|
Darren
Gray (BME) |
|
Douglas Murphy |
Cell Biology |
Not Specified |
 |
Draw a typical epithelial layer. |
|
|
How do molecules get across epithelial
layers? |
|
|
How could you determine the rates of
passage through/between epithelial cells? |
|
|
What equation(s) are relevant to
molecules diffusing between cells? |
|
|
How could you image this? |
|
|
What are relative advantages and
disadvantages of optical vs. electron microscopy for imaging this
situation? |
|
|
Howard Fairbrother |
MaterialsSci |
Not Specified |
|
|
What's the difference between metal,
semiconductor, and polymer surfaces? |
|
|
What is surface relaxation. Why does it
happen? What are relative amounts of relaxatin on polymer,
semiconductor, and metal. Why? |
|
|
Why are some oxide layers stable?
Do oxides surface relax more or less than plain metal? |
|
|
Where is the weak point in a metal
covered with a metal oxide? Why? How does this cracking
between oxide and plain aluminum cause an airplane to fail?
|
|
|
What are the different types of depth
profiling? What do they help you see?
|
|
|
Why is imaging XPS resolution poor? |
|
|
Why is Augier surface sensititve? |
|
|
Christopher Chen |
BME |
Not Specified |
|
|
Draw an amino acid. |
|
|
Draw a protein molecule and explain how
the amino acids form this. |
|
|
How long is a typical Carbon-carbon bond? |
|
|
Using 4 angstroms as a typical C-C bond,
estimate the volume of a 30kD
protein. |
|
|
How does a cell get out of a blood
vessel? |
|
|
Why is elastin elastic? Why is it
different in tension vs compression? |
|
|
What are the basic components of a
typical heart valve. (this built off my previous valve design research) |
|
|
Why is the valve made out of these
things? |
|
|
Why does a mechanical valve fail before a
physiological valve? |
|
|
Why does "fixed" porcine valve fail
before living valve? |
|
|
Would cells invade a "fixed" valve? If
so, how? |
|
|
What happens during fixation? |
|
|
Andrew Douglas |
MechE |
Not Specified |
|
|
Develop model for populations of gazelles
and cheetahs if there is unlimited food for the gazelles. Is this model
linear? ODE or PDE? |
|
|
What's the difference between on ODE and
a PDE? |
|
|
Graph out the course that the 2
populations (cheetah and gazelles) would take. Find equilibrium point
using dimensional analysis. |
|
|
How could you solve this type of equation
numerically? |
|
|
What is the significance of time steps in
numerical solutions? How does the equation determine appropriate time
steps? |
|
|
What is the diffusion equation? |
|
|
How do you get from the diffusion
equation to a characteristic diffusion length? |
|
|
Mark Soloski |
Immunology |
Not Specified |
|
|
How does T cell antigen recognition
take place? Explain and draw relevant molecules. How is the antigen
processed? |
|
|
How does T cell internal receptor
signaling work? |
|
|
What is the composition of the T cell
receptor? |
|
|
What is the basic structure of an MHC
gene product molecule? |
|
|
Which parts of the T cell receptor and
the MHC molecule are variable? |
|
|
Where does antigen bind the MHC
molecule? Describe the structure of this binding cleft? |
|
|
How could you detect the protein
contents of a single cell? (This built off my research project.) |
|
|
Faisal
Karmali (BME) |
|
Mark Shelhamer |
Otolaryngology |
Vestibular and Oculomotor Systems |
|
|
Draw trajectory of the NASA KC-135 "Vomit
Comet", its velocity and accelerations.
Shadmehr:
What force field do the occupants feel?
Shadmehr:
What forces does a passenger on a Merry-go-round feel? |
|
|
Forces on a satellite orbiting earth. |
|
|
Hypothesize a mechanism for space
motion sickness. |
|
|
Ernst Niebur |
Neuroscience |
Computational Neuroscience |
|
|
Cable theory: assumptions; round vs.
spherical neuron; derivations. |
|
|
Phase plane analysis of neuron: dV/dt=f(v)-W,
dW/dt=-V |
|
|
Reza Shadmehr |
BME |
Biomechanics and Motor Control |
|
|
How does the brain overcome delay? |
|
|
Draw a model. Modify model for
local feedback. |
|
|
Alan Goldman |
MathSci |
Dynamical Systems and Chaos |
|
|
Draw phase plane. What methods
can be used to analyze stability? |
|
|
Linearization/Jacobian. |
|
|
Bistability and how it relates to E.S. |
|
|
Arrhythmias and their relation to the
phase plane. |
|
|
Gregory Chirikjian |
MechE |
Computational Methods of Engin. Math |
|
|
(Dr. Chirikjian asked me what section
of the course I would like to be tested on) |
|
|
How would you integrate over a sphere?
