Energy, Information, Feedback, Adaptation, and Self-organization

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This unique book offers a comprehensive and integrated introduction to the five fundamental elements of life and society: energy, information, feedback, adaptation, and self-organization. It is divided into two parts. Part I is concerned with energy (definition, history, energy types, energy sources, environmental impact), thermodynamics (laws, entropy definitions, energy, branches of thermodynamics, entropy interpretations, arrow of time), information (communication and transmission, modulation–demodulation, coding–decoding, information theory, information technology, information science, information systems), feedback control (history, classical methodologies, modern methodologies), adaptation (definition, mechanisms, measurement, complex adaptive systems, complexity, emergence), and self-organization (definitions/opinions, self-organized criticality, cybernetics, self-organization in complex adaptive systems, examples in nature).In turn, Part II studies the roles, impacts, and applications of the five above-mentioned elements in life and society, namely energy (biochemical energy pathways, energy flows through food chains, evolution of energy resources, energy and economy), information (information in biology, biocomputation, information technology in office automation, power generation/distribution, manufacturing, business, transportation), feedback (temperature, water, sugar and hydrogen ion regulation, autocatalysis, biological modeling, control of hard/technological and soft/managerial systems), adaptation and self-organization (ecosystems, climate change, stock market, knowledge management, man-made self-organized controllers, traffic lights control).