Education

Course Offerings - CSCS (Division 348) 510

CSCS 510, Fall 2005

FALL 2005 APPLIED DYNAMICS COURSE

Complex Systems 510/Math 550: Introduction to Dynamical Systems for Biocomplexity
Professor: Carl Simon (cpsimon@umich.edu)
Monday/Wednesday 8:30 am (sharp)-10:00

This course begins with an introduction to dynamical systems -- linear and nonlinear, discrete time and continuous time, one and many dimensional, with primary motivation and applications coming from the life sciences. The course moves to techniques that can deal with complexities such as randomness, heterogeneity, nonrandom contact structures, and adaptation and feedback. The corresponding dynamics topics include: Markov and stochastic processes, chaos, cellular automata, dynamic and evolutionary game theory, and genetic algorithms. The course is open to upper-class and graduate students in biology, natural resources, economics, political science, bioinformatics, bioengineering, etc., who have had at least two semesters of calculus, and would like to develop mathematical skills commonly used in building and studying models in their fields. This is also a core course in the complex systems certificate program.