Fractals in biology and medicine

This book is a compilation of the presentations given at the Fourth International Symposium on Fractals in Biology and Medicine held in Ascona, Switzerland on - th 13 March 2004 and was dedicated to Professor Benoît Mandelbrot in honour of his 80 birthday. The Symposium was the fourth of a series that originated back in 1993, always in Ascona. The fourth volume consists of 29 contributions organized under four sections: Fractal structures in biological systems Fractal structures in neurosciences Fractal structures in tumours and diseases The fractal paradigm Mandelbrot’s concepts such as scale invariance, self-similarity, irregularity and iterative processes as tackled by fractal geometry have prompted innovative ways to promote a real progress in biomedical sciences, namely by understanding and analytically describing complex hierarchical scaling processes, chaotic disordered systems, non-linear dynamic phenomena, standard and anomalous transport diffusion events through membrane surfaces, morphological structures and biological shapes either in physiological or in diseased states. While most of biologic processes could be described by models based on power law behaviour and quantified by a single characteristic parameter [the fractal dimension D], other models were devised for describing fractional time dynamics and fractional space behaviour or both (- fractional mechanisms), that allow to combine the interaction between spatial and functional effects by introducing two fractional parameters. Diverse aspects that were addressed by all bio-medical subjects discussed during the symposium.