Mathematical Models in the Life and Social Sciences

MA 432, Spring 2005

Practicals

Here are some notes, files and links that will be of use for MA 432 related computing, including our class computer practicals.

• Introduction to using MATLAB.

  These notes provide an introduction to the use of MATLAB. They discuss the way that MATLAB sees the world in terms of matrices and how to produce plots. These are the notes I handed out in class.

• Example MATLAB M-files. (To use them, save them somewhere and load them up into MATLAB.)
  • test.m Example from the notes: calculating sums.
  • fibonacci.m Simulate Fibonacci model from difference equation.
  • fibonacci_matrix.m Simulate Fibonacci model via Leslie matrix.
  • fibonacci_renewal.m Simulate Fibonacci model via the renewal framework.
  • exponential.m Simulate the exponential growth model dP/dt=2P, as in homework one question 3b.
  • logistic.m Simulate the logistic growth model dN/dt=rN(1-N/K).
  • if_examples.m. Examples of how to use "if" statements in MATLAB.
  • fit_logistic.m. Fitting a logistic curve to US population data.
  • continuous_flow.m. Continuous flow chemostat model.
  • lotka_volterra_pred_prey.m. Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model.
  • more_realistic_pred_prey.m. More realistic predator prey model.

• Bacterial growth data. From Chapter 7.1 of the course text.