- INFORMATION SCIENCES -

In 1964, the French Academy defined the content of the notion of informatics. By this definition, the first two members of the Romanian Academy whose scientific activity could be included in the sphere of informatics were Grigore Moisil, founder of the school of the algebra of logic and of the algebraic theory of automated mechanisms, as well as author of studies of polyvalent and nuanced logic, and Tiberiu Popoviciu, who founded the school of informatics in Cluj, for his generalization of the theory of interpolation and its application to numeric calculus. Other members of the Romanian Academy who specialized in domains which belong to the science and technology of information were Tudor Tanasescu, in radiotelecommunications, electronic tubes and circuits, Aurel Avramescu, in the domain of the functional improvement of automated systems, Corneliu Penescu, in automatics and computer science, Gheorghe Cartianu, in radiocommunications, signal processing, circuits and systems, Vasile-Mihai Popov, in analytical computers and stability criteria for non-linear systems. A precursor of cybernetics was Stefan Odobleja (posthumous Member of the Academy) who, in his work Psihologia consonantista (Consonantist Psychology) of 1938, published the first version of the generalized conception of cybernetics and demonstrated its multi- and inter-disciplinary character.

Academician Mihai Draganescu was the creator of the Romanian school of electronic devices and head of the team in charge of implementing the first program of the computerization of the national economy in Romania (1965-1971).

Director of the Central Institute of Informatics between 1976-1985, he initiated within the Romanian Academy the organization of scientific sessions with specialized topics such as The Future of Electronics and Informatics (1979), Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (1983), Computers of the Fifth Generation (1985), TheFuture of the Programming Industry (1985), followed by their publication in volumes of scientific papers by the Romanian Academy Publishing House. Between 1981-1987, the Academy Publishing House also published the series of papers Probleme de microelectronica, informatica, automatica ti telecomunicatii (Problems of Microelectronics, Informatics, Automatics, and Telecommunications).

In 1990, when the process of the rebirth of the Romanian Academy got started, information science was given the place and weight it justly deserved as the most dynamic scientific domain, in which Romanian scientists held regional and worldwide preeminence. The General Assembly of 1991 decided to establish and endow the Section of Information Science and Technology, which was actually constituted on January 7, 1992.

Furthermore, the General Assembly of the Romanian Academy of November 24, 1997, debated and defined the science and technology of information as the multi-disciplinary domain of science and technology which is the basis of the information society and which includes: the physical substratum of information, telecommunications and the theory of systems, software, information systems, theoretic informatics and the theory of information, Internet, Web, automatics and the theory of systems as well as their specific applications in diverse domains (economy, sociology, electronic medicine, informational biology, the philosophy of information etc.).

The Section of Information Science and Technology coordinates the activity of three research facilities, namely the Institute of Theoretic Informatics in Iati, the Center for Advanced Research in Automated Learning, Natural Language Processing and Conceptual Modeling, and the Center for New Electronic Structures, both in Bucharest. Two of the most highly regarded research facilities in Romania, the National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics and the Institute of Microtechnology, are headed by members of the Section, Professor Dr. Florin Gh. Filip and Academician Dan Dascalu, respectively.

The research facilities coordinated by the Section have under current study the following research programs: intelligent agents and automated learning; conceptual modeling; the technology of the natural language; theoretic and applied developments of the fuzzy systems and neural networks; modern methods in computerized imaging; concurrent and distributed systems: interaction and mobility; self-organizing systems and parallel structures. For the year 2000, the Institute of Theoretic Informatics in Iasi has proposed the inter-disciplinary project Research in the Domain of Romanian Phonetics and Phonology, with Application to the Romanian Regional Linguistic Atlases, and the Center for Advanced Research in Automated Learning, Natural Language Processing and Conceptual Modeling has proposed the project WEB-LEX (Electronic/Internet Lexicons of the Romanian Language).

Under the aegis of this section, three journals are published: Fuzzy Systems and A.I. Reports and Letters, Studies in Information and Control, and the Romanian Journal of Information Science and Technology. In addition, the Section coordinates the activity of two academic committees: Forumul pentru Societatea Informationala - Forum for the Information Society (1997) and Stiinta si tehnologia microsistemelor - Microsystems Science and Technology (1998).

 
 

 

copyright © Romanian Academy 2006

copyright © Academia Romānă 2006