The applications of computers in biological research

Research in many fields could not be done without computers. There is often a great deal of technical data, even in the biological fields, that need to be analyzed. These data, unfortunately, previously absorbed much of every researcher's time. Now, due to the steady increase in computer technology, biological researchers are able to make incredible advances in their work without the added worries of tedious and difficult tasks such as the many mathematical calculations involved in today's research and health care

A view of Kanerva's sparse distributed memory

Pentti Kanerva is working on a new class of computers, which are called pattern computers. Pattern computers may close the gap between capabilities of biological organisms to recognize and act on patterns (visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory) and capabilities of modern computers. Combinations of numeric, symbolic, and pattern computers may one day be capable of sustaining robots. The overview of the requirements for a pattern computer, a summary of Kanerva's Sparse Distributed Memory (SDM), and examples of tasks this computer can be expected to perform well are given

Interdisciplinary Monte Carlo Simulations

Biological, linguistic, sociological and economical applications of statistical physics are reviewed here. They have been made on a variety of computers over a dozen years, not only at the NIC computers. A longer description can be found in our new book, an emphasis on teaching in Eur.J.Phys. 26, S 79 and AIP Conf. Proc. 779, 49, 56, 69 and 75.Comment: 11 pages including many Figs.; for 3rd NIC Symposium, Julich, 3/0

Ontology-assisted database integration to support natural language processing and biomedical data-mining

Successful biomedical data mining and information extraction require a complete picture of biological phenomena such as genes, biological processes, and diseases; as these exist on different levels of granularity. To realize this goal, several freely available heterogeneous databases as well as proprietary structured datasets have to be integrated into a single global customizable scheme. We will present a tool to integrate different biological data sources by mapping them to a proprietary biomedical ontology that has been developed for the purposes of making computers understand medical natural language

Digital computer processing of X-ray photos

Digital computers correct various distortions in medical and biological photographs. One of the principal methods of computer enhancement involves the use of a two-dimensional digital filter to modify the frequency spectrum of the picture. Another computer processing method is image subtraction

Future Computers: Digital, Quantum, Biological

Quantum computers offer huge potential performance, and biological computers can revolutionize pharmaceuticals. However, simple “engineering” descriptions and standardized approaches are needed. We provide “layperson” descriptions of quantum and biological computer architectures, comparisons with digital computers, and discussions of industry-standard models

Multi Agent Micromanipulation System

In the area of biotechnology, a micromanipulation is widely used for such purposes as operating on genes and transferring biological materials into cells. For the some experiments, such as biochemical experiment, a large number of cells have to be manipulated in a short time. We have developed an automatic micromanipulation system under the stereoscopic microscope. Micromanipulation system carries out various processes, such as detection of the target, the detection of the needle head, and motor control. By sharing these processes with several computers, the micromanipulation can be performed at high speed. As a result, computer cooperation becomes very important. In this paper, we propose a multi agent micromanipulation system. At first, we developed a multi agent system, which performs image processing, motor control, and management of the micromanipulation processes. Secondarily, we proposed to operate computers cooperative. We use a computer as a single agent. And several computers are connected to a local area network. The multi agent micromanipulation system performed the micromanipulation at a realistic rate through cooperation of multi agents.</p