We analyse secure computation as a physical process and connect it to recent advances in security, namely Quantitative Information Flow. Using a classic thermodynamic argument involving the second principle and reversibility we show that any deterministic computation, where the final state of the system is observable, must dissipate at least WkBT ln 2. Here W is the information theoretic notion...

A deeper understanding of nonequilibrium phenomena is needed to reveal the principles governing natural and synthetic molecular machines. Recent work has shown that when a thermodynamic system is driven from equilibrium then, in the linear response regime, the space of controllable parameters has a Riemannian geometry induced by a generalized friction tensor. We exploit this geometric insight t...

Nearly every model of DNA computation proposed to date depends upon sequence-speciic hybridization operations. In order to better predict the binding speciicity of arbitrary deoxyoligonucleotides, a simulator named bind is implemented. Bind operates on a single template DNA sequence and a number of shorter primer sequences. For each primer sequence, bind calculates a theoretical melting tempera...

The question on the effectiveness of geometrical methods for development and interpretation of extreme thermodynamic models is evidently subject to essential subjectivism and partiality. So, whereas Newton in his Principles started to solve each of more than 200 considered problems with graphical explanations, and only then passed to formulas, Lagrange in Mechanique Analytique did not present a...

We consider the micro-canonical ensemble of a classical Hamiltonian dynamical system, the Hamiltonian being parameter dependent and in the possible presence of other first integrals. We describe a thermodynamic formalism in which a 1st law of thermodynamics, or fundamental relation, is based upon the bulk-entropy, SΩ. Under an ergodic hypothesis, SΩ is shown to be an adiabatic invariant. Expres...

Myocardial heating by transcatheter delivery of radiofrequency (RF) energy has been proposed as an effective means of arrhythmia ablation. A thermodynamic model describing the radial temperature gradient at steady state during RF-induced heating is proposed. If one assumes that RF power output is adjusted to maintain a constant electrode-tissue interface temperature at all times, then this ther...

Apart from its complex functionality, the brain is a robust thermodynamic machine; the tissue metabolic rate is high and it is thermally shielded by a skull. Therefore, if there is no high-volume blood flow to cool and stabilize the brain temperature, the possibility of unstable behavior seems to be high. Inflowing arterial blood is normally cooler than the brain tissue temperature, and outflow...

In this paper we describe the percolation analogues of the Gibbs and Helmholtz potentials and use these quantities to prove some general inequalities concerning the critical exponents of percolation processes.

The usual thermodynamic evaluation, based solely on the Standard Gibbs Energy of reaction, does not take into account the permissible ranges of concentrations of metabolites, and it faces further difficulties when, instead of isolated reactions, we are examining whole pathways. For pathways, we seek not only to decide whether they are feasible but also to pinpoint the pathway segment that cause...

Recently Groh and Dietrich[1] calculated orientational order transitions for dipolar fluids contained in spheroidal shapes of aspect ratio k. According to their study the thermodynamic state of a dipolar fluid depends on the shape of the fluid's container. For example, a homogeneous fluid in a short fat container would phase separate when transferred to a tall skinny container of identical volu...