SMB Digest February 25, 2014 Volume 14 Issue 9
ISSN 1086-6566
Editor: Wandi Ding wding1(at)gmail(dot)com
Note:
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application for membership, may be found in the SMB Home Page,
Access the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, the official journal
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Issue's Topics:
ELME 2014 courses, Michigan State U: June 2-6
Workshop Bringing Maths to Life, Naples: Oct 27-29
Summer School in Computational Physiology
q-bio summer school: July 27-August 12
BMB Vol. 76, Issue 2 - New Issue Alert
New Journal Announcement: Letters in Biomathematics
Call for paper: Molecular Based Mathematical Biology
MSc position: U of Alberta, Canada
SMBnet Reminders
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Date: Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 8:27 AM
Subject: ELME 2014 courses, Michigan State U: June 2-6
ELME is a summer program at the Kellogg Biological Station
devoted to Enhancing Linkages between Mathematics and Ecology.
Research often involves addressing hypotheses with data that
are non-linear, non-normal, hierarchical or otherwise complex.
This year's ELME program focuses on introducing graduate
students (or advanced undergraduates) to modern statistical
methods that make it possible to link theory with empirical
reality in ecological and evolutionary research. The program
will consist of three, intensive week-long courses:
Week 1: Maximum likelihood analysis in ecology, June 2-6
Instructor: Colin Kremer, Michigan State University
Week 2: Introduction to Bayesian statistics for ecologists,
June 9-13, Instructor: Tom E.X. Miller, Rice
Week 3: Modeling systems with causal networks (Structural
Equation Modeling), June 16-20,
Instructor: Don Schoolmaster, USGS
Admissions/enrollment:
- Some previous experience with statistics (including
generalized linear models) and exposure to the statistical
programming language R are desirable (or a willingness to
learn fast!)
- Admissions favors students who can enroll through MSU or
a participating CIC institution.
- Scholarship support for tuition & housing is available on a
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From: Bringing Maths to Life (Organizing Secretariat) <
info@bmtl.it>
Date: Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 5:33 AM
Subject: Workshop Bringing Maths to Life, Naples: Oct 27-29
Workshop Bringing Maths to Life (BMTL) which will be held on
October 27th-29th, 2014, in Naples at the Centro Congressi
Federico II.
Analysing and interpreting rich biological datasets require
more expertise than just knowledge of the biological system
at hand. Extracting reliable insights from complex bodies of
data calls for suitable mathematical solutions.
This workshop lets biologists and mathematicians join forces
to address key areas in biology that face demanding mathematical
challenges. Discussing existing cases to identify gaps or to
share existing solutions should help these disciplines in
successfully linking up.
BMTL Workshop will be hosted in the ancient city of Naples, and
will provide a timely and pertinent occasion for international
researchers that wish to engage in cutting edge science at the
interface of mathematics and biology.
For the participation, the submission of a short abstract is
required. The deadline for early registration and abstract
submission is June 30th, 2014.
Special issues of international journals will be devoted to
selected papers presented at the conference.
More details can be found on the regularly updated
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Date: Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 1:32 PM
Subject: Summer School in Computational Physiology
Call for Participation:
University of California ? San Diego, the University of Oslo,
and Simula Research Laboratory Host a Joint 2014 Summer School
in Computational Physiology: Models, Tools, and Techniques for
Cardiac Applications
Oslo, Norway, 16-25 June 2014
La Jolla, CA, USA 4-8 August 2014
MOTIVATION AND DESCRIPTION
The University of California ? San Diego (UCSD) has promoted
long-standing research collaborations with the University of Oslo
(UiO) and Simula Research Laboratory (Simula, Oslo, Norway)
focused around multiple aspects of computational physiology.
This joint summer school has emerged based on the complementary
expertise and shared educational goals of the two institutions,
and has the goal of further promoting successful research
collaboration.
Specifically, this summer school is based upon the graduate
course "Mathematical models in medicine" including targeted
research lectures and a practical project portion. This course
teaches the fundamental principles of mathematical modeling in
cardiac electrophysiology and mechanics. The main focus of the
course is on modeling the cell scale biophysical processes
responsible for electrical activation and contraction of the
muscle cells. However, a modeling framework for tissue scale
electrical signal propagation is also presented. Although the
main focus is on heart physiology, many of the derived models
have a general applicability in biomedical modeling. Since the
final part of the course will be a small research project, the
students will also be introduced to required and useful
numerical methods and software tools for computational modeling
based on differential equations.
The applicant pool is open to interested graduate (Master?s
and PhD-level) students; students from third-party institutions
as well as both host Universities are encouraged to apply.
