Sloppy Models

Sloppy models are multiparameter models, whose behavior depends only on a few stiff combinations of parameters, with many sloppy parameter directions largely unimportant for model predictions. We've found them ubiquitous in systems biology, in physics and in mathematics.

About Sloppy Models

• A sloppy systems biology model
• What is Sloppiness?
• What are Sloppy Models?
• Fitting Exponentials: Prediction without parameters
• Fitting Polynomials: Where is sloppiness from?
• Why sloppiness? The Sloppy Universality Class
• Differential Geometry and Sloppy Models (Transtrum)
  • The Model Manifold and Hyperribbons (Transtrum)
  • Sloppy Curvature (Transtrum)
• Why is science possible? Sloppy models in Physics.
  • Jessie Silverberg's Huffington Post article and Katheryn McGill's vlog Interview from The Physics Factor.
  • Unedited workshop interview by Steven Reiner, Stony Brook School of Journalism; Mobile version.

Sloppy model applications

• Do parameters matter? Fits versus measurements.
• Experimental design in sloppy systems
• Robustness and sloppiness
  • Parameter robustness and sloppiness
  • Environmental robustness and sloppiness: Circadian rhythms
  • Evolvability, robustness, and sloppiness
  • Paper: "Sloppiness, robustness, and evolvability in systems biology." Bryan C. Daniels, Yan-Jiun Chen, James P. Sethna, Ryan N. Gutenkunst, and Christopher R. Myers, Current Opinions in Biotechnology (2008), doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2008.06.008, pdf, and supplemental material.
  • Code and data for models used in the paper:
    • KaiC phosphorylation subnetwork
    • NGF/EGF signaling through Erk in PC12 cells and Supplemental material
    • Segment polarity model
• Estimating systematic errors for interatomic potentials and for density functional theory.
• Learning digits with InPCA

Sloppy Cell

• Now available on SourceForge.
• Older information.

Published Models

• NGF/EGF signaling through Erk
• EGF receptor trafficking

Older, unpublished models

• Quorum sensing
• Circadian rhythms
• G protein-coupled receptor activation

Data base of sloppy spectra

Partial reference list

This work supported by the Division of Materials Research of the U.S. National Science Foundation, through grant DMR-070167 and formerly DMR-0218475.

Statistical Mechanics: Entropy, Order Parameters, and Complexity, now available at Oxford University Press (USA, Europe).