Material on Neocybernetics

by Heikki Hyötyniemi

New manuscripts available!

• Enformaatioteoria – elämän tarina, lecture in Jyväskylä 9.3.2013. (in Finnish)
• Enformation Theory:
  • Part I: From Nothing to Something
  • Part II: From Elements to Structures
  • Part III: From Models to Control
  • Part IV: From Stasis back to Chaos
  • Part V: From Pinwheels to Wheels of Life
• Emformation Theory - Theory of Emergent (In)Formation, talk at The Finnish Society for Natural Philosophy on 01.11.11.
• Cybernetics of Neuron Systems, a tutorial proposal to ICANN'11. (Unfortunately, the tutorial sessions were cancelled.)
• SAMPO Mills: Neocybernetic Grounding of Ontogenesis.

Presentations on Neocybernetics

In addition to the Lectures on Elementary Cybernetics on video with slides, there are some older presentations that may help to see the Neocybernetic Big Picture…

• Tutorial presentation 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 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 given to neuroscience and information science researchers at “NeuroCafe” at TKK on March 31, 2006.
• Seminar presentation given to graduate-level systems engineering students on September 22, 2006.
• Guest lecture for course Inf-0.3101 Principles of complex networks at TKK on April 28, 2009.
• Invited presentation given at Masters of Arts seminar at University of Art and Design Helsinki on May 16, 2009.
• A few other presentations (see below): 2006a, 2006b, 2008, 2009.

Featured Theses

Doctoral Theses:

• Kalle Halmevaara, 2009: Simulation assisted performance optimization of large-scale multiparameter technical systems.
• Olli Haavisto, 2009: Reflectance spectrum analysis of mineral flotation froths and slurries.

Master’s Theses:

• Olli Haavisto, 2004: Development of a walking robot model and its data-based modeling and control.
• Kalle Halmevaara, 2004: Iterative latent variable based tuning technique for multiparameter systems.
• Jari Kostamo, 2004: Design and development of a device demonstrating control theory (see video).
• Heli Pykälä, 2005: Dynamic modelling of very high dimensional data – Application in gene expression.
• Michael Sailer, 2006: Distributed control of a deformable system – Analysis of a neocybernetic framework.
• Hans-Christian Pfisterer, 2006: Data-based modeling of electroless nickel plating.
• Heiko Patz, 2007: Neocybernetics in traditional control applications – Adaptive rotor vibration damping in electrical machines.

Publications on Neocybernetics

“Prehistory” of neocybernetics have been published mainly in Finnish Artificial Intelligence Conferences (1992–2004).

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 on neocybernetics – was introduced:

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

There is something new in 2008 – again presented at Finnish AI Conference (STeP’08), Espoo, Finland, August 20–22 – now under the name “Adaptive Tension Systems”:

• Towards a Theory of Everything? (Proceedings pp. 136–143).
• Fields Forever? (Proceedings pp. 144–149).
• Framework for a New Science? (Proceedings pp. 150–157).

The most recent updates to the publication list are the following:

• A compact glimpse into the mathematics of “selfish agents”, Hebbian-Style Feature Extraction – From Neural Systems to Neocybernetics.
• Principles of implementing “second-order neocybernetics”, Humans in Loops – a Neocybernetic View at Complex Processes, were presented during Finnish Automation Days 2009.
• A casual introduction to neocybernetics (in Finnish) was published in Sisäpiiri-magazine issue 1/2009.
• SAMPO Mills: Neocybernetic Grounding of Ontogenesis, unpublished manuscript (submitted to STeP 2010, not accepted!).
• Cybernetics of Neuron Systems, a tutorial proposal to ICANN'11. Unfortunately, the tutorial sessions were cancelled.

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:

• NOTE: The complete introduction to ideas of neocybernetics, “Neocybernetics in Biological Systems” (Report 151, August 2006).
• There is some background to complexity research (being a collection of Spring 2003 postgraduate seminar presentations) in the report “Complex Systems: Science on the Edge of Chaos” (Report 145, October 2004).
• The mathematical derivation of the properties of Hebbian/anti-Hebbian neuron grids – and also of other populations behaving in a “cybernetically consistent” way – are derived in the report “Hebbian Neuron Grids: System Theoretic Approach” (Report 144, September 2004).
• A concrete industrial-scale application of cybernetic ideas, or “Iterative Regression Tuning”, is presented in “Process Performance Optimization Using Iterative Regression Tuning” (Report 139, April 2004).
• Compact material on multivariate statistical methods is available in “Multivariate Regression – Techniques and Tools” (Report 125, July 2001).
• An illustration why one should pursue linear methods is presented in “On the Universality and Undecidability in Dynamic Systems” (Report 133, December 2002).
• A compilation of the presentations given during the Feedback Symposium Aug. 28, 2000, in connection with the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Days STeP 2000. “Feedback to the Future” (FAIS, December 2001).

More publications on university database…

Projects

• SyMbolic 2004–2005: Systemic Models for Metabolic Dynamics and Regulation of Gene Expression
• Simbiot 2005–2006: Performance Optimization of Complex Multiparameter Systems (Symbiosis of mill modelling and computational methods).

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