title: The liver as a self-organizing system. I. Theoretics of its representation.
abstract: The liver is described as a composite system consisting of a set of operative creodic microunits open to a continuous flow of matter, energy and informations. Its dynamics depend on two interactive and interrelated subsystems with actions described as homopoiesis and homeorhesis, making it an autoisodiasostic system. The system's emergent (equifinal) or emergence states, operative potential, diffusion and reaction phenomena and compensation states are also formally described. For readers not familiar with the language of general system theory, of system dynamics and of categorical analysis, a glossary of some terms is provided.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Medicina Interna, Università degli Studi di Milano.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dioguardi
mesh_terms: D004058:Diffusion; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological