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Schnakenberg’s paper from 1976 has been foundational to the field of network thermodynamics. Exploiting tools from graph theory and circuit analysis, it provides a geometrical framework to identify the fundamental observables in master-equation dynamics. However, because chemical reactions are usually many-to-many, chemical networks are rather described by hypergraphs, which lack a systematized algebraic treatment and a clear geometric intuition. Here we fill this gap by proposing a framework that reconciles the algebraic and geometric representations of CNRs, allowing one to identify conservative and driving chemical forces. As an application, we propose a reconstruction algorithm for large metabolic networks consistent with Kirchhoff’s Voltage and Current Laws.

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Sara Dal Cengio, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique, Université Grenoble–Alpes
SR 0.01
Contact: Joachim Krug