Mathematical Biology Seminar, Spring, 1999

Department of Mathematics,Arizona State University

CO-SPONSORED BY THE CENTER FOR SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Default time: Friday 1:40p.m. - 2:30p.m. Time and place may change for some talks 
Default place: PSA 306
Organizer: Steven Baer, Frank Hoppensteadt, Yang Kuang (kuang@asu.edu), Hal Smith (halsmith@math.la.asu.edu), Horst Thieme (thieme@math.la.asu.edu)



COMING TALKS
FRIDAY, April 23, 1999
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        MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY SEMINAR                 PSA 306   1:40 p.m.
        (Co-sponsor: Systems Science and Engineering Research Center)
        Art Woods, Department of Biology
          "Food in a Tube: a Chemical Reactor Analysis of Caterpillar
          Feeding and Digestion"
        ABSTRACT: Like most insects, caterpillars eat low-quality food
        more rapidly than high-quality food.  Why is this so?  I will
        use a chemical reactor model of the caterpillar midgut to
        analyze the causes and consequences of faster feeding on
        low-protein foods.

FRIDAY,   April 30,  Irakli Loladze, Department of Mathematics
FRIDAY,   May 7,  Victor Padron

TALKS GIVEN

FRIDAY,   Feb. 12,    Dritan Zela, Department of Mathematics
 "Predicting the Financial Market using Technical Analysis   and Neural Networks"
ABSTRACT: A host of methods to predict the behavior of financial markets will be presented.
There are two basic approaches to  financial prediction, trend and price prediction and the first
one is presented. The trend prediction is used to determine when  the trend is going to change
direction and the price prediction  approach is used to predict what the price will be during a
given time frame usually the next day. Ever since there have been markets to trade, there have been
speculators attempting to predict their direction. In recent  years, the researchers and developers,
by using the  back-propagation algorithm, have been able to show that neural
 networks can be used to solve 'real life' problems. One such  real-life problem is financial prediction.
Our financial markets  have clearly demonstrated through the years that they trend in
cycles. A trend prediction net can be used to develop a position  trading system. A price prediction net
can be used to develop a day trading system. Loosely defined, day trading is when a trade
is opened and closed all in the same day, whereas position trading is when a trade is opened and held,
possibly for many days or weeks, until it is determined that it is time to close  the trade. Futures data was
used to verify the techniques in this project. The real challenge in using neural networks for
financial prediction is not the construction of the nets themselves, but rather the construction of the
transformations used to feed data into the net and the methods used to interpret  the results that come out
of the net and that is the key to success.

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TUESDAY, February 16, 1999
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        COLLOQUIUM (Faculty Candidate in MathBio)    PSH 103   3:00 p.m.
        David Earn, Cambridge University
            "Homogeneity and Synchrony in Population Dynamics"
        ABSTRACT: The simplest population models for predator-prey
        interactions and epidemics of disease are based on the
        assumption that populations are homogeneously mixed.  However,
        recent studies of measles epidemics have concluded that
        age-related heterogeneities have a profound dynamical effect and
        that homogeneous models cannot explain observed epidemics.
        I will show that, in fact, the aggregate behaviour of
        age-structured epidemic models is effectively equivalent to that
        of a homogeneous model with external forcing, and I will argue
        that seasonal variation in contact rates is the key determinant
        of the temporal pattern of measles epidemics.  I will also
        discuss some new results concerning synchronization of
        population dynamics in different spatial locations, and the
        potential importance of synchronization in vaccination programs.
               Refreshments will be served in PSA 206 after the talk.
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FRIDAY,   Feb. 19,    Eric Stemmons, Department of Mathematics

 "Competition in a Chemostat with Wall Growth"

FRIDAY,   Feb. 26,    Eugene Izhikevich, Department of Mathematics

joint dynamical systems + math. biol. seminar

Title: "Bifurcations in Neurons Dynamics, Excitability and Spiking"

We discuss a bifurcational mechanism of generation of action potentials (spikes)
by biological neurons. In particular, we elaborate the classification
of neural excitability suggested by Hodgkin in 1948. We show
that Class 1 excitable neurons (i.e., those that can fire with arbitrary
small frequency) exhibit saddle-node on limit cycle bifurcation,
whereas Class 2 excitable neurons (i.e., those that can fire only in a certain
frequency range) exhibit Andronov-Hopf bifurcation.

The bifurcational point of view explains some biological phenomena.
For example, class 1 neurons are integrators (their response to input is proportional to
the frequency of the input); they can generate quite irregular spike trains,
and they are difficult to synchronize. In contrast, Class 2 neurons are resonators
(they respond selectively only to inputs having certain frequency), they generate
quite regular spike trains, and they are easy to synchronize.

