Wlodzimierz Klonowski
Wlodzimierz Klonowski | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1945 Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Died | April 4, 2020 (aged 74–75) Warsaw, Poland |
| Residence | Warsaw, mazowieckie, Poland |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Alma mater | University of Warsaw |
| Known for | Nonlinear dynamics and complexity analysis of biosignals |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysics, nonlinear dynamics, biosignal analysis |
| Institutions | Polish Academy of Sciences |
Wlodzimierz Klonowski (Włodzimierz Klonowski; 1945 – April 4, 2020) was a Polish biophysicist known for his work on nonlinear dynamics, complexity theory and the analysis of biological signals. For much of his career he headed the Laboratory of Biosignal Analysis Fundamentals at the Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
Biography
Klonowski was born in 1945 in Moscow, where his family had been displaced during the Second World War, and the family settled in Warsaw in 1946. His father, Stefan Klonowski, was a specialist in Polish studies, and his mother, Gabriela Pauszer-Klonowska, was a novelist.
He earned a Master of Science in physics, with a specialization in biophysics, from the University of Warsaw in 1968, and a doctorate in physics from the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1973. In 1990 he obtained the degree of Dr.sc.nat. in theoretical biophysics from Humboldt University in Berlin.
From 1968 to 1981 he worked in Poland, first at the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he studied network theory and sol-gel transitions, and later at the Department of Neurosurgery of the Medical Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he worked on the theory of intracranial pressure. During the following years he held a number of positions abroad, including professor of physics and biophysics at the University of Kinshasa in Zaïre, a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (1982–1984), and a visiting professorship at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts (1984–1986). From 1986 he lived in Canada, working at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and later running a computer consulting and tutoring firm in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
He returned to Poland at the end of 1994, and in 1995 joined the Nalecz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he served as head of the Laboratory of Biosignal Analysis Fundamentals. He died on April 4, 2020, and was buried at the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.
Work
Klonowski's research centered on nonlinear dynamics, the theory of complex systems and their application to biomedicine. His early work included a probabilistic theory of crosslinked macromolecular systems, published as the 1984 monograph Probabilistic Theory of Crosslinked Macromolecular Systems with Applications in Chemical Physics and Biophysics. A molecular structure was later named the "Klonowski-Klonowska conformon" in reference to this work.
In his later career he applied methods of nonlinear time-series analysis and complexity measures to biological signals, in particular the electroencephalogram (EEG). This work examined changes in the complexity of brain electrical activity across states such as consciousness, anesthesia, physiological sleep and epileptic seizure, reporting that measures of signal complexity decrease when consciousness is diminished.
He was active in building the interdisciplinary community around nonlinear biomedical physics. He founded and coordinated the European Interdisciplinary Schools on Nonlinear Dynamics for System and Signal Analysis (EUROATTRACTOR, 2000–2002), led the Group of Biosignal Analysis Fundamentals within the European Union IST Integrated Project SENSATION (2004–2007), and in 2007 became founding editor of the journal Nonlinear Biomedical Physics. He also authored the popular-science book Tajemnice Biofizyki (Mysteries of Biophysics, 1981).
Honors
- Honorary 50th Anniversary Medal of the Medical University of Warsaw (2000)
- Golden Cross of Merit, conferred by the President of the Republic of Poland (2004)
External links
- Włodzimierz Klonowski at Wikipedia
- Wlodzimierz Klonowski at Google Scholar
- Wlodzimierz Klonowski at ResearchGate