ABSTRACT
The theme of this chapter is simple analysis approaches answering the questions at hand and focuses on metrology and microstructure characterization. In this context, “simple” quantification means analyses relying on elementary thresholding and on single (one time point) examination of each specimen. The first part of the chapter covers studies of the distribution and morphology of phases in pharmaceutical materials and foods, geological and planetary materials, monolithic engineered materials (metals, ceramics, polymers), manufactured composites, biological tissue anatomy, cultural heritage, archeology, and forensic samples. The second part of the chapter concentrates on metrology, that is, the techniques of measurement. Structural phylogeny, the study of the evolutionary relations between species through quantification of their characteristics, is similar enough to engineering metrology that these topics are also covered in this part of the chapter, specifically industrial metrology, paleontology, cells, plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates.
