Heterogeneity (disambiguation)

Heterogeneous is an adjective used to describe an object or system consisting of multiple items having a large number of structural variations. It is the opposite of homogeneous, which means that an object or system consists of multiple identical items. The term is often used in a scientific (such as a kind of catalyst), mathematical, sociological or statistical context.

Physics and chemistry

Main article: Mixture § Physics_and_chemistry

Molecular biology

Heterogeneity of ion channels means diversity of different types of channels serving a specific kind of current, e.g. by channels with different constitutive subunits.

Statistics and econometrics

See Study heterogeneity.

Taxonomy

In taxonomy, a heterogeneous taxon is a taxon that contains a great variety of individuals or sub-taxa; usually this implies that the taxon is an artificial grouping.

Genetics

In genetics, Genetic heterogeneity refers to multiple origins causing the same disorder in different individuals.

Ecology

• in Landscape ecology heterogeneity is the measure of how different parts of a landscape are from one another.

Computing

• Heterogeneous computing systems refer to electronic systems that utilize a variety of different types of computational units.
• In the world of enterprise computing, heterogeneous data is a mix of data from two or more sources, often of two or more formats, e.g., SQL and XML.

See also

• Homogeneity