Another OU module finished...

Just got results in for my M208 Pure Mathematics module - passed it! This was despite my exam experiences (I found it to be a somewhat brutal paper). Have registered for next module MST209 Mathematical methods and models which is more applied (I don't think I'm really a pure mathematician at heart)...

Google Public Data Explorer tool

This is an interesting Google tool (currently in Beta). It generates flash (SWF) visualisations of datasets over a time frame. You can upload data, share it or explore shared public datasets. Export is by means of an HTML snippet that inserts an IFRAME into your web-page. I think that this deserves further attention/exploration...

Individual-based model talk at UEA

 

Went over to UEA's D'Arcy hompson room for computation biology talk. It was given by Professor Marta Ginovart who has been a visting scientist at IFR in the past. The talk was about an Individual (Agent)-based model tool INDISIM used to simulate bacterial and yeast populations (the latter with clear industrial applications) and mineralisation in soils due to microbial communities. The talk covered the subject of IBMs very well. Questions afterwards mainly centred upon relative adantages of this method as opposed to continous models e.g. Systems of ordinary differential equations and about the parametrisation of energy requirements for maintainance vs. biomass of the simulated organisms.