Biophysical Thermodynamics of Intracellular Processes

Biophysical Thermodynamics of Intracellular Processes
Author: Lev A. Blumenfeld
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1461226309

This book is aimed at a large audience: from students, who have a high school background in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology, to scien tists working in the fields of biophysics and biochemistry. The main aim of this book is to attempt to describe, in terms of physical chemistry and chemi cal physics, the peculiar features of "machines" having molecular dimen sions which play a crucial role in the most important biological processes, viz., energy transduction and enzyme catalysis. One of the purposes of this book is to analyze the physical background of the high efficiency of molecu lar machines functioning in the living cell. This book begins with a brief review of the subject (Chapter 1). Macro molecular energy-transducing complexes operate with thermal, chemical, and mechanical energy, therefore the appropriate framework to discuss the functioning of biopolymers comes from thermodynamics and chemical kinet ics. That is why we start our analysis with a consideration of the conventional approaches of thermodynamics and classical chemical kinetics, and their application to the description of bioenergetic processes (Chapter 2). Critical analysis of these approaches has led us to the conclusion that the conven tional approaches of physical chemistry to the description of the functioning of individual macromolecular devices, in many cases, appear to be incom plete. This prompted us to consider the general principles ofliving machinery from another point of view."

Thermodynamics of Biological Processes

Thermodynamics of Biological Processes
Author: Ingolf Lamprecht
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2019-07-22
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3110860511

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

Thermodynamics and Pattern Formation in Biology

Thermodynamics and Pattern Formation in Biology
Author: Ingolf Lamprecht
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2019-07-08
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3110848406

No detailed description available for "Thermodynamics and Pattern Formation in Biology".

The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life

The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life
Author: Michal Kurzynski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2006-07-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3540336540

Thermodynamics was created in the ?rst half of the 19th century as a theory designed to explain the functioning of heat engines converting heat into mechanical work. In the course of time, while the scope of research in this ?eld was being extended to a wider and wider class of energy transformations, thermodynamics came to be considered as a general theory of machines identi?ed with energy transducers. Imp- tant progress in biochemistry in the ?rst half of the 20th century, and in molecular biology in the second half, made it possible to think of treating even living organisms as machines, at least on the subcellular level. However, success in applying thermodynamics to elucidate the phenomenon of life has been rather mitigated. Two reasons seem to be responsible for this unsatisfactory s- uation. Nineteenth century thermodynamics dealt only with simple (homogeneous) systems in complete equilibrium. Although during the 20th century a nonequilibrium thermodynamics was developed, sta- ing with the Onsager theory of linear response and ending with the Prigogine nonlinear theory of dissipative structures, these theories still concern the originally homogeneous systems. Because living organisms are complex systems with a historically frozen spatial and functional structure, a thermodynamics of both nonequilibrium and complex s- tems is needed for their description. The ?rst goal of the present book is to formulate the foundations of such a thermodynamics.

Biological Thermodynamics

Biological Thermodynamics
Author: Donald T. Haynie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2001-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780521795494

An accessible introduction to thermodynamics for undergraduate biology and biochemistry students.

Principles and Models of Biological Transport

Principles and Models of Biological Transport
Author: Morton H. Friedman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2008-12-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0387792406

Focus, Organization, and Content This book, like the first edition, deals with the mass transport processes that take place in living systems, with a focus on the normal behavior of eukaryotic cells and the - ganisms they constitute, in their normal physiological environment. As a consequence of this focus, the structure and content of the book differ from those of traditional transport texts. We do not start with the engineering principles of mass transport (which are well presented elsewhere) and then seek biological applications of these principles; rather, we begin with the biological processes themselves, and then - velop the models and analytical tools that are needed to describe them. This approach has several consequences. First of all, it drives the content of the text in a direction distinctively different from conventional transport texts. This is - cause the tools and models needed to describe complex biological processes are often different from those employed to describe more well-characterized inanimate systems. Many biological processes must still be described phenomenologically, using me- odologies like nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Simple electrical analogs employing a paucity of parameters can be more useful for characterization and prediction than complex theories based on the behavior of more well-defined systems on a laboratory bench. By allowing the biology to drive the choice of analysis tools and models, the latter are consistently presented in the context of real biological systems, and analysis and biology are interwoven throughout.