| The economy of the shape of limbed animals. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 11204396 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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A simple, high-level wire-minimization model appears to drive the relationship between animal limb number and body-to-limb proportion in some animals across at least seven phyla: annelids, arthropods, cnidarians, echinoderms, molluscs, tardigrades and vertebrates. Given an animal's body-to-limb proportion, the model enables one to estimate the animal's number of limbs, and vice versa. Informally, the model states that a limbed animal's large-scale morphology is set so as to maximize its number of limbs subject to the constraint that there is not a more economical shape which reaches out to the same places. A consequence of animals conforming to the model is that their large-scale morphology is "minimally wired." Just as wire minimization is important in artificial information processing devices, it is hypothesized that one reason why animals' large-scale morphologies conform to a save-wire principle is to minimize the system-wide information processing times. |
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Authors:
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M A Changizi |
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Publication Detail:
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Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Biological cybernetics Volume: 84 ISSN: 0340-1200 ISO Abbreviation: Biol Cybern Publication Date: 2001 Jan |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2001-02-02 Completed Date: 2001-03-29 Revised Date: 2006-11-15 |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 7502533 Medline TA: Biol Cybern Country: Germany |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 23-9 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Biotechnology Group, Schafer Corporation, Arlington, VA 22209, USA. changizi@cs.ucc.ie |
Export Citation:
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| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Algorithms* Animals Computers* Extremities / physiology* Invertebrates Models, Biological* Vertebrates |
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