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Fractal Analysis of Landscapes in Medicine

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Fractals in Biology and Medicine

Part of the book series: Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction ((MBI))

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Abstract

We present a statistical procedure allowing the analysis of binary and grey value pictures using standard methods from statistical physics. The method is useful for extracting scaling information from a picture and offers an alternative way to examine the properties of fractals without using the conventional geometric counting methods. By applying statistical methods, we are able to gain information on the scaling behaviour of the reduced picture by examining a single landscape. The information contained in a picture is converted to a stochastic sequence of data which is the basis of our calculation. We show that the resulting landscape contains fractal information allowing us to distinguish between special properties of cells. We further demonstrate that our calculations can be done by anyone familiar with a standard software package such as Mathematica. User thus do not need to write their own software to extract fractal information from a landscape.

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© 1998 Springer Basel AG

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Baumann, G., Dollinger, J., Losa, G.A., Nonnenmacher, T.F. (1998). Fractal Analysis of Landscapes in Medicine. In: Losa, G.A., Merlini, D., Nonnenmacher, T.F., Weibel, E.R. (eds) Fractals in Biology and Medicine. Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8936-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8936-0_7

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-0348-9834-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-0348-8936-0

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