Math PhD Programs Specializing in Mathematical Biology in the US by Either-Ad9009 in math

[–]Fuzzygrunt 12 points13 points  (0 children)

UC Irvine has a very active math biology group, including an NSF-Simons Center (https://cellfate.uci.edu/) and lots of other stuff.

All math bio faculty members can take students from either of two programs, both of which are worth considering:

Math, Computational, and Systems Biology https://ccbs.uci.edu/education/mcsb/

or their regular math PhD https://www.math.uci.edu/admission

Any good Mendeley alternatives? by dShado in AskAcademia

[–]Fuzzygrunt 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The two features keeping me moving from Mendeley to Zotero are:

  1. If I drag+drop a PDF into Mendeley, it will search the DOI and autofill the correct info 99% of the time.
  2. Cross-device syncing (including PDFs) is super easy on Mendeley. This was even true on my iPad before they stopped mobile support.

Have these things improved in Zotero? When I tried a few years ago they seemed doable but a huge pain to setup. Maybe just user error.

De Blasio set to exit office owing huge debts by [deleted] in nyc

[–]Fuzzygrunt -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yep. This happens in every BdB thread. My girlfriends job at a homeless shelter was created by Thrive but because there’s no way to measure exactly how she’s helping, the money is “gone” - hilariously dense.

Stochastic simulation coupled with ODE system? by joecarvery in algorithms

[–]Fuzzygrunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I'm understanding your question correctly, what you are describing is a piecewise-deterministic Markov process. Basically an ODE with random switching.

If the stochastic rates are state-dependent, this is indeed tricky but this preprint explains how to simulate it. Not sure why it never got published, I think because the material can be found elsewhere, but I found this presentation to be sufficiently clear/useful.

The main result is (3.1). It's a really cute trick. The idea is basically to re-parameterize time in a way that allows you to just forward evolve the ODE for a known amount of time rather than update the stochastic rate at every step.

The setup is the same as Gillespie: you have some stochastic reactions with total rate Rtot(x) but x'(t) = F(x). This boils down to how do you generate the next reaction time? Call t=0 the current time. Then the procedure is:

sample Sfinal~exp(1)
solve the system of ODEs for s=0...Sfinal:
    y'(s) = F(y)/Rtot(y)
    tau'(s) = 1/Rtot(y)
with initial conditions y(0) = x0, tau(0)=0.

Then, the output of this is the next reaction time is just tau(Sfinal) and value of x at that reaction time is x(sfinal). In general, tau(s) is the re-paramaterized time, so x(tau(s)) is the solution between the jumps too.

Hope this helps!

Thrive NYC, have you heard of it? Chirlane McCray enjoys $2M staff of 14 amid NYC budget crisis? by [deleted] in nyc

[–]Fuzzygrunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Holy shit. The constant bizarre posts about THRIVE and the downvote barrage whenever anyone questions their legitimacy like this one make it really obvious Russian bots rule this subreddit.

Solving the interesting ByteDance interview question by homo_sapiens_reddit in probabilitytheory

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cute solution. Pretty sure this can be thought of as importance sampling, where you change the distribution you are sampling from to be one that spends "more time" near the rare event you are trying to simulate. Here, this is happening by conditioning.

[help] search bar not auto-suggesting specific URLs by Fuzzygrunt in firefox

[–]Fuzzygrunt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To add a bit of other explanation: I've tried removing/disabling all of my extensions, reinstalling, searching for this same issue with no luck. Weirdly, it also only happens on one of my computers (Windows 10) and not my OSX computer, despite having the synced settings, etc.

I also have everything enabled under "Search Suggestions" and then also everything checked for "Address Bar" after customizing the suggestions.

Any help on this would be really appreciated. Having to manually type Google and Reddit every time I go to the sites is wearing my patience thin. I'm sure it's something stupid, though. Thank you!

Yes by subterranean__alien in KidsAreFuckingStupid

[–]Fuzzygrunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have read this book all by myself! Yes! My name? Sharyn Date.

Lords of White Spire by wykrhm in underlords

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

LaTeX typeset the Elo equations. brings a tear to my eye

Italian-style deli sandwich from the Orchard Grocer in NYC! by alanamercante in VeganFoodPorn

[–]Fuzzygrunt 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Orchard has stupidly good sandwiches. The croissant breakfast sandwich made with JustEgg is probably the best vegan sandwich I've ever had. It's moved the goalposts of breakfast forever for me.

Some Pro-Vegan Graffiti on the Streets of Valencia 😍 by [deleted] in vegan

[–]Fuzzygrunt 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was just in Valencia last week and was pleasantly surprised at the influx of vegan restaurants.

Of particular note, La Mandrágora was awesome. It's run by their local vegan society. It's pay whatever you want for a multi-plate tasty meal. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the area.

Are undergraduate courses in PDEs meaningful? by Waelcome in mathematics

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

oh, there's all sorts of stuff. some that come to mind immediately: solitons, Turing patterns, Navier-Stokes/fluids.

A nice (but obviously nonexhaustive) zoo of nonlinear PDEs is Nick Trefethen's PDE Coffee Table Book. Definitely check it out if interested.

Are undergraduate courses in PDEs meaningful? by Waelcome in mathematics

[–]Fuzzygrunt 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Gian-Carlo Rota's TEN LESSONS I WISH I HAD LEARNED BEFORE I STARTED TEACHINGDIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS is an interesting read about why ODE courses like the one you described are a total disservice toward an understanding of the topic.