(As I was deriving the dA, he stopped me and asked the next question) |
|
|
Can you argue geometrically what dA
would be? (I didn't get it, but his answer was that as you go up
lines of latitude on Earth, the dA gets smaller, so you need a phi in
there) |
|
|
Fan Yang
(BME) |
|
Jennifer Elisseeff |
BME |
Primary Advisor
Tissue Engineering |
|
|
Research-related questions
|
|
|
Kevin Yarema |
BME |
Cellular Engineering |
|
|
Glycobiology |
|
|
Leukocytes tethering process |
|
|
Michael Yu |
MaterialsSci |
Biological and Chemical Properties of Materials |
|
|
Research-related questions |
|
|
Polymer questions |
|
|
Emaneul Horowitz |
MaterialsSci |
Biocompatibility |
|
|
Biocompatibility issues in implants |
|
|
Material selection and
characteristics, etc. |
|
|
B. Garcia-Moreno |
Biophysics |
Physical Chemistry of Biological Macromolecules |
|
|
Biophysics of protein-related
questions |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Kam Leong (BME) |
|
|
K. Konstantopolous (ChemE)
|
|
|
Elias
Issa (BME) |
|
Xiaoqin Wang |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
|
|
Explain how sound is transduced to electrical impulses.
|
|
|
What do responses in auditory nerve look like?
|
|
|
Where would sound localization take place?
|
|
|
What kind of neurons needed to localize sound?
|
|
|
How would neurons in MSO differ from neurons in the LSO synaptically?
|
|
|
How is location represented in cortex?
|
|
|
How would stimulus following properties of neurons change as get to cortex
(i.e. what constrains temporal coding as go higher up)?
|
|
|
How would you preserve temporal information in the face of this degradation?
|
|
|
Eric Young |
BME |
Models of the Neuron |
|
|
He wanted to talk about how to use
MOTN to explain the non-synchronized population of click train
responding neurons. |
|
|
How would you create a rate neuron? |
|
|
How would integration be implemented? |
|
|
How get integrate and fire neurons? |
|
|
What is the membrane equation? |
|
|
Take Laplace Transform, and tell me
when it is linear and therefore an integrate and fire neuron? |
|
|
What happens to input if goes from
dendrite to soma? |
|
|
In cable theory, is the signal
filtered, attenuated or what? |
|
|
Ed Connor |
Neuroscience |
Primate Vision
Lab Rotation |
|
|
Reference frames in different areas? |
|
|
Where would different reference frames
be needed and why? |
|
|
Explain visual gain field. Show the
classical histogram data of Mountcastle and Andersen study. |
|
|
If had an auditory responsive neuron
in dark room what are the possible reference frames? |
|
|
What would the response be like in a
retinotopic reference frame? What would it be like in a head-centered
reference frame? |
|
|
What is the result Andersen paper
found? (turned out was a mixture of frames depending on neuron) |
|
|
Explain how would build up view
invariance. |
|
|
What is needed in 2D projection based
representation for it to work? |
|
|
Daniel Naiman |
MathSci |
Statistics |
|
|
Write the Strong Law of Large Numbers. |
|
|
Write the Central Limit Theorem. |
|
|
Write the Likelihood Function. |
|
|
Show me that maximum likelihood
estimator gives good estimator in the sense of consistency. |
|
|
Howard Weinert |
ECE |
DSP |
|
|
Write the DTFT. |
|
|
Is that enough information or too
much? |
|
|
What is a smaller version of the DFT? |
|
|
Do the samples have to be evenly
spaced in the DFT? |
|
|
What is the inverse DFT? |
|
|
What happens when you zero-pad the DFT? |
|
|
On what order is the number of
calculations of the DFT? |
|
|
On what order is the number of
calculations of the FFT? |
|
|
What is the restriction on the FFT? |
|
|
How would you do linear convolution
using DFT's? |
|
|
What is the z-transfrom? |
|
|
What is its relation to the DTFT? |
|
|
How do we know when DTFT exists using
z-transforms? |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
James Fill (MathSci) |
|
|
Jerry Prince (ECE) |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Vatsun (Dr. Wang) |
|
|
Simil (Dr. Weinert) |
|
|
Chris DiMattina (Dr. Connor/Statistics) |
|
|
Vince (Dr. Connor) |
|
|
Sharba (Dr. Young) |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
I studied for 23 days which comes out to
4-5 days per subject. In reality, I studied more for some subjects and less
for others. On the GBO, the thing that gave me problems was understanding
what the professors were asking and what they were pointing toward with
their line of questions. Many of the questions are about something you know.
