Entropy 2014, 16(4), 1931-1948; doi:10.3390/e16041931
Information in Biological Systems and the Fluctuation Theorem
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 820 N. 16th Street, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA
Received: 17 January 2014 / Revised: 27 March 2014 / Accepted: 28 March 2014 / Published: 1 April 2014
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Methods and Foundations of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics)
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Abstract
Some critical trends in information theory, its role in living systems and utilization in fluctuation theory are discussed. The mutual information of thermodynamic coupling is incorporated into the generalized fluctuation theorem by using information theory and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Thermodynamically coupled dissipative structures in living systems are capable of degrading more energy, and processing complex information through developmental and environmental constraints. The generalized fluctuation theorem can quantify the hysteresis observed in the amount of the irreversible work in nonequilibrium regimes in the presence of information and thermodynamic coupling. View Full-Text
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Demirel, Y. Information in Biological Systems and the Fluctuation Theorem. Entropy 2014, 16, 1931-1948.