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This paper analyzes the reasons for the current marked interest shown by workers in the biosciences to applications of compartmental structures, both in regard to the special analytic properties of compartmental structures and the physiological properties to be attached to the compartments and intercompartmental flows. This paper presents the various classes of compartmental structure (perturbation and tracer, time varying, nonlinear, and stochastic), examines their fundamental properties (realizability, stability, observability and controllability, identifiability, and decomposability), considers practical aspects of identification, including computer programs, and reviews the state of the art in the areas of metabolism, pharmacokinetics, ecology, and chemical kinetics. The object of the review is to highlight the main streams of work via key references.
Reginald F. Brown (Tue,) studied this question.