The
difficulty is finding out what it is that you know that relates to the
question. I scheduled my GBO 2 months in advance, but then I had to change
it twice. I had this trouble because I was scheduling for June when a lot of
EE and math sci. professors leave for vacation. (BME professors tend to be
gone in August). I would recommend scheduling at times when professors are
constrained to be in Baltimore such as by having to teach classes. Note that
if your professor is going on sabbatical, then it probably starts July 1 not
in the Fall, so don't wait until the fall to schedule. A few people I know
had theirs scheduled in less than 2 weeks because they had the GBO during
the semester. Here is a very simple tip: AT LEAST IN YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH
ANY PROFESSOR THAT YOU ASK TO BE ON YOUR GBO, DO IT FACE
TO FACE AND NOT BY EMAIL. There are multiple reasons for doing this. The
primary of which is that email makes it easier for professors to say no or
to dodge the question without you having a chance to answer back. Talking to
a professor makes it easier to accommodate them or explain the situation on
the spot. Finally, after you finish your GBO, make sure to realize that it
is done and don't think about it too much. Give yourself a free weekend to
do what you want and then start back up on whatever it is that you are
doing. |
|
Charles
Fisher (BME) |
|
Scot Kuo |
BME |
Primary Advisor
Cell Mechanics and Motility |
|
|
Questions on the stiffness of various
components of the cytoskeleton and contribution to cell function
|
|
|
Greg Chirikjian |
MechE |
Computational Mathematics |
|
|
Polar coordinates |
|
|
Jacobian |
|
|
Cantilever beam theory |
|
|
William Hunter |
BME |
Mechanics of Living Tissues
Lab Rotation |
|
|
Continuum mechanics theory |
|
|
Development of constitutive equations
with mutually orthogonal invariants |
|
|
S. Sadegh-Nasseri |
Immunology |
Immunology |
|
|
T-cell receptor and MHC |
|
|
Marc Parlange |
GEE |
Applied Math for Engineering |
|
|
Separation of variables |
|
|
Bernoulli equation |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Alexander Spector (BME) |
|
|
Edward Ratovitsky (Dermatology/Pathology) |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Alan Cheshire |
|
|
Fay Peng |
|
|
Ronald Jean |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
2 weeks of concentrated study (7am-12am 7
days a week); mock GBO after week of studying; further study would have
allowed for more depth for each subject but that was unnecessary; it took 1
month to schedule the exam, I scheduled the 5 first with both date and time
and then worked on alternates who could fit that schedule; I had pizza the
night before the exam; it took 2 days to recover from the exam. |
|
Corrine
Bright (BME) |
|
Kam Leong |
BME |
Primary Advisor
Biomedical Polymers |
|
|
Methods for analyzing polymer
composition |
|
|
Polymerization methods
|
|
|
Larry Schramm |
BME |
Secondary Advisor |
|
|
Structure/function of neuron |
|
|
Descending CNS pathways |
|
|
K. Konstantopolous |
ChemE |
Cell and Tissue Engineering |
|
|
Angiogenesis |
|
|
Artificial grafts for vessel
replacement |
|
|
Signal transduction cascades with
monocytes/leukocytes |
|
|
Justin Hanes |
ChemE |
Controlled Drug Release |
|
|
Drug release kinetics |
|
|
Mass transport theory |
|
|
Fluid dynamics |
|
|
Dimensional analysis |
|
|
Andrew Douglas |
MechE |
Advanced Engineering Math |
|
|
2-D heat transfer |
|
|
Basic Fourier/Laplace |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Tina Kiang |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
I felt adequately prepared for the exam but
then again, I took over 4 weeks to study. Typically, the professors will ask
you questions to bring you to the point that you feel uncomfortable. How
well you do is based on how you answer these questions. Sometimes it is to
