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This open access volume presents a novel computational framework for understanding how collections of excitable cells work. The key approach in the text is to model excitable tissue by representing the individual cells constituting the tissue. This is in stark contrast to the common approach where homogenization is used to develop models where the cells are not explicitly present. The approach allows for very detailed analysis of small collections of excitable cells, but computational challenges limit the applicability in the presence of large collections of cells.

The aim of this book is to provide a well-structured and coherent overview of existing mathematical modeling approaches for biochemical reaction systems, investigating relations between both the conventional models and several types of deterministic-stochastic hybrid model recombinations. Another main objective is to illustrate and compare diverse numerical simulation schemes and their computational effort. Unlike related works, this book presents a broad scope in its applications, from offering a detailed introduction to hybrid approaches for the case of multiple population scales to discussing the setting of time-scale separation resulting from widely varying firing rates of reaction channels. Additionally, it also addresses modeling approaches for non well-mixed reaction-diffusion dynamics, including deterministic and stochastic PDEs and spatiotemporal master equations. Finally, by translating and incorporating complex theory to a level accessible to non-mathematicians, this book effectively bridges the gap between mathematical research in computational biology and its practical use in biological, biochemical, and biomedical systems.

Praise for the first edition: … superb, beautifully written and organized work that takes an engineering approach to systems biology. Alon provides nicely written appendices to explain the basic mathematical and biological concepts clearly and succinctly without interfering with the main text. He starts with a mathematical description of transcriptional activation and then describes some basic transcription-network motifs (patterns) that can be combined to form larger networks. – Nature [This text deserves] serious attention from any quantitative scientist who hopes to learn about modern biology … It assumes no prior knowledge of or even interest in biology … One final aspect that must be mentioned is the wonderful set of exercises that accompany each chapter. … Alon's book should become a standard part of the training of graduate students. – Physics Today Written for students and researchers, the second edition of this best-selling textbook continues to offer a clear presentation of design principles that govern the structure and behavior of biological systems. It highlights simple, recurring circuit elements that make up the regulation of cells and tissues. Rigorously classroom-tested, this edition includes new chapters on exciting advances made in the last decade. Features: Includes seven new chapters The new edition has 189 exercises, the previous edition had 66 Offers new examples relevant to human physiology and disease The book website including course videos can be found here: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon/introduction-systems-biology-design-principles-biological-circuits.

Simulating blood cells for biomedical applications is a challenging goal. Whether you want to investigate blood flow behavior on the cell scale, or use a blood cell model for fast computational prototyping in microfluidics, Computational Blood Cell Mechanics will help you get started, and show you the path forward. The text presents a step-by-step approach to cell model building that can be adopted when developing and validating models for biomedical applications, such as filtering and sorting cells, or examining flow and deformations of individual cells under various conditions. It starts with basic building-blocks that, together, model the red blood cell membrane according to its physical properties, before moving on to discuss several issues that may pose problems along the way, and finally leads to suggestions on how to set up computational experiments. More details available at www.compbloodcell.eu

Algebraic and Combinatorial Computational Biology introduces students and researchers to a panorama of powerful and current methods for mathematical problem-solving in modern computational biology. Presented in a modular format, each topic introduces the biological foundations of the field, covers specialized mathematical theory, and concludes by highlighting connections with ongoing research, particularly open questions. The work addresses problems from gene regulation, neuroscience, phylogenetics, molecular networks, assembly and folding of biomolecular structures, and the use of clustering methods in biology. A number of these chapters are surveys of new topics that have not been previously compiled into one unified source. These topics were selected because they highlight the use of technique from algebra and combinatorics that are becoming mainstream in the life sciences. Integrates a comprehensive selection of tools from computational biology into educational or research programs Emphasizes practical problem-solving through multiple exercises, projects and spinoff computational simulations Contains scalable material for use in undergraduate and graduate-level classes and research projects Introduces the reader to freely-available professional software Supported by illustrative datasets and adaptable computer code

This edited monograph presents the collected interdisciplinary research results of the priority program “Information- and Communication Theory in Molecular Biology (InKoMBio, SPP 1395)”, funded by the German Research Foundation DFG, 2010 until 2016. The topical spectrum is very broad and comprises, but is not limited to, aspects such as microRNA as part of cell communication, information flow in mammalian signal transduction pathway, cell-cell communication, semiotic structures in biological systems, as well as application of methods from information theory in protein interaction analysis. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in the field of biological signal processing, but the book is also beneficial for graduate students alike.

