The December meeting of the North-East local group of the Royal
Statistical Society will take place in the King George VI building,
Lecture Theatre 4, University of Newcastle upon Tyne from 5.30
p.m. onwards on Tuesday December 11th.
DARREN WILKINSON (University of Newcastle upon Tyne)
Stochastic modelling and inference for genetic regulatory networks
It is generally acknowledged that the molecular mechanisms
regulating key cellular processes such as gene expression are
intrinsically stochastic. The random diffusion of cell signalling
molecules and the combinatorial assembly of transcription factor
complexes provide extensive opportunities for the action of
chance. In recent years stochastic regulatory network models have
been developed, based on discrete-event simulation techniques for
generating realisations from the complex continuous-time
countable-state Markov processes governing the reaction
systems. These models contain many parameters with uncertain
values. In addition, the latent process can only be observed
partially, and at discrete time intervals. Inference for such Markov
process models is an extremely challenging problem.
This talk will describe the techniques used to model regulatory
networks, and the computational tools needed for simulation and
analysis. An overview will also be given of the MCMC algorithms
which can in principle be used for carrying out Bayesian inference
for the parameters underlying the network models, and the problems
associated with applying such techniques in practice.
Note also that CHRIS BRUNSDON will speak about "Using Shape Space
Analysis To Explore Map Patterns" on Thursday 17th January in room
Ph30, Department of Physics, University of Durham.
For up to date details of all meetings, consult the local group web
page: http://maths.dur.ac.uk/stats/rss/
Hope to see you there,
Peter Craig (Secretary/Treasurer)
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Dr Elaine Martin
Reader in Industrial Statistics
Foresight Centre for Process Analytics and Control Technology (CPACT)
Merz Court
University of Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 7RU. UK.
Tel: +44 191 222 6231
Fax: +44 191 222 5748
email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.ncl.ac.uk/cpact/
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