Discontinuous and continuous transitions of collective behaviors in living systems

Living systems are full of astonishing diversity and complexity of life.Despite differences in the length scales and cognitive abilities of these systems,collective motion of large groups of individuals can emerge.It is of great importance to seek for the fundamental principles of collective motion,such as phase transitions and their natures.Via an eigen microstate approach,we have found a discontinuous transition of density and a continuous transition of velocity in the Vicsek models of collective motion,which are identified by the finite-size scaling form of order-parameter.At strong noise,living systems behave like gas.With the decrease of noise,the interactions between the particles of a living system become stronger and make them come closer.The living system experiences then a discontinuous gas-liquid like transition of density.The even stronger interactions at smaller noise make the velocity directions of the particles become ordered and there is a continuous phase transition of collective motion in addition.

Proximity Chemistry in Living Systems

Enzyme-and catalyst-generated reactive species have been leveraged in the past decade to covalently label biomolecules within a short range of a defined site or space inside cells or at the cell–cell interface.Due to their high spatial resolution,such proximity labeling strategies have been coupled with various bioanalytical techniques for dissecting dynamic and complex biological processes.Here,we review the development of enzyme-and catalyst-triggered proximity chemistry and their applications to identifying protein interaction networks as well as cell–cell communications in living systems.

Structure for energy cycle: a unique status of the second law of thermodynamics for living systems

Distinguishing things from beings, or matters from lives, is a fundamental question. Extending E. Schr?dinger's neg-entropy and I. Prigogine's dissipative structure, we propose a chemical kinetic view that the earliest "live" process is embedded essentially in a special interaction between a pair of specific components under a particular, corresponding environmental conditions. The interaction exists as an inter-molecular-force-bond complex(IMFBC) that couples two separate chemical processes: one is the spontaneous formation of the IMFBC driven by a decrease of Gibbs free energy as a dissipative process; while the other is the disassembly of the IMFBC driven thermodynamically by free energy input from the environment. The two chemical processes coupled by the IMFBC originated independently and were considered non-living on Earth, but the IMFBC coupling of the two can be considered as the earliest form of metabolism: the first landmark on the path from things to a being. The dynamic formation and disassembly of the IMFBC, as a composite individual, follows a principle designated as "… structure for energy for structure for energy…", the cycle continues; and for short it will be referred to as "structure for energy cycle". With additional features derived from this starting point, the IMFBC-centered "live" process spontaneously evolved into more complex living organisms with the characteristics currently known.

A highly specific ratiometric two-photon fluorescent probe to detect dipeptidyl peptidase Ⅳ in plasma and living systems

Subject Code:H30With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and National Basic Research Program of China,the group led by Prof.Ge Guangbo(葛广波)and Prof.Yang Ling(杨凌)from the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Resource Discovery,Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,reported a highly specific ratiometric two-photon fluorescent probe to detect

NMR Dynamic Studies in Living Systems

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can noninvasively monitor the intracellular concentrations and kinetic properties of numerous inorganic and organic compounds. These characteristics have made NMR a useful tool for dynamic studies of living systems. Applications of NMR to living systems have successfully extended to many areas, including studies of metabolic regulation, ion transport, and intracellular reaction rates in vivo. The major purpose of this review is to summarize the results that can be obtained by modern NMR techniques in living systems. With the advances of new techniques, NMR measurements of various nuclides have been performed for specific physiological purposes. Although some technical problems still remain and there are still discrepancies between NMR and traditional biochemical results, the abundant and unique information obtained from NMR spectra suggests that NMR will be more extensively applied in future studies of living systems. The fast development of these new techniques is providing many new NMR applications in living systems, as well as in structural biology.

