Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics

7.5 Biosciences 281Fig. 7.82 Image edge detection using a q-generalized Jensen–Shannon divergence. The q = 1.5image shows more details than both the q = 1 image and the Canny edge detector image. Furtherdetails in [764].“cloud,” would we have many such points. But, of course, with only four points it ishard to advance any behavior with some degree of reliability.7.5 Biosciencesi. Motion of Hydra viridissimaHydra viridissima is a small organism which may live in “dirty” (feeding) water.Experiments are described in [774] which enabled the study of its motion,particularly the measure of the distribution of the velocities and the (anomalous)diffusion. The results are indicated in Figs. 7.88 and 7.89. It turned outthat the distribution of velocities is not Maxwellian, but rather a q-Gaussianwith q ≃ 1.5. Also, the diffusion was shown to occur with an exponentγ ≃ 1.24 ± 0.1. Therefore, the prediction (4.16) is verified within the experimentalerror bars.ii. EcologyThe entropy S q has been used to measure ecological diversity and species rarity[775].