Related papers: Biological efficiency in processing information
A system responding to a stochastic driving signal can be interpreted as computing, by means of its dynamics, an implicit model of the environmental variables. The system's state retains information about past environmental fluctuations,…
Cells can be considered as systems that utilize changes in thermodynamic entropy as information. Therefore, they serve as useful models for investigating the relationships between entropy production and information transmission, i.e.,…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Efficient energy transduction is one driver of evolution; and thus understanding biomolecular energy transduction is crucial to understanding living organisms. As an energy-orientated modelling methodology, bond graphs provide a useful…
One of the defining features of living systems is their adaptability to changing environmental conditions. This requires organisms to extract temporal and spatial features of their environment, and use that information to compute the…
This chapter reviews the mechanisms by which sensors gather information from the physical world and transform it into the electronic signals that are used in today's information and control systems. It introduces a new methodology for…
Biological information processing manifests a huge variety in its complexity and capability among different organisms, which presumably stems from the evolutionary optimization under limited computational resources. Starting from the…
Life depends as much on the flow of information as on the flow of energy. Here we review the many efforts to make this intuition precise. Starting with the building blocks of information theory, we explore examples where it has been…
Biological and living organisms sense and process information from their surroundings, typically having access only to a subset of external observables for a limited amount of time. In this work, we uncover how biological systems can…
The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative behavioural definition of computation (and of a computer) based simply on whether a system is capable of reacting to the environment-the input-as reflected in a measure of programmability.…
Maximizing the speed and precision of communication while minimizing power dissipation is a fundamental engineering design goal. Also, biological systems achieve remarkable speed, precision and power efficiency using poorly understood…
We propose a model of parameter learning for signal transduction, where the objective function is defined by signal transmission efficiency. We apply this to learn kinetic rates as a form of evolutionary learning, and look for parameters…
All natural things process and transform information. They receive environmental information as input, and transform it into appropriate output responses. Much of science is dedicated to building models of such systems -- algorithmic…
Cells use temporal dynamical patterns to transmit information via signaling pathways. As optimality with respect to the environment plays a fundamental role in biological systems, organisms have evolved optimal ways to transmit information.…
Sensing is the process of deriving signals from the environment that allows artificial systems to interact with the physical world. The Shannon theorem specifies the maximum rate at which information can be acquired. However, this upper…
Recent technical advances have sparked renewed interest in physical systems that couple simultaneously to different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus enabling transduction of signals between vastly different frequencies at the…
In this Chapter, we ask questions (1) What is the right way to measure the quality of information processing in a biological system? and (2) What can real-life organisms do in order to improve their performance in information-processing…
Communication signals often comprise an array of colors, lines, spots, notes or odors that are arranged in complex patterns, melodies or blends. Receiver perception is assumed to influence preference and thus the evolution of signal design,…
Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…
One of the most compelling problems in science consists in understanding how living systems process information. After all, the way they process information defines their capacities to learning and adaptation. There is an increasing…