FRIDAY,   March 5,    Gilbert G. Walter, Professor of Mathematics,  visiting from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Complexity vs. Stability in Ecosystem Models
A recurring problem is ecology is the relation between the complexity of an ecosystem and its stability.  Most ecologists in the past assumed that the two went together, but May showed in the 1970’s that for some models this is not the case.  However, the favorite sort of model used by ecologists, namely a compartmental model, was not the type he used.  In this talk we shall explore the relation between complexity and stability of such compartmental  models.  We first give a brief introduction to the subject  and then will discuss various measures of complexity.  These measures are related to the structure, while stability is related to the dynamical properties of  the system.  We shall show that in some cases the two are indeed related as expected.
FRIDAY,   March 12,    Marcos Lizana, Department of Mathematics, visiting from Universidad de Los Andes,
   M\'erida , Venezuela
Stable Periodic Orbits for a PREDATOR-PREY MODEL with Delay

In this talk, we will consider
 a predator-prey model
with delay and non-constant death rate, described by the following
integro-differential system
\begin{eqnarray}\label{1}
   N' &=&  N\left[\frac{\varepsilon}{K}(K- N)-
   \frac{ aP}{ \beta+N}\right]\quad, \nonumber\\
                     \\
  P' &=& P\left[ -M(P)+\frac{bQ}{\beta+Q}\right]\quad, \nonumber
\end{eqnarray}
where the function $Q(t)$ is given by the following integral
\begin{equation}\label{2}
Q(t):=\int_{-\infty}^t  \alpha N(\tau) \exp{(-\alpha(t-\tau))}
 d\tau \quad,  \quad \alpha>0\quad.
\end{equation}
We  show that when the model has exactly one non-trivial
  unstable and hyperbolic
equilibrium  there exists
 a  stable periodic
  orbit . This is a joint work with Mario Cavani and Hal Smith.

FRIDAY,   March 26, Frank Raebiger, University of Tuebingen, Germany
Asymptotic Properties of Solutions of Nonautonomous, Semilinear, Retarded Differential Equations
        ABSTRACT: We consider the nonautonomous, semilinear, retarded
        differential equation $${d\over dt} w(t) = Bw(t) + K(t,w_t),\quad
        t\in J (= {\bf R}\ {\rm or}\ {\bf R}_+), \leqno{(NSR)}$$ on the
        Banach space $E = C([-1,0],Y_0)$, where $B$ is a Hille-Yosida
        operator on a Banach space $Y$ such that $\overline{D(B)} = Y_0$
        and $K: J\times E \to Y$ is a nonlinearity satisfying certain
        conditions. We derive a principle of linearized stability for
        $(NSR)$ and discuss when $(NSR)$ has a unique mild solution
        belonging to one of the spaces $C_0({\bf R},Y_0),\ C_b({\bf
        R},Y_0),\ P_q({\bf R},Y_0)$,\ or $AP({\bf R},Y_0)$.

FRIDAY,   April 2,  Patrick Nelson, IMA, University of Minnesota
Mathematical Analysis of HIV Dynamics in Vivo.
 Mathematical models have proven valuable in understanding the dynamics
 of HIV-1 infection in vivo.  By comparing these models to data obtained
 from patients undergoing antiretroviral drug therapy, it has been
 possible to determine many quantitative features of the interaction
 between HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, and the cells that are
 infected by the virus.  The most dramatic finding has been that even
 though AIDS is a disease that occurs on a time scale of about 10 years,
 there are very rapid dynamical processes that occur on time scales of
 hours to days, as well as slower processes that occur on time scales of
 weeks to months. We show how dynamical modeling and parameter estimation
 techniques have uncovered these important features of HIV pathogenesis
 and impacted the way in which AIDS patients are treated with potent
 antiretroviral drugs.  We will discuss variations of these models
 which include a constant and a continuous delay process and present
 detailed analysis these delay differential equation models and their
 impact on the parameter estimations.

FRIDAY,   April 9,   Bingtuan Li,  IMA, University of Minnesota
Exploitative Competition in a Chemostat for Two Complementary Resources

A model of the chemostat involving $n$ species of microorganisms competing
for two perfectly complementary, growth-limiting nutrients will be presented.
A general class of monotone increasing functions is used for nutrient
uptake. We will discuss various conditions that guarantee
competitive exclusion and coexistence of two species.

MONDAY, April 12, 1999
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        ASU NATIONAL MATHEMATICS AWARENESS MONTH DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
                                            Murdock Hall 101   7:30 p.m.
        James P. Keener, University of Utah
          "The Mathematics of Sudden Cardiac Death, or Heart Attacks
          can Give you Mathematics"
     ABSTRACT: Heart attacks kill hundreds of people daily in the
     United States-many more than are killed by math anxiety!
       A heart attack occurs when there is an occlusion of a coronary
     artery, leading to tissue damage.  A heart attack is fatal when
     there is a subsequent disruption of the normal electrical signal
     of the heart, leading to fibrillation.  There is very little
     understanding of why this occurs, and there are essentially no
     reliable predictors of the onset of fibrillation.
       In this talk, I will give an overview of some of the ways
     that mathematics can help our understanding of cardiac arrhythmias,
     how they occur, what they are, and how they can be eliminated.
     The main emphasis will be on how mathematics can be used to give
     us insight that could not be found without mathematics.
       This talk will be accessible to a general audience
             Refreshments will be served after the talk.
 
 

Fall, 1997 talks      Spring, 1998 talksFall, 1998 talks