Statistical Mechanics of Biocomplexity: Proceedings of the XV Sitges Conference, Held at Sitges, Barcelona, Spain, 8-12 June 1998 / Edition 1

by D. Reguera, J.M.G. Vilar, J.M. Rubi

Overview

This book demonstrates the usefulness of tools from statistical mechanics for biology. It includes the new tendencies in topics like membranes, vesicles, microtubules, molecular motors, DNA, protein folding, phase transitions in biological systems, evolution, population dynamics, neural systems and biological oscillators, with special emphasis on the importance of statistical mechanics in their development. The book addresses researchers and graduate students.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540662457
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	11/23/1999
Series:	Lecture Notes in Physics , #527
Edition description:	1999
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

From membranes to membrane machines.- ‘Sausage string’ patterns in blood vessels at high blood pressures.- Phase transitions in mesoscopic spherical membranes.- Modeling microtubule oscillations[1].- Designing RNA folding cooperativity.- Scaling laws for protein folding.- Self-organizing networks of molecular machines in allosterically regulated enzymic reactions.- Coupled Brownian motors.- On the role of molecular machines in the origin of the genetic code.- Population dynamics and non-Hermitian localization.- Collective motion.- A population dynamics approach to biological aging.- Small-world networks.- Extended mean-field theory for networks of spiking neurons.- Pattern formation in the developing visual cortex: Topological defects, their generation, motion, and annihilation.- Complex spiking behavior from noise-driven neuron interaction.- A new nonlinear model for pitch perception.- Statistical mechanics of network models of macroevolution and extinction.- Exact analytical results in a simple model of self-organized biological evolution.- Transition to chaos in models of genetic networks.