Kristine Buddemeyer's blog

The model is done! I added both the Reproduction and Rescale functions and can actually start doing some experiments next week. So that is pretty exciting. If I have enough time, I'd like to get some graphical output going that I could show at the final presentation (less than two weeks away, this summer has flown by!)

It seems that I've been getting the hang of MATLAB a little bit this past week, so I actually made decent progress. I added a growth function to the model and also allowed for the diatoms to reproduce. (The diatoms reproducing is pretty generic at this point, but they aren't the main focus of the model. If I had more than ten weeks to work on this model, this would be one of the things that I'd like to make more realistic.) So that leaves the zooplankton reproduction function and then the model will be done!

I don't have too many interesting details on the project for this week. I have been slowly but steadily adding more layers to my IBM. I have been working on the eating and movement behavior of the zooplankton. I would say that a majority of my time this week has been spent in trying to make the model run faster. MATLAB is very user friendly, but not very efficient if you ask me. I bet if I was more familiar with it, I'd know some more tricks to get it to run faster. But it still runs! So I guess that is the important part.

So, this week I actually got my phytoplankton to move! Which isn't all that exciting I bet, but I've never used MATLAB before this summer so getting the animation to work was pretty exciting.

I also met with Karen, my senior mentor, this week to update her on my progress and get her feedback. This week, I'll be adding some more information to the program and hopefully by next week or the one after, I should be able to run some experiments.

Most of this week was spent mainly in going through Grant's code from his two-dimensional IBM to get a feel for how I should start constructing mine. Also, in the beginning of the week, I spent some time preparing my mid-summer presentation.

This week was really busy around the center. We had the NSF visit, which gave us interns a chance to see presentations about all aspects of the center. As far as my own work goes, I've been doing a lot of research about how zooplankton function, move, eat...etc. That way, I can make my model as realistic as possible.

This week, like last week, was spent mainly in reading and learning about the project. In particular, I spent a lot of time going through Marta's paper and paying particularly close attention to her growth function for zooplankton. There were quite a few of the biology and ecology related terms and ideas that were unfamiliar, but it was fun to learn about them and discover how interrelated all of the ocean organisms are. I was also surprised to notice my own progress throughout the week.

This was a great introduction week to both CMOP and the state of Oregon itself. I've been doing a lot of adjusting, but it's been great!

Coming from the East Coast, it's an exciting experience to get to know the Portland area. And, as a math major, I've been spending a lot of time this week doing some literature reviews to get up to speed with the ecological information needed in my project.