Description

… the volume is impressively accessible. The result is a book that is valuable and approachable for biologists at all levels, including those interested in deepening their skills in mathematical modeling and those who seek an overview to aid them in communicating with collaborators in mathematics and statistics. The former group of readers may especially appreciate the first chapter, an introduction to key concepts in probability, and the set of ten assignments provided as an appendix.

Biological processes are evolutionary in nature and often evolve in a noisy environment or in the presence of uncertainty. Such evolving phenomena are necessarily modeled mathematically by stochastic differential/difference equations (SDE), which have been recognized as essential for a true understanding of many biological phenomena. Yet, there is a dearth of teaching material in this area for interested students and researchers, notwithstanding the addition of some recent texts on stochastic modelling in the life sciences. The reason may well be the demanding mathematical pre-requisites needed to “solve” SDE.

A principal goal of this volume is to provide a working knowledge of SDE based on the premise that familiarity with the basic elements of a stochastic calculus for random processes is unavoidable. Through some SDE models of familiar biological phenomena, we show how stochastic methods developed for other areas of science and engineering are also useful in the life sciences. In the process, the volume introduces to biologists a collection of analytical and computational methods for research and applications in this emerging area of life science. The additions broaden the available tools for SDE models for biologists that have been limited by and large to stochastic simulations.