your advantage to answer that you don't know instead of lingering on a topic
that you are uncomfortable with, you have the chance of moving onto a
question that you excel at. |
|
Steven
Chase (BME) |
|
Eric Young |
BME |
Primary Advisor
Models of the Neuron |
|
|
Information theory as it applies to
spike trans (related to research) |
|
|
Brad May |
Otolaryngology |
Structure and Function of the Auditory Sys. |
|
|
Information theory as it applies to
the auditory system (again, research-related) |
|
|
Howard Weinert |
ECE |
DSP |
|
|
Definitions and proofs of fundamental
theorems in DSP. Very straightforward. |
|
|
Trac Tran |
ECE |
Wavelets |
|
|
Basis sets and optimization. Not
very related to course material |
|
|
James Fill |
MathSci |
Stochastic Processes |
|
|
Information theory in discreet and
continuous cases |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Xiaoqin Wang |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Dennis Barbour - stochastic, structure and
function |
|
|
Jane Yu - Dr. Young and DSP |
|
|
Rob Susil - wavelets |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
The mock was helpful for two reasons: 1) it's
good practice to answer questions on your feet, and 2) they reminded me to
stress fundamentals and not details. |
|
Blanka
Sharma (BME) |
|
Jennifer Elisseeff |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
|
|
She brought in a paper I had never
read, described the experiments performed and asked me to explain the
results, come up with a hypothesis for what was observed, etc. |
|
|
Kam Leong |
BME |
Biomedical Polymers
Lab Rotation |
|
|
He asked a lot of questions on
thermoreversible hydrogels: the mechanism involved in sol-to-gel
transition, give examples of polymers that demonstrate this behavior and
why How can micelles be used for controlled drug delivery |
|
|
K. Konstantopolous |
ChemE |
Cellular Engineering |
|
|
Can't remember the specifics |
|
|
He asked a lot of questions regarding
mechanical stresses and its effect on gene expression of
chondrocytes and endothelial cells |
|
|
Asked about DNA microarray
technologies (compare/contrast with more traditional methods, how data
is normalized, clustering methods. |
|
|
Markus Hupert |
GEE |
Applied Math |
|
|
Difference b/w an ODE and a PDE |
|
|
Are there any specific ODE's relevent
to your research (picked a linear homogenous ODE) Solve it. |
|
|
What if it were inhomogenous, how
would you solve it then.
|
|
|
What if the forcing function was more
complicated? |
|
|
What is the wave eq'n? Describe
D'Ambert's solution to the wave eq'n? What are the assumptions? |
|
|
B. Garcia-Moreno |
Biophysics |
Biophysics |
|
|
Note that none of the questions were
directly from the course material at all. |
|
|
Are you familiar with the polymer
polyglutamic acid (I wasn't).
|
|
|
Draw the stucture of glutamic acid.
What do you think the pKa of glutamic acid is?
|
|
|
Draw what you think polyglutamic acid
would look like. Would this molecule have structure?
|
|
|
People have tried to use this polymer
as a drug delivery vehicle, however, when an antibody was mixed in a
solution of polyglutamic acid, the antibody precipitated put of solution
- why do you think this happened?
|
|
|
Most pharmceutical agents are acids
instead of bases - why? |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Kevin Yarema (BME)
Yarema sat in for Kam Leong, who was about 20 minutes
late, but he did not end up asking any questions. |
|
|
Doug Barrick (Biophysics) |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Srivatsan Raghovan (Garcia-Moreno) |
|
|
Wendy Liu (Markus) |
|
|
Evelyn Yim
and Jiyoung Dang (Kam and Kostas) |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
The mock is good to get practice explaining
yourself at the board and learning the types of questions that get asked.
You also get helpful advice about how to go about answering questions (eg.
