Exploring distances with IONTW

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

Section 1 is purely conceptual and invites readers to critically evaluate popular claims based on Stanley Milgram's famous experiment that gave birth to the phrases small-world property and six degrees of separation. In Section 2 we use IONTW to explore distances between nodes in several...

The friendship paradox

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

In this module we introduce the so-called friendship paradox and illustrate how it affects disease transmission on networks that exhibit this phenomenon.You also need to download the input file degreesFP.txt that will be used in this module.Level: Advanced undergraduate and graduate...

The replacement number

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar, Ying Xin

In this module we introduce the important notion of the replacement number, which generalizes the basic reproductive number R0. We investigate how this number behaves near the start of an outbreak in models based on the uniform mixing assumption and in models that assume a contact network that is...

Differential equation models of disease transmission

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender

In this module we explore ODE models of disease transmission and compare some of their predictions with those of agent-based models. Parts of this material will be referenced in later modules.Level: Advanced undergraduate and graduate students of mathematics or biology.DownloadStudent copy (no...

Exploring random regular graphs with IONTW

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

In this module we introduce and explore the structure of random regular graphs. Moreover, we compare the predictions of SIR-models on random regular contact networks with the predictions of corresponding models on Erdős-Rényi networks.Level: Undergraduate students of biology or...

Exploring Erdős-Rényi random graphs with IONTW

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

In this module we explore in detail the distribution of the sizes of connected components of Erdős-Rényi random graphs and discover the reasons for the similarities and differences between disease transmission on Erdős-Rényi networks and complete graphs that were observed in...

Exploring contact patterns between two subpopulations

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

In this module we introduce a construction of generic random graphs for a given degree sequence or degree distribution and explore whether mixing between hosts who belong to different subpopulations is assortative or disassortative.Level: Undergraduate students of biology or...

A brief review of basic probability theory

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just

The spread of infectious diseases is inherently a stochastic process and the materials posted at this web site heavily rely on probability theory. Here we review some basic concepts of probability theory for easy reference. The material is restricted to notions that are used in teaching...

Network-based models of transmission of infectious diseases: a brief overview

10 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Winfried Just, Hannah Lea Callender, Drew LaMar

The main purpose of this document is to give a brief but mathematically rigorous description of the network-based models of transmission of infectious diseases that are studied on this web site. Readers will be able to find a much more detailed development of this material in our book chapters...

Ecology and Epidemiology in R

09 May 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/837

AIM-UP! Reading scientific literature module

28 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Galen Rask

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/publications/336Designed to span 4 one-hour lectures, this module focuses upon developing the skill of thorough and critical reading of scientific literature. 

Numbers Count!: Calculus 2 course

28 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Claudia Neuhauser

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/751Based upon the University of Minnesota Bachelor's of Science in Health Science calculus curriculum (part 2), this course  introduces linear transformations,...

Numbers Count!: Statistics course

28 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Claudia Neuhauser

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/750This course in the Numbers Count! curriculum introduces the basics of statistical analysis, including basic definitions, data visualization, and application. 

Exploring the Lotka-Volterra Competition Model using Two Species of Parasitoid Wasps

25 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Christopher W. Beck, Judy A. Guinan, Lawrence S. Blumer, Robert W. Matthews

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/publications/270Laboratory exercise in which students collect data on parasitoid wasps and fit Lotka-Volterra competition models.  The authors' abstract:"In this investigation,...

MathBench Biology Modules

13 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Katerina V. Thompson, Kären C. Nelson, Gili Marbach-Ad, Michael Keller, William F. Fagan, Patricia A. Shields

Modules designed to help students understand the math behind the material learned in introductory ecology courses. 

BioQUEST: Visual Datasets

13 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Ethel Stanley

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/publications/345This downloadable module features imaginary animals and plants, and is meant to aid students in thinking about questions of evolution, classification, and phylogeny. 

Measuring the Health of the Earth Using the Theory of Island Biography

11 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Jana Eggleston, Stephanie Renee Campau, Farshid Ahrestani, Holly D Gaff

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/868Biodiversity has been shown to be a good measure of the health of the planet system (McGrady-Steed et al. 1997). The more species and genetic diversity, the more stable the...

Statistical Exploration of Climate Data

11 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Tamra Carpenter, Robert Vanderbei, Jon Kettenring

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/900Teacher version       Student versionThis module is appropriate for introductory statistics classes.Supporting files: Module figures for...

Carbon Footprint: A Study of Unit and Dimensions

11 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Amanda Bonilla, Laura Foster, Rikki Wagstrom, Jean McGivney-Burelle

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/866In this module, we integrate the context of carbon emission and human consumption into an introductory lesson on units and estimation. Background information is provided to...

Modeling Crop Rotation with Discrete Mathematics

11 Mar 2015 | Teaching & Reference Material | Contributor(s): Jennifer Lorraine Cartier, Kellen Myers, Victoria Ferguson, Yekaterina Voskoboynik

This resource has been updated - find the current version here: https://qubeshub.org/qubesresources/publications/864Module Summary: The production of crops is essential to human life. Producing these crops, however, comes with it a cost to the environment. The commonly used agricultural...