Proposal for APS-IUPS convention for diagraming physiological mechanisms.
As physiological research reveals the existence of systems of increasing complexity and the existence of important interactions between them, the diagrammatic depiction of those systems and their interactions becomes an essential step in clarifying our own concepts in scientist-to-scientist communication and in teaching. Although control engineers, electronic engineers, and computer programmers long ago established their own diagrammatic conventions, physiologists are only now beginning to feel the need for a uniform convention suited to their own special needs in place of the numerous (and mostly ad hoc) diagram types that have recently proliferated in the literature. The convention proposed here is based on a formal theory of mechanism developed by W. Ross Ashby (An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956). Its purely mechanistic structure transcends traditional interdisciplinary barriers to communication. Wide acceptance of the convention proposed here would therefore enhance the ability of physiology to encompass mechanisms from molecular and cell biology and integrate them with general and systems physiology in a metadisciplinary effort to comprehend "the wisdom of the body." Among its many advantages is its simplicity; diagrams may be drawn at various levels of detail and complexity by use of a few basic rules, and they can be readily understood without knowledge of the theory.
Allweis
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Department of Physiology, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D006706:Homeostasis; D008954:Models, Biological; D010827:Physiology / Q000639:trends*; D012119:Respiration