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Editorial
. 2021 Jan 14;17(1):e1008539.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008539. eCollection 2021 Jan.

Ten simple rules for tackling your first mathematical models: A guide for graduate students by graduate students

Korryn Bodner  1   2 , Chris Brimacombe  2 , Emily S Chenery  3 , Ariel Greiner  2 , Anne M McLeod  4 , Stephanie R Penk  1   2 , Juan S Vargas Soto  1   2
Affiliations
Editorial

Ten simple rules for tackling your first mathematical models: A guide for graduate students by graduate students

Korryn Bodner et al. PLoS Comput Biol. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. SIR conceptual diagram.
Boxes represent susceptible, infected, and recovered compartments, and directed arrows represent the flow of individuals between these compartments with the rate of flow being controlled by the contact rate, c, the probability of infection, γ, and the recovery rate, θ.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Conceptual diagrams for 2 different SIR type models.
(A) A susceptible/infected/recovered model where individuals remain immune (gold) and (B) a susceptible/infected/recovered model where individuals can become susceptible again (blue). Arrows indicate the direction of movement between compartments, c is the contact rate, γ is the infection rate given contact, and θ is the recovery rate. The text below each conceptual model are the hypotheses (H1 and H2) that represent the differences between these 2 SIR models.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Good coding practice.
Two functionally identical codes in R [17] can look very different without comments (left) and with descriptive comments (right). Writing detailed comments will help you and others understand, adapt, and use your code.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Simulated model output using 2 different model structures and 2 different parameter values.
Gold lines represent the SIR structure (Fig 2A) where lifelong immunity of individuals is inferred after infection, and blue lines represent an SIRS structure (Fig 2B) where immunity is lost over time. The solid lines represent model dynamics assuming a recovery rate (θ) of 0.05, while dotted lines represent dynamics assuming a recovery rate of 0.1. All model runs assume a transmission rate, cγ, of 0.2 and an immunity loss rate, ψ, of 0.01. By using simulations, we can explore how different processes and rates change the system’s dynamics and furthermore determine at what point in time these differences are detectable. SIR, Susceptible-Infected-Recovered; SIRS, Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Susceptible.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Otto SP, Day T. A biologist’s guide to mathematical modeling in ecology and evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 2007.

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