taking your time at the board, only answer the question asked without
proving extra info, etc.) |
|
Celeste
Nelson (BME) |
|
Christopher Chen |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
|
|
Information theory as it applies to
spike trans (related to research) |
|
|
Rita Alevriadou |
BME |
Biological Transport
Lab Rotation |
|
|
Information theory as it applies to
the auditory system (again, research-related) |
|
|
Kathy Wilson |
Cell Biology |
Molecules and Cells |
|
|
Definitions and proofs of fundamental
theorems in DSP. Very straightforward. |
|
|
Joy Yang |
Cell Biology |
Molecules and Cells |
|
|
Basis sets and optimization. Not
very related to course material |
|
|
Hasan Oguz |
MechE |
Applied Math for Engineering |
|
|
Information theory in discreet and
continuous cases |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
M. Andy Hoyt (Biology) |
|
|
Sue Craig (Cell Biology) |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Michael Haller (Alevriadou, Oguz) |
|
|
Tina Kiang (Yang, Wilson, Alevriadou) |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
I studied for 6 weeks (which was way
too long), and felt over-prepared (they don't care about what you know, just
about how you think). I was surprised by my advisor asking me
questions he told me I wouldn't ever need to know the answers to (a
rule-of-thumb: Chris Chen never really asks you what he says he's going to
ask you about... he's a tricky little character). It took 8 weeks to
schedule my exam (and one of my potential alternates didn't respond to my
pleas for scheduling until a week after I had passed the exam!!!) Everyone
has a different strategy for the gbo. Mine was to choose professors that
represented fields I was already very comfortable with, so that I could get
it over with and get back into lab. Other people choose subjects that are
close to their thesis topic (sort-of "kill two birds with one stone"
approach). |
|
Lauren
Berryman (BME) |
|
Steven Hsiao |
BME |
Lab Rotation |
|
|
How do neurons encode information? |
|
|
How does information flow from
receptors to the brain and how is this system organized? |
|
|
Allen Bjerkaas |
APL |
Applied Math for Engineers |
|
|
What do each of the terms of a
homogeneous second-order linear differential equation describe?
|
|
|
How do you solve this problem if it is
nonhomogeneous and the coefficients are not constant?
|
|
|
Reza Shadmehr |
BME |
Lab Rotation |
|
|
Describe a control system that
explains what happens when your left hand drops an object into your
right hand. |
|
|
Why does your arm respond differently
when someone else drops the object into your right hand? |
|
|
Ed Connor |
Neuroscience |
Primate Vision |
|
|
Draw and label important visual areas
of the brain and trace the two pathways from retina to cortex.
|
|
|
Describe the responses of neurons in
MT and explain two methods of information coding.
|
|
|
Which method does Newsome support and
what are the problems associated with vector averaging? |
|
|
Eric Young |
BME |
Models of the Neuron |
|
|
What are the equations that describe a
membrane with acetylcholine and potassium receptors?
|
|
|
Describe the acetylcholine receptor
and draw an equivalent circuit for this membrane configuration.
|
|
|
What is the membrane potential if some
of the receptors are inactivated? |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Larry Schramm |
|
|
David Linden |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Hao Huang (Hsiao) |
|
|
Sami (Bjerkaas) |
|
|
EunJung
Hwang (Shadmehr) |
|
|
Wilsaan Joiner (Connor) |
|
|
Elias Issa (Young) |
|
|
My Experience / Advice |
|
I studied for a month in MSE. I
planned out the first three weeks of studying so that by the time of my
mock, which was one week before my GBO, I had reviewed everything. After my
mock, I focused on two subjects that needed extra work and I briefly
reviewed the other three subjects. I felt that I was adequately prepared and
it all went pretty smoothly. Dr. Shadmehr and Dr. Hsiao both had questions
that I was not expecting, but I don't think that studying more would have
made a difference. Since I was so nervous, the most important thing for me
was to stay calm and relaxed. In planning for your GBO, it's a good idea to
send reminders to send out reminders to your committee members and offer
directions if they are coming from a different campus. |
|
Emmanouil Karagiannis (BME) |
|
Aleksander Popel |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
|
|
Transport in tumors. |
|
|
Solution of a simple transport ode
model |
|
|
In general, biotransport. |
|
|
Christopher Chen |
BME |
None |
|
|
Gross and cellular metabolism (no
pathways) |
|
|
Physiology |
|
|
Greg Chirikjian |
MechE |
Computational Mathematics |
|
|
Critical question: "Which part of the
course do you think will be the most useful in your research" |
|
|
Valina Dawson |
Neuroscience |
Molecular Mechanisms of Apoptosis and Cell Death |
|
|
Apoptosis pathways |
|
|
Stem cells |
|
|
Pablo Iglesias |
ECE |
Feedback Control in Signal Transduction Pathways |
|
|
Stability analysis |
|
|
Diffusion - pattern formation |
|
|
Sheng Xu
(BME) |
|
Eric Young |
BME |
Models of the Neuron
Structure and Function of the Auditory Sys. |
|
|
The possible reasons for the
intracellular voltage's small fluctuation |
|
|
Hodgkin-Huxley model |
|
|
Xiaoqin Wang |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
|
|
Neural coding |
|
|
Spike train analysis |
|
|
Poisson process as spike train model |
|
|
Auditory pathway |
|
|
Brad May |
Otolaryngology |
Structure and Function of the Auditory Sys. |
|
|
The peripheral auditory pathway |
|
|
Detection of ILD and ITD |
|
|
Characteristics of basal membrane |
|
|
James Fill |
MathSci |
Intro. Probability |
|
|
Poisson process; all the probability
distributions related to Poisson processes |
|
|
Carey Priebe |
MathSci |
Stochastic Process |
|
|
Poisson process |
|
|
Alternates |
|
|
Larry Schramm |
|
|
Lloyd Minor |
|
|
Mock Committee |
|
|
Steve Eliades (Wang) |
|
|
Elias Issa (Young) |
|
|
Sharba (May and Fill) |
|
|
Wilsaan Joiner (Priebe) |
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Nirveek
