Epidermal nerve fibre (ENF) density and summed length of ENFs per epidermal surface area are reduced, and ENFs may appear more clustered within the epidermis in subjects suffering from diabetic neuropathy compared to healthy subjects. Therefore, it is important to understand the spatial behaviour of ENFs in healthy and neuropathy subjects. By using confocal microscopy data , we study the spatial structure of epidermal nerves by regarding the nerve tree locations as realizations of marked point processes . The termination points of the fibres of a nerve tree are used to define a reactive territory which is taken as a mark for the nerve tree location. We study the differences in the spatial pattern of ENFs between healthy subjects and subjects suffering from mild diabetic neuropathy by using Ripley's function and the mark correlation function. In addition, we propose a marked sequential point process model for the nerve tree locations. Data are replicated point patterns, where we have several patterns from each subject and from each group.

中文翻译：

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表皮神经纤维的标记点过程分析

表皮神经纤维 (ENF) 密度和每个表皮表面积的 ENF 总长度降低，并且与健康受试者相比，患有糖尿病性神经病变的受试者的表皮内的 ENF 可能看起来更聚集。因此，了解 ENF 在健康和神经病变受试者中的空间行为非常重要。利用共聚焦显微镜数据，我们通过将神经树位置视为标记点过程的实现来研究表皮神经的空间结构。神经树纤维的终止点用于定义反应区域，作为神经树位置的标记。我们使用 Ripley's 研究健康受试者和患有轻度糖尿病性神经病变的受试者之间 ENF 空间模式的差异函数和标记相关函数。此外，我们提出了神经树位置的标记顺序点过程模型。数据是复制的点模式，其中我们有来自每个主题和每个组的多个模式。