1. The good news Well-prepared & presented Collaborative presentations very well done Correct organization: a brief introduction, a formulation of the modeling equations, an analysis of the results, and a conclusion slide All talks were on schedule, good preparation

2. Suggestions for slide style Figures sometimes looked bad on the overhead projector: –fonts too small (use 20-24 point minimum, especially in plots) –plot lines too thin (LineWidth Matlab command) –some slides too crowded (mostly ok, though) Plots need to be clearly & completely labeled/ legend/ titled

3. Presentation style Use less slides (again, most of you ok on this) Know what to present: –Omit or shorten obvious results/ model description –include only interesting & surprising outcomes Include a short conclusion slide: list only the interesting formulation/ results Choose notations/ parameter names wisely (e.g. P and R rather than P and p)

4. How to build a model Model building is iterative! 1.Add new elements to an already-existing model one at a time 2.Ask yourself what is the main problem with the results (e.g. population dies) 3.Fix it and back to step 2 4.Add complications only if essential Examine qualitative features of your model first –consider extreme scenarios: how does model/ new term act when each parameter and/ or variable goes to infinity? to zero? negative values?

5. Analysis Analysis is more than running ODE45 a few times and showing graphs Do a fixed point analysis; linear stability analysis (algebraic if possible; numerical if not) Parameter sensitivity: vary unknown/ arbitrary parameters to see how system reacts… We are here Always attempt to do something unusual/ novel in model formulation/ analysis. Creativity Seek help when things go wrong or just to get feedback.