Obituary Dr. Mark Burgin
Mark Burgin, a renowned mathematician, logician, computer scientist, and information theoretician, passed away on Saturday, February 18, 2023. He earned his MA and PhD in mathematics from Moscow State University. He later went on to receive a Doctor of Science (DSc) in logic and philosophy from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Throughout his career, Mark Burgin held various academic positions, including Visiting Professor at UCLA, Professor at the Institute of Education, Kiev, Ukraine, at International Solomon University, Kiev, Ukraine, at Kiev State University, Ukraine, the Head of the Assessment Laboratory of the Research Center of Science at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Chief Scientist at Institute of Psychology, Kiev. At the time of his passing, he was affiliated with UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Mark Burgin was widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to a wide range of fields, including mathematics, information sciences, theory of algorithms, theory of knowledge, computer science, system theory, philosophy, logic, psychology, cognitive sciences, social sciences, pedagogical sciences, and methodology of science. He was the first to address Non-Diophantine arithmetics, and to axiomatize and build mathematical foundations for negative probability used in physics, finance and economics. He also constructed new classes of automata that overcame the barrier posed by the Church-Turing Thesis in computer science.
Mark Burgin was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, a Senior Member of IEEE, the Society for Computer Modeling and Simulation International, and the International Society for Computers and their Applications. He was also an Honorary Professor of the Aerospace Academy of Ukraine, the Chair of the IEEE San Fernando Valley Computer and Communication Chapter, and the Secretary of the International Society for Computers and their Applications, and President-Elect of the IS4SI, International Society for the Study of Information.
Mark Burgin’s extraordinary intellect and pioneering research will continue to inspire future generations of researchers. Mark will be remembered for his outstanding contributions to the fields of mathematics, computer science, and information sciences. He was a brilliant scholar who made a significant impact on the academic community through his work. He will be sorely missed by his colleagues, students, and the wider academic community.
Our thoughts and condolences go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Yixin Zhong, Pedro Marijuan, Gustavo Saldanha, Marcin Schroeder, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, José María Díaz Nafría, Xueshan Yan, Zhicheng Chens, Shigeo Kawashima, Wu Kun, Krassimir Markov, YagmurDenizhan, Jorge Navarro López, Teresa Guarda, Annette Grathoff, his colleagues in the board of the International Society for the Study of Information.
Boltuc, Peter N, University of Illinois Springfield = Rao Mikkilineni, Golden Gate University = Eugene Eberbach, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute = Joseph E. Brenner, International Center for the Philosophy of Information, Xi’an Jiaotong University = Bill Seaman, Duke University
2023 02 18
Obituary Dr. Robert Jahn
Dr Robert Jahn passed away on 8 March, 2023. He had been Secretary General of IS4SI from the beginning until he stepped down in 2017. Jahn had made this function, which he performed free of charge, his passion for the benefit of the organisational development of our association. He played a major role in maintaining the website, took part in the 2013 summit in Moscow, did all he could to support the professional organisation of the next summit in 2015 at the TU Wien (Technical University Vienna) and was helpful in shaping the financial arrangements as well as the rules of procedure for Special Interest Groups and Chapters. Until his death, he remained connected to us by taking over the function of an auditor.
Robert Jahn, born on 28 April, 1962, joined in the nineties the TU Wien project group „On the genesis of information structures“ under the lead of Peter Fleissner. In 1997, he completed his studium irregulare with a dissertation on „Aspects of the concept of information in ethology“. He lived in Vienna and worked there for a long time as IT Manager for the international corporation RHI Magnesita.
We will not forget him.
2023 03 08
Obituary Dr. Loet Leyesdorff
Our colleague *Louis André (Loet) Leydesdorff* (born 21 August1948, Batavia, Dutch East Indies) passed away on 11 March 2023, inAmsterdam. He was well known to FIS and IS4SI members. His contributions inFIS discussion list were numbered in the hundreds, spanning for morethan 20 years. He also participated in IS4SI conferences, in Vienna 2013and Gotteborg 2015. He was a friendly colleague, witty, humorous, and aformidable polemicist. In his academic research, he was a brilliantcontributor in a variety of information fields, mostly related tosocial communication and innovation matters. Scholarly, he was a renowned sociologist, cyberneticist,communication scientist and Professor in the Dynamics of Scientific Communicationand Technological Innovation at the University of Amsterdam. He wasrecently recognized as the third most cited Dutch researcher in all fields,and also was in a very high position at the international level. He is mostly known for his work in the sociology of communication and innovation, especially for his Triple helix model of innovation developed with Henry Etzkowitz in the 1990s. Leydesdorff’s researchinterests were in the fields of the philosophy of science, social network analysis, scientometrics, and the sociology of innovation.His studies in communication in science, technology, and innovationenabled him to specify theory and methods for understanding the dynamics ofknowledge-based development. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry in1969, a M.Sc. biochemistry in 1973, and an M.A. in philosophy in 1977. In1984 he obtained his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Amsterdam.In 1980 he became Senior lecturer at the Department of Science &Technology Dynamics of the University of Amsterdam and from 2000 of theAmsterdam School of Communications Research as well, of which he remained a honorary fellow following his retirement as professor in 2013.Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014 he continued to bean active scholar until he had to resign from his remaining duties inthe fall of 2022. He passed away in Amsterdam on 11 March 2023. He received the Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal forscientometrics in 2003. Since 2006 he was Honorary Research Fellow at the Virtual Knowledge Studio of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts andSciences. And since 2007 Honorary Fellow of SPRU – Science and TechnologyPolicy Research of the University of Sussex. Currently he was president ofthe Dutch Systems Group society, the society that cofounded with the International Federation for Systems Research in the begin of the1980s. Requiescat in Pacem, His colleagues at FIS and IS4SI will badly miss him.
2023 03 11
