Persistence and dynamics in a metapopulation model of infection We consider a metapopulation model of an Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) infection on a network of patches connected via diffusion of the virus.  In addition  to previous results, we give analytical proof of oscillatory solutions in a system of 2 patches. We introduce a variety of network structures …
Epidemic Models Structured by Immunological Variables We develop a differential-integral equation model of epidemics in an animal population structured by immunological variables such as mean viral load and mean T-cell density. The population is subdivided into susceptible individuals whose dynamics is modeled by an ordinary differential equation, and infected/infectious individuals structured by immunological state summarized …
Quantifying the Burden of Somatic Evolution in the Context of Cancer and Aging Somatic tissue evolves over a vertebrate’s lifetime due to the accumulation of mutations in stem cell populations. Mutations may alter cellular fitness and contribute to tumorigenesis or aging. The distribution of mutational effects within somatic cells is not known. Given the unique …
Cancer Epidemiology and Modeling, Carcinogenesis In this talk we will examine the link between two commonly used functions in cancer epidemiology (the incidence function and the relative risk function) and the study of carcinogenesis modeling. Specifically, we will look at some variations of the multistage model of carcinogenesis proposed by Armitage and Doll in the …
Effect of Phosphorous on West Nile Virus Replication: Combining Experiments with Modeling A recent study (Crowder at al., 2013) found that prevalence of WNV was increased in mosquitoes and birds near agricultural activity relative to natural environment. Â We believe that the excessive use of fertilizers, whose main component is , may have influenced the global …
The effect of climate variation on shrimp reproductive strategies Reproductive strategies comprise the timing and frequency of reproductive events and the number of offspring per reproductive event, depending on factors such as climate conditions. Studying how the reproductive strategy of species varies along the latitudinal gradient can help us understand and predict how they will …
Using Little’s Law in Stochastic Modeling Stochastic models are used when there is random behavior in the model. These models come with assumptions. In the case of a continuous-time Markov chain, it is assumed that arrivals are sampled from a Poisson distribution and that the waiting times are indepen-dent and exponentially distributed. Making these assumptions …
Phytoplankton dynamics in Lake George, Florida Phytoplankton plays a key role in  lake’s ecosystem as a primary production. The key environmental factors that affect the dynamic of phytoplankton are nutrient availability, water temperature and water discharge.  In Lake George, Florida, Cyanobacteria were considered to be the dominant phytoplankton group. However the recent study show that …
Genetic competence switching in Streptococcus mutans: Bacterial circuitry for exploiting internal and external heterogeneity Bacteria probe their environment and exchange information through a chemical signaling mechanism known as quorum sensing. Quorum sensing systems can be very complicated, involving multiple signals that can be tuned to respond to, or even exploit, physical and chemical heterogeneity in …
