title: Information flow and information production in a population system.
abstract: An approach aiming to quantify the dynamics of information within a population is developed based on the mapping of the processes underlying the system's evolution into a birth and death type stochastic process and the derivation of a balance equation for the information entropy. Information entropy flux and information entropy production are identified and their time-dependent properties, as well as their dependence on the parameters present in the problem, are analyzed. States of minimum information entropy production are shown to exist for appropriate parameter values. Furthermore, uncertainty and information production are transiently intensified when the population traverses the inflexion point stage of the logisticlike growth process.
authors.affiliation: Mathematics Department, Uppsala University, PO Box 480, SE-751 06 Uppsala, Sweden. snicolis@math.uu.se
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Nicolis
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003142:Communication; D019277:Entropy; D006801:Humans; D008390:Markov Chains; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011336:Probability; D013269:Stochastic Processes; D013598:Systems Theory; D013816:Thermodynamics; D013997:Time Factors