Greening the building envelope,facade greening and living wall systems

For greening the building envelope several concepts can be used, for example green roofs, fa?ades greened with climbing plants or living wall systems (modular pre-vegetated panels), etc. Greening the building envelope allows to obtain a relevant improvement of the its effi- ciency, ecological and environmental benefits as well as an increase of the biodiversity. Since the interest restoring the environmental integ- rity of urban areas continues to increase, new developments in construction practices with beneficial environmental characteristics take place, as vertical greening systems. Applying green fa?ades is not a new concept and can offer multiple benefits as a component of cur- rent urban design;considering the relation be- tween the environmental benefits, energy sav- ing for the building and the vertical greening systems (material used, maintenance, nutrients and water needed) the integration of vegetation could be a sustainable approach for the enve- lope of new and existing buildings.

Information in the Universal Triangle of Reality for Non-living/Living Structures:From Philosophy to Neuro/Life Sciences

With the purpose to understand better the role of information not only in communication systems,but actually in our environmental reality,this paper presented the model of Universal Triangle of Reality,composed by Matter,Energy and Information,as fundamental constitutive components of this reality.Arguments coming from the field of physics,both at the cosmic and microparticles scale are presented,showing undoubtable conclusions that information is a fundamental component of reality in our material world.At the cosmic level,where the unusual high concentration of mass in the black holes constitutes a special state of matter,suitable for analysis of their special properties,the problem of the conservation principle of information is discussed.At the quantum level,the special unusual characteristics derived from the non-localization principle are also highlighted,together with information-involved problems and solutions.The Universal Triangle of Reality in the living systems reveals the high role of the involved information,both as the informational common organization on the entire evolution scale,and as the info-dynamics processes inside of own structure and resulted from interaction with the environment.The relevant advances in the approaching and understanding of the functionality of the living systems from informational point of view are highlighted,showing the high contribution of information concepts in understanding/solving of various older/recent problems in philosophy,neuroscience/neurology/psychiatry,neuro-physics/neuropsychology/behavior sciences,geriatrics/gerontology,biology and life sciences.

Evolution of Building Envelopes through Creating Living Characteristics

Building envelopes include facades and roof, which have the most interaction and exchange with outside and natural environment. In the future, meeting buildings various complicated needs with new technological advances necessitates a change and evolution in building envelopes. Controlling the energy consumption of the buildings is mostly through controlling the energy performance of the building envelopes. New technologies lead to the intelligent facades and envelopes. The envelope can be designed to be a part of the whole building＇s metabolism （energy production, storage and consumption） and morphology. The envelope would be a controlled part of the building which is managed through the central control system of the building, which connects it to other parts. It caused building envelope design to be changed fundamentally, so that there is a need to interact with engineering disciplines including computer engineering, mechanical engineering, material engineering and so on. All of these caused building envelope to get closer to biological and living systems. The physical restrictions which affect buildings system and living systems are the same. So they cause the same forces to shape the structure and form of the systems and the same rules to interact with the environment. The restrictions of material and energy resources caused living systems to be energy efficient and consuming less material. But the most important difference between living systems and building systems is in maximum use of different resources. As living systems use information maximally, the building system technology is based on using maximum energy. Now, there are many reasons and restrictions that building envelopes cannot act like living systems. But technological developments and contributing more disciplines in design and construction of building envelopes caused the future way of these envelopes get close to living systems for their energy efficiency. Some of living systems characteristics which the future building envelopes would have partially or benefit for the design process or construction are self-organization, evolution principles, hierarchical levels, processing energy, reaction to environmental stimuli and self-adjustment. Self-organization is achieved in some design software and in building material production for creating formal patterns. Evolution principles provide infrastructure for soft wares for optimization purposes and form creation. Hierarchical levels refer to giving hierarchical structure to the building envelopes through layering and designing different scales. Processing energy （metabolism） would be achieved through photovoltaic and solar collectors to produce energy and in passive systems for energy storage and distribution. Controlling solar radiation absorption and transmittance would help energy transfer from outside to building and vice versa. Reaction to environmental stimuli which is one of the most important characteristics of future building envelopes would use different types of active and passive sensors to create envelope mechanical reactions through material properties or collect data for processing in the control center to determine the right reaction. The reaction would be through different strategies such as changing properties and moving. Reaction could be passive or active. Self-adjustment can be achieved by control systems and processing units. All of these mean intelligent envelopes are essential parts of future buildings. Though it is now started with new design soft wares based on biological principles to optimize different parameters affecting the envelope function or to create the most efficient form.

