50,546 research outputs found
Cell fate reprogramming by control of intracellular network dynamics
Identifying control strategies for biological networks is paramount for
practical applications that involve reprogramming a cell's fate, such as
disease therapeutics and stem cell reprogramming. Here we develop a novel
network control framework that integrates the structural and functional
information available for intracellular networks to predict control targets.
Formulated in a logical dynamic scheme, our approach drives any initial state
to the target state with 100% effectiveness and needs to be applied only
transiently for the network to reach and stay in the desired state. We
illustrate our method's potential to find intervention targets for cancer
treatment and cell differentiation by applying it to a leukemia signaling
network and to the network controlling the differentiation of helper T cells.
We find that the predicted control targets are effective in a broad dynamic
framework. Moreover, several of the predicted interventions are supported by
experiments.Comment: 61 pages (main text, 15 pages; supporting information, 46 pages) and
12 figures (main text, 6 figures; supporting information, 6 figures). In
revie
Incremental Recompilation of Knowledge
Approximating a general formula from above and below by Horn formulas (its
Horn envelope and Horn core, respectively) was proposed by Selman and Kautz
(1991, 1996) as a form of ``knowledge compilation,'' supporting rapid
approximate reasoning; on the negative side, this scheme is static in that it
supports no updates, and has certain complexity drawbacks pointed out by
Kavvadias, Papadimitriou and Sideri (1993). On the other hand, the many
frameworks and schemes proposed in the literature for theory update and
revision are plagued by serious complexity-theoretic impediments, even in the
Horn case, as was pointed out by Eiter and Gottlob (1992), and is further
demonstrated in the present paper. More fundamentally, these schemes are not
inductive, in that they may lose in a single update any positive properties of
the represented sets of formulas (small size, Horn structure, etc.). In this
paper we propose a new scheme, incremental recompilation, which combines Horn
approximation and model-based updates; this scheme is inductive and very
efficient, free of the problems facing its constituents. A set of formulas is
represented by an upper and lower Horn approximation. To update, we replace the
upper Horn formula by the Horn envelope of its minimum-change update, and
similarly the lower one by the Horn core of its update; the key fact which
enables this scheme is that Horn envelopes and cores are easy to compute when
the underlying formula is the result of a minimum-change update of a Horn
formula by a clause. We conjecture that efficient algorithms are possible for
more complex updates.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file
Epistemic irrelevance in credal nets: the case of imprecise Markov trees
We focus on credal nets, which are graphical models that generalise Bayesian
nets to imprecise probability. We replace the notion of strong independence
commonly used in credal nets with the weaker notion of epistemic irrelevance,
which is arguably more suited for a behavioural theory of probability. Focusing
on directed trees, we show how to combine the given local uncertainty models in
the nodes of the graph into a global model, and we use this to construct and
justify an exact message-passing algorithm that computes updated beliefs for a
variable in the tree. The algorithm, which is linear in the number of nodes, is
formulated entirely in terms of coherent lower previsions, and is shown to
satisfy a number of rationality requirements. We supply examples of the
algorithm's operation, and report an application to on-line character
recognition that illustrates the advantages of our approach for prediction. We
comment on the perspectives, opened by the availability, for the first time, of
a truly efficient algorithm based on epistemic irrelevance.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Knowledge Spaces and Learning Spaces
How to design automated procedures which (i) accurately assess the knowledge
of a student, and (ii) efficiently provide advices for further study? To
produce well-founded answers, Knowledge Space Theory relies on a combinatorial
viewpoint on the assessment of knowledge, and thus departs from common,
numerical evaluation. Its assessment procedures fundamentally differ from other
current ones (such as those of S.A.T. and A.C.T.). They are adaptative (taking
into account the possible correctness of previous answers from the student) and
they produce an outcome which is far more informative than a crude numerical
mark. This chapter recapitulates the main concepts underlying Knowledge Space
Theory and its special case, Learning Space Theory. We begin by describing the
combinatorial core of the theory, in the form of two basic axioms and the main
ensuing results (most of which we give without proofs). In practical
applications, learning spaces are huge combinatorial structures which may be
difficult to manage. We outline methods providing efficient and comprehensive
summaries of such large structures. We then describe the probabilistic part of
the theory, especially the Markovian type processes which are instrumental in
uncovering the knowledge states of individuals. In the guise of the ALEKS
system, which includes a teaching component, these methods have been used by
millions of students in schools and colleges, and by home schooled students. We
summarize some of the results of these applications
- …