Tzafestas, Spyros G. <br/><br/>
Energy, Information, Feedback, Adaptation, and Self-organization  The Fundamental Elements of Life and Society /  [electronic resource] : 

 - 1st ed. 2018. 
 - XXI, 668 p. 276 illus., 143 illus. in color.  | Binding - Card Paper | 
 - Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering,  90  2213-8986 ; .
 - Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering,  90 .
<br/><br/> 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). 
<br/><br/><label>ISBN: </label>9783319669991 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Civil Engineering
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Index Terms: </label>Data-driven Science, Modeling and Theory Building. Energy, general, Bioinformatics. Communications Engineering, Networks. 
<br/><br/><label>Dewey Class. No.: </label>629.8