Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medallist

Citation

(2010), "Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medallist", Kybernetes, Vol. 39 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2010.06739aab.004

Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medallist

Article Type: Cyberprofile From: Kybernetes, Volume 39, Issue 1

The series of “cyberprofiles” published in this journal aims to provide information to readers about some of cyberneticians and systemists who have made contributions to these fields. In particular, we highlight the careers of researchers and developers who have through their endeavours pioneered new ideas, examined the old and taken them to higher levels of understanding. From those cyberprofiles already published, we know that this has been achieved in many different and fascinating ways. This profile is of a very modest cybernetician who has made important contributions through his scholarship and also through his service to the cybernetics and systems communities.

Dr Andrew was awarded the Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC) in 2008. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend the ceremony arranged in Wroclaw, Poland where the WOSC 13th Triennial Congress was being held. Even so, in his absence the Congress unanimously applauded his honour. It was fitting therefore, that a second award ceremony was arranged and this is described in this journal’s “News, conferences and technical reports” section. At this event, he received the award from Professor Robert Vallée the President of WOSC (Figure 1).

Alex Andrew graduated in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, Scotland, then joined the Departments of Physiology and Psychological Medicine there. Part of this time was spent on leave of absence with Warren McCulloch’s group in MIT. Work in Glasgow was largely on electronic instrumentation for neurophysiology, and also on neurophysiology as such, and in MIT was on the visual system of the frog. He gained his PhD from Glasgow.

Figure 1 Dr Andrew (left) receives the Gold Medal from Professor Vallée

He then worked on machine learning at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, England, and gave a paper at the first IFAC Congress, Moscow 1960. He later joined the management consultancy firm SIGMA, managed by Stafford Beer, for two years, followed by a year in Heinz von Foerster’s group in the University of Illinois, and was then a member of the Department of Cybernetics in the University of Reading, England, until he took early retirement in 1982 and joined with his wife Joyce in commercial activity. The academic year 1987-1988 was spent in the University of the Aegean, Izmir, Turkey, teaching Artificial Intelligence.

A paper written in 1965, while with Heinz von Foerster’s group, introduced a principle of “significance feedback” of which one version is equivalent to the “backpropagation of error” that came later and is the basis of most work on artificial neural nets in recent decades. The place of continuity in the operation of intelligent systems, real or artificial, has been a primary interest arising from consideration of machine learning.

He has made numerous significant contributions to the literature through his books and published papers as well as his contributions to seminars conferences and other academic activities. He was made an honorary fellow of WOSC in 1997 and has served as a director of the organisation. He is currently director-general and has been involved in the preparations and organisation of many of the WOSC Congresses and is continuing in this demanding role. His participation in the publication of Kybernetes is well-known and his learned reviews, often controversial, are highly regarded worldwide. Dr Andrew is the first Internet Editor of this journal and his lively and knowledgeable reports have given this journal a new approach to online activities as they relate to the systems and cybernetics community.

Dr Andrew’s publications include the following books (readers may wish to contact him at: alexandrew@tiscali.co.uk for details of his other contributions to cybernetics and systems):