A Quantum State Scenario for Biological Self-Replication

With the prevalent conception of self-replication (SR, a hallmark of living systems) as a non-equilibrium process subject to thermodynamic laws, a complementary approach derives the low energy quantum states arising from a Hamiltonian that appears to be specific for bio-systems by its containing some strongly binding terms. The bindings attract properties of the template (T) and the reactants to form a replicate (R). The criterion for SR that emerges from the theory is that second order (bi-linear) interaction terms between degrees of motion of T-R and the thermal bath dominate negatively over a linear self-energy term, and thereby provide a binding between the attributes of T and R. The formalism (reminiscent of the Kramers-Anderson mechanism for superexchange) is from first principles, but hinges on a drastic simplification by modelling the T, R and bath variables on interacting qubits and by congesting the attraction into a single (control) parameter. The development relies on further simplifying features, such as Random Phase Approximations and an Effective Hamiltonian formalism. The entropic balance to replication is considered and found to reside in the far surroundings.

Quantum States in Templated Biological Processes

Living matter is characterized by its variegated potential energy landscape possessing a proneness to continually absorb externally supplied energy. This enables it to ascend from its momentary energy minimum state to one of its myriad barriers only to subsequently descend to a new minimum with a potentiality to perform new functions or processes, in the while exuding energy (mainly in the form of heat). As in studies of molecular intersystem crossing, the jumping processes are describable in terms of quantum states. In this work we derive the low energy quantum states for those three templated self-assembling processes, self-replication, metabolism and self-repair that are commonly regarded as distinguishing animate from inanimate substance. The outcome of each process is a new, long-living, stable molecular aggregate characterized by its specific conformation, comprising a host of micro-states associated with sub-conformations and patterned upon the template. The provenance of these newly-formed states is obtained here by a unified formalism for all three processes, based on a Hamiltonian, constructed in an abstract Hilbert-space framework, whose essences are bilinear coupling terms in the Hamiltonian between the template and the bath, as well as between the reactants and the bath. Treating these terms by second order perturbation, one finds in low lying quantum states an alignment between the template and the product, somewhat analogous to the Kramers-Anderson superexchange mechanism, with the bath replacing the bridging anion and by exploitation of the decohering due to the randomness of the bath. The idea underlying this work, recurrent in the biological literature and here expressed in a Physics, Hamiltonian framework, is the correlative unity of the whole biological system comprising multiple organs.

A computer vision-approach for activity recognition and residential monitoring of elderly people

In this study,we explore a human activity recognition(HAR)system using computer vision for assisted living systems(ALS).Most existing HAR systems are implemented using wired or wireless sensor networks.These systems have limitations such as cost,power issues,weight,and the inability of the elderly to wear and carry them comfortably.These issues could be overcome by a computer vision based HAR system.But such systems require a highly memory-consuming image dataset.Training such a dataset takes a long time.The proposed computervision-based system overcomes the shortcomings of existing systems.The authors have used key-joint angles,distances between the key joints,and slopes between the key joints to create a numerical dataset instead of an image dataset.All these parameters in the dataset are recorded via real-time event simulation.The data set has 780,000 calculated feature values from 20,000 images.This dataset is used to train and detect five different human postures.These are sitting,standing,walking,lying,and falling.The implementation encompasses four distinct algorithms:the decision tree(DT),random forest(RF),support vector machine(SVM),and an ensemble approach.Remarkably,the ensemble technique exhibited exceptional performance metrics with 99%accuracy,98%precision,97%recall,and an F1 score of 99%.