[Population Modeling] Re: PopModWkGrpIMAG-news Digest, Vol 3,
Issue 20
John Rice
john.rice at noboxes.org
Mon Jan 19 13:40:11 PST 2015
Dare I submit another wordy musing about the subject. Yeah, I guess.
So back to the implications for the common definition(s) of the word
population provided by Tony. I now think I understand and agree with Olaf
that it is a noun and further is likely to be a good term for the OBJECT of
WHAT you all do. At the same time I am even less inclined to like it as
an adjective to modify either what, nor to a lesser extent, HOW you do it.
Maybe you just simply (kidding) model population, or perhaps more correctly
computationally model populations. In that line of thinking we must
recognize that there are people who do physical, and conceptual models of
entities, organic or material, that could be called models or at least
subsets of models of populations. Especially true when considering that
historically all models of any kind only represented a SAMPLE of a larger
population. Thus paintings of crowds, or terrain models of forests are
non-computational models representing entities which are members of a
population, and that they are useful for communicating to others. So what
makes what you do different or at least distinctive? Is it that you model
in "quantitative materials" which themselves represent characteristics of
entities (living or not) in a form that can be manipulated in computations
just as the sculptor does in 'clay' to make a model that can be perceived
and even manipulated by others who know how to USE the material.
Scientists have used computational (even before computers existed) to model
populations using quantitative representations of distinguishing
qualitative features of entities in the population for a long time. So now
I'm back to thinking that what is different here is that instead of
modeling a representational subset of a populations as a group relying on
estimates of the distribution of the values represent characteristics of
interest, you are trying to create the representation of a population of
entities by modeling the representation of each individual member of the
population such that your collection of synthetic entities becomes your
population for research, and perhaps in so doing creating such huge
populations of these individual representations, that you still 'sample'
from it. But I understand that what you intend to do someday given
available and future computational power (both hardware and software), is
to not have to sample in a statistical sense, but rather conduct
experiments, build models using individual entities, and answer questions
about the nature of things (entities) never thinkable before because you
treat each and every entity individually in the modeling. (Humm, No such
thing as 'outliers' (?)) So perhaps the key to differentiating what you do
is as simple as saying you do not start out treating populations as
collections, or groups (per the dictionary definition of population) but as
individuals. With the advantage of being able to create populations of
individual entities with whatever characteristics you want. And then do
modeling of any kind that uses them. How would that be different from
Agent based modeling other than in the numbers of agents you can create in
a population and perhaps some degree of granularity in the description of
your agents vs. legacy (?) agent modelers and the ability to include all in
stead of sampling from the population. So maybe what you do Individual
Entity Based, Synthetic Population Modeling. IEBSPM (does not pronounce
well.) I would think that there are two kinds of synthetic population
entities. Those generated from models themselves, and those generated
somehow from real (BIG) data and maybe augmented by synthetic components to
fill assumptions about data that is not available. Either way, the
essence will be in the validity of the individual entities. And that you
have two major components to what you do, one creating, and the other
modeling for research using the populations of individually modeled
entities.
I know, Jacob, I use too many words. But then I am no more an elegant
writer than lots of people I know who are not elegant programmer that can
use short code. J
So I will add one more thought to this. As the outside observer, I read
about (computational) modeling and simulation being the NEW SCIENCE. It's
interesting. And for now I think that means a new SCIENTIFIC METHOD that
will take its place beside or in some cases maybe render obsolete,
classical "Scientific" Observation, Experimentation, ("wet labs science
experiments") and other paradigms called out in the history of the
philosophy of science. I noticed there is a group, which is trying to work
specifically on getting computational modeling recognized as SCIENCE.
Particularly germane in the case of many of you who look to establish the
credibility of Computational Science within the FDA. ????
Aside: maybe need to be careful to make a distinction between "Computer
Scientists" (engineers and software types that create hardware and control
code) and "Computational Scientists who USE the computers if that is not
already very clear.
John
On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 5:05 AM, <popmodwkgrpimag-news-request at simtk.org>
wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. PopModWkGrpIMAG-news Digest, Vol 3, Issue 17 (Hunt, C. Anthony)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:13:51 +0000
> From: "Hunt, C. Anthony" <a.hunt at ucsf.edu>
> Subject: [Population Modeling] PopModWkGrpIMAG-news Digest, Vol 3,
> Issue 17
> To: "popmodwkgrpimag-news at simtk.org" <popmodwkgrpimag-news at simtk.org>
> Message-ID: <D0E14B56.2A387F%a.hunt at ucsf.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> I offer some musings regarding defining population modeling (PM).
