Control and Modeling of Complex Systems : Cybernetics in the 21st Century

Hidenori Kimura, renowned system and control theorist, turned 60 years of age in November, 2001. To celebrate this memorable occasion, his friends, collaborators, and former students gathered from all over the world and held a symposium in his honor on November 1 and 2, 2001, at the Sanjo Conference Hall at the University of Tokyo. Reflecting his current research interests, the symposium was entitled "Cybernetics in the 21st Century: Information and Complexity in Control Theory," and it drew nearly 150 attendees. There were twenty-five lectures, on which the present volume is based. Hidenori Kimura was born on November 3, 1941, in Tokyo, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. It is not hard to imagine, then, that his early days, like those of so many of his contemporaries, must have been difficult. Fortunately, the war ended in 1945, and his generation found itself thoroughly occupied with the rebuilding effort and with Japan's uphill journey in the last half-century. He entered the University of Tokyo in 1963, received a B. S. in 1965, an M. S. in 1967, and, in 1970, a Ph. D. degree for his dissertation "A Study of Differential Games. " After obtaining his doctorate, he joined the Department of Control En­ gineering at Osaka University as a research associate, and in 1973 he was promoted to an associate professor.

"All too often, Festschriften consist of contributions on all sorts of unrelated topics, and result in a charming mixture of extravagance and indulgence, which is supposed to be enjoyed first and foremost by the recipient. Sometimes such books serve as repositories for articles too eccentric in subject or in approach, or too sloppy in execution, to be published in scientific journals: what the journals cannot appreciate, the Festschrift editor often cannot refuse.

This is absolutely not the case with this volume, which is by any standard an outstanding one. Its excellent quality and timely publication owe much to the efforts of the editors...and of the publishing house Birkhäuser. They have produced a Festschrift worthy of its ceremonial function in the career of an extremely influential scientist, educator, and engineer, and a book that also manages to give us a glimpse of the state-of-the-art in several important areas of signal processing and system and control theory.... A large number of readers will find in this volume a great deal to be learned and to be informed about, and the modest price of the book puts it within reach of the wide readership (graduate students, scientists, and engineers) it deserves."

A large number of readers will find in this volume a great deal to be learned and to be informed about, and the modest price of the book puts it within reach of the wide readership (graduate students, scientists, and engineers) it deserves. It has been a pleasure and an honour for the reviewer to be invited, albeit indirectly, to Kimura sensei's feast."   ― International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control