This book focuses on the modeling and mathematical analysis of stochastic dynamical systems along with their simulations. The collected chapters will review fundamental and current topics and approaches to dynamical systems in cellular biology.This text aims to develop improved mathematical and computational methods with which to study biological processes. At the scale of a single cell, stochasticity becomes important due to low copy numbers of biological molecules, such as mRNA and proteins that take part in biochemical reactions driving cellular processes. When trying to describe such biological processes, the traditional deterministic models are often inadequate, precisely because of these low copy numbers. This book presents stochastic models, which are necessary to account for small particle numbers and extrinsic noise sources. The complexity of these models depend upon whether the biochemical reactions are diffusion-limited or reaction-limited. In the former case, oneneeds to adopt the framework of stochastic reaction-diffusion models, while in the latter, one can describe the processes by adopting the framework of Markov jump processes and stochastic differential equations. Stochastic Processes, Multiscale Modeling, and Numerical Methods for Computational Cellular Biology will appeal to graduate students and researchers in the fields of applied mathematics, biophysics, and cellular biology.

This book presents a theoretical and practical overview of computational modeling in bioengineering, focusing on a range of applications including electrical stimulation of neural and cardiac tissue, implantable drug delivery, cancer therapy, biomechanics, cardiovascular dynamics, as well as fluid-structure interaction for modelling of organs, tissues, cells and devices. It covers the basic principles of modeling and simulation with ordinary and partial differential equations using MATLAB and COMSOL Multiphysics numerical software. The target audience primarily comprises postgraduate students and researchers, but the book may also be beneficial for practitioners in the medical device industry.

Mathematics for Neuroscientists, Second Edition, presents a comprehensive introduction to mathematical and computational methods used in neuroscience to describe and model neural components of the brain from ion channels to single neurons, neural networks and their relation to behavior. The book contains more than 200 figures generated using Matlab code available to the student and scholar. Mathematical concepts are introduced hand in hand with neuroscience, emphasizing the connection between experimental results and theory. Fully revised material and corrected text Additional chapters on extracellular potentials, motion detection and neurovascular coupling Revised selection of exercises with solutions More than 200 Matlab scripts reproducing the figures as well as a selection of equivalent Python scripts

This book covers recent developments in epidemic process models and related data on temporally varying networks. It is widely recognized that contact networks are indispensable for describing, understanding, and intervening to stop the spread of infectious diseases in human and animal populations; “network epidemiology” is an umbrella term to describe this research field.More recently, contact networks have been recognized as being highly dynamic. This observation, also supported by an increasing amount of new data, has led to research on temporal networks, a rapidly growing area. Changes in network structure are often informed by epidemic (or other) dynamics, in which case they are referred to as adaptive networks.This volume gathers contributions by prominent authors working in temporal and adaptive network epidemiology, a field essential to understanding infectious diseases in real society.

This book shows how mathematics, computer science and science can be usefully and seamlessly intertwined. It begins with a general model of cognitive processes in a network of computational nodes, such as neurons, using a variety of tools from mathematics, computational science and neurobiology. It then moves on to solve the diffusion model from a low-level random walk point of view. It also demonstrates how this idea can be used in a new approach to solving the cable equation, in order to better understand the neural computation approximations. It introduces specialized data for emotional content, which allows a brain model to be built using MatLab tools, and also highlights a simple model of cognitive dysfunction.

