  Entropy production rate (EPR) is often effective to describe how a structure
is self-organized in a nonequilibrium thermodynamic system. The "minimum EPR
principle" is widely applicable to characterizing self-organized structures,
but is sometimes disproved by observations of "maximum EPR states." Here we
delineate a dual relation between the minimum and maximum principles; the
mathematical representation of the duality is given by a Legendre
transformation. For explicit formulation, we consider heat transport in the
boundary layer of fusion plasma [Phys. Plasmas {\bf 15}, 032307 (2008)]. The
mechanism of bifurcation and hysteresis (which are the determining
characteristics of the so-called H-mode, a self-organized state of reduced
thermal conduction) is explained by multiple tangent lines to a pleated graph
of an appropriate thermodynamic potential. In the nonlinear regime, we have to
generalize Onsager's dissipation function. The generalized function is no
longer equivalent to EPR; then EPR ceases to be the determinant of the
operating point, and may take either minimum or maximum values depending on how
the system is driven.
