Thermodynamic Network Analysis of Biological Systems

1. Introduction.- 2. Models.- 2.1 The Purpose and Nature of Models.- 2.2 Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions and the Michaelis-Menten Kinetics.- 2.3 Transport Across Membranes: A Black-Box Approach.- 2.4 Excitation of the Nervous Membrane: Hodgkin-Huxley Equations.- 2.5 A Cooperative Model for Nerve Excitation.- 2.6 The Volterra-Lotka Model.- 2.7 A Model for the Control of Metabolic Reaction Chains.- 3. Thermodynamics.- 3.1 Thermodynamics Systems.- 3.2 The First Law of Thermodynamics.- 3.3 The Second Law of Thermodynamics.- 3.4 Temperature and Transfer of Heat.- 3.5 Chemical Potential and the Transfer of Matter.- 3.6 Chemical Reactions.- 3.7 Some Basic Relations of Equilibrium Thermodynamics.- 3.8 Perfect Gases and Ideal Mixtures.- 3.9 Linear Irreversible Thermodynamics.- 4. Networks.- 4.1 Network Language and Its Processes.- 4.2 Storage Elements: Generalized Capacitances.- 4.3 Kirchhoff's Current Law and the 0-Junction.- 4.4 Unimolecular Reactions.- 4.5 Higher-Order Reactions, Kirchhoff's Voltage Law and the 1-Junction.- 4.6 Diffusion.- 5. Networks for Transport Across Membranes.- 5.1 Pore Models.- 5.2 Pore Blocking.- 5.3 Self-Blocking of Pores.- 5.4 Carrier Models.- 5.5 Active Transport.- 5.6 Hodgkin-Huxley Equations and the Coupling of Material and Electric Flux.- 5.7 Nernst-Planck Equations.- 5.8 The Photoreceptor Potential.- 6. Feedback Networks.- 6.1 Autocatalytic Feedback Loops.- 6.2 An Autocatalytic Excitation Model.- 6.3 Networks of A1-Elements.- 6.4 Limit Cycle Networks.- 7. Stability.- 7.1 Capacitances as Thermodynamic Equilibrium Systems.- 7.2 Stability of the Equilibrium State.- 7.3 Tellegen's Theorem and Liapunov Stability of the Equilibrium.- 7.4 Glansdorff-Prigogine Criterion for the Stability of Nonequilibrium Steady States.- 7.5 Uniqueness of SteadyStates.- 7.6 Globally and Asymptotically Stable Networks.- 7.7 Global Stability Techniques.- References.