• home

Join Zoom Meeting https://uvic.zoom.us/j/86446905312?pwd=eX04WXRYrp4sau8q8XPshcoaNHa8E4.1
Meeting ID: 864 4690 5312
Password: 003745

Abstract: Comparative genomics offers valuable insights into evolutionary biology, uncovering patterns such as whole-genome duplications, gene retention, and gene loss. Polyploidization, a widespread evolutionary process, plays a pivotal role in shaping the genomes of plants and certain animal species. This talk examines the mechanisms of polyploidization and its evolutionary impact, including processes like gene retention, divergence, and adaptive evolution. By utilizing metrics such as gene pair similarity and synonymous substitution rates (Ks), alongside advanced tools like synteny analysis, we investigate methods to differentiate ancient and recent whole-genome duplication (WGD) events. The presentation also outlines potential future directions, emphasizing the integration of statistical mathematics, data science, and bioinformatics to address questions in evolutionary biology.

Brief Bio: Dr. Yue Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Thompson Rivers University. Holding a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Ottawa, specializing in comparative genomics within bioinformatics, Dr. Zhang’s research spans computational biology, data science, and evolutionary genomics. Dr. Zhang previously worked as a research associate at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. Her work focuses on developing computational methods to analyze whole-genome duplication events, gene divergence, and retention patterns in polyploid genomes. Dr. Zhang has guided multiple student research projects and has received internal and external grants, including NSERC Discovery Grant, to advance research in genome evolution. With a interest in addressing biological questions, Dr. Zhang seeks to advance bioinformatics research and foster connections between related fields.

Abstract: Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is based on swarm intelligence and widely used in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Like many other nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms, it is already widely used to tackle all sorts of hard optimization problems across disciplines, particularly in engineering and computer science. Interestingly, it is less used in the statistical sciences. Their meteoric rise in popularity is due to their ease of use, speed, availability of codes across different platforms and above all, their apparent lack of technical assumptions for them to work reasonably well. I focus on an exemplary algorithm PSO and, as examples, present some of the recent applications of PSO to find challenging optimal designs in the biomedical sciences. They include extensions of Simon’s two-stage designs to multiple stages, and theory-based dose response designs for estimating the optimal biological dose in early phase clinical trials. If time permits, I will also discuss applications of PSO and its variants for tackling non-design optimization problems in statistics.

Professor Wong has been a faculty member at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA since 1990. His early work includes rheumatology (scleroderma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis), dentistry, environmental health science, cancer control and prevention, and intervention trials to fight obesity. His main methodological work is in finding efficient designs for the biomedical sciences. He has received multiple NIH grant awards, including serving as PI on several of them. He has given about 260 scientific presentations worldwide, including a 1-week short course at the Centre of Toxicology Center in Dortmund Technical University, Germany, and as an invited speaker, at the 16th Annual Conference on Statistical Issues in Clinical Trials, University of Pennsylvania, and at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Society of Clinical Trials. Prof. Wong is a fellow of the American Statistical Society, the Institute of the Mathematical Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Elected Member of International Statistical Institute and a full member of the Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. He currently holds a Yushan Scholarship Award from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan.