User talk:Nathan R. Beshai

Week 2 Feedback

• Thank you for submitting your assignment on time. Here is the feedback on your assignment.
• You wrote something in the summary field for 41 out of 41 saves (100%) since Week 1, which is excellent! Keep up the good work!
• You invoked your template late--I'm sure you will be on time with this moving forward, as we discussed.
• The purpose that you wrote was more of a "learning" purpose instead of a "scientific" purpose.
  • You wrote: Observe how modeling can affect and influence the treatment of current and future pandemics and epidemics using COVID-19 as an example.
  • I would revise it to be: To explore a SIR model by changing the parameters to explain the course of current and future pandemics, using COVID-19 as an example.
• Please combine your Methods and Results into one section called "Methods & Results" with no separate subsections. In doing this, you will describe what you did and then show the results as a chronological narrative of what you did. You should also then answer the questions posed in the protocol at the place they appear in chronological order. Please let me know if you have questions about this.
• With regard to your question from the video:
  • Shouldn't we re-open the country when the curve is far below the healthcare capacity and close when the rate reaches close to the capacity?
    • Yes, that is the appropriate public health strategy. However, actual opening/closing policies are being affected by other political factors.
• Your interpretations of the model graphs after you manipulated the parameters were good.
• Your explanation of the Giordano et al. (2020) article and XKCD comic were good.
• Your conclusion needs to also be more specific. Restate in more detail some of the main findings that you made from manipulating the model parameters.
• Please put your Academic Honesty statement at the bottom of your Acknowledgments section instead of at the end of the page.
• To answer your questions that you posted in the class journal:
  • Is it true that antibodies for COVID-19 only lasts for around 6 months? If so, how do we prevent an outbreak every couple of months?
    • It might be too early to know this for sure, but we should be getting more information on this soon. It's possible that we might need an annual COVID-19 vaccination like we need an annual flu shot.
  • Going forward, would it be better to create a huge surplus of masks or manufacture our own masks as Germany did and were successful at?
    • I'm not sure, but it seems that both strategies would be good, for redundancy.
  • Are the science community going to pivot the research on viruses to any specific branch after the current pandemic?
    • That's an interesting question. Essentially you are asking if there will be a lasting effect on what scientists study--I don't know.

— Kam D. Dahlquist (talk) 00:03, 1 October 2020 (PDT)

Week 1 Feedback

I will be posting the feedback on your weekly assignments on your talk page. You will be able to earn back the points you lost on the Week 1 assignment by making the changes listed below by the Week 3 deadline on 12:01 am, Thursday, September 24. Here is the feedback for Week 1.

• Thank you for submitting your assignment on time.
• You completed all of the tasks except for the following:
  • You wrote something in the summary field 44 out of 51 saves (86%). That is pretty good, but remember, we are aiming for 100%.
  • For your snail mail address, use "Department of Biology" instead of LSB 101 (building and room numbers aren't used on the official postal mail addresses.
  • Please make a hyperlink to an external website on your user page. This could be to the LMU homepage, for example, or any site that you think is relevant.
  • You need to have three levels of headers, "==", "===", and "====". You are missing the "====" level.
  • Please correct the spelling of the word "assignments".
  • Note that there is no Week 13 assignment, so you can remove that link from your list of assignments, individual journal, and class journal links.
  • You have made your template, but you still need to invoke it on your User page. What you have done is copy over the content. To invoke the template, add the code {{Nathan R. Beshai}} to your User page. You can then delete the redundant code. Let me or Annika know if you have questions.
  • Please provide a link to your partner's user page in your Acknowledgments section.
  • Don't forget to include the Academic Honesty statment: "Except for what is noted above, this individual journal entry was completed by me and not copied from another source." Then put your wiki signature next to this statement instead of at the bottom of the page.
  • Please cite the Denning and Janovy readings in your References section.
• I resonate with your observation that a sense of responsibility is part of being a biologist.

— Kam D. Dahlquist (talk) 11:39, 17 September 2020 (PDT)