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Reverse Engineering of Oxygen Transport in the Lung: Adaptation to Changing Demands and Resources through Space-Filling Networks
Figure 4
Computed oxygen currents for the lung.
Currents for the whole lung are computed for variable W and compared with experimental values (dots). Regions A, B, and C show the effects of operating the lung at the physiological value of W, Wp, and far way away from Wp (see text). At moderate, heavy, and maximum exercise, the O2 partial pressure difference across the membrane remains essentially constant, 
(Table 2). Accordingly, the respective currents are computed replacing the three 
values by their average, 
, which makes the currents in the no-screening regime, 
, coincide. The currents are computed from Eqs. 4 and 5. Permeability, W, is treated as a variable. The transport parameters in the equations are listed in Table 1, and the structural parameters at different levels of exercise are listed in Table 2 (column 2, 3, 4, and 5). The fractal dimension, Df, is taken to be 3.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000902.g004