This volume focuses on contributions from both the mathematics and life science community surrounding the concepts of time and dynamicity of nature, two significant elements which are often overlooked in modeling process to avoid exponential computations. The book is divided into three distinct parts: dynamics of genomes and genetic variation, dynamics of motifs, and dynamics of biological networks. Chapters included in dynamics of genomes and genetic variation analyze the molecular mechanisms and evolutionary processes that shape the structure and function of genomes and those that govern genome dynamics. The dynamics of motifs portion of the volume provides an overview of current methods for motif searching in DNA, RNA and proteins, a key process to discover emergent properties of cells, tissues, and organisms. The part devoted to the dynamics of biological networks covers networks aptly discusses networks in complex biological functions and activities that interpret processes in cells. Moreover, chapters in this section examine several mathematical models and algorithms available for integration, analysis, and characterization.Once life scientists began to produce experimental data at an unprecedented pace, it become clear that mathematical models were necessary to interpret data, to structure information with the aim to unveil biological mechanisms, discover results, and make predictions. The second annual “Bringing Maths to Life” workshop held in Naples, Italy October 2015, enabled a bi-directional flow of ideas from and international group of mathematicians and biologists. The venue allowed mathematicians to introduce novel algorithms, methods, and software that may be useful to model aspects of life science, and life scientists posed new challenges for mathematicians.

Since the time of Isaac Newton, physicists have used mathematics to describe the behavior of matter of all sizes, from subatomic particles to galaxies. In the past three decades, as advances in molecular biology have produced an avalanche of data, computational and mathematical techniques have also become necessary tools in the arsenal of biologists. But while quantitative approaches are now providing fundamental insights into biological systems, the college curriculum for biologists has not caught up, and most biology majors are never exposed to the computational and probabilistic mathematical approaches that dominate in biological research. With Quantifying Life, Dmitry A. Kondrashov offers an accessible introduction to the breadth of mathematical modeling used in biology today. Assuming only a foundation in high school mathematics, Quantifying Life takes an innovative computational approach to developing mathematical skills and intuition. Through lessons illustrated with copious examples, mathematical and programming exercises, literature discussion questions, and computational projects of various degrees of difficulty, students build and analyze models based on current research papers and learn to implement them in the R programming language. This interplay of mathematical ideas, systematically developed programming skills, and a broad selection of biological research topics makes Quantifying Life an invaluable guide for seasoned life scientists and the next generation of biologists alike.

This book presents several fundamental questions in mathematical biology such as Turing instability, pattern formation, reaction-diffusion systems, invasion waves and Fokker-Planck equations. These are classical modeling tools for mathematical biology with applications to ecology and population dynamics, the neurosciences, enzymatic reactions, chemotaxis, invasion waves etc. The book presents these aspects from a mathematical perspective, with the aim of identifying those qualitative properties of the models that are relevant for biological applications. To do so, it uncovers the mechanisms at work behind Turing instability, pattern formation and invasion waves. This involves several mathematical tools, such as stability and instability analysis, blow-up in finite time, asymptotic methods and relative entropy properties. Given the content presented, the book is well suited as a textbook for master-level coursework.

The main concern of the book is analysis of biological processes, the final stage of which is mathematical modeling, i.e. quantitative presentation of the processes in rigorous mathematical terms. It is designated for non-mathematicians. Mathematical models can be compared with experimental data thus verifying the validity of the models and finally of the initial assumptions and verbal descriptions of the processes. The models (usually in the form of mathematical equations) are achieved painlessly via the schemes summarising verbal description of what is known concerning the processes. To solve the equations computer software is used. The step-by-step analysis leads to quite sophisticated models some of them being original. The book helps the reader to develop more general approach to the problems. It may be useful for experienced readers as well.

In his master thesis Thorsten Will proposes the substantial information content of protein complexes involving transcription factors in the context of gene regulatory networks, designs the first computational approaches to predict such complexes as well as their regulatory function and verifies the practicability using data of the well-studied yeast S.cereviseae. The novel insights offer extensive capabilities towards a better understanding of the combinatorial control driving transcriptional regulation.

