This volume contains papers based on the workshop OC Energy and Information Transfer in Biological Systems: How Physics Could Enrich Biological UnderstandingOCO, held in Italy in 2002. The meeting was a forum aimed at evaluating the potential and outlooks of a modern physics approach to understanding and describing biological processes, especially regarding the transition from the microscopic chemical scenario to the macroscopic functional configurations of living matter. In this frame some leading researchers presented and discussed several basic topics, such as the photon interaction with biological systems also from the viewpoint of photon information processes and of possible applications; the influence of electromagnetic fields on the self-organization of biosystems including the nonlinear mechanism for energy transfer and storage; and the influence of the structure of water on the properties of biological matter."

This volume contains papers based on the workshop “Energy and Information Transfer in Biological Systems: How Physics Could Enrich Biological Understanding”, held in Italy in 2002. The meeting was a forum aimed at evaluating the potential and outlooks of a modern physics approach to understanding and describing biological processes, especially regarding the transition from the microscopic chemical scenario to the macroscopic functional configurations of living matter. In this frame some leading researchers presented and discussed several basic topics, such as the photon interaction with biological systems also from the viewpoint of photon information processes and of possible applications; the influence of electromagnetic fields on the self-organization of biosystems including the nonlinear mechanism for energy transfer and storage; and the influence of the structure of water on the properties of biological matter. Contents:Soliton Mechanism of Charge, Energy and Information Transfer in Biosystems (L Brizhik)Delayed Luminescence and Motional Harmonicity (L Cordone et al.)62 AMEV Proton Beam for the Treatment of Ocular Melanoma at LNS — INFN (G Cuttone et al.)Search for Quantum and Classical Modes of Information Processing in Microtubules: Implications for “the Living State” (S Hameroff et al.)From ‘Molecular Machines’ to Coherent Organisms (M-W Ho)On the Physics of Ultraweak Bioluminescence and Intercellular Photon Signaling (V S Letokhov & A L Dobryakov)Nonlinearity in Biological Systems: How Can Physics Help? (A A Marino & C Frilot)Life as a Fourth Level of Quantum Organization of Nature (S P Sit'ko)Concept of Photon Storage Capacity in Cell Biology (R van Wijk)and other papers Readership: Graduate students and researchers in physics and biology. Keywords:Biophysics;Delayed Luminescence;Consciousness;Structure of Water;Electromagnetic Field and Biology;Nonlinearity in Biological Systems;Solitons in Biological Systems;Information and Life

This open access book is a systematic update of the philosophical and scientific foundations of the biopsychosocial model of health, disease and healthcare. First proposed by George Engel 40 years ago, the Biopsychosocial Model is much cited in healthcare settings worldwide, but has been increasingly criticised for being vague, lacking in content, and in need of reworking in the light of recent developments. The book confronts the rapid changes to psychological science, neuroscience, healthcare, and philosophy that have occurred since the model was first proposed and addresses key issues such as the model’s scientific basis, clinical utility, and philosophical coherence. The authors conceptualise biology and the psychosocial as in the same ontological space, interlinked by systems of communication-based regulatory control which constitute a new kind of causation. These are distinguished from physical and chemical laws, most clearly because they can break down, thus providing the basis for difference between health and disease. This work offers an urgent update to the model’s scientific and philosophical foundations, providing a new and coherent account of causal interactions between the biological, the psychological and social.

This book is written for the biochemist, biophysicist or cell biologist, who is interested in applying Resonance Energy Transfer to study proteins, membranes and other biological systems. It is a handbook that provides a wealth of information an Förster distances, quantum yields and other spectroscopic parameters, and can, therefore, assist in choosing the Donor-Acceptor pairs that are most suitable for tackling the problem at hand. The book also gives a clear and virtually complete overview of the theory including limits on the orientation factor, effects of motion on transfer, concentration depolarization, and limitations of the technique. It contains a large number of tables and diagrams, is accessible to the beginning graduate student and is suitable as a supplementary text for courses on biophysical techniques.

Systems Biology represents a new paradigm aiming at a whole-organism-level understanding of biological phenomena, emphasizing interconnections and functional interrelationships rather than component parts. The study of network properties, and how they control and regulate behavior from the cellular to organism level, constitutes a main focus of Systems Biology. This book addresses from a novel perspective a major unsolved biological problem: understanding how a cell works and what goes wrong in pathology. The task undertaken by the authors is in equal parts conceptual and methodological, integrative and analytical, experimental and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative, didactic and comprehensive. Essentially, they unravel the spatio-temporal unfolding of interacting mass-energy and information networks at the cellular and organ levels, as well as its modulation through activation or repression by signaling networks to produce a certain phenotype or (patho)physiological response. Starting with the historical roots, in thirteen chapters this work explores the Systems Biology of signaling networks, cellular structures and fluxes, organ and microorganism functions. In doing so, it establishes the basis of a 21st century approach to biological complexity.