the proof until you’ve tried them out first. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, you spend your time persuading with Powe...
Mathematical background; The basic formalism; Meters and dynamics; Dynamics and linkage; The analysis of dynamics; Symmetry; Similarity in physics and biology.