ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the theoretical basis and practical application of both the deterministic and the Markov process models. It outlines a basic mechanistic structure relating to uptake and elimination, and their assumptions yield a mathematical model which fits the data adequately. The chapter also reviews the basic one-compartment model with uptake and elimination. The stochastic model is also generalized to include a semi-Markov process formulation, which introduces time-varying transit rates. There are two fundamental approaches to searching for better, alternative models to either reduce or eliminate the systematic lack of fit which is apparent in fitting the one-compartment model to some observed accumulation curves. One approach is to search for better empirical models. The other approach is to search for better mechanistic models, and a natural extension along such lines is to postulate that the fish might have more than one “compartment.”.
