Bme 140

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
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<p>[Some</a> people have been asking about BME 140](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/680161-washu-workload-3.html]Some”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/680161-washu-workload-3.html), and I didn’t want to hijack that thread, so I started this one instead.</p>

<p>There are 5 modules covered in BME 140. The specifics here are taken from the homework assignments, so I didn’t include anything that was only in the lectures. If you want a copy of files I have from this class, PM me; I don’t want to post them here, as I don’t think the administrators would like that.</p>

<li><p>Bioelectricity
<strong><em>* Action Potential (in cell membranes)
</em></strong><strong><em>* Nernst Equation/Nernst Potential
</em></strong><strong><em>* Goldman Equation (generalized form of Nernst equation; has a very long derivation and involves differential equations)
</em></strong><strong><em>* Donnan Equilibrium
</em></strong><strong><em>* Space charge neutrality
</em></strong><strong><em>* Ion concentration
</em></strong><strong><em>* Ion pumps
</em></strong>__ * Pump flux
_____<strong><em>* Superposition of potentials
</em></strong><strong><em>* Current produced by neurotransmitters
</em></strong><strong><em>* Fourier transform/series (difficult)
_</em></strong>* Neural networks
_<strong><em>* Georgopoulos Tuning Model
_</em></strong>* Impedance/force/pressure on middle ear (modeled as an acoustic impedance matcher)</p></li>
<li><p>Biomechanics
_<strong><em>* Stress/strain
</em></strong><strong><em>* Yield, ultimate, & failure stress/strain
_</em></strong>* Maxwell & Kelvin-Voigt material
____* Free body diagram of force on body parts</p></li>
<li><p>Biostatistics
_<strong><em>* Population/sample mean, standard deviation, & standard error
_</em></strong>* T- & P-tests
_<strong><em>* Mann-Whitney Rank Sum Test
_</em></strong>* Bonferroni Correction</p></li>
<li><p>Biomolecular
_<strong><em>* Gold nanocubes
_</em></strong>* Red shift for various-shaped objects
_<strong><em>* Codons & genes
_</em></strong>* Amino acids
____* Enzyme kinetics (differential equations used here)</p></li>
<li><p>Biotechnology
_<strong><em>* PCR
_</em></strong>* mRNA
_<strong><em>* More codons & genes
_</em></strong>* More enzyme kinetics
_<strong><em>* Rayleigh scattering
_</em></strong>* Model for finding spherical cavity in proteins (don’t know its name)
_<strong><em>* MRI
_</em></strong>* Migration of cells into a graft (differential equations and [Gaussian</a> function](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function]Gaussian”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function) used here)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>The first two topics are pretty difficult, and take place before the withdraw date. There is one midterm, and it covers those two topics.</p>

<p>Biostatistics is a mini-module (1 lecture) and is essentially a rushed summary of the first semester of AP Statistics, for anyone who’s taken it. The last two topics are much easier, and the homework has little to nothing to do with the lectures.</p>

<p>

Calculus 3 is of some help, as you’ll learn about vectors and stuff, but really, I didn’t feel like I learned that much at all in Calculus 3, save the vector calculus at the end of the semester. Topics such as partial derivatives and Fubini’s theorem seemed self-explanatory to me. I don’t recall vector calculus being used in the class, but I’m sure that having Calculus 3 can’t help.</p>

<p>Either way, most of the math stuff you need to know that you don’t is from differential equations.</p>

<p>

Either way is fine if you have the motivation to do it. All you need to know from general physics is torque (which you should already know) and how to solve complicated free body diagrams.</p>

<p>Differential equations, on the other hand, will definitely be useful. I highly recommend teaching yourself differential equations if you are the type of person who feels the need to understand every step when a professor’s lecturing about something. Differential equations is an odd sort of topic; there are no particularly difficult or significant universal concepts. Instead, you just group differential equations into various types (order, linearity, homogeneity, etc.) and use specific algorithms to solve them; it’s often referred to as a cookbook course. I don’t think you will have much difficulty teaching it to yourself.</p>