Bhattacharjee (BME) |
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Nitish Thakor |
BME |
Primary Advisor |
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Biomedical instrumentation,
differential amplifiers, electrodes, etc. |
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Christopher Chen |
BME |
Molecules and Cells |
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Cellular localization of different
processes |
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Intracellular protein transport
mechanisms |
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Donniell Fishkind |
MathSci |
Matrix Analysis |
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Schur's theorem |
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Singular value decomposition |
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Moore-Penrose generalized inverse |
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Groups/rings |
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Statistics basics - different kinds of
distributions |
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Neil Clarke |
Biophysics |
Molecules and Cells |
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Ion channels - a lot of mechanisms
related to opening/closing of channels |
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Jeff Wang |
MechE |
BioMEMS Journal Club |
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Interesting questions on basic
dimension analysis |
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Looking at "scaling", surface tension
and fluid mechanics |
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A little bit of micro-fabrication |
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Alternates |
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Geraldine Seydoux (Molecular Biology) |
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Sanjeev Khudanpur (ECE) |
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My Experience / Advice |
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SCHEDULE EARLY !!! It took me real long to
get all 7 people to agree on a common date - I was hoping to get a date in
april, and then in summer (which never happened) and so I had to push it to
Fall. There are definitely going to be "surprises" at the GBO, but try not
to get frozen .... THINKING ALOUD is good ... the committee members are nice
and they will lead you on .. with tons of hints .... so STAYING CALM is the
real, and perhaps the ONLY key. |
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Junghae
Suh (BME) |
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Justin Hanes |
ChemE |
Primary Advisor
Controlled Drug Delivery |
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Write the kinetic equations describing
the process of intracellular drug/gene delivery |
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Denis Wirtz |
ChemE |
Research |
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Derive the equation describing a
random walk of a particle |
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Scot Kuo |
BME |
Molecules and Cells |
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Describe the mitochondria (origins and
functions) |
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Describe the molecular processes
involved in receptor-mediated endocytosis |
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Kam Leong |
BME |
Lab Rotation |
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Draw the structure of some polymers
used in drug/gene delivery. |
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How does a GPC work? |
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Is polylysine degradable? What
chemical linkages would you use to make it degradable? |
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Allen Scott |
Immunology |
Immunology |
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How would you separate organelles from
the entire cell? |
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How do sucrose gradients work (what
parameters are important)? |
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Other practical lab-related questions |
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Didn't ask me a single thing about
immunology! |
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My Experience / Advice |
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I can't remember who helped me out with the mock
GBO...but
I do remember it was helpful. Not necessarily because of the questions asked
of me, but because of the practice of standing in front of people and
answering questions on my feet. Just need to relax and be confident, even
if you don't know the answer. Practice ways of saying that you don't know
the answer in a calm and professional manner. Look at the GBO as an
opportunity to have a scientific discussion with some professors who want to
see you succeed. Ask questions and make it an informal dialogue where you
share what you know and also learn from the professors. |
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Pramodsingh Thakur (BME) |
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Ed Connor
(Replaced Ken Johnson) |
Neuroscience |
Master's Thesis Advisor |
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The two pathways, different areas in
visual pathways, then went on to shape processing along the ventral
stream, how V1 represents orientation, which is the first derivative, V4
represents curvatures, which is the second derivative, and so IT should
represent third order derivative, which would be spirals. |
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Steven Hsiao |
Neuroscience |
Primary Advisor |
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Divisions of primary somatosensory
cortex. |
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What happens in each area. |
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Projection from thalamus to
somatosensory cortex |
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Relationship between SI and SII
(parallel/serial in hierarchy) |
