Mark Schumaker's February 2011 Talk
* Time and Date: 4:10 pm Thursday, February 3
* Location: 5W Neill Hall, WSU Mathematics Department
* Title: Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in a photosynthetic enzyme: comparison with experiment using Latin hypercube sampling
* Abstract: We have programmed a Monte Carlo simulation of the Q-cycle model of electron transport in the photosynthetic enzyme cytochrome b6f. Results were compared with published experiments of Kramer and Crofts (Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1183:72–84, 1993). Rates for the simulation were optimized by constructing large numbers of parameter sets using Latin hypercube sampling and selecting those that gave the minimum mean square deviation from experiment. Multiple copies of the simulation program were run in parallel on a Beowulf cluster. We found that Latin hypercube sampling works well as a method for approximately optimizing very noisy objective functions of 15 or 22 variables. Further, the simplified Q-cycle model can reproduce experimental results in the presence or absence of a quinone reductase (Qi) site inhibitor without invoking ad hoc side-reactions. Talk Authors: Mark F. Schumaker (WSU) and David M. Kramer (WSU, Michigan State)
* Speaker Bio: Here is Mark's Website. Mark graduated in 1987 with a PhD in physics under Werner Horsthemke at the University of Texas in Austin. His early work was in dynamical systems -- here is an example paper. Mark now works in biophysics and mathematical modeling, which of course keeps him connected to dynamical systems. A personal note: I heard of Mark long before I arrived at WSU through classmates of Mark's at Austin: John Pearson and David Sigeti, as well as my advisor Andrew Fraser. The first two were mentors of mine at Los Alamos National Laboratory when I first went there in the late 1990's. I believe that both David and John also had Werner for an advisor. Anyway, All four (the 3 Horsthemke students and my advisor) got into dynamical systems in it's late heyday -- cool things were happening all the time. Which brings me to my last point -- if you have even a slight interest in dynamical systems, you should take Mark's courses on Dynamical systems (both the undergraduate and graduate courses). It is a very beautiful and useful intersection of mathematics and physics that has inspired a great deal of deep work and will continue to do so in the future.
* Background Information for Talk: Monte Carlo Method and Latin Hypercube Sampling. The paper that contains the results he will be talking about can be downloaded for free from here: Link to pdf