VGL ======= 1) About VGL 2) What are the license terms for using VGL? 3) Downloads and home page 4) How do I install this application? 5) Contact us About VGL: VGL application is a part of MGX project developed by Software Development team of Fall 2004 at UMB. This application is the latest version (as for the year 2005) of VGL with an easy to use graphical user interface. The Virtual Genetics Lab (VGL) is a simulation of transmission genetics that approximates, as closely as possible, the hypothesis-testing environment of genetics research.  In this lab, students cross hypothetical creatures and examine the progeny in order to determine the mechanism of inheritance of a particular trait.  As in actual research, it is not possible to 'see the answer' - the student must decide for herself when she has collected enough data to be sure of her model.  The goal is to have students understand the logic of genetic analysis - how one can use crosses to determine how a trait is inherited and reinforce their understanding of transmission genetics. This program is based on the VGL developed by a team of four Master's degree students in Computer Science at UMass Boston in the year 2002. The new version of VGL is an improved version with new features such as History List and a new look and feel. This also gives the same look and feel as of Genex and Protex applications. In order that the exercise is based on the logic of genetic analysis rather than student's ability to search the internet, the creature under study will be hypothetical, the traits will be assigned randomly, and the mode of inheritance will differ with each run of the program.  Traits can be either autonomic or sex-linked (with XX females and XY males or with ZZ males and ZW females) and simply dominant or co/incompletely dominant.  The form of the trait which is dominant, recessive or seen in the heterozygote will also be determined randomly. In a real genetics lab, students have to deal with real-world creatures that die, fail to mate, or escape.  In addition, most creatures have generation times of several weeks or months, thus limiting the number of crosses an individual can perform during a semester.  Although these real-world constraints have educational value, the point of the VGL is to understand the logic of genetic analysis rather than the technical details.  The VGL will allow the students to maximize the number of crosses they can perform, thus maximizing their chance to understand the underlying analysis. In this lab, students have to decide: What are the possible modes of inheritance? Which organisms to cross? How to interpret their data? When they have enough data to be sure of their conclusions? In order to perform a cross, the students select male and female parents of their choice from any generation and click the "Cross" button.  The program keeps track of the genotypes of the parents and generates their offspring probabilistically. In that way, the phenotypic ratios of the offspring will approximate, but not necessarily be identical to the classic 1:1, 1:2:1, and 1:3 ratios.  The students have to decide for themselves whether their data are consistent or inconsistent with their expected ratios.  While some crosses will generate useful information, others will be uninformative; the students will have to choose what to cross and what to make of the results. Cross results are presented in a table sorted by phenotype with a display of the numbers of male and female individuals of each phenotype.  In addition, a thumbnail image in the table gives a visual display of the phenotype. Because of this freedom to choose what to cross, different student groups will adopt different strategies for analysis.  Some will plan each cross carefully and analyze the results as they go along while others will do many haphazard crosses and try to sort out the results later.  VGL thus accommodates the wide range of successful strategies and does not limit the students to one particular pattern. The new version has the advantage of not displaying the cages all over the screen. This has a History List which will provide the cages with their cage id and their thumbnail image of the phenotypes. The new offspring's created by crossing two creatures are shown to the right as a table. On the right there are three slots, one for ‘New Offspring's' and the other two for the cages with male and female parents for the ‘New Offspring's' or can also be used for the selected cages from the History List. The cages of the respective male and female parents are displayed in their respective slots. If the male and female parents are from the same cage then it displays parent cage in one slot with header ‘Male and Female Parent Cage'. If they are selected from different cages then they are displayed as ‘Male Parent Cage' in one slot and ‘Female Parent Cage' in other slot. The user can select the cages which will display the cages as a ‘Selected Cage' alternatively in the two slots. Although VGL is designed so that students cannot 'look behind the scenes' to see the underlying model or the genotypes of individuals, the instructor can generate problems in 'practice mode'.  In this mode, students are able to click on individuals and see their genotypes as well as the underlying genetic model.  This mode is designed for the beginning students to help familiarize them with the program and the most basic genetic analysis. Finally, the program has several important software features: it is extremely robust and reliable since it will be used by beginning students it is compatible with both  Mac, UNIX/Linux, and PC it is disseminated by the www it has an easy-to-use color GUI What are the license terms for using VGL? -------------------------------------------------------------- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. Downloads and home page --------------------------------------- The homepage is: Downloads of the current alpha release are available at: under VGL column   How do I install this application? --------------------------------------------- Please see the install.txt notes under VGL column. Contact us: ---------------- Feel free to send us feedback by email mgx@cs.umb.edu