Thermodynamics and Regulation of Biological Processes

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- I. General Problems -- Information and Cybernetic Aspects of Biological Thermodynamics -- Some Relations of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of Open Systems -- The Statistical Background of the Clansdorff-Prigogine Criterion -- Thermodynamic Analogies in Statistical Theory of Dynamic Systems -- Stochastic Criterion in Dynamical Systems -- Phases with Internal Degrees of Freedom and Their Heterogeneous Transformations -- II. Information Theory -- Towards a Dynamic Information Theory -- On the Problem of the Valuability of Information -- Relativistic Information and Biology -- III. Thermodynamics of Information Processes -- Entropy and Information The Supernatural Actions of Maxwell's Demon -- Thermodynamics and Information -- Entropy of Information Theory and Thermodynamic Entropy -- Optimal Thermodynamic Processes Under Chemical Reactions and Diffusion -- IV. Control and Regulation in Biological Systems -- Order and Disorder in Biological Control Systems -- Simple Feedback System Used to Model Biomolecular Reactions in Drug-Receptor Populations -- Towards a Stochastic Theory of Photoreception -- Temperature Homeostasis and Principles of its Regulation in the Living Organism -- V. Extremal Principles -- An Extremal Principle for Biomass Diversity in Ecology -- Optimal Principle and Temperature Conditions For the Existence of Animals -- Optimal Heat Insulation of Homeotherms -- Thermodynamics of Processes and the Evolution of Simple Biothermodynamic Populations -- VI. Synergetics - The Problems of Seiforganisation -- Self-Organisation Processes and Their Modelling -- Stochastic Dissipative Structures -- Symmetry Breaking Instabilities in Chemical Systems -- Dynamic Model of the Origin of Order in Controlled Macrosystems -- VII. The Problems of Evolution -- Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of Hypercycles -- New Information in Evolution -- State Spread and Evolution in Chemical Systems -- Stochastic Models of Evolutionary Processes -- Bioenergetic Trends of Evolutionary Progress of Organisms -- VIII. Ontogenesis -- Continuous Phase Transitions and Morphogenesis -- Stability of Ontogenesis -- Analysis of Homeorhesis in Ontogenetic, Population and Evolutionary Aspects -- Thermodynamic Aspects of Plant Ontogenesis -- Concluding Remarks -- List of Contributors -- References -- Subject Index -- Backmatter