Biostatistics and Mathematical Biology

By Dr Felix Bas || Professor of Botany. || | Central University of Punjab, Bathinda

Learners enrolled: 1479

This 12-week course will thoroughly cover basic statistics essential for scientific research. Traditional course “Biostatistics” offered across Indian universities usually do not cover more advanced topics such as Bayesian probability, Maximum Likelihood, Boxplots, Statistical Power and sampling size estimation, Normality and Outlier tests, Non-linear regression and so on, while all these topics are necessary for research execution and understanding of research methodology as well as interpretation of publications. This course is designed in such a way to compensate for such deficiencies. In addition, 21st century mathematical skills essential for scientists in general and biologists in particular are covered thoroughly as part of this course, including levels of measurements, permutations and combinations, tests for categorical data including Relative Risk, Odds Ratio and so on. Fun facts and games included in the course is expected to pique interest among the participants. Substantial time is spared to solve practice problems on whiteboard, making comprehension easy. The course is application oriented, and more importance is given to deciding which statistical significance test to use, how to analyze the data and so on using computational software. At the same time, manual solutions using white board and statistical tables are also extensively incorporated to facilitate deeper understanding of statistical algorithms. Some of the essential topics relevant to scientific research in 2024, including regression models for Artificial Intelligence are also touched upon, making the course up to date and highly useful.

This 4-credit course is principally targeted towards Postgraduate (PG) students in Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Commerce, Humanities, and Social Sciences. As a bonus, screencast hands-on training of performing advanced statistical tests using Microsoft Excel ® and GraphPad Prism ® are also included in the final week, enabling the students to get things done with their own data using these two popular statistical software.

This MOOC is one of the most popular courses at Swayam platform with over 15,000 enrollees till date. In 2020 this course was ranked at seventh outstanding online course in the world, an exceptional recognition for a MOOC at international level.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Core
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Biological Sciences & Bioengineering
Credit Points :	4
Level :	Postgraduate
Start Date :	15 Jan 2024
End Date :	30 Apr 2024
Enrollment Ends :	29 Feb 2024
Exam Date :	25 May 2024 IST
Exam Shift :	Shift - II

Note: This exam date is subjected to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1

Biostatistics and Mathematical Biology: An Introduction, Types of studies

Week 2

Levels of measurements Summarizing the Data: Tabular Presentation

Week 3

Summarizing the Data: Graphical Presentation Charting with Excel

Week 4

Descriptive statistics: Point Estimates Descriptive Statistics: Interval Estimates Error Bars

Week 5

Moments, Normality Tests and Outliers Concepts of Population, Sample and Confidence Interval

Week 6

Statistical Hypothesis Testing Statistical Significance and P-Values Relationship between Confidence Intervals and Statistical Significance

Week 7

Statistical Power and Choosing the right Sample Size t-Distribution and tests of significance based on t-distribution F-distribution and tests of significance based on F distribution

Week 8

χ2 Distribution and tests of significance based on χ2 distribution Comparing Proportions Gaussian, Binomial, Lognormal and Poisson Distributions

Week 9

Pearson’s Correlation Simple Linear Regression Non-Linear Regression

Week 10

Nonparametric tests Permutations and Combinations

Week 11

Probability Bayes Theorem and Likelihood

Week 12

Statistics with MS Excel and GraphPad Prism Key concepts of statistics Statistical Pitfalls to Avoid

Books and references

Bast, F. (2023). Biostatistics and Mathematical Biology. Pearson India, ISBN 978-93-560-6626-7 Amazon link

Motulsky, H. (2014). Intuitive biostatistics: a nonmathematical guide to statistical thinking. Oxford University Press, USA. Amazon link

Van Belle, G., Fisher, L. D., Heagerty, P. J., & Lumley, T. (2004). Biostatistics: a methodology for the health sciences(Vol. 519). John Wiley & Sons.

Le, C. T., & Eberly, L. E. (2016). Introductory biostatistics. John Wiley & Sons.

Instructor bio

Dr Felix Bas || Professor of Botany. ||

Central University of Punjab, Bathinda

Prof. Felix Bast (Wikipedia) is an award-winning Indian science communicator and a public educator working as a Full Professor at the Central University of Punjab, India. He is a member of the high-profile governing Council of the Paris-based International Science Council, an elected fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and a member of IUCN, Geneva. He holds PhD in Marine Biology from MEXT, Japan (alumnus of Monbukagakusho:MEXT Japanese Govt. international doctoral fellowship), and served as an expedition scientist in the Indian Antarctic Mission. As a phycologist studying the taxonomy of marine algae (also called Seaweeds), Prof. Bast discovered seven new species of marine algae and moss from India and Antarctica. He is an alumnus of IIT Bombay, University of Washington-US, Marine Biological Association of UK-Plymouth, UK, and Leibniz Institute of Tropical Marine Research, Bremen- Germany. Prof. Bast served as an in-residence intern with the President of India at Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi and received "President's Inspired Teacher" recognition (2015). He also won the Teaching Innovator Award from the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India (2019). He spread the word of scientific thinking through several media, including YouTube, school outreach talks, magazine articles, blogs, and books. A TEDx speaker, Prof. Bast's works have been featured in numerous media, including All India Radio, Rajya Sabha TV, BBC, The Independent, The Hindu, Indian Express, Times of India etc. For research and dissemination purposes, he visited 26 countries. He has over 129 peer-reviewed papers, published 7 books, won 16 research projects amounting to 2.8 Crore rupees, and guided 17 PhD theses.

Prof. Bast is an advocate of a sustainable lifestyle- a primary focus of his works. He is an avid cyclist who often commutes to his workplace by cycle. Prof. Bast is also a runner, a frequent blood donor, and an advocate of zero-waste and low-carbon footprint lifestyle. Prof. Bast has also signed up for posthumous whole-body donation for medical and forensic education and research through NOTTO, the Government of India. His previous books include Voyage to Antarctica (Vigyan Prasar/Govt of India), Arctic Circle (Amazon/KDP), Life Skills: Manual of Critical Thinking and Soft Skills (White Falcon), and Antartikan Prayanam (Kerala Bhasha Institute, in Malayalam Published in 2024).