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Divisions in SII |
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Sanjeev Khudanpur |
ECE |
Information Theory |
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Questions were related to data
processing inequality |
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Eric Young |
BME |
Models of the Neuron
Theoretical Neuroscience |
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Started off with "assume that you know
there is some somatosensory input into DCN, how will you go about
figuring out what it represents"... Wanted me to get to the fact that
there could be proprioceptive input from the pinna into dcn to locate
the pinna position in sound localization using frequency notches |
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Donniell Fishkind |
MathSci |
Matrix Analysis |
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Central limit theorem |
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Condition number |
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Generalized inverse of a matrix |
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SVD |
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What does each matrix represent, etc. |
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Alternates |
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Ed Connor (Neuroscience) |
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Ernst Niebur (Neuroscience) |
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Mock |
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Sharba Bandopadhyay (Young) |
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Arun Sripati (Khudanpur) |
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Vijay Parthasarathy (Fishkind) |
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My Experience / Advice |
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NEVER schedule your GBO on a monday, over
the weekend I realized that it was going to snow like crazy on sunday night,
and subsequent monday was declared a snow day. Although I realized it over
the weekend, there was
nothing I could do about it. I was fortunate to still get away with my GBO
on the same day. |
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R. Jacob
Vogelstein (BME) |
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R. Etienne-Cummings |
ECE |
Primary Advisor
Digital VLSI |
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Draw a nand gate. (I draw nor). No, a
NAND gate. OK, plot the input/output relationship. (I ask what exactly
he means). You know, input on one axis and output on the other. (I say
that should be 3-dimensional). No, so there are a three cases. For one
case, say A is fixed at Vdd and we're varying B from 0 to Vdd. OK, so
what does this tell you? What's the threshold? What happens at
threshold? OK, now draw the case when B is fixed and A varies. (I say
they're the same). Are you sure? (I realize it's different because the
NMOS transistors are in series, so the on resistance of the lower NMOS
will raise the effective threshold of the upper NMOS). OK, so plot both
voltage transfer characteristics on the same graph. Good. |
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Gert Cauwenberghs |
ECE |
Analog and Digital VLSI
Learning on Silicon
Lab Rotation |
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What do you know about Sigma-Delta
converters? Draw the block diagram. What equations govern the operation
of the converter? How does it work on average? What happens when you
increase the frequency? How does that show up in the equations? (Note
that for most of the time, I really didn't understand what he was asking
so I didn't write up the correct equations: he was asking for one case
but I had drawn a different case, so we weren't communicating very well.
I knew the actual ideas behind sigma-delta converters, and I knew the
classical equations, but I couldn't understand what he was asking).
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Paul Sotiriadis |
ECE |
Analog Electronics |
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Any system, with some transfer
function, could be an oscillator, right? If you tie the input to
the output, it could oscillate? What are some criteria that would tell
you if it would oscillate? (I say Barkhausen criterion). OK, so let's
take the simplest system in electronics that can oscillate under ideal
conditions. (I draw parallel LC). Write the equations that describe the
circuit's operation. Put it in a state space formulation. Draw the phase
plane. Where are the equilibrium points? Could this system exist in
reality? (No). OK, how would you add a term to the equations to
stabilize the oscillations at a fixed amplitude? OK, what's the new
phase plane look like? Where are the equilibrium points? Can you prove
the amplitude of oscillations (I can't). Ok, think about it. But for
now, can you draw a schematic of how these equations could be
implemented with just two capacitors and two transconductance
amplifiers? (he helps get me started and I do it). |
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Nitish Thakor |
BME |
Biomedical Instrumentation
Research Advisor |
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If you're recording from cells, what
kinds of electrodes might you use? (Intracellular or extracellular?) OK,
let's consider intracellular electrodes. Draw a cartoon of the
intracellular recording setup. Write out an equivalent circuit diagram.
OK, what does this look like? (low pass filter). How would you cancel
the effects of the low pass filter? (negative capacitor). Do you
remember the negative capacitor schematic? (no). Use this schematic.
What equations describe the operation? OK, now what if you want to
record currents. What would the cartoon diagram of the setup look like?
What kind of amplifier would you use (IV converter). Draw the schematic
of the system. Does the capacitance still affect this design? |
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Eric Young |
BME |
Models of the Neuron |
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Draw the structure of an ion channel.
