Stereological methods

Bierman, E.P.B, Brouwer, D.H., and van Hemmen, J.J. (1997) Measuring crop density comparison of volumetry and stereological methods, Bull. Environ. Contam. Tox., 58 1006-1013. 

Stereological methods have often been used without the advantage of a computer or video screen. Such an approach superimposes a grid of dots, lines or areas on the specimen image and counts the inclusions and intersections this grid format shows with the feature of interest within the specimen field. Such a procedure, without automation, is most laborious requiring much effort to establish statistical validity for the measurements. 

Xu, Y.-H. and Pitot, H.C. 2003. An improved stereologic method for three-dimensional estimation of particle size distribution from observations in two dimensions and its application. Comput. Methods Programs Biomed. 72, 1-20. 

Random surfaces can be constructed by adding sine waves of random amplitude, direction and phase, but all with the same wavelength, and then taking the nodal surface where the value of the function is zero. We have applied stereological methods to estimate statistically the area and curvature of such surfaces which are... 

Weibel, E. R. (1984) Morphometric and stereological methods in respiratory physiology including fixation techniques, in Techniques in Respiratory Physiology, Part 1. (Otis, A. B., ed.), Elsevier, New York, NY, P4/I, P401/1-P401/35. 

E. Weibel, Stereological Methods, V.2, Academic Press, London, 1980, p. 215. 

Charleston et al. (1996) studied the effects of long-term subclinical exposure to methylmercury on the number of neurons, oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, microglia, endothelial cells and pericytes within the thalamus from the left side of the brain of the monkey Macaca fascicularis. These parameters were determined by use of the Optical Volume Fractionator stereological method. The accumulated burden of... 

Amstutz, G. C. H. Giger, 1971. Stereological methods applied to mineralogy, petrology, mineral deposits and ceramics. J. Micros. 95 145-164. 

Grischke EM, Kaufmann M, Eberlein-Gonska M, Mattfeld T, Sohn Ch, Bastert G (1994) Angiogenesis as a diagnostic factor in primary breast cancer Microvessel quantitation by stereological methods and correlation with color Doppler sonography. Onkologie 17 35-42... 

A material s structure is observed on polished cross-sections or lateral faces of elements and specimens. Thin layers sawn out of specimens may be subjected to x-ray analysis and very thin layers are transparent enough to enable observation and structural analysis. The data on volume fractions of particular constituents, their spatial distribution and orientation, may be deduced from 2D images using stereological methods. 

The presentation of stereological methods, with examples of their application, may be found in papers by Stroeven (1973, 2003) and Hu (2004). 

The degree of crack orientation is determined using the stereological method in which a system of oriented secants is superimposed on the image of dendritic cracks and number of intersections is counted. The results may be presented as a rose of intercepts in Figure 9.6 two such roses are shown one indicates quite uniform distribution of crack directions and in the other the cracks are oriented mostly in one direction. 

P. Stroeven and Y.M. de Haan, Structural investigations on steel fibre concrete by stereological methods , in H.W. Reinhardt and A.E. Naaman (eds) High Performance Fibre Reinforced Cement Composites, London E FN SPON, 1992, pp. 407-418. 

A further possibility is the use of stereological methods [24] such as the optical disector. Stereological methods allow a highly precise and unbiased estimate of the true number of objects. In the case of the optical disector, a two-step process is required that... 

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