Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematical and Computational Biology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Moving to Wikipedia namespace

Participation in this WikiProject is slowly getting started, so I think it is time to move out of my user page namespace into Wikipedia namespace. I will make the necessary moves later this later this week and have the old pages redirect to the new ones. Hendrik Fuß (talk) 17:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic algorithms

The Genetic algorithms page, which I templated into WikiProj Computer Science, had also been templated WikiProj Molecular and Cellular Biology (!?), but that was recently improved to WikiProj Computational Biology. So, welcome :-) As I mentioned to the CS folks, I now want to build a Genetic Computer, to run a Genetic Algorithm, to optimize a Genetic Simulation, of the Genetic Computer :-) but I'd need a biochemist and a big, big bottle of excedrin. Pete St.John (talk) 17:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not sure myself whether genetic algorithms should be part of computational biology. I always thought of it as a computer science field that is rather independent of biology. After all, computational biology is a biological field, and GAs do not specifically solve biological problems. Hendrik Fuß (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please define the terms

Unanswered query This question or request has not been resolved
Remove this tag when this is resolved.

Is there a difference between bioinformatics, computational biology, and mathematical biology? If so, please clarify on each article, and link to the others as appropriate. If not, merge them. --Adoniscik (talk) 07:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say: Bioinformatics is engineering, Computational Biology is science. It would be pretty easy to go further, and say Mathematical Biology is Mathematics; that would require distinguishing Math from Sci and Eng at such a high level. I wish we said "Mathematics Science" (as opposed to "mathematical sciences") and "Mathematics Engineering" instead of "Theoretical.." and "Applied..." mathematics; but we don't. But fuzzy as it may be, Mathematical Biology applies mathematics (such as systems of partial differential equations) per se, and not computers per se. Of course they all overlap and inter-relate. I don't know if my way of saying this is "clarifying" though :-) However, wow, I just went to bioinformatics and saw what you mean:
  • "Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including..."

That's the very first line. So right at the start, Bioinformatics purports to be interchangeable with Compuational Biology. So yes sure that should be clarified. I'm just a hobbyist though. In the area of computers, the distinction between engineering and science is I think blurriest of all. Pete St.John (talk) 23:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a difference, and the first line (or the whole opening paragraph) of Bioinformatics should be changed. The engineering-science distinction is not inappropriate, but remember that bioinformatics was and still is a field of active research, so it should qualify as science, too. I think different people have different ideas about these terms, and sometimes they are stretched to the limit (probably in order to attract funding). So here's my view: All three fields have in common their interdisciplinary location between computer science, mathematics and biology. Bioinformatics is the study of biological information, such as is contained in DNA sequences or protein structures. It deals with discovery, analysis, storage and warehousing of such information. Bioinformatics mostly deals with problems from molecular biology. Computational biology is a more general term and describes scientific approaches which specifically use computational methodology to solve biological problems. Bioinformatics and Systems biology could be seen as subsets of computational biology (but some people may disagree). Mathematical biology is very similar, but the focus is on mathematical methodology, such as mathematical model using e.g. differential equations. Mathematical and computational biology are not necessarily confined to molecular biology, but also cover ecology, physiology, evolution etc.
I chose the title Mathematical and Computational Biology for the WikiProject because it seemed to me to be the broadest description of a field of common interest. I think whatever the outcome of this discussion is, it would be good to have some sort of box or section, or separate article that clarifies the difference. Hendrik Fuß (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I think I have reached the perfect definitions: When one seen a lab one can tell what it does, right? Dry labs (computers, D&D shirts and coffee cups), wet labs (highthroughput cores (noisy machines), Molecular biology (qiagen boxes everywhere and westerns running), physiology (retro look) and Bioengineers (odd machines and are in perpetual space wars with the molbios)). so just group everything into an article called dry lab and noone will complain, most biologist go to sleep as soon as you say a numer!! (Bad joke requiring no answer) --Squidonius (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition requestion

Could someone give their opinion on Talk:Mathematical_biology#Merge_of_Computational_biomodeling as it lacks a Good opinion and has just low support speculation. I only known about models made with calculus, so I may be in error. --Squidonius (talk) 18:24, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I will go ahead and merge. --Squidonius (talk) 11:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Systems Biology Research Groups moved

Hi, I am from the WikiProject Systems. I just moved the former "List of Systems Biology Research Groups" to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Systems/List of Systems Biology Research Groups, because some guy nominated that list for deletion. In my experience this is a fight I can't win.

Now the list is no longer in the WikiProject Systems space, these guys 'no longer have anything to say about how we run hour things. I thing this is the 4th or 5th time last year this happened to on of our lists.

I made this move because I consider these list of great importance for the development of the project. These kind of list at the moment are still a great help, to explain about systems science, and to get an impression of what is really going on in the world.

Everybody can still add there information over there. On your project page I read that you have plans to wikify that list. Off cause this still is possible.

If you have any questions or if you want to have this list in your own project space, please let me know. -- Mdd (talk) 23:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry you've had trouble with people voting to delete your contributions. I remember looking at the page you mentioned. I believe the trouble is that Wikipedia doesn't encourage directory-style pages. Therefore, they're excluded by policy. While I agree that having such a directory may be useful, I can also see why Wikipedia does not want to provide such content. I can image that a complete list of systems biology groups (which are sprouting everywhere these days) would mainly consist of a collection of web links and may contribute little to the encyclopedic content of Wikipedia.
In my view, in order to preserve the work on that page, there are two options:
  1. Host the list on a different site. There are plenty of directory sites in the web, and some specifically for systems biology. The Systems biology article could then link to that site.
  2. Use the current article content to create a different article in accordance with Wikipedia's standards. For example, such an article could discuss historically important contributions by systems biology groups.
User:Hendrik Fuß 14:39, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The situation is kind of resolved here. I updated the list, and renamed it back to List of systems biology research groups. The people of the WikiProject Lists argreed with those changes. --14:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] System biology images

Some new images are avalible here people might find useful.

I have uploaded most of those images from a government source, which I think, is very interesting also. I am however not very familair with the field of systems biology myselve. I wonder though if some of these images or others could be used to illustrated the systems biology article. Could anybody give me some suggestions are give it a try. Thanks. -- Mdd (talk) 00:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Systems biologists

I created a Category:Systems biologists two weeks ago. I wonder if one of you noticed and has some more ideas about this. -- Mdd (talk) 14:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New template for talk pages, expecially the larger ones

Unanswered query This question or request has not been resolved
Remove this tag when this is resolved.

Some pages, such as this one have lots of post and it requires some work to see what has been answered or acknowledged. therefore I made the {{Unanswered}} template that can be put above a section allowing one to quickly glimpse what has been answered. For now I will tag mine and any post I am 100% sure is unanswered. If you were waiting for an answer but never got one as the post in somewhere in the middle tag it! please voice any queries or comments in the talk Template:Unanswered (links, talk) and not here. Cheers --Squidonius (talk) 14:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)