> Population modeling is an activity. For members of this group it is a
> process with a purpose. Identifying this group's PM process purposes will
> help to define what PM means to us.
>
> Given those purposes, the processes employed by members of this group are
> drawn from a relatively specialized set of methods. Identifying the
> group's method's will further define what PM means to us.
>
> Given those two constraints, I think that Merriam-Webster Unabridged
> definitions of population are adequate (for our needs):
>
> 1 a : the whole number of people or inhabitants occupying a specific
> geographical locality (as an institution, a country, a world)
> [I might replace "people or inhabitants" with entities]
> 1 b : the total number or amount of things especially within a given area
>
> 2 : the act or process of populating
> [may apply only rarely]
>
> 3 a : a body of persons having some quality or characteristic in common
> and usually thought of as occupying a particular area
> [I might replace "persons" with entities, and (this is minor)
> "area" with
> space]
> 3 b (1) : the organisms inhabiting a particular area or biotope
> 3 b (2) : a group of interbreeding biotypes that represents the level of
> organization at which speciation begins
>
> 4 mathematics : a group of individual persons, objects, or items from
> which samples are taken for measurement statistically
>
>
> -T-
>
> On 1/17/15 2:06 AM, "popmodwkgrpimag-news-request at simtk.org"
> <popmodwkgrpimag-news-request at simtk.org> wrote:
>
> >Today's Topics:
> >
> > 1. Re: Population modeling definition (Jacob Barhak)
> >
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Message: 1
> >Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 04:07:08 -0600
> >From: Jacob Barhak <jacob.barhak at gmail.com>
> >Subject: Re: [Population Modeling] Population modeling definition
> >To: Talitha Feenstra <talitha.feenstra at rivm.nl>
> >Cc: popmodwkgrpimag-news at simtk.org
> >Message-ID:
> > <CAM_y+3S_D1e1GhKA_8C8zvTeijA2_3nEupq61Jx1h-=
> s6mmGAA at mail.gmail.com>
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> >Hi Talitha, Hi John, Hi Olaf, Hi Steve, Hi Stephan, Hi Al, and greeting to
> >all others who have not participated yet.
> >
> >You have contributed thoughts to this discussion. I would like to point to
> >two issues I see and add a third issue to the discussion
> >
> >1. Dictionary like definition:
> >John and Olaf are trying to define the term like a dictionary. In this
> >perspective, I myself would interpret population as: "A collection of X"
> >where X can change as Madhav suggested before. It is probably a noun
> >describing plurality of X.
> >
> >2. Definition by Models included:
> >However, perhaps a more interesting discussion is what kind of models fall
> >into our category. I recall Al and Steve trying to include Markov models,
> >while Talitha and previously Stephan are excluding Markov Cohort models
> >from falling within our definition of population modeling. This is to the
> >best of my understating and I am surprised that Talitha suggested a strict
> >definition since she some of her work is Markov model based.
> >
> >What would you all feel about including Markov models within population
> >modeling only if they stratify the cohort by age, gender, and/or other
> >parameters. And non stratified models will define these as cohort models
> >outside population modeling?
> >
> >3. Modeling of individual uncertainty
> >This is another question. Would we consider description of uncertainty of
> >parameters in an individual within our population modeling group? For
> >example, does defining distribution of height of a person by mean,
> >variance, and distribution function fall into our category? After all we
> >are modeling a single entity from information derived from a population. I
> >would say yes, especially if the information is extracted from a
> >population
> >that we can name. But what about correlation between anthropometric
> >features such as defining the mean ratio between height and arm length as
> >one number? Will one number be sufficient to call it population modeling
> >or do we need a distribution? I would say if the number is associated to a
> >population cohort then perhaps, and defiantly yes if we have several
> >numbers associated with different population cohorts.
> >
> >I am interested to learn more what others think of those questions. I hope
> >others will join this discussion.
> >
> > Jacob
>
>
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> End of PopModWkGrpIMAG-news Digest, Vol 3, Issue 20
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--
"Where there is much desire to learn, here of necessity will be much
arguing,
much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in
the making."
John Milton (1608 - 1674)
Cellular 757 318 0671
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