The Use of the Statistical Entropy in Some New Approaches for the Description of Biosystems

Some problems of describing biological systems with the use of entropy as a measure of the complexity of these systems are considered. Entropy is studied both for the organism as a whole and for its parts down to the molecular level. Correlation of actions of various parts of the whole organism, intercellular interactions and control, as well as cooperativity on the microlevel lead to a more complex structure and lower statistical entropy. For a multicellular organism, entropy is much lower than entropy for the same mass of a colony of unicellular organisms. Cooperativity always reduces the entropy of the system; a simple example of ligand binding to a macromolecule carrying two reaction centers shows how entropy is consistent with the ambiguity of the result in the Bernoulli test scheme. Particular attention is paid to the qualitative and quantitative relationship between the entropy of the system and the cooperativity of ligand binding to macromolecules. A kinetic model of metabolism. corresponding to Schrödinger’s concept of the maintenance biosystems by “negentropy feeding”, is proposed. This model allows calculating the nonequilibrium local entropy and comparing it with the local equilibrium entropy inherent in non-living matter.     

Thermotropic mesophases in linear polysiloxanes

Flexible linear polysiloxanes with inorganic backbones such as poly(diethylsiloxane) and poly-(dipropylsiloxane) contain no traditional mesogenic groups neither in the main chain nor in side chains and, nevertheless, they are able to form thermotropic mesophases. Recent developments in the study of thermodynamics, kinetics, structure and morphology of these mesophase polymers are considered. The temperature interval of existence of the mesophase is strongly dependent on the length of side radicals and molecular weight. These dependences are examined in detail. X-ray structure and the optical textures seen in the polarizing microscope are discussed. It is shown that large mesophase lamellae represent a very characteristic feature of the morphology of poly(diethylsiloxane). The linear growth rate of the lamellae and the overall calorimetric kinetics of the mesophase formation have been studied at various temperatures and the results obtained have been analyzed using the Avrami equation and the kinetic theory of the linear growth. As a result of the kinetic analysis two-dimensional growth has been suggested in accordance with the microscopic observation. The formation of the mesophase in slightly crosslinked poly(diethylsiloxane) samples can be initiated by stretching. The stress-strain and thermomechanic (deformation calorimetry data) behaviour of such samples is briefly discussed.     

Dynamics of One‐Dimensional Electrons With Broken Spin–Charge Separation

Spin–charge separation is known to be broken in many physically interesting one‐dimensional (1D) and quasi‐1D systems with spin–orbit interaction because of which spin and charge degrees of freedom are mixed in collective excitations. Mixed spin–charge modes carry an electric charge and therefore can be investigated by electrical means. We explore this possibility by studying the dynamic conductance of a 1D electron system with image‐potential‐induced spin–orbit interaction. The real part of the admittance reveals an oscillatory behavior versus frequency that reflects the collective excitation resonances for both modes at their respective transit frequencies. By analyzing the frequency dependence of the conductance the mode velocities can be found and their spin–charge structure can be determined quantitatively.     

Theoretical investigation of controlled generation of a dense attosecond relativistic electron bunch from the interaction of an ultrashort laser pulse with a nanofilm

For controllable generation of an isolated attosecond relativistic electron bunch [relativistic electron mirror (REM)] with nearly solid-state density, we propose using a solid nanofilm illuminated normally by an ultraintense femtosecond laser pulse having a sharp rising edge. With two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, we show that, in spite of Coulomb forces, all of the electrons in the laser spot can be accelerated synchronously, and the REM keeps its surface charge density during evolution. We also developed a self-consistent 1D theory, which takes into account Coulomb forces, radiation of the electrons, and laser amplitude depletion. This theory allows us to predict the REM parameters and shows a good agreement with the 2D PIC simulations.     

Metric and ultrametric spaces of resistances

Consider an electrical circuit, each edge e of which is an isotropic conductor with a monomial conductivity function . In this formula, y_e is the potential difference and current in e, while μ_e is the resistance of e; furthermore, r and s are two strictly positive real parameters common for all edges. In particular, the case r=s=1 corresponds to the standard Ohm’s law.In 1987, Gvishiani and Gurvich [A.D. Gvishiani, V.A. Gurvich, Metric and ultrametric spaces of resistances, in: Communications of the Moscow Mathematical Society, Russian Math. Surveys 42 (6 (258)) (1987) 235-236] proved that, for every two nodes a,b of the circuit, the effective resistance μ_a,b is well-defined and for every three nodes a,b,c the inequality holds. It obviously implies the standard triangle inequality μ_a,b≤μ_a,c+μ_c,b whenever s≥r. For the case s=r=1, these results were rediscovered in the 1990s. Now, after 23 years, I venture to reproduce the proof of the original result for the following reasons:

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It is more general than just the case r=s=1 and one can get several interesting metric and ultrametric spaces playing with parameters r and s. In particular, (i) the effective Ohm resistance, (ii) the length of a shortest path, (iii) the inverse width of a bottleneck path, and (iv) the inverse capacity (maximum flow per unit time) between any pair of terminals a and b provide four examples of the resistance distances μ_a,b that can be obtained from the above model by the following limit transitions: (i) r(t)=s(t)≡1, (ii) r(t)=s(t)→∞, (iii) r(t)≡1,s(t)→∞, and (iv) r(t)→0,s(t)≡1, as t→∞. In all four cases the limits μ_a,b=lim_t→∞μ_a,b(t) exist for all pairs a,b and the metric inequality μ_a,b≤μ_a,c+μ_c,b holds for all triplets a,b,c, since s(t)≥r(t) for any sufficiently large t. Moreover, the stronger ultrametric inequality μ_a,b≤max(μ_a,c,μ_c,b) holds for all triplets a,b,c in examples (iii) and (iv), since in these two cases s(t)/r(t)→∞, as t→∞.

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Communications of the Moscow Math. Soc. in Russ. Math. Surveys were (and still are) strictly limited to two pages; the present paper is much more detailed.Although a translation in English of the Russ. Math. Surveys is available, it is not free in the web and not that easy to find.

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The last but not least: priority.

     

Authentication schemes from actions on graphs, groups, or rings

We propose a couple of general ways of constructing authentication schemes from actions of a semigroup on a set, without exploiting any specific algebraic properties of the set acted upon. Then we give several concrete realizations of this general idea, and in particular, we describe several authentication schemes with long-term private keys where forgery (a.k.a. impersonation) is NP-hard. Computationally hard problems that can be employed in these realizations include the Graph Colorability problem, the Diophantine problem, and many others.     

Hypergeometric systems of Gelfand-type equations and series in orthogonal polynomials

We describe multivariable hypergeometric series in orthogonal polynomials. These series are solutions of special systems of Gelfand-type equations. The difference andq-analogs are also given.