| Course page: |
ON CAMPUS: http://www.math.fsu.edu/~mesterto/G-TM.html (this
page)
OFF CAMPUS:
http://www.math.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/~mesterto/G-TM.html (with your
FSUID username and password) |
| Professor: |
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
|
| Office: |
202B Love |
| Office hours: |
Please check here |
| Phone: |
(850 64) 42580 |
| Main website: |
Professor
M-G's Home Page Email:
|
| Class meets: |
in 102 LOV, Monday to Friday 11:00-12:20 |
| Text: | There is no required text. However, the
following book is highly recommended as a reference, and is on
reserve in Dirac Science Library:
Broom & Rychtář, Game-Theoretical
Models in Biology (CRC Press, 2013, ISBN
9781439853214)
Other books on reserve in Dirac Science Library not only cover
game-theoretic modelling or game theory, but also include
background material on various aspects of animal behavior and
social structure, as well as modelling in general. These books are
as follows (the further down the list, the more
peripheral to the course):
Hofbauer & Sigmund, Evolutionary
Games and Population Dynamics (Cambridge University Press,
1998, ISBN
052162570X)
Samuelson, Evolutionary
Games and Equilibrium Selection (MIT Press, 1997, ISBN
0262193825)
McElreath & Boyd, Mathematical
Models of Social Evolution: A Guide for the Perplexed (University of Chicago
Press, 2007, ISBN
9780226558271)
Davies, Krebs & West, An
Introduction to Behavioural Ecology (4th edition,
Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, ISBN 9781405114165)
Mesterton-Gibbons, A
Concrete Approach to Mathematical Modelling (revised
paperback edition, Wiley-Interscience, 2007, ISBN
9780470171073)
Also, a potentially helpful introductory article for a general
audience is available directly
online:
Mesterton-Gibbons & Adams, Animal
Contests as Evolutionary Games (American Scientist
86,
334-341, 1998) |
| Credit: |
3 semester hours.
|
| Syllabus: | We shall do as much game-theoretic
modelling as we have time for. Details of the syllabus will be an
emergent property of the course. However, the range of topics that
we cover will eventually correspond to the titles of the lectures
to be posted here |
| Prerequisites: | Graduate-student status within
the Department of Mathematics, or my consent |
| Communication: |
I will send email to your FSU email account on a regular
basis. It is your responsibility to check it regularly (or arrange to
have my messages forwarded, if you prefer to read your email
elsewhere) |
| Your name: |
 |
| With
only a few exceptions, I don't know who you are, but because
everything works so much better when I do, I would like to
learn your name as soon as possible. So (unless I already do
know who you are), please take a sheet of card stock (or even
paper), fold it in half, write your name in large letters on
one side and stand it up on your desk so that I can see it.
(Write what you want me to call you: if you're a William who
likes to be called Dubya or a Margaret Jane who likes to be
called Dee Dee, write Dubya or Dee Dee, not William or Margaret
Jane.) Please bring your nameplate to every class until I have
finally learnt your name (which will take significantly longer
than it used to take when I started out) |
|
| Course format: |
Lectures (typically the first hour or so of each period) and
discussion (typically the last 20 minutes) |
| Grades: | Will be based on class participation
(30%) and the preliminary (15%) and final (55%) drafts of a term paper.
The term paper (see below) will contain the primary evidence, not only
that you have understood and appreciated game-theoretic modelling, but
also that you have increased your proficiency in the kinds of
calculations that typify game-theoretic analysis and at communicating
mathematics in writing |
| Term paper: | Select an area of interest within the
sphere of game-theoretic analysis (subject to my approval); within
that area, identify a question about animal (including human) behavior
that game theory has been used to address; and clearly
describe—in an essay whose preferred length is likely in the
vicinity of 15 to 25 pages—the construction, analysis and
implications of at least one such game, including ways in which the
model could be developed further. Your paper may be based on either a
few related papers or a single paper of sufficient depth, but it must
include sufficient evidence that you have replicated—and are not
merely reporting—the calculations on which the results of your
source(s) are based. Most likely, you will corroborate the published
results; however, keep in mind that published work is (very)
occasionally wrong.
A
preliminary draft of your paper should be emailed to me as a pdf file
no later than the beginning of Week 4 (July 15), and the final version of
your pdf file should be emailed to me no later than the end of Week 6
(midnight on August 2).
The final versions
of all term papers will be posted here. The
rationale behind making your term paper available to all is to
maximize the extent to which other students can benefit from having
had you in the class to enlighten them on your chosen topic (and, of
course, so that they can also enlighten you), and thus to greatly
reinforce overall appreciation of the scope of game-theoretic
modelling |
This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format
upon request.
For more information about services available to FSU students with
disabilities, contact the:
On-campus tutoring and writing assistance is available for many courses at
Florida State University. For more information, visit the Academic Center
for Excellence (ACE) Tutoring Services' comprehensive list of on-campus
tutoring options—see http://ace.fsu.edu.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/tutoring or contact
tutor@fsu.edu.
High-quality tutoring is available by appointment and on a walk-in basis.
These services are offered by tutors trained to encourage the highest level
of individual academic success while upholding personal academic integrity.
"Except for changes that substantially affect implementation of the
evaluation (grading) statement, this syllabus is a guide for the course and
is subject to change with advance notice.''