Plum pudding random medium model of biological tissue toward remote microscopy from spectroscopic light scattering

Biological tissue has a complex structure and exhibits rich spectroscopic behavior. There is \emph{no} tissue model up to now able to account for the observed spectroscopy of tissue light scattering and its anisotropy. Here we present, \emph{for the first time}, a plum pudding random medium (PPRM) model for biological tissue which succinctly describes tissue as a superposition of distinctive scattering structures (plum) embedded inside a fractal continuous medium of background refractive index fluctuation (pudding). PPRM faithfully reproduces the wavelength dependence of tissue light scattering and attributes the "anomalous" trend in the anisotropy to the plum and the powerlaw dependence of the reduced scattering coefficient to the fractal scattering pudding. Most importantly, PPRM opens up a novel venue of quantifying the tissue architecture and microscopic structures on average from macroscopic probing of the bulk with scattered light alone without tissue excision. We demonstrate this potential by visualizing the fine microscopic structural alterations in breast tissue (adipose, glandular, fibrocystic, fibroadenoma, and ductal carcinoma) deduced from noncontact spectroscopic measurement

Spatio-temporal ALS cluster in the Hérault district.

<p>This cluster (dark grey area) is composed of 26 townships and has been identified for the period between January 1992 and December 2009, with 68 ALS cases for 33.7 expected (SIR = 2.02, RR = 2.24, p = 0.0024). </p

Seasonal variations of the picophytoplankton community in Thau lagoon from March 2009 until February 2010.

<p>Circles: picocyanobacteria; triangle: picoeukaryotes; black: inside the farming zone, open: outside the farming zone.</p

SIR evolution in the Hérault district according to the distance from cluster 1.

<p>Maximum SIR is noted in cluster 1 and decreases rapidly when increasing the distance from this epicentre. Significance is p = 0.025, Stone's test for raised incidence around locations. Type of boots: parametric. Model used when sampling: Poisson. Number of simulations: 999. Statistic: 2.19325.</p