This book is intended for students of computational systems biology with only a limited background in mathematics. Typical books on systems biology merely mention algorithmic approaches, but without offering a deeper understanding. On the other hand, mathematical books are typically unreadable for computational biologists. The authors of the present book have worked hard to fill this gap. The result is not a book on systems biology, but on computational methods in systems biology. This book originated from courses taught by the authors at Freie Universität Berlin. The guiding idea of the courses was to convey those mathematical insights that are indispensable for systems biology, teaching the necessary mathematical prerequisites by means of many illustrative examples and without any theorems. The three chapters cover the mathematical modelling of biochemical and physiological processes, numerical simulation of the dynamics of biological networks and identification of model parameters by means of comparisons with real data. Throughout the text, the strengths and weaknesses of numerical algorithms with respect to various systems biological issues are discussed. Web addresses for downloading the corresponding software are also included.

Approaches to the recovery of three-dimensional information on a biological object, which are often formulated or implemented initially in an intuitive way, are concisely described here based on physical models of the object and the image-formation process. Both three-dimensional electron microscopy and X-ray tomography can be captured in the same mathematical framework, leading to closely-related computational approaches, but the methodologies differ in detail and hence pose different challenges. The editors of this volume, Gabor T. Herman and Joachim Frank, are experts in the respective methodologies and present research at the forefront of biological imaging and structural biology.Computational Methods for Three-Dimensional Microscopy Reconstruction will serve as a useful resource for scholars interested in the development of computational methods for structural biology and cell biology, particularly in the area of 3D imaging and modeling.

Theoretical tools and insights from discrete mathematics, theoretical computer science, and topology now play essential roles in our understanding of vital biomolecular processes. The related methods are now employed in various fields of mathematical biology as instruments to'zoom in'on processes at a molecular level. This book contains expository chapters on how contemporary models from discrete mathematics – in domains such as algebra, combinatorics, and graph and knot theories – can provide perspective on biomolecular problems ranging from data analysis, molecular and gene arrangements and structures, and knotted DNA embeddings via spatial graph models to the dynamics and kinetics of molecular interactions. The contributing authors are among the leading scientists in this field and the book is a reference for researchers in mathematics and theoretical computer science who are engaged with modeling molecular and biological phenomena using discrete methods. It may also serve as aguide and supplement for graduate courses in mathematical biology or bioinformatics, introducing nontraditional aspects of mathematical biology.

Presenting a state-of-the-art overview of theoretical and computational models that link characteristic biomechanical phenomena, this book provides guidelines and examples for creating multiscale models in representative systems and organisms. It develops the reader's understanding of and intuition for multiscale phenomena in biomechanics and mechanobiology, and introduces a mathematical framework and computational techniques paramount to creating predictive multiscale models.Biomechanics involves the study of the interactions of physical forces with biological systems at all scales – including molecular, cellular, tissue and organ scales. The emerging field of mechanobiology focuses on the way that cells produce and respond to mechanical forces – bridging the science of mechanics with the disciplines of genetics and molecular biology. Linking disparate spatial and temporal scales using computational techniques is emerging as a key concept in investigating some of the complex problems underlying these disciplines.Providing an invaluable field manual for graduate students and researchers of theoretical and computational modelling in biology, this book is also intended for readers interested in biomedical engineering, applied mechanics and mathematical biology.

Recent developments in computer science enable algorithms previously perceived as too time-consuming to now be efficiently used for applications in bioinformatics and life sciences. This work focuses on proteins and their structures, protein structure similarity searching at main representation levels and various techniques that can be used to accelerate similarity searches. Divided into four parts, the first part provides a formal model of 3D protein structures for functional genomics, comparative bioinformatics and molecular modeling. The second part focuses on the use of multithreading for efficient approximate searching on protein secondary structures. The third and fourth parts concentrate on finding 3D protein structure similarities with the support of GPUs and cloud computing. Parts three and four both describe the acceleration of different methods. The text will be of interest to researchers and software developers working in the field of structural bioinformatics and biomedical databases.

The book aims to provide an introduction to mathematical models that describe the dynamics of tumor growth and the evolution of tumor cells. It can be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses, and also serves as a reference book for researchers. The book has a strong evolutionary component and reflects the viewpoint that cancer can be understood rationally through a combination of mathematical and biological tools. It can be used both by mathematicians and biologists. Mathematically, the book starts with relatively simple ordinary differential equation models, and subsequently explores more complex stochastic and spatial models. Biologically, the book starts with explorations of the basic dynamics of tumor growth, including competitive interactions among cells, and subsequently moves on to the evolutionary dynamics of cancer cells, including scenarios of cancer initiation, progression, and treatment. The book finishes with a discussion of advanced topics, which describe how some of the mathematical concepts can be used to gain insights into a variety of questions, such as epigenetics, telomeres, gene therapy, and social interactions of cancer cells.

