| Grant number: | 18/09125-4 |
| Support type: | Regular Research Grants |
| Duration: | December 01, 2018 - November 30, 2020 |
| Field of knowledge: | Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science |
| Principal Investigator: | Cesar Henrique Comin |
| Grantee: | Cesar Henrique Comin |
| Home Institution: | Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil |
Abstract
The representation of natural and artificial systems according to their respective topology, using networks or graphs, has attracted increasing attention over the past years. The large body of work produced on the subject originated a new research area known as network theory. The objective of this project is to apply a series of recent results from network theory on biological images, aiming at revealing relevant properties about these images that are usually not observed using traditional methods. This objective entails three main fundamental aspects, given by i) the definition of adequate image representations using networks, ii) the selection of appropriate network features for characterizing the data and iii) the definition of relevant models for explaining the observed network topology. In the following, we describe the expected challenges for each considered aspect, as well as possible approaches that will be used for overcoming them. We will show that many methods from network theory can be used for analyzing images from different types of biological systems. Special focus will be given to biological systems having natural representations as networks, such as blood vessels and neurons, but other applications will also be considered. We aim at applying the newly developed methods on state of the art research topics in biology, which will be done by means of collaborations with researches from the area. (AU)