New information retrieval systems

L'article pretén donar una visió panoràmica de la investigació que s'ha realitzat d'aquesta nova generació de sistemes de recuperació de la informació, tot describint-ne els seus components més importants i li·lustrant-ho amb exemples basats en aquests nous principis que ja s'estiguin utilitzant.This article offers an overall view of the research that has been conducted, through descriptions of the main components of this new generation of information retrieval systems. Contains examples of systems currently in ise that are based upon these principles

Recent developments in chemoinformatics education

Chemoinformatics techniques are increasingly being used to analyse the huge volumes of chemical and biological data resulting from combinatorial synthesis and high-throughput screening programmes. Scientists with both the chemical and the computing skills required to carry out such analyses are currently in very short supply, this resulting in the establishment of MSc programmes for the training of chemoinformatics specialists

Structural fingerprints of transcription factor binding site regions

Fourier transforms are a powerful tool in the prediction of DNA sequence properties, such as the presence/absence of codons. We have previously compiled a database of the structural properties of all 32,896 unique DNA octamers. In this work we apply Fourier techniques to the analysis of the structural properties of human chromosomes 21 and 22 and also to three sets of transcription factor binding sites within these chromosomes. We find that, for a given structural property, the structural property power spectra of chromosomes 21 and 22 are strikingly similar. We find common peaks in their power spectra for both Sp1 and p53 transcription factor binding sites. We use the power spectra as a structural fingerprint and perform similarity searching in order to find transcription factor binding site regions. This approach provides a new strategy for searching the genome data for information. Although it is difficult to understand the relationship between specific functional properties and the set of structural parameters in our database, our structural fingerprints nevertheless provide a useful tool for searching for function information in sequence data. The power spectrum fingerprints provide a simple, fast method for comparing a set of functional sequences, in this case transcription factor binding site regions, with the sequences of whole chromosomes. On its own, the power spectrum fingerprint does not find all transcription factor binding sites in a chromosome, but the results presented here show that in combination with other approaches, this technique will improve the chances of identifying functional sequences hidden in genomic data

Combining multiple classifications of chemical structures using consensus clustering

Consensus clustering involves combining multiple clusterings of the same set of objects to achieve a single clustering that will, hopefully, provide a better picture of the groupings that are present in a dataset. This Letter reports the use of consensus clustering methods on sets of chemical compounds represented by 2D fingerprints. Experiments with DUD, IDAlert, MDDR and MUV data suggests that consensus methods are unlikely to result in significant improvements in clustering effectiveness as compared to the use of a single clustering method. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Detectability prediction of hidden Markov models with cluttered observation sequences

There is good reason to model an asymmetric threat (a structured action such as a terrorist attack) as an hmm whose observations are cluttered. Recently a Bernoulli filter was presented that can process cluttered observations («transactions») and is capable of detecting if there is an hmm present, and if so, estimate the state of the HMM. An important question in this context is: when is the HMM-in-clutter problem feasible? In other words, what system properties allow for a solvable problem? In this paper we show that, given a Gaussian approximation of the pdf of the log-likelihood, approximate detection error bounds can be derived. These error bounds allow a prediction of the detection performance, i.e. a prediction of the probability of detection given an «operating point» of transaction-level false alarm rate and miss probability. Simulations show that our analysis accurately predicts detectability of such threats. Our purpose here is to make statements about what sort of threats can be detected, and what quality of observations are necessary that this be accomplished

Observed changes in surface atmospheric energy over land

The temperature of the surface atmosphere over land has been rising during recent decades. But surface temperature, or, more accurately, enthalpy which can be calculated from temperature, is only one component of the energy content of the surface atmosphere. The other parts include kinetic energy and latent heat. It has been advocated in certain quarters that ignoring additional terms somehow calls into question global surface temperature analyses. Examination of all three of these components of atmospheric energetics reveals a significant increase in global surface atmospheric energy since the 1970s. Kinetic energy has decreased but by over two orders of magnitude less than the increases in both enthalpy and latent heat which provide approximately equal contributions to the global increases in heat content. Regionally, the enthalpy or the latent heat component can dominate the change in heat content. Although generally changes in latent heat and enthalpy act in concert, in some regions they can have the opposite signs