Bicudo, J.E.P.W.; Nogueira-de-Sá, P.G.; Chaui-Berlinck, J.G. Entropy Generation and Control: Criteria to Calculate Flow Optimization in Biological Systems. Foundations2023, 3, 406-418.
Bicudo, J.E.P.W.; Nogueira-de-Sá, P.G.; Chaui-Berlinck, J.G. Entropy Generation and Control: Criteria to Calculate Flow Optimization in Biological Systems. Foundations 2023, 3, 406-418.
Bicudo, J.E.P.W.; Nogueira-de-Sá, P.G.; Chaui-Berlinck, J.G. Entropy Generation and Control: Criteria to Calculate Flow Optimization in Biological Systems. Foundations2023, 3, 406-418.
Bicudo, J.E.P.W.; Nogueira-de-Sá, P.G.; Chaui-Berlinck, J.G. Entropy Generation and Control: Criteria to Calculate Flow Optimization in Biological Systems. Foundations 2023, 3, 406-418.
Abstract
Living beings are composite thermodynamic systems in non-equilibrium conditions. Within this context, there are a number of thermodynamic potential differences (forces) between them and the surroundings, as well as internally. These forces lead to flows, which, ultimately, are essential to life itself. Living beings are under the pressures of natural selection, thus are biological flows as well. At the same time, the maintenance of homeostatic conditions, the tenet of physiology, demands regulation of these flows by control of variables. However, due to the very nature of these systems, regulation of flows and control of variables become entangled in closed loops. Therefore, the search for adaptation in flows takes a different path than the search for adaptation in morphological traits. Being at the roots of transfer processes, thermodynamic criteria turn out to be as natural physical candidates. Likewise, being at the roots of physiology, control turns out to be as a natural biological candidate in that path. Here we show how to combine entropy generation, with respect to a generalized process, and control of parameters (in such a generalized process) in order to create a criterium of optimal ways to regulate changes in generalized flows.
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