DLR 4: Epidemiology – Discussion
Instructions
We Are All Responsible for Maintaining Academic Integrity
Read the Academic Integrity section of this Pressbook, including the resources we have provided.
While you are responsible for ensuring you do not commit academic dishonesty (e.g. plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration) according to any of the relevant offenses and explanations listed in McMaster’s Academic Integrity Policy (e.g. section 18 and Appendix 3), we have provided additional details regarding expectations for the LIFESCI 2L03 assessments. You are responsible for reading our expectations in regards to appropriate academic behavior (e.g. for group vs. individual work) and how to reference sources of information for individual assignments.
In order for your assignment to be graded, you must acknowledge on the assessment cover page that you have read the Academic Integrity section of this Pressbook and our expectations (see the links above). The cover page template provided to you contains this acknowledgement.
Refer to the ‘Discussion‘ section of the lab report writing guide (LRWG) for details on how to prepare this section
- This LRWG section, in addition to this assignment overview page, acts as the SPECIFICATIONS for what we are expecting for a submission to be graded with a pass
- Recall that DLRs are graded as pass/fail
- If you do not submit this assessment, it will be noted as 0 in the Avenue to Learn gradebook
- A submission that does not meet the specifications will receive a fail (noted as a 1 in the Avenue to Learn gradebook)
- A submission that meets the specifications will receive a pass (noted as a 2 in the Avenue to Learn gradebook)
- A submission that exceeds the specifications will receive a pass (noted as a 3 in the Avenue to Learn gradebook)
- These numerical notations are not percentages, scores, or anything that can be used to mathematically calculate a new value. In fact, a 2 and a 3 are identical when we record your final letter grade at the end of the semester.
- You should refer back to the GradeGrid if you want a refresher of how DLR completion is used to determine your final letter grade in the course at the end of the semester
- As you can see, a discussion clearly and directly states what you think the data shows (your interpretation of the data) and explains why the results are important, using primary research literature (journal articles) to support the findings. Its main purpose is to relate the scientific meaning and significance of the data to the overall field(s) of study (e.g. anthropology, human anatomy, kinesiology, human physiology, etc.).
- After you have completed lab and your ELN, write a discussion based on the results you obtained in your two experiments.
- Here are some guiding questions to consider when writing your discussion. You aren’t going to structure your discussion in order of these, or even answer them directly. They are meant to provoke some thinking about what overarching results are worth discussing in your paragraphs:
- What other factors should be considered in a campus outbreak?
- Based on what you know about influenza and the transmission process, what trends do you predict will be observed when you manipulate each parameter? Consider what manipulating each parameter in the simulation could be compared to in a real life influenza outbreak in a population of humans.
- Based on your results from experiment 1 (no control strategies implemented, Base Seasonal Model only), what were you able to conclude about the parameter you manipulated and the impact it had on the outbreak? (consider expressing the trend using words like positively or negatively correlated, or describing the relationship in terms of how the measured end point changed).
- Based on your results from experiment 2 (your selected control strategy model), what were you able to conclude about the efficacy of that control strategy in controlling the scale of an outbreak? Was there a threshold below which where the control strategy impact seemed negligible, and above which the impact seemed more noticeable? (Avoid using statistics terms, such as “significant,” if you have not conducted a statistical test). What sort of physiological meaning does this result have? (This is where you will start to look to literature to support your findings).
- Based on your initial predictions, do these findings align with your expectations regarding the impact of your control strategy? If not, look to the literature to suggest why this may be. Why might there be inconsistencies?
- Consider the usage of a software simulation for this study, as opposed to trying to conduct this study in a human population. How conclusively can studies such as this be related to human health and the guidance health care professionals receive each flu season? What are the pros and cons?
- What additional types of studies could be explored using this software platform (i.e. future directions)? What is the overall significance of this research (i.e. conclusions)?
- Must be 500 words or less including in-text citations (cover page and references list are not going to be included towards this word count). Anything written after the word limit will not be considered when assessing your answer.
- NOTE: Your DLR assignments MUST include the course cover page in order to be graded. Failure to include the cover page will result in a failed assignment. We require the cover page because it serves as an agreement that you comply with the course academic integrity policy.
- Make sure you have read and understand our expectations regarding appropriate academic behaviour, specifically as it pertains to the use of quotes (no!), paraphrasing (yes!) and referencing (absolutely!)
- While you can use the personal notes you have taken during the class and group discussions to help guide your research, you need to use appropriate resources and provide references when completing this part of the assignment
- Details on the types of resources (references) that are appropriate for LIFESCI 2L03
- Help on evaluating different sources of information using the CRAAP criteria