BIOL398-01/S10:Class Journal Week 6

KP Ramirez

1. The purpose of the assignment this week was to begin working on our experiments that we had begun last week. I started by downloading the raw data visit from my subjects and using the biology workbench and the clustdist tools to generate unrooted trees. This was followed by graphing the T-Cell decline from the raw data excel graphs. After this time was spent to see the similarities between our new paper and how it related to our study.
2. What I learned from this week just more of getting comfortable with Biology workbench as well as analyzing data in different ways.
3. For the most part I understand everything so far, i'm just trying to make sure that the connections between papers are clear

KP Ramirez 2:37 February 28 2010

Individual week 6

Salomon Garcia

1. The purpose of this assignment was to continue working on what we as a group had began working on and to further elaborate on our work in order to complete our presentation that will be presented on Tuesday.
2. One of the most important things that I've learned while working on this assignment was to interpret the data that was in front of me and to better understand Biology Workbench and how a great of a tool it is if used correctly.

J'aime Moehlman

1. The purpose of this assignment was to work on the experiment questions we designed from the Markham article last week. We also worked on putting this information together in a powerpoint presentation in order to share our data/discoveries with the rest of the class. This process also helped us become more comfortable with the Biology Workbench in determining whether or not our hypothesis was correct.
2. What I learned this week was how to analyze the data we needed from the Biology Workbench, I also learned how to recover from discovering that our hypothesis may not be accurate and how to work through that in our research project. I learned that sometimes a research project doesn't necessarily go the way that you want it to go, but that this is okay; and that it helps you discover other questions that you have based on the original hypothesis made.
3. This week really helped me understand how to use the Biology workbench as well as how to tie in a related article we chose from ISI. It also really cleared up any confusion I had regarding the Markham article and how to create a research project.

J'aime C. Moehlman 21:48, 28 February 2010 (EST)

Week 6 Assignment

Michael Piña

1. What was the purpose of this assignment?
   • The purpose of this assignment was to answer the question we has regarding the paper on our own (with some guidance, of course). Also, to organize a Powerpoint presentation in the manner of a professional.
2. What did I learn from this assignment (head, hands, heart)?
   • With my head I learned that there is a lot of missing data in the Markham article. I had to focus on the data so that I could interpret it to answer my question. This was not so easy because for the data I was looking at (dS-dN values) there wasn't really any explanation as to how they got them; Dr. Dahlquist explained to me that they authors likely converted the value in to a log scale so it would be more consistent with the other data.
   • With my hands we were required to perform the exercises from last week again so I got more practice using the Biology Workbench tools so I feel more comfortable with them now.
   • I enjoy working with a partner and we were actually available to meet multiple times outside of class which is a rarity but something that I find very beneficial.
3. What did I not understand (yet) about this assignment?
   • The additional article that we found has a lot of data. Although I think my partner and I came to a conclusion about it, I will talk to Dr. Dahlquist about it to make sure.

Individual Week 6

Janelle N. Ruiz

1. The purpose of this week's assignment was to begin analyzing the data we acquired last week and to begin to think about the organization and flow of our presentation. We also were able to see the fruit of our work through the results we obtained.
2. What I learned from this week was how to work well with my partner (who is awesome, by the way). I also learned the results of our analysis and since we did have significant differences between our groups, this was exciting! Additionally, I learned that research is imperfect, even in bioinformatics. I was surprised by some of the issues we found with the Markham article analysis. For example, KP and I realized that there were many missing data points and also that not all of the data was presented in the original article, which surprised us.
3. I understand a lot more about the data today than I did last week, having delved into it quite a bit now.

Janelle N. Ruiz 20:48, 28 February 2010 (EST)

Janelle N. Ruiz Assignment 6