Course enrollment will be limited to 10 participants in its
inaugural year of 2014. Simula will offer stipends designed
to fully cover costs associated with travel and accommodation
to/from Oslo and/or San Diego to all accepted applicants.
APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 1st, 2014
More information about the program and practicalities,
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Date: Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 11:42 AM
Subject: q-bio summer school: July 27-August 12
Applications are now being taken for q-bio summer school, aimed
at advancing predictive modeling of cellular regulation,
decision making, formation of response, and other information
processing phenomena. The emphasis is on deep theoretical
understanding, detailed modeling, and quantitative
experimentation directed at understanding the behavior of
particular regulatory systems and/or elucidating general
principles of cellular information processing. Go to
A new course offered this year on membrane biology will
include a hands-on opportunity to perform single particle
tracking and superresolution imaging and the analysis of
these data sets.
q-bio summer school will be held on two campuses, at UNM in
Albuquerque, NM and at UCSD in San Diego, CA. Sponsors are
the NM Consortium, NIGMS, the STMC and the San Diego Center
for Systems Biology. Watch for updates on the application
process. Courses run from July 27-August 12, 2014 and include:
Cell Signaling (Albuquerque NM)
Stochastic Gene Regulation (Albuquerque NM)
Biomolecular Simulations (Albuquerque NM)
Cancer Dynamics (Albuquerque NM)
Membrane Biology (Albuquerque NM)
Computational Synthetic Biology (San Diego CA)
Experimental Synthetic Biology (San Diego CA)
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Date: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 10:09 AM
Subject: BMB Vol. 76, Issue 2 - New Issue Alert
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
Volume 76 Number 2 is now available on SpringerLink
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Date: Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 11:37 AM
Subject: New Journal Announcement: Letters in Biomathematics
A new journal 'Letters in Biomathematics' is accepting
submissions.
Letters in Biomathematics seeks high quality manuscripts that
describe mathematical and statistical techniques to solve
problems in biological settings or that address the study of
the teaching and learning at the intersection of mathematics
and biology. Manuscripts that describe novel approaches in
biomathematics or biomathematics pedagogy will be considered
along with well-established approaches. Accepted papers show
a strong level of interdisciplinary content and clear exposition.
Articles must be of interest to and understandable by a wide
spectrum of scientists from related fields. Manuscripts reporting
preliminary results will be considered.
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Date: Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 11:12 PM
Subject: Call for paper: Molecular Based Mathematical Biology
will publish a special issue entitled ?Computational structural
biology: models, methods and applications?. The purpose of this
special issue is to create a medium for researchers from
mathematical and biological sciences and other related
disciplines to report novel mathematical models, computational
algorithms, and biological applications to the structures
study of macromolecules, such as DNA, RNA, and proteins.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Geometric and topological modeling of macromolecules
- Biomolecular solvation, explicit and implicit solvation models
- Protein folding, protein-protein interactions
- Brownian dynamics, molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo
modeling of biomolecular systems
- Modeling and simulation of Ion-channels and membrane
- Electrostatics computing and applications, N-body problems
- Biomolecular simulations and software developments
- Multiscale modeling
- Mathematical methods for molecular imaging and visualization
Before submission authors should carefully read over the author
All manuscripts are subject to the standard peer review process
before publication. Please note the publisher has waived the
Article Processing Charges for this special issue, but articles
will be open-access in accordance with the overall goals of
the journal. Prospective authors should submit an electronic
copy of their manuscript via email to
We are looking forward to your submission. If you have any
Important Dates: Manuscript Due: June 1, 2014?; First Round
of Reviews: July 15, 2014?; Anticipated Publication Date:
December 1, 2014
Guest editors: Dr. Weihua Geng (lead), Southern Methodist
University; Dr. Jaydeep Bardhan, Northeastern University;
Dr. Duan Chen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte;
Dr. Jin Yu, Beijing Computational Science Research Center.
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Date: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 4:17 PM
Subject: MSc position: U of Alberta, Canada
Funded MSc position modeling aquatic invasive species
We are looking for an MSc student to model the spread risk of
freshwater aquatic invasive species in British Columbia. A
successful candidate would have a background in quantitative
modeling, programming skills, a strong interest in freshwater
ecology, and the ability to work closely with collaborators in
a team environment. The student will be supervised by Prof.
Mark Lewis (Alberta) and Dr. Matthias Herborg
(BC Min. of Environment). Support will through the NSERC
Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network. Results will be
applied directly to government planning and policy. Interested
with a CV and statement of interest by March 31, 2014.
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Subject: SMBnet Reminders
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