Opposing views on tensegrity as a structural framework for understanding cell mechanics -- Ingber et al. 89 (4): 1663 -- Journal of Applied Physiology. Donald E. Ingber: Important new theories in science often ignite heated debates. If they do not, they are probably of little significance. Thus a strong argument in support of the importance of the tensegrity model of cell and tissue architecture first proposed almost 20 years ago (23, 24) is the large number of public and private criticisms that have been mounted against this theory. Demonstration of the ability of the tensegrity model to explain complex mechanical behaviors in viruses, nuclei, cells, tissues, and organs in animals as well as in insects and plants (reviewed in Refs. 4, 5, 7, 10, 17, 20-24, 26, 30, 32,42) has led to a drastic reduction in the number of these confrontations.
Fig. 1. A hierarchical tensegrity model of a nucleated cell composed of sticks and elastic string when unanchored and round (top) vs. attached and spread on a rigid adhesive substrate (bottom). Fig. 2. Fig. 3. The main reason for Dr. SJET. Organization and management. James Grier Miller : Living Systems (1978) General systems theory is a set of related definitions, assumptions, and propositions which deal with reality as an integrated hierarchy of organizations of matter and energy. General living systems theory is concerned with a special subset of all systems, the living ones.
Even more basic to this presentation than the concept of "system" are the concepts of "space," "time," "matter," "energy," and "information," because the living systems which I shall discuss exist in space and are made of matter and energy organized by information. 1. Space and time [^] In the most general mathematical sense, a space is a set of elements which conform to certain postulates. Euclidean space, for instance, consists of points in three dimensions which are subject to the postulates of Euclid.
In a metric space a distance measure is associated with each pair of elements. Physical space is the extension surrounding a point. 1.1 Physical or geographical space 1.2 Conceptual or abstracted spaces 1.3 Time. 2. 3. Autopoiesis and how hyper-connectivity is literally bringing the networks to life - Trends in the Living Networks. When I started writing my book Living Networks in early 2002 I thought that it was important to demonstrate that the concept of ‘living networks’ was not just a metaphor, but a reality: we, together with the networks that connect us, are literally a new life form.
To show this I drew on the literature on autopoiesis, which was proposed as a new way of understanding the nature of life, and wrote a lengthy introduction to the book. My editor, very rightly, thought it was the wrong way to begin the book, and the introduction never saw the light of day. This morning when someone mentioned living networks to me I remembered that this was a literal phrase that I had never explained, so here is the introduction, seen for the first time.
We are indeed part of an emerging higher-order life form, and that is a wonderful thing… Introduction: How Connectivity is Bringing Our World to Life: We who are privileged to be alive today are participating in the birth of a new lifeform: the global networks.
PHYLOSOPHY. VISUALISATION OF COMPLEXITY. AUTOPOIESIS, CULTURE , AND SOCIETY. Humberto Mariotti The concept of autopoiesis has long surpassed the realm of biology. It has been used in areas so diverse as sociology, psychotherapy, management, anthropology, organizational culture, and many others. This circumstance transformed it in a very important and useful instrument for the investigation of reality.
Years ago, Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela proposed the following question: to what extent human social phenomenology could be seen as a biological phenomenology? The purpose of this article is to look for an answer to this question. However, before getting to it I think that it is necessary to review some of the fundamental principles introduced by these two authors. Autopoiesis Poiesis is a Greek term that means production.
In Maturana’s viewpoint, the term "autopoiesis" expresses what he called "the center of the constitutive dynamics of living systems". Structure, organization, and structural determinism Structural coupling.