ABSTRACT

We refer to [148] for what follows. The manner of the temporal evolution of a process, of a work, of a movement

of the system, or the manner of the temporal evolution of the system response, determines the system behavior. It depends on a) the system properties, and b) the actions upon the system. There are two categories of the system properties: quantitative and qualita-

tive. A quantitative system property is, for example, the overshoot of the system response. The quantitative system properties re‡ect the system behavior under particular external and internal conditions. Controllability, observability, stability, and trackability (Chapter 9.3)([85]-[87], [132]-[140], [141], [157], [161], [164], [166], [167], [176]-[180], [249]-[258]) are examples of qualitative system properties. They relate the system behavior to a set of external and/or internal conditions, the set of which can be …nite or in…nite, bounded or unbounded, but not a singleton that is characteristic of the quantitative system properties. Two di¤erent principal actions on the system are the following: Actions on the system, which were created during the system history by

past (external and/or internal) in‡uences on the system. Initial conditions express these actions. Initial conditions can be those of input variables, or of internal dynamics variables in general or of state variables in particular, and of output variables. This book treats the system behavior under arbitrary initial conditions.