Scaling, growth and cyclicity in biology: a new computational approach

Pier Paolo Delsanto,Antonio S Gliozzi,Caterina Guiot

doi:10.1186/1742-4682-5-5

Pier Paolo Delsanto, Antonio S Gliozzi + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4682-5-5

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Abstract

BackgroundThe Phenomenological Universalities approach has been developed by P.P. Delsanto and collaborators during the past 2–3 years. It represents a new tool for the analysis of experimental datasets and cross-fertilization among different fields, from physics/engineering to medicine and social sciences. In fact, it allows similarities to be detected among datasets in totally different fields and acts upon them as a magnifying glass, enabling all the available information to be extracted in a simple way. In nonlinear problems it allows the nonscaling invariance to be retrieved by means of suitable redefined fractal-dimensioned variables.ResultsThe main goal of the present contribution is to extend the applicability of the new approach to the study of problems of growth with cyclicity, which are of particular relevance in the fields of biology and medicine.ConclusionAs an example of its implementation, the method is applied to the analysis of human growth curves. The excellent quality of the results (R2 = 0.988) demonstrates the usefulness and reliability of the approach.

Highlights

The Phenomenological Universalities approach has been developed by P.P
The main goal of the present contribution is to extend the applicability of the new approach to the study of problems of growth with cyclicity, which are of particular relevance in the fields of biology and medicine
In the context of the present contribution we wish to extend the applicability of the Phenomenological Universalities (PUN) approach [8,9], which allows the scaling invariance lost in nonlinear problems to be recovered, to growth phenomena that involve cyclicities

Summary

Background

Growth and cyclicity are basic "properties" of all living organisms and of many other biological systems, such as tumors. In the context of the present contribution we wish to extend the applicability of the Phenomenological Universalities (PUN) approach [8,9], which allows the scaling invariance lost in nonlinear problems to be recovered, to growth phenomena that involve cyclicities. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2008, 5:5 http://www.tbiomed.com/content/5/1/5 pletely disregarded, PUN's may be defined as the 'Inbegriff' of a given body of phenomenology when the field of application and the nature of the variables involved are completely disregarded They have been developed [8,9] as a new epistemological tool for discovering, directly from the experimental data, formal similarities in totally different contexts and fields ranging from physics to biology and social sciences.

Results

Discussion and conclusion

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