Calculus Review

BMED3510A

Luis Fonseca
llfonseca@gatech.edu

BMED3510 Section A
TA:

William A Shockey
ashockey@gatech.edu
Office hours: TBD
Format:

Summary
Functions
Derivatives
Notion of approximation (Taylor series)
ODEs
Numerical solution of an ODE

Important properties of functions

Domain and Range
Boundedness
Continuity
Extrema (local & absolute)
Asymptotes (vertical, horizontal or slant)
End behavior

Boundedness
Unbounded
function

Are these two functions well defined?

Bounded
function
Range

X
Domain

Extrema
Y

Global
maximum

Is this function well defined?

Local
maxima

Local
minima

Global
minimum

Asymptotic behavior
Y

Does Y approach to some value when X goes to infinity?

Is this function well

defined?

Well behaved and defined function?

Y

Is this function well defined?

Is this function in domain 0<X<a well defined?
Is this function in domain 0<X<a well behaved?

Linear Function

Logarithmic & Exponential Functions

Power Functions

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biomath/tutorials/power/GraphingPowerFunctions.html

Power Functions (cont.)

http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biomath/tutorials/power/GraphingPowerFunctions.html

Trigonometric functions

Derivative of a function
lim

f a h f a

h 0

is called the derivative of

We write:

f x lim

The derivative of

f x h f x

h 0

f at a .

with respect to

x is

Differentiability

All differentiable functions are continuous.

However, if a function is continuous, it is
not always differentiable. (y=|x| has a
corner which is not differentiable at x=0.)

CORNERS

CUSPS

DISCONTINUITIES
VERTICAL TANGENTS

Example

Compute first order derivative of = 2 +

4 at = 3
()
+ ()
Shortcut

= lim

()
3 + (3)
= 2 21 + 0 = 2 = 6

= lim
0

(3 + )2 +4 32 4
= lim
0

9 + 6 + 2 9
= lim
0

= lim (6 + ) 6
0

Differentiation shortcuts

d
f g x f g x g x
Chain Rule:
dx

Ordinary & Partial Derivatives

The ordinary derivative of a function of several variables with
respect to one variable assumes that all variables are
dependent on each other.
The partial derivative of a function of several variables with
respect to one variable assumes that all variables are
independent.
For a function of two variables f(x , y ) ,
the ordinary derivative with respect to x is:

Approximations
Why do we need approximations?
Chemical master equation
Mass action kinetics
Michaelis-Menten rate law
Newtons law

Concerns:
Accuracy
Range

Taylor series

Well-behaved functions can be approximated using Taylor series

2
3
4

x a
x a
x a
x a
f x f a f ' a
f ' ' a
f ' ' ' a
f ' ' ' ' a
.....

1!

2!

3!

4!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series

Taylor series - examples

2
3
4

x a
x a
x a
x a
f x f a f ' a
f ' ' a
f ' ' ' a
f ' ' ' ' a
.....

1!

2!

3!

Calculate the 7th order approximation of

sin(x) @ x=0

4!

Solving ODEs
Analytical solutions
Example of X=aX
dX
aX
dt
dX
a dt ....
X

Exponential processes are

used in many areas:

Chemical reactions
Electrostatics
Biology
Toxicology
Radioactivity
Luminescence

Solving ODEs: Euler method

Numerical solutions

= (, )

Euler method
Y

+1 = + ( , )

Initial condition

(0 , 0 )

First solution

Second solution

Solving ODEs

Numerical vs analytical solutions

Analytical methods return a function =

Numerical methods return a set of

Errors in Euler method

Local error
Global error
Rounding error

Questions