On a Mathematical Theory of Quantal Response Assays

Abstract

About seven years ago, one of the authors (Puri [16]) was confronted with the following biological phenomenon. At time t = 0, each member of a group of hosts such as animals is injected with a dose of a specified virulent organism such as viruses or bacteria, which elicit a characteristic response from the host during the course of time. This response may be death, development of a tumor, or some other detectable symptom. If n(t) denotes the number of hosts not responding by time t, the plot against t of either n(t) itself or of the proportion n(t)/n(O) is known as the time dependent response curve. These response curves differ with the dose and with the type of the organism. However, generally speaking, the larger the injected dose, the sooner the host responds. The question was raised as to how one could explain these observed response curves through a suitable stochastic model.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 21, 1971
Accession Number
AD1025529

Entities

People

  • Jerome Senturia
  • Prem S. Puri

Organizations

  • Purdue University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Biological Phenomena
  • Defense Mechanisms
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Health Services
  • Integral Equations
  • Integrals
  • Mathematical Models
  • Models
  • Probability
  • Probability Density Functions
  • Public Health
  • Random Variables
  • Release
  • Release Mechanisms
  • Standards
  • Systems Biology

Fields of Study

  • Biology
  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Microbial Pathology
  • Regression Analysis.