MTH218: Introduction to Mathematical Models in the Life Sciences

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Cross Listed:
Offered:
Fall (may alternate with 217)
Prerequisites:
MTH162 or MTH163
This course is a prerequisite or co-requisite for:
It is a required course for the epidemiology major but is not a prerequisite or corequisite for anything in math.
Description:
Aimed at building problem-solving ability in students through the development of mathematical models for certain real-life situations in the biological sciences. Topics are selected from epidemiology, population growth, genetics and demographics amongst other things. Both discrete and continuous models as well as both deterministic and stochastic ones are treated.
Topics covered:
MTH218 is aimed at building problem-solving ability in students through the development of mathematical models for certain real-life situations in the biological sciences. Models treated cover a variety of phenomena both discrete and continuous, linear and non-linear, deterministic and stochastic. Some topics that might be treated are Leslie Matrices in Demographics, Exponential and Logistic growth, Gompertz growth in tumors, Hardy-Weinberg Law in population genetics, Lotka-Volterra predator-prey systems, principle of competitive exclusion, the Kermack-McKendrick model of epidemics (and variants), Markov chain models (with the requisite intro to probability) and the stochastic pure birth process and epidemic models.
Related courses:
MTH290