Related papers: The free lunch of a scale-free metabolism

Life has a special status, it even has its own science: biology. In many ways, the logic of life seems to differ from that of atoms, molecules, planets, or any other `inanimate object'. However, life is increasingly measured using…

We show that there are two classes of finite size effects for dynamic models taking place on a scale-free topology. Some models in finite networks show a behavior that depends only on the system size N. Others present an additional distinct…

A large number of complex networks, both natural and artificial, share the presence of highly heterogeneous, scale-free degree distributions. A few mechanisms for the emergence of such patterns have been suggested, optimization not being…

We study analytically and numerically a model metabolic cycle composed of an arbitrary number of species of catalytically active particles. Each species converts a substrate into a product, the latter being used as the substrate by the next…

We study the evolution of a random graph under the constraint that the diameter remain constant as the graph grows. We show that if the graph maintains the form of its link distribution it must be scale-free with exponent between 2 and 3.…

We demonstrate that scale-free patterns are observed in a spatially extended stochastic system whose deterministic part undergoes a saddle-node bifurcation. Remarkably, the scale-free patterns appear only at a particular time in relaxation…

Scale free dynamics are observed in a variety of physical and biological systems. These include neural activity in which evidence for scale freeness has been reported using a range of imaging modalities. Here, we derive the ways in which…

In a recent paper it was shown that No Free Lunch results hold for any subset F of the set of all possible functions from a finite set X to a finite set Y iff F is closed under permutation of X. In this article, we prove that the number of…

The metabolic processes complexity is at the heart of energy conversion in living organisms and forms a huge obstacle to develop tractable thermodynamic metabolism models. By raising our analysis to a higher level of abstraction, we develop…

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics has long been an area of substantial interest to ecologists because most fundamental biological processes, such as protein synthesis and respiration, are inherently energy-consuming. Microbial communities are…

Biomolecular machines are protein complexes that convert between different forms of free energy. They are utilized in nature to accomplish many cellular tasks. As isothermal nonequilibrium stochastic objects at low Reynolds number, they…

Thermodynamics constrains the flow of matter in a reaction network to occur through routes along which the Gibbs energy decreases, implying that viable steady-state flux patterns should be void of closed reaction cycles. Identifying and…

Scale-free dynamics in physical and biological systems can arise from a variety of causes. Here, we explore a branching process which leads to such dynamics. We find conditions for the appearance of power laws and study quantitatively what…

One of the major characteristics of living organisms is metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy produced per unit of time. When the mass of organisms increases, the metabolic rate also increases (usually as a power function of mass),…

Metabolism and evolution are closely connected: if a mutation incurs extra energetic costs for an organism, there is a baseline selective disadvantage that may or may not be compensated for by other adaptive effects. A long-standing, but to…

An imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure will lead to a change in body weight (mass) and body composition (fat and lean masses). A quantitative understanding of the processes involved, which currently remains lacking, will…

Metabolic reactions of single-cell organisms are routinely observed to become dispensable or even incapable of carrying activity under certain circumstances. Yet, the mechanisms as well as the range of conditions and phenotypes associated…

The rapidly developing theory of complex networks indicates that real networks are not random, but have a highly robust large-scale architecture, governed by strict organizational principles. Here, we focus on the properties of biological…

Biological systems are governed by coupled interactions between intracellular metabolism and bioreactor operation that span multiple time scales. Constraint-based metabolic models are widely used to describe intracellular metabolism, but…

In a range of citation networks, the in-degree distributions boast time-periodicity---the distributions of citations per article published each year present similar scale-free tails. This phenomenon can be regarded as a consequence of the…