
6
Intensity
Part II covers methods for exploratory data analysis, starting in this chapter with the fundamental
concept of the intensity of a point process.
6.1 Introduction
Average intensity
A wildlife ecologist who maps bird n ests in a survey might choose to report the result as an average
density of nests per hectare. Dividing the total number of points by the area of the survey region
gives the average de nsity of points per unit area . In different con texts, the average number of points
per unit area could be a measure of abundance (for example, the abundance of virus particles on a
cell surface), density ( of light-sensitive cells in the re tin ...