Publications [#299988] of Tingran Gao

Papers Submitted

  1. Tingran Gao, Gabriel S Yapuncich, Ingrid Daubechies, Doug M Boyer, Automated techniques for comparing shapes in a biological comparative dataset with high interspecific variation: tradeoffs, limitations, and progress, PLOS ONE (December, 2015), ISSN 1932-6203
    (last updated on 2015/12/15)

    Author's Comments:
    First biological application paper in the series.

    Abstract:
    During the development of evolutionary theory, foundational principles were established through comparative anatomy. However, comparative anatomy (in the form of high fidelity geometric morphometric information) is currently a relatively marginal source of evidence for evolutionary biology. While it is conceivable that this shift reflects the objectively low intrinsic information content of anatomical variation, we believe such assessments are premature. Instead, it seems that the relative difficulty of studying comparative anatomy has led researchers to seek other forms of data. Comparative datasets large enough to be statistically powerful are rare, and the complexity of anatomical shape variation foil even experienced researchers' abilities to collect rich yet standardized measurements. Three-dimensional digitization presents a way to re-introduce data from anatomical information by increasing access to samples through virtual repositories (extensive sampling) and by providing the potential for automating aspects of shape comparison (intensive sampling). In this paper, we reassess the accuracy and reliability of some published automated methods and present updated methodology. Ideally, these methods will promote wider participation in anatomical studies and motivate other research groups to focus on the problems of automated quantification and comparison of anatomical structures.