ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the factors which determine the way in which these statistical or control characteristics are distributed to the compartments of a biological system. It describes a relation which ties compartments together in the sense of imposing certain restrictions on this distribution. The chapter defines statistical quantities which can be associated with adaptability and specialization, and considers the specialization of labor in biological systems. This will provide a basis for discussing the relation between the statistical characteristics of a biological system and its environment, as well as the distribution of these characteristics to different compartments. The chapter discusses a quantity which expresses the uncertainty associated with an ensemble of states, or the diversity of states and their homogeneity of distribution. It explores the relationship between the efficiency of a system and its state entropy. The chapter also considers the relation between the variability of a biological system and the variability of its environment.