(Which one?) Any one, you choose. (I choose KCsA channel and draw it and
talk about it for a second). OK, what are the features of the channel?
Why do you need positive charge at the mouth of the channel and in the
selectivity filter? Where's the gate? Is there a gate in the KCsA
channel? Where are the voltage-sensitive elements? How does the gate
work in similar channels? How does the cell manufacture these things --
start from DNA. OK, now if you have a dendritic spine and it wants to
add AMPA channels to the membrane, how does this process occur? What are
some ideas about how this could happen? |
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Alternates |
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Ernst Niebur (Neuroscience) |
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Andreas Andreou (Neuroscience) |
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Reza Shadmehr |
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Mock
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Matt Clapp (Etienne-Cummings) |
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Ralf Philipp (Sotiriadis) |
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Steve Chase (Young) |
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My Experience / Advice |
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For my mock, I had a few people ask me questions
over the course of the week, i.e. a series GBO instead of a parallel GBO,
but it wasn't particularly helpful. I scheduled my GBO between two conferences,
because I thought I wasn't going to be very productive in the lab during
that time anyway. my first conference ended on the 17th of November, and
then I had a week to study before thanksgiving break, and a week to study
after thanksgiving. I could only study on 3 out of the 5 weekdays, because
on the other two I was TA'ing a class. I also studied during two Sundays and
no Saturdays. Overall, 9 full days of studying. I think you should study
really basic stuff first. If you're a math-y kind of person, make sure you
remember the idiot-simple stuff like how to integrate e^t, solve
differential equations, etc. then study derivations and concepts more than
specifics. If you have time, remember specific equations at the end. It took
2 rounds of emails to schedule my GBO. No problem. The hardest part of
the GBO is not the questions -- they don't ask hard questions -- it's
figuring out what they're asking you. for me, at least, there was a lot of
stumbling around saying, "is this what you were looking for?" Because
I knew the material, but I couldn't tell what they were trying to get at. I
also tended to write stuff down before thinking about it, and answering too
soon. If I did it again, I would think more and solve equations less. |
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Hojung
Cho (BME) |
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Andre Levchenko |
BME |
Primary Advisor
Systems biology in cell regulation |
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Deterministic approach and
probabilistic approach to study gene expression/ signaling pathways
(Gillespie algorithm, Randomness) |
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Calculate the concentration of
intracellular protein in general (simple but tricky) |
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The effect of noisiness in gene
expression (conceptual question) |
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Jeff Wang |
MechE |
Biosensing
Biomems |
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Eletroosmotic flow/ surface tension/
fluidic mechanics |
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Describe the electroosmotic pressure
on moving mercury bubble in the microfluidic channel |
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Advantages of scaling down
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Markus Hilpert |
DOGEE |
Applied Mathematics |
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Difference between ODE and PDE |
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Describe the wave when the guitar
string generates a high pitch |
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Describe how to solve the wave
equation with oscillating in one end (inhomogeneous BCs) |
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Describe the natural process occurring
in your research field that PDE can be applied |
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Kathleen Stebe |
ChemE |
Advanced Transport Phenomena |
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Implication on nonlinearity of Navier-stokes
equation |
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Describe the structure of cell
membrane and possible sources to interfere the fluidity of the
membrane---how to burst cells? |
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Describe the stress on the cell
membrane assuming that it is a single drop in the liquid |
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How can you take into consideration
the consumption of nutrients by cells when you do modeling of diffusion
in the microfluidic chamber? |
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John Wierman |
MathSci |
Intro. Probability |
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Describe poisson process (pdf/ cdf/
expectation /linearity of expectation) |
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Memoryless property of poisson
distribution |
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Alternates |
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Ludwig Brand (Biology) |
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Kevin Yarema (BME) |
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Mock
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Eric Carlson (Dr. Wierman) |
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Nathaniel Hwang (Dr. Hilpert) |
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Chris Puleo (Dr. Stebe and Dr. Wang) |
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My Experience / Advice |
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Mock: It gave me an idea of how the
atmosphere of the real one will be. I had one member in mock whose committee
had 3 same professors with mine, which was a great help.
Advice: It was hard to set the time considering 5 members’ schedule. Start
as early as possible. Mock GBO is a good chance to practice. Schedule it at
least one week before the real one so that you can figure out what you need
to prepare more. Sleep enough and relax. Show your confidence -show them you
know the stuffs and you are interested in them. |