Silvio	de Siena - Università di Salerno #		
Allometry and growth: a unified view	# 
Allometry is crucial 
in biology - scaling relations are implied in laws of growth 
of living systems. The self similarity of Gompertzian growths 
of biological organisms plays a key role, in this regard, in 
biological similitude. The origin of allometric relationships 
and values of the scaling exponents is a source of debate; as 
well as the origin of the range of biological scales. 
Encompass these aspects in a unified view is an interesting 
target. We propose a coarse but significant model. The model 
assumes underlying fluctuations as the origin of both 
(allometry and growth) and generates the biological sizes 
through Gompertz maps. The scheme works as well for 
astrophysical structures. The inclusion of so different 
systems suggests applications to fields where allometry is 
emerging, as economy, urban planning and the social sciences. 
The deep origin and a better understanding of the stochastic 
background is the challenging goal of future investigations.