Extracting model equations from experimental data

This letter wants to present a general data-driven method for formulating suitable model equations for nonlinear complex systems. The method is validated in a quantitative way by its application to experimentally found data of a chaotic electric circuit. Furthermore, the results of an analysis of tremor data from patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, from essential tremor, and from normal subjects with physiological tremor are presented, discussed and compared. They allow a distinction between the different forms of tremor. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.