Keywords
Citation
Rudall, B.H. (1999), "Mathematics and cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 28 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1999.06728iaa.004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Mathematics and cybernetics
Keywords Automation, Cybernetics, Research, Technological developments
Abstacts Reports and surveys are given of selected current research and development in systems and cybernetics. They include: RSI and the brain, Innovations, Biocybernetics, Mathematics and cybernetics, Molecular devices, Devices controlled by thought, Automation and cybernetics, VDU radiation.
Mathematics and cybernetics
Using mathematics
Mathematics is regarded as an integral part of cybernetical studies and the contributions of the pioneering cyberneticians to the field are considerable. Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics was, of course, a distinguished mathematician in his own right. There are few projects carried out under the name of cybernetics and systems that fail to benefit from the contribution of a mathematical analysis. Many referees to this journal are frequently surprised at the approach taken to many problems in the cybernetics area that has failed to include a mathematical analysis. Indeed there are several journals published in the field of systems and cybernetics that do not include research papers that take a mathematical view of a problem. This journal, of course, takes the view that cybernetics and systems are truly multidisciplinary and one of the most important disciplines featured is that of mathematics. In fact one of our referees recently commented on a submitted paper of some 40 pages that 20 pages of the text could be replaced by one differential equation which would properly define the application under consideration. It is naturally understood that a mathematical approach and the use of mathematical tools provide us with but one powerful way of using cybernetics and systems to explain, define and often solve our problems.
Application of the use of new mathematical analysis software
While it is accepted that mathematics provides us with the keys to solving a great many problems, using it on a computer system may provide difficulties. Often a skilled mathematician is needed or at least a high level of ability in the field that is based at a level above that of the graduate in sciences. To reduce this dependence on the expert mathematician new software has been produced which takes the labour out of applying both statistical and mathematical methods. In the UK a British Software company, Autonomy, announced in June of this year that it had developed new mathematical analysis software called Leo. The software has its mathematics built-in and uses graphical links as well as a natural language interface where a standard English sentence can be used rather than the usual keywords. Earlier versions of the system have already proved successful in many applications and in particular when it was used in the UK police national computer Holmes 2.
Solving crimes using the Leo software
A recent report from the developing company says that Leo is being used to search police files for matching apparently unrelated crimes. Police in Essex, UK are using Leo to access more than four years of past crime reports, penalty notices and 999 (emergency) telephone call information. The new software extracts the meanings and relevant information from the police databases and checks to see whether there are any other cases that have similarities. Many other databases could also be accessed. The information has always been recorded but there was previously no way in which it could be scrutinised in such detail. Leo can now perform the search and linkages automatically. The police, we are told, will, however, still have to solve the crimes. A spokesperson from the developers of Leo say that its main advantage is that it can deal with generalities. The company says:
Many witness statements of the same event are completely different. For instance, one person may see a teenager with a dog, another a man with an Alsatian. To every other computer system these are not related. However, our system uses a mathematical formula to extract the meaning of the statement and store that. The next time a crime is committed involving a suspect with a dog a detective would be able to examine that case as well.
Researchers in the human-machine interface field will be interested in the company's use of a graphical interface to show links between crimes. This obviously allows the user to see more information at any one time. In this application police detectives can instantly see related crimes on screen and zoom in on them for more details. The other point of interest for researchers is the use, by the company Autonomy, of a natural language interface. Searching for information in the system is instigated by keying-in standard English sentences that the system is able to understand. The developers claim that unlike the use of keywords as in conventional database systems, Leo allows the system to get at the user’s true meaning of what is being looked for. Searches, they say, are therefore much more productive. Autonomy believes that their system could be used by UK police forces nationwide. They claim the system is very easy to share so that instead of only analysing local data, crime data countrywide would be accessed. The company is now working on a similar mathematical system that will produce an alert indication so that it would automatically warn the police officers of a possible match, even if the case was abandoned many years before.
Future developments of the software system include the use of speech recognition. This approach they believe would give their software added "intelligence" allowing it to process whole sentences and work out their meaning, rather than the current systems that base their processing on the recognition of individual words.