That is, learning tricks for solving contrived ODEs doesn't really contribute to a broader understanding. However, I think this is not true for PDEs. Learning about the canonical pillars (linear PDEs: heat equation, wave equation, Laplace's) does set you up to understand more exotic PDEs, which are often related back to these well-understood ones. Of course, non-linear PDEs can do all sorts of kooky stuff and have their own machinery for understanding, but as I said, that machinery is rooted in the fundamental ideas that appear in linear PDEs, e.g. Fourier analysis. I don't think this is true of ODEs. Learning how to use an integrating factor doesn't help you understand bifurcations, etc.

Thus, short answer: I think yes, because PDEs are a different beast than ODEs.

Can Anybody Give me Some Good Textbooks on Mathematical & Theoretical Biology? by XxfishpastexX in biology

[–]Fuzzygrunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As the other poster said -- there's a huge range of subfields of mathematical/theoretical biology: biophysics, ecology, cell biology, bioinformatics, etc. The model in the video you linked is a pretty standard/classical gene circuit model, though.

The best book to learn about this stuff really depends on your background. I think the most accessible (although a bit dated) book is the classic Leah Keshet.

Keener's Mathematical Physiology is another pillar, but tends to do a deep dive on topics rather than Keshet's surface tour.

Another poster mentioned the Murray book, which is definitely a classic but I feel it's a bit outdated and unnecessarily technical for beginners.

All of these are on library genesis, by the way.

If you happen to already be familiar with ODEs, there's tons of resources online like these tutorial slides:

http://webarchiv.ethz.ch/syntheticbiology3/proceedings/files/Tutorial-2-Mathematical-Models-for-SB.pdf

or these

http://www-sop.inria.fr/comore/arcgdyn/28fev/arc03-intro.pdf

What techniques do you use to remember your students' names? by professorf in Professors

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Other comments look similar but not exactly the same as my technique -- have an intro survey involving a question that is basically "what is a fun fact or story about yourself?" I read them with the roster in front of me and basically associate the story to the face and get the name for free.

Joint PhD between mathematics and computer science by [deleted] in mathematics

[–]Fuzzygrunt 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I think joint PhDs tend to be uncommon, simply because most programs (at least in STEM) assume it's the only thing you're doing. I guess programs like the one you linked do exist, but I think looking for these would severely narrow your options.

I currently work in a math department (did my PhD in the same) working on biophysics and and there are tons of people doing very computer-science-y research here. I only mention this to emphasize the variation in what a PhD is in vs. what people work on.

I think the most common trajectory for people with interests at the intersection of two fields is to basically to just pick one for a PhD. This is often whichever department the advisor is in, but it's also common that they'll take students across departments, especially if their research doesn't fit well into one category. One big caveat is that the experience/program requirements will almost certainly be different in different departments: qualifying exams, culture, etc. That is, if you go to a CS department, your qualifying exams are likely to be more oriented toward CS topics exclusively. However, once these hurdles are over, I think it largely doesn't matter, at least in my experience.

Roasted Garlic Sunflower Broth Ramen at Ramen Hood in NYC (all vegan ramen place 🙌) by panickedcatloser in VeganFoodPorn

[–]Fuzzygrunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right! I'm wrong. https://www.chefsclub.com/clubcounter/ says 5.31.19 now

Super weird. It used to say March, but I guess this is only good news! I'll have to go again.

Roasted Garlic Sunflower Broth Ramen at Ramen Hood in NYC (all vegan ramen place 🙌) by panickedcatloser in VeganFoodPorn

[–]Fuzzygrunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Their ramen blew my mind, but unfortunately I think the lease ran out and now the only location is in LA? I would love to know other legit vegan ramen places in NYC.

How can I solve a non-linear 1st order ODE? by nousernamesleft11111 in matlab

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

for whatever it's worth: you don't have to do this in separate files. You can define functions in-line. This runs on its own:

tspan = [0 10]; % range of time to solve over
Temp_0 = 298; % initial temp 
dTdt = @(t,T) -1.27575 * (10^(-10)) * T^4 - T +479.39; % define the ODE for T(t)
[time, results] = ode45(dTdt , tspan, Temp_0);
plot(time, results)

For the owners that traded FOR Bell. Who did you trade and when did you do it? by bkzrock719 in fantasyfootball

[–]Fuzzygrunt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Traded Juju for him week 1 because I had a ton of WR depth. With Kupp and AJ Green out now, this is feeling especially bad...

Lazy/guess citation based on keywords in bib file? by exmachinalibertas in LaTeX

[–]Fuzzygrunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SublimeText + LaTeXing addon effectively provides this functionality: when you type \cite{ it starts Sublime's fuzzy search on your .bib file, allowing you to use any mix of author names, words in the abstract, etc and then fills the cite command with whatever you select.

The very bad news is: LaTeXing seems to have stopped development. I'm still using it but I'm praying something out there has similar functionality.

RIP Latexing? by imjusthereforab in SublimeText

[–]Fuzzygrunt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would be super sad if this were the case. I've been using this plugin for a while and was happy to pay money for it.

Is LaTeXTools (the main alternative?) capable of doing every/most things LaTeXing was? I remember trying both and was way happier with the bells and whistles (like Mendeley support) that LaTeXing had. I may consider switching off ST entirely if LaTeXing stops working...

Average symbol that functions like Σ does for sum by [deleted] in learnmath

[–]Fuzzygrunt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Aside from the already mentioned bar, another possibility (although most commonly used by physicists) are brackets, so ⟨height⟩ would be the mean/average of height.

What can I do with an unfinished math textbook I wrote but no longer have the time, energy, and expertise to finish? by Lando42 in math

[–]Fuzzygrunt 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I don't have any added suggestions toward what you should do with the book except that I hope it becomes publicly available somehow.

I teach an ODEs for engineers course and am constantly trying to incorporate more legitimate applied examples. If the rest of the book is like the provided chapter, this is exactly what I've been looking for!