R for Photobiology: Theory and recipes for common calculations

This handbook describes how to use R as a tool for doing calculations related to research in photobiology. Photobiology is the branch of science that studies the interactions of living organisms with visible and ultraviolet radiation. Many of the most frequently used calculations are either related to the characterization of radiation and of the responses of organisms to radiation. We emphasize the first of these aspects as in many cases the characterization of the responses of organisms to radiation differ little from the characterization of similar responses elicited through other physical or chemical stimuli.Many of the examples in this handbook make use of the `r4photobiology' suite of R packages, but the use of other packages is also described.

The text and examples assume some familiarity with R and/or programming, but guides those readers new to the language to tutorials and books that will help them learn enough to follow, use and modify the code examples included in the book. The book is structured in five parts: I Theory behind calculations, II Tools used for calculations, III Cookbook of calculations, IV Data acquisition and exchange and V Catalogue of example data.

In many of the examples we use of a suite of R packages developed by Pedro J. Aphalo and described at http://r4photobiology.info/. At the moment the five most important packages in the suite are available through CRAN and the remaining ones through a CRAN-like repository at http://r4photobiology.info/R/.