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How might spatial nonuniformity of dose in a homogeneous biological system affect its total response?
Author(s) -
Pickard William F.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
bioelectromagnetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.435
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-186X
pISSN - 0197-8462
DOI - 10.1002/1521-186x(200101)22:1<66::aid-bem8>3.0.co;2-q
Subject(s) - homogeneous , affect (linguistics) , biological system , environmental science , physics , biology , statistical physics , psychology , communication
The total response of a homogeneous biological system to a fixed total dose of a biological agent is modeled by dividing the system into N cubical voxels, each of which can be associated with an individual dose n and an individual response ℛ n =( n ). Among the results shown are the following: A. (Voxel Theorem). Let the average dose avg be held fixed as the dose distribution is shifted from uniform to arbitrary . Then, if ′ ≥ 0 over [ min , max ] and R = ∑ n = 1 N ℛ n , a sufficient condition that N( avg ) = R () ≤ R () is that be a concave‐upwards function of dose; that is, ″ ≥ 0 over [ min , max ]. B. If ′ is constant over [ min , max ], then R () = R (). That is, the total response is a function of avg} only. The applications of these (and other) results are illustrated by examples from bioelectromagnetics. Bioelectromagnetics 22:66–70, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.