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Abstraction and representation of fields and their applications in biomedical modelling

Computer models are used extensively to investigate biological systems. Many of these systems can be described in terms of fields???spatially- and temporally- varying scalar, vector and tensor properties defined over domains. For example, the spatial variation of muscle fibers is a vector field, the spatial and temporal variation in temperature of an organ is a scalar field, and the distribution of stress across muscle tissue is a tensor field. In this thesis I present my research on how to represent fields in a format that allows researchers to store and distribute them independently of models and to investigate and manipulate them intuitively. I also demonstrate how the work can be applied to solving and analysing biomedical models. To represent fields I created a two-layer system. One layer, called the Field Representation Language (FRL), represents fields by storing numeric, analytic and meta data for storage and distribution. The focus of this layer is efficiency rather than usability. The second layer, called the Abstract Field Layer (AFL), provides an abstraction of fields so that they are easier for researchers to work with. This layer also provides common operations for manipulating fields as well as transparent conversion to and from FRL representations. The applications that I used to demonstrate the use of AFL and FRL are (a) a fields visualisation toolkit, (b) integration of models from different scales and solvers, and (c) a solver that uses AFL internally. The layered architecture facilitated the development of tools that use fields. A similar architecture may also prove useful for representations of other modelled entities.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/234103
Date January 2006
CreatorsTsafnat, Guy, Computer Science & Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, UNSW
PublisherAwarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Computer Science and Engineering
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsCopyright Guy Tsafnat, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright

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