Physiological Regulation and Conformation: A BASIC Program for the Determination of Critical Points

Abstract
A BASIC program is given that fits two-segmented straight lines. It is applicable for analysis of data concerning the physiological response of an organism to varying environmental conditions where the response of the organism is to regulate some physiological parameter over a range of a relevant environmental variable (zone of regulation) and to fail to regulate that parameter over some more stressful range (zone of conformation). The program identifies as an example a critical point where the shift from metabolic regulation of O₂ consumption to metabolic O₂ conformation occurs ( , critical O₂ tension). A discussion is presented of the relative merits of our method and that of Nickerson, Facey, and Grossman (in this issue), which addresses the same problem.

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