SGER: Detection of Subtle Spatio-Temporal Patterns in Biological Imaging Using Permutation Methods

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Computers have become indispensable in much of current biology, in their roles of acquiring, processing, visualizing, and storing complex four- dimensional (space & time) data. However, the final stage in biological research is going from acquired, processed, and stored data to new biological knowledge. Computerized visualization is used in this stage, but there has been less development of computerized reasoning tools that can complement the biologist's toolkit. This project is developing discovery tools - in the form of novel algorithms and software - to deal with the complex 4D data of biological imaging. These tools will help detect subtle spatio-temporal patterns (i.e., non-randomness) that would be difficult to notice with standard means of analysis. The main technique is based on permutation tests, which have been applied widely in other sciences but not in biological imaging. The challenge is to design algorithms to handle the specific problems posed by typical imaging data.