This book explores important aspects of Markov and hidden Markov processes and the applications of these ideas to various problems in computational biology. The book starts from first principles, so that no previous knowledge of probability is necessary. However, the work is rigorous and mathematical, making it useful to engineers and mathematicians, even those not interested in biological applications. A range of exercises is provided, including drills to familiarize the reader with concepts and more advanced problems that require deep thinking about the theory. Biological applications are taken from post-genomic biology, especially genomics and proteomics.The topics examined include standard material such as the Perron-Frobenius theorem, transient and recurrent states, hitting probabilities and hitting times, maximum likelihood estimation, the Viterbi algorithm, and the Baum-Welch algorithm. The book contains discussions of extremely useful topics not usually seen at the basic level, such as ergodicity of Markov processes, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), information theory, and large deviation theory for both i.i.d and Markov processes. The book also presents state-of-the-art realization theory for hidden Markov models. Among biological applications, it offers an in-depth look at the BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Technique) algorithm, including a comprehensive explanation of the underlying theory. Other applications such as profile hidden Markov models are also explored.

Computational biology, mathematical biology, biology and biomedicine are currently undergoing spectacular progresses due to a synergy between technological advances and inputs from physics, chemistry, mathematics, statistics and computer science. The goal of this book is to evidence this synergy by describing selected developments in the following fields: bioinformatics, biomedicine and neuroscience. This work is unique in two respects - first, by the variety and scales of systems studied and second, by its presentation: Each chapter provides the biological or medical context, follows up with mathematical or algorithmic developments triggered by a specific problem and concludes with one or two success stories, namely new insights gained thanks to these methodological developments. It also highlights some unsolved and outstanding theoretical questions, with a potentially high impact on these disciplines. Two communities will be particularly interested in this book. The first one is the vast community of applied mathematicians and computer scientists, whose interests should be captured by the added value generated by the application of advanced concepts and algorithms to challenging biological or medical problems. The second is the equally vast community of biologists. Whether scientists or engineers, they will find in this book a clear and self-contained account of concepts and techniques from mathematics and computer science, together with success stories on their favorite systems. The variety of systems described represents a panoply of complementary conceptual tools. On a practical level, the resources listed at the end of each chapter (databases, software) offer invaluable support for getting started on a specific topic in the fields of biomedicine, bioinformatics and neuroscience.

​​​A. H. Louie's The Reflection of Life: Functional Entailment and Imminence in Relational Biology is a continuation of the exploratory journey in relational biology which began with his 2009 monograph More Than Life Itself: A Synthetic Continuation in Relational Biology. The theme of his first book was ‘What is life?'; the theme of this sequel is “How do two life forms interact?” Biology is a subject concerned with organization of relations. Relational biology is the approach that advocates ‘function dictates structure”, rather than ‘structure implies function'. It is mathematics decoded into biological realizations. The book demonstrates some of the powers of the approach of relational biology, and illustrates how pertinent problems in biology can be better addressed this way. In the first volume the theory was developed by using partially ordered sets, lattices, simulations, models, Aristotle's four causes, graphs, categories, simple and complex systems, anticipatory systems, and metabolism-repair [(M,R)-] systems. Here in the second volume, these tools are expanded to employ set-valued mappings, adjacency matrices, random graphs, and interacting entailment networks. The theory of set-valued mappings culminates in the imminence mapping, which equips the further investigation of functional entailment in complex relational networks. Imminence in (M,R)-networks that model living systems addresses the topics of biogenesis and natural selection. Interacting (M,R)-networks with mutually entailing processes serve as models in the study of symbiosis and pathophysiology. The formalism also provides a natural framework for a relational theory of virology and oncology.This book will serve researchers and graduate students in mathematics and biology.

