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The purpose of this paper is to introduce important new web sites, one of them providing data on the WOSC President and the other on the Queen of the UK and her family. Also discussed is a video demonstrating human neural plasticity and two sites having relevance to ecology. The demonstration of neural plasticity is contrasted with a quite different demonstration of its operation in the adult rat.

The aim is to review developments on the internet, especially those of general cybernetic interest.

Both of the major web sites reviewed are valuable sources of information, the second being also of special technical and aesthetic interest. Both demonstrations of plasticity may be useful in guiding speculation about underlying mechanisms. The first of the two sites dealing with ecology allows quantitative appreciation of the seriousness of the world situation, and the second describes a research facility in which partial remedies are sought.

Data on Robert Vallée is valuable both as a source of reference to his publications as such and in revealing the personality behind them. The “royal” web site also reveals personality and has the special technical and aesthetic interest already mentioned. It is also valuable in showing the working of a constitutional monarchy in a parliamentary democracy. The attempt to understand neural plasticity has long been a major challenge in neuroscience. The seriousness of the world ecological situation is powerfully demonstrated and the research facility described offers some amelioration.

It is hoped that this paper is a valuable periodic review.

The outstanding event of the 8th International Congress of the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics was the presentation of the Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal to Professor Robert Vallée, Professor of the Université Paris‐Nord, France, by Dr Margaret Wiener‐Kennedy, the daughter of the President in Memoriam of WOSC, Dr Norbert Wiener.

Presents the fixed‐point paradigm and its aspects from vector algebra to dynamical systems, not forgetting eigenbehaviours. Then considers the problem of subjects (and objects) in interaction, using the author's concepts of observation operator, pragmatical operator and epistemo‐praxiological loop which give rise to the intervention of a fixed point. More precise conclusions are obtained in the recurrent case. A comparison is made with Heinz von Förster's views on subject and object.

Reviews the work of Robert Vallée and considers in particular his latest contribution, Cognition et Système.

A model is presented of multidimen‐sional perception and memorisation. It is applied to the perception and memorisation of time and then a multidimensional time is proposed. Concepts of matrix factor of attention and matrix factor of memorisation, as well as of thickness of an instant, are introduced. The set of instants of consciousness is shown to be an open set which, in certain cases, may be subjectively felt to be of infinite duration.

The purpose of this paper is to review a variety of developments during the summer of 2009, with the most significant being an interview with James Lovelock in which he discusses dire predictions that appear in his latest book. Others refer to definitions and educational material on cybernetics. Comments are made on a debate about torture, on which cybernetics theory has been brought to bear. An appreciative comment on the early work of Vallée is noted, as is the sad passing of Barbara Vogl of the American Society for Cybernetics.

The aim is to review developments on the internet, especially those of general cybernetic interest.

The main aim is to review significant items from ongoing discussions, sometimes with interpretation that is additional to the original material, especially in the torture context.

The interview with Lovelock has important implications for management of the ecology.

It is hoped this is a valuable periodic review.