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ECS 89L: COMPUTER SCIENCE FOR BIOLOGISTS (4) II

Lecture: 3 hours

Discussion: 1 hour

Prerequisite: Prior experience with basic programming concepts (variables, loops, conditional statements) recommended

Catalog Description:
Computer uses in modern society. Emphasis on uses in biological disciplines. Includes elementary programming concepts, scripting, overview of current/projected computer uses in biology.

Expanded Course Description:

  1. Introduction: The computer: hardware and software
  2. Communicating with computers
    1. Operating systems: DOS, Mac OsX, Unix Linux
    2. Scripting languages; BioPERL
    3. Compiled languages
  3. Data storage
    1. Organisation of data
    2. Databases in biology: Sequence databases, structure databases, genomic databases
    3. Searching databases: how to ask a question
  4. Data Visualization
    1. Visualizing genome information
    2. Visualizing sequences; visualizing structures
    3. The role of visualization in data analysis
  5. Computers on a network
    1. The World Wide Web
    2. Communication between computers
    3. Software and services for biology on the Web
  6. Biology for computer scientists
    1. DNA computing
    2. Algorithms that follow nature; the example of ant colonies

Computer Usage:
Three or more programming assignments will be given. Programs require students to apply the concepts covered in the lecture.

ABET CAtegory Content:
Engineering Science: 0 unit
Engineering Design: 0 unit

Goals:
To prepare biology majors to take advantage of computers by understanding their uses, limitations, and potential.

Instructor: P. Koehl

Prepared by: P. Koehl (November 2007)

Overlap Statement:
This course does not duplicate any existing course. One of its purposes is to prepare the students for the upper division courses, ECS124 (Bioinformatics) and ECS129 (Structural Bioinformatics), which cover in much greater depth specific aspects of bioinformatics that is introduced in ECS 89L.

11/07

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