Modeling and Simulation in Medicine and the Life Sciences [Hardcover]

Frank C. Hoppensteadt (Author), Charles S. Peskin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387950729 | ISBN-13: 978-0387950723 | Publication Date: October 5, 2001 | Edition: 2nd

The result of lectures given by the authors at New York University, the University of Utah, and Michigan State University, the material is written for students who have had only one term of calculus, but it contains material that can be used in modeling courses in applied mathematics at all levels through early graduate courses. Numerous exercises are given as well as solutions to selected exercises, so as to lead readers to discover interesting extensions of that material. Throughout, illustrations depict physiological processes, population biology phenomena, corresponding models, and the results of computer simulations. Topics covered range from population phenomena to demographics, genetics, epidemics and dispersal; in physiological processes, including the circulation, gas exchange in the lungs, control of cell volume, the renal counter-current multiplier mechanism, and muscle mechanics; to mechanisms of neural control. Each chapter is graded in difficulty, so a reading of the first parts of each provides an elementary introduction to the processes and their models.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an introductory book on mathematical modeling in the bio-sciences. It is written for mathematicians as well as for life scientists. Simple models are presented, and previous knowledge of biology is not required for understanding the book. All the essential biological background is given in the text, while basic mathematical knowledge is sufficient for reading a large part of the book. In each chapter, the material is organized in increasing order of complexity followed by exercises. Some of the exercises deal with the material of that chapter, while others are projects that extend the preceding material. Many chapters contain sections with suggestions for computing projects. Simulations are done in Matlab and computer code is included in the text...."  (Miljenko Marusic, Mathematical Reviews)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 2nd edition (October 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387950729
• ISBN-13: 978-0387950723
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars too bad you have to buy this book, May 12, 2009

By 

Derek J. Overstreet "yngwie scruggs" (Tempe, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Modeling and Simulation in Medicine and the Life Sciences (Hardcover)

This book is not very interesting unless you are a freshman math major who has a subtle interest in physiology. The book more or less is a set of derivations and cute math tricks despite the fact it was designed to teach concepts of physiological modeling. I had this book as the focus of a biomedical engineering graduate class, and it's not very useful for that. Probably 3/4 of the questions in the back of each chapter could be summarized as "plug (some value) into (some equation). What is the answer?" They do the thinking for you and then ask you to regurgitate a formula or plug and chug. It doesn't demand any understanding of the material to answer most of the questions. There is almost no design or medical treatment choices involved--you are just studying something for the sake of studying it. The math tricks and derivations are really the focus of the book, rather than the actual conservation principles or physiology concepts that the models are based on. Assumptions are explained, but often the alternatives or models actually used in the field are not discussed at all. Finally, the MATLAB code that is included is rather poor. None of the graphs have titles or labeled axes, so in order to run a simulation, you must first dig through the code for an hour to figure out what each of the plots is. They also use up to 8 or so different files for simulations, which is rather silly. Most of the stuff they're doing can be done cleanly in no more than 4 documents. There is very little commenting in the book code which makes it all the more time-consuming to follow.

It might be a decent reference book for understanding some basic modeling principles, but that's about all.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An undergraduate text, August 29, 2009

By 

Frank C. Hoppensteadt - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Modeling and Simulation in Medicine and the Life Sciences (Hardcover)

The following remark was submitted to Amazon as a comment on Overstreet's review. It did not give a rating of the book - the 5 star rating is Amazon's. The book is designed for undergraduate courses that introduce students to mathematical modeling of medical and life science systems. As stated in the Preface, students should have at least one term of calculus. While we have based graduate courses on topics presented in this book, they involve substantial supplemental materials.