This authoritative text/reference presents a review of the history, current status, and potential future directions of computational biology in molecular evolution. Gathering together the unique insights of an international selection of prestigious researchers, this must-read volume examines the latest developments in the field, the challenges that remain, and the new avenues emerging from the growing influx of sequence data. These viewpoints build upon the pioneering work of David Sankoff, one of the founding fathers of computational biology, and mark the 50th anniversary of his first scientific article. The broad spectrum of rich contributions in this essential collection will appeal to all computer scientists, mathematicians and biologists involved in comparative genomics, phylogenetics and related areas.

This brief introduces people with a basic background in probability theory to various problems in cancer biology that are amenable to analysis using methods of probability theory and statistics. The title mentions “cancer biology” and the specific illustrative applications reference cancer data but the methods themselves are more broadly applicable to all aspects of computational biology. Aside from providing a self-contained introduction to basic biology and to cancer, the brief describes four specific problems in cancer biology that are amenable to the application of probability-based methods. The application of these methods is illustrated by applying each of them to actual data from the biology literature. After reading the brief, engineers and mathematicians should be able to collaborate fruitfully with their biologist colleagues on a wide variety of problems.

Computational modeling is emerging as a powerful new approach to study and manipulate biological systems. Multiple methods have been developed to model, visualize, and rationally alter systems at various length scales, starting from molecular modeling and design at atomic resolution to cellular pathways modeling and analysis. Higher time and length scale processes, such as molecular evolution, have also greatly benefited from new breeds of computational approaches. This book provides an overview of the established computational methods used for modeling biologically and medically relevant systems.

Perhaps the most distinct question in science throughout the ages has been the one of perceivable reality, treated both in physics and philosophy. Reality is acting upon us, and we, and life in general, are acting upon reality. Potentiality, found both in quantum reality and in the activity of life, plays a key role. In quantum reality observation turns potentiality into reality. Again, life computes possibilities in various ways based on past actions, and acts on the basis of these computations. This book is about a new approach to biology (and physics, of course!). Its subtitle suggests a perpetual movement and interplay between two elusive aspects of modern science — reality/matter and potentiality/mind, between physics and biology — both captured and triggered by mathematics — to understand and explain emergence, development and life all the way up to consciousness. But what is the real/potential difference between living and non-living matter? How does time in potentiality differ from time in reality? What we need to understand these differences is an integrative approach. This book contemplates how to encircle life to obtain a formal system, equivalent to the ones in physics. Integral Biomathics attempts to explore the interplay between reality and potentiality.

In this monograph, new combinatorial and computational approaches in the study of RNA structures are presented which enhance both mathematics and computational biology. It begins with an introductory chapter, which motivates and sets the background of this research. In the following chapter, all the concepts are systematically developed. The reader will find • integration of more than forty research papers covering topics like, RSK-algorithm, reflection principle, singularity analysis and random graph theory • systematic presentation of the theory of pseudo-knotted RNA structures including their generating function, uniform generation as well as central and discrete limit theorems • computational biology of pseudo-knotted RNA structures, including dynamic programming paradigms and a new folding algorithm • analysis of neutral networks of pseudo knotted RNA structures and their random graph theory, including neutral paths, giant components and connectivity All algorithms presented are freely available through springer.com and implemented in C. A proofs section at the end contains the necessary technicalities. This book will serve graduate students and researchers in the fields of discrete mathematics, mathematical and computational biology. It is suitable as a textbook for a graduate course in mathematical and computational biology.

Mapping the genomic landscapes is one of the most exciting frontiers of science. We have the opportunity to reverse engineer the blueprints and the control systems of living organisms. Computational tools are key enablers in the deciphering process. This book provides an in-depth presentation of some of the important computational biology approaches to genomic sequence analysis. The first section of the book discusses methods for discovering patterns in DNA and RNA. This is followed by the second section that reflects on methods in various ways, including performance, usage and paradigms.