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<p>No offense, but your suggestion that people teach themselves diff eq before starting school here is a bit ridiculous seeing as how the majority of the incoming bme class will be starting with calc 2. For those who can do this, that’s great, but you’re more than likely just going to intimidate people here when there is no need to actually understand dif eq for the class.</p>

<p>Besides, I have yet to meet an upperclassmen who says you need to actually understand what was presented in bme 140- the majority of it you will never see again and if you do you’ll be taught it properly.</p>

<p>Everyone on this board is making way too big a deal out of bme 140.
It’s not as bad as some are saying, but yes, it is pretty much a worthless class in terms of bme material. The good part of the class- it pretty much teaches you how to survive impossible/ridiculous classes.</p>

<p>Simply put, bme 140 is a weed out class (no matter how much Dr. Yin likes to claim otherwise)- there really isn’t enough room in the department to be teaching an infinite number of bme students, and as past records show it always drops down to about ~85 by second year anyway (which if I’d have to wager a guess, I’d say that makes for smaller class sizes anyhow).</p>

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<p>I completely agree with you Johnson. BME is a great major, let’s stop trying to scare off everyone. </p>

<p>Bottom line - you can’t take 140 second semester. It’s not worth waiting until sophomore year. I wouldn’t waste the time teaching myself anything before I started the class - wait until you’re in the class, get some good reference books if you need them, and put in extra hours on the problem sets with classmates and the TAs, and you’ll pass the course. That’s the most important part, right?</p>

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<p>^Especially since the class is curved so that the majority of the class gets A’s and B’s (the curve is set by the top 5% of the students, and the midterm paper pools everyone into having similar averages).</p>

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<p>you have to write for this class? : ( that sucks. what are the papers like?</p>

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<p>^not bad at all. It’s a topic of your choice, only 10 pages (double spaced).</p>

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<p>
[QUOTE=Johnson181]

No offense, but your suggestion that people teach themselves diff eq before starting school here is a bit ridiculous seeing as how the majority of the incoming bme class will be starting with calc 2. For those who can do this, that’s great, but you’re more than likely just going to intimidate people here when there is no need to actually understand dif eq for the class.

[/quote]
This suggestion is for those who are not comfortable with being unprepared for a class. If you’re fine with not really understanding the material, then you’re not going to drop out of the class. This is purely for those people who would have otherwise dropped out because they don’t want to put up with Dr. Yin’s bullshıt. As I said above:
[QUOTE=srunni]

I highly recommend teaching yourself differential equations if you are the type of person who feels the need to understand every step when a professor’s lecturing about something.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=Johnson181]

Besides, I have yet to meet an upperclassmen who says you need to actually understand what was presented in bme 140- the majority of it you will never see again and if you do you’ll be taught it properly.

[/quote]
Once again, the point of this is to allow people who would otherwise have been weeded out to avoid that.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=mediabob]

what are the papers like?

[/quote]
Do a moderately good job, and it will give you a very nice grade boost. Because the class is curved from the top, as Johnson181 said, almost everyone scoring well on the term paper (which they do) doesn’t mean the curve on it is much worse.</p>

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<p>I actually did randomly recognize problems that we had done in 140 later in my coursework. But at that point nothing that I had learned in 140 was really of any use in solving the problem.</p>

<p>hirako, I think everyone gets your point… there’s no point in beating this to death unless other people have specific questions.</p>

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<p>Is Dr. Yin at least a nice guy?</p>

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<p>I’d say yes, although many people are very intimidated by him.</p>

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<p>The common feeling is that Dr. Yin cares more about grad students than he does undergraduate students. I don’t really agree with that though</p>

<p>I don’t find him to be “nice” but also not a horrible guy.</p>

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<p>Excel skills are definitely helpful as well…</p>