INFORMATION FLOWS IN HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS
- 1 January 1974
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of General Systems
- Vol. 1 (1) , 9-18
- https://doi.org/10.1080/03081077408960744
Abstract
Relations between information flows and structure are discussed for two major classes of systems which have information-processing functions. It is shown that for both classes hierarchical structure is ideally suited for efficiency in the information processing. A partition law of information flow is developed which shows that the sum of the information flows through atomic components of a deterministic system can be partitioned into flow within the system devoted to system coordination, input flow which affects the output (throughput), and input flow which is blocked by the system.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- A note on the maximum flow through a networkIEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 1956
- A Mathematical Theory of CommunicationBell System Technical Journal, 1948