Networks provide a very useful way to describe a wide range of different data types in biology, physics and elsewhere. Apart from providing a convenient tool to visualize highly dependent data, networks allow stringent mathematical and statistical analysis.In recent years, much progress has been achieved to interpret various types of biological network data such as transcriptomic, metabolomic and protein interaction data as well as epidemiological data. Of particular interest is to understand the organization, complexity and dynamics of biological networks and how these are influenced by network evolution and functionality.This book reviews and explores statistical, mathematical and evolutionary theory and tools in the understanding of biological networks. The book is divided into comprehensive and self-contained chapters, each of which focuses on an important biological network type, explains concepts and theory and illustrates how these can be used to obtain insight into biologically relevant processes and questions. There are chapters covering metabolic, transcriptomic, protein interaction and epidemiological networks as well as chapters that deal with theoretical and conceptual material. The authors, who contribute to the book, are active, highly regarded and well-known in the network community.

This book represents a collection of recent advances in computational studies in neuroscience research that practically applies to a collaborative and integrative environment in engineering and medical domains. This work has been designed to address the explosion of interest by academic researchers and practitioners in highly-effective coordination between computational models and tools and quantitative investigation of neuroscientific data. To bridge the vital gap between science and medicine, this book brings together diverse research areas ranging from medical signal processing, image analysis, and data mining to neural network modeling, regulation of gene expression, and brain dynamics. We hope that this work will also be of value to investigators and practitioners in academic institutions who become involved in computational modeling as an aid in translating information in neuroscientific data to their colleagues in medical - main. This volume will be very appealing to graduate (and advanced undergraduate) students, researchers, and practitioners across a wide range of industries (e. g., pharmaceutical, chemical, biological sciences), who require a detailed overview of the practical aspects of computational modeling in real-life neuroscience problems. For this reason, our audience is assumed to be very diverse and heterogenous, including: vii viii Preface • researchers from engineering, computer science, statistics, and mathematics - mains as well as medical and biological scientists; •physicians working in scienti?c research to understand how basic science can be linked with biological systems.

Virtually all scientific problems in neuroscience require mathematical analysis, and all neuroscientists are increasingly required to have a significant understanding of mathematical methods. There is currently no comprehensive, integrated introductory book on the use of mathematics in neuroscience; existing books either concentrate solely on theoretical modeling or discuss mathematical concepts for the treatment of very specific problems. This book fills this need by systematically introducing mathematical and computational tools in precisely the contexts that first established their importance for neuroscience. All mathematical concepts will be introduced from the simple to complex using the most widely used computing environment, Matlab. This book will provide a grounded introduction to the fundamental concepts of mathematics, neuroscience and their combined use, thus providing the reader with a springboard to cutting-edge research topics and fostering a tighter integration of mathematics and neuroscience for future generations of students. A very didactic and systematic introduction to mathematical concepts of importance for the analysis of data and the formulation of concepts based on experimental data in neuroscience Provides introductions to linear algebra, ordinary and partial differential equations, Fourier transforms, probabilities and stochastic processes Introduces numerical methods used to implement algorithms related to each mathematical concept Illustrates numerical methods by applying them to specific topics in neuroscience, including Hodgkin-Huxley equations, probabilities to describe stochastic release, stochastic processes to describe noise in neurons, Fourier transforms to describe the receptive fields of visual neurons Allows the mathematical novice to analyze their results in more sophisticated ways, and consider them in a broader theoretical framework

This volume contains 17 peer-reviewed papers based on the presentations at the 9th Annual International Workshop on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (IBSB 2009) held at the Life Science Engineering Building of Boston University from July 27 to 29, 2009. This workshop started in 2001 as a platform for doctoral students and young researchers to present and discuss their research results and approaches in bioinformatics and systems biology. It is part of a collaborative educational program involving leading institutions and leaders committed to the following institutions and programs:Boston University Graduate Program in BioinformaticsCharité - Universitätsmedizin BerlinFreie Universität BerlinGlobal COE Program — Center of Education and Research for Advanced Genome-Based Medicine, University of TokyoThe International Research Training Group (IRTG) Genomics and Systems Biology of Molecular NetworksInternational Research and Training Program on Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Kyoto University Bioinformatics CenterMax-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in BerlinMax Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in BerlinMax Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam

