title: Estimation of the distribution of blood vessel diameters from the arteriovenous passage of microspheres.
abstract: We present an estimator of the probability density of capillary diameters based on a simple probabilistic model of microsphere passage through a microvascular bed. With this model, an estimate of the density is obtained as the solution of an integral equation. The density is approximated by a linear combination of B-splines with the coefficients restricted to be nonnegative. Equations for maximum likelihood estimates of the coefficients are obtained. The proposed method is applied to data from the dog intestinal circulation.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002196:Capillaries / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D002404:Catheterization; D004285:Dogs; D007422:Intestines / Q000098:blood supply; D008863:Microspheres; D008954:Models, Biological; D011336:Probability