This book is devoted to the question: What fundamental ideas and concepts can phys ics contribute to the analysis of complex systems like those in biology and ecolo gy? The book originated from two lectures which I gave during the winter term 1974/75 and the summer term 1976 at the Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hoch schule in Aachen. The wish for a lecture with this kind of subject was brought forward by students of physics as well as by those from other disciplines like biology, physiology, and engineering sciences. The students of physics were look ing for ways which might lead them from their monodisciplinary studies into the interdisciplinary field between physics and life sciences. The students from the other disciplines suspected that there might be helpful physical concepts and ideas for the analysis of complex systems they ought to become acquainted with. It is clear that a lecture or a book which tries to realize the expectations of both these groups will meet with difficulties arising from the different train ings and background knowledge of physicists and nonphysicists. For the physicists, I have tried to give a brief description of the biological aspect and significance of a problem wherever it seems necessary and appropriate and as far as a physicist like me feels authorized to do so.

The first edition of this book was greeted with broad interest from readers en gaged in various disciplines of biophysics. I received many stimulating and en couraging responses, however, some of the book's reviewers wanted to stress the fact that an extensive literature of network theory was not included or reported in the book. But the main aspect of the book is intended to be substantive rather than methodical: networks simply serve as a remedy for doing some first steps in analysing and modelling complex biological systems. For an advanced stage in the investigation of a particular system it may be appropriate to replace the pheno menological network method by more detailed techniques like statistical equations or computer simulations. According to this intention, the second edition of the book has been enlarged by further biological examples for network analysis, not by more network theory. There is a completely new section on a network model for photoreception. For this section I am obliged to J. Tiedge who did most of the detailed calculation and to my colleague Professor Stieve with whom we have had a very fruitful cooperation. Also I would like to mention that this work has been sponsored by the "Deutsche Forschungsgemei nschaft" i n the "Sonderforschungsberei ch 160". Recent results for excitable systems represented by feedback networks have also been included in the second edition, especially for limit cycle networks.

Biological Network Analysis: Trends, Approaches, Graph Theory, and Algorithms considers three major biological networks, including Gene Regulatory Networks (GRN), Protein-Protein Interaction Networks (PPIN), and Human Brain Connectomes. The book's authors discuss various graph theoretic and data analytics approaches used to analyze these networks with respect to available tools, technologies, standards, algorithms and databases for generating, representing and analyzing graphical data. As a wide variety of algorithms have been developed to analyze and compare networks, this book is a timely resource. - Presents recent advances in biological network analysis, combining Graph Theory, Graph Analysis, and various network models - Discusses three major biological networks, including Gene Regulatory Networks (GRN), Protein-Protein Interaction Networks (PPIN) and Human Brain Connectomes - Includes a discussion of various graph theoretic and data analytics approaches

No detailed description available for "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Biological Processes".

This monograph covers a broad spectrum of topics in the very broad field of gas phase molecular collision dynamics. The Introduction previews each of the four fol lowing topics and attempts to sew them together with a common thread. In addition, a brief review of quantum reactive scattering is given there along with some gen eral remarks which highlight the difficulties in doing quantum reactive scatter ing calculations. The chapters are all written by theoreticians who are, of course, experts in the subjects they have written about. Three chapters, the ones by Secrest, Schatz, and the one by Schinke and Bowman deal with non-reactive atom-molecule scattering. Col lectively, they describe nearly the full breadth of scattering methods in use to day, from fully quantum mechanical to semiclassical and quasiclassical. The chapter by Baer is the only one dealing with quantum reactive scattering with the additional complexity of the coupling of two potential energy surfaces. The one simplifying feature of the treatment is that the reaction is constrained to be collinear. Overall, this monograph is mainly a review of the recent advances in the field of molecular collision dynamics, with, however, a considerable amount of new material. It is hoped that workers and students in the field will find reading the mono graph both enlightening and enjoyable.

According to its definition, synergetics is concerned with the cooperation of indi vidual parts of a system that produces macroscopic temporal, spatial or functional structures. A good deal of the volumes published within this series dealt with the formation of truly macroscopic structures which we can s. ee with our eyes. A common scheme could be developed to understand the formation of many patterns through self-organization. In particular, we have to use concepts which go beyond conventio nal thermodynamics. New ideas became crucial. We have to study kinetic processes, and often few highly excited degrees of freedom play the decisive role in the evo lution of structures. Over the past years it has turned out that quite similar lines of approach apply to a world which at first sight would be classified as "microsco pic". That world consists of processes in which biomolecules are involved. An impor tant example for the problems occurring there is provided by Manfred Eigen's theory of evolution of life at the molecular level (cf. his contribution to Volume 17 of this series). Another important example has been provided by Blumenfeld's book on problems of biological physics (Vol. 7 of this series). There it was proposed to treat biological molecules as machines which, in a certain sense, work through "macros copic" degrees of freedom.

No detailed description available for "Thermodynamics and Regulation of Biological Processes".