Biological systems are inherently stochastic and uncertain. Thus, research in bioinformatics, biomedical engineering and computational biology has to deal with a large amount of uncertainties. Fuzzy logic has shown to be a powerful tool in capturing different uncertainties in engineering systems. In recent years, fuzzy logic based modeling and analysis approaches are also becoming popular in analyzing biological data and modeling biological systems. Numerous research and application results have been reported that demonstrated the effectiveness of fuzzy logic in solving a wide range of biological problems found in bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, and computational biology. Contributed by leading experts world-wide, this edited book contains 16 chapters presenting representative research results on the application of fuzzy systems to genome sequence assembly, gene expression analysis, promoter analysis, cis-regulation logic analysis and synthesis, reconstruction of genetic and cellular networks, as well as biomedical problems, such as medical image processing, electrocardiogram data classification and anesthesia monitoring and control. This volume is a valuable reference for researchers, practitioners, as well as graduate students working in the field of bioinformatics, biomedical engineering and computational biology.

Guiding readers from the elucidation and analysis of a genomic sequence to the prediction of a protein structure and the identification of the molecular function, Introduction to Bioinformatics describes the rationale and limitations of the bioinformatics methods and tools that can help solve biological problems. Requiring only a limited mathematical and statistical background, the book shows how to efficiently apply these approaches to biological data and evaluate the resulting information.The author, an expert bioinformatics researcher, first addresses the ways of storing and retrieving the enormous amount of biological data produced every day and the methods of decrypting the information encoded by a genome. She then covers the tools that can detect and exploit the evolutionary and functional relationships among biological elements. Subsequent chapters illustrate how to predict the three-dimensional structure of a protein. The book concludes with a discussion of the future of bioinformatics. Even though the future will undoubtedly offer new tools for tackling problems, most of the fundamental aspects of bioinformatics will not change. This resource provides the essential information to understand bioinformatics methods, ultimately facilitating in the solution of biological problems.

Thorough and accessible, this book presents the design principles of biological systems, and highlights the recurring circuit elements that make up biological networks. It provides a simple mathematical framework which can be used to understand and even design biological circuits. The textavoids specialist terms, focusing instead on several well-st

Quantitative methods have a particular knack for improving any field they touch. For biology, computational techniques have led to enormous strides in our understanding of biological systems, but there is still vast territory to cover. Statistical physics especially holds great potential for elucidating the structural-functional relationships in bi

Every researcher in genomics and proteomics now has access to public domain databases containing literally billions of data entries. However, without the right analytical tools, and an understanding of the biological significance of the data, cataloging and interpreting the molecular evolutionary processes buried in those databases is difficult, if

Biology undergraduates, medical students and life-science graduate students often have limited mathematical skills. Similarly, physics, math and engineering students have little patience for the detailed facts that make up much of biological knowledge. Teaching computational neuroscience as an integrated discipline requires that both groups be brought forward onto common ground. This book does this by making ancillary material available in an appendix and providing basic explanations without becoming bogged down in unnecessary details. The book will be suitable for undergraduates and beginning graduate students taking a computational neuroscience course and also to anyone with an interest in the uses of the computer in modeling the nervous system.

Designed primarily as an introduction to realistic modeling methods, Computational Neuroscience: Realistic Modeling for Experimentalists focuses on methodological approaches, selecting appropriate methods, and identifying potential pitfalls. The author addresses varying levels of complexity, from molecular interactions within single neurons to the processing of information by neural networks. He avoids theoretical mathematics and provides just enough of the basic math used by experimentalists.What makes this resource unique is the inclusion of downloadable resources that furnish interactive modeling examples. It contains tutorials and demos, movies and images, and the simulation scripts necessary to run the full simulation described in the chapter examples. Each chapter covers: the theoretical foundation; parameters needed; appropriate software descriptions; evaluation of the model; future directions expected; examples in text boxes linked to the downloadable resources; and references. The first book to bring you cutting-edge developments in neuronal modeling. It provides an introduction to realistic modeling methods at levels of complexity varying from molecular interactions to neural networks. The book and downloadable resources combine to make Computational Neuroscience: Realistic Modeling for Experimentalists the complete package for understanding modeling techniques.