DNA ANALYSIS USING GRAMMATICAL INFERENCE

An accurate language definition capable of distinguishing between coding and non-coding DNA has important applications and analytical significance to the field of computational biology. The method proposed here uses positive sample grammatical inference and statistical information to infer languages for coding DNA. An algorithm is proposed for the searching of an optimal subset of input sequences for the inference of regular grammars by optimizing a relevant accuracy metric. The algorithm does not guarantee the finding of the optimal subset; however, testing shows improvement in accuracy and performance over the basis algorithm. Testing shows that the accuracy of inferred languages for components of DNA are consistently accurate. By using the proposed algorithm languages are inferred for coding DNA with average conditional probability over 80%. This reveals that languages for components of DNA can be inferred and are useful independent of the process that created them. These languages can then be analyzed or used for other tasks in computational biology. To illustrate potential applications of regular grammars for DNA components, an inferred language for exon sequences is applied as post processing to Hidden Markov exon prediction to reduce the number of wrong exons detected and improve the specificity of the model significantly

Education Unleashed: Participatory Culture, Education, and Innovation in Second Life

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and LearningWhile virtual worlds share common technologies and audiences with games, they possess many unique characteristics. Particularly when compared to massively multiplayer online role-playing games, virtual worlds create very different learning and teaching opportunities through markets, creation, and connections to the real world, and lack of overt game goals. This chapter aims to expose a wide audience to the breadth and depth of learning occurring within Second Life (SL). From in-world classes in the scripting language to mixed-reality conferences about the future of broadcasting, a tremendous variety of both amateurs and experts are leveraging SL as a platform for education. In one sense, this isn't new since every technology is co-opted by communities for communication, but SL is different because every aspect of it was designed to encourage this co-opting, this remixing of the virtual and the real

Is the Affordable Care Act\u27s Individual Mandate a Certified Job-Killer?

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act argue that its individual mandate component is a certified job-killer. In this paper, I develop a Real Business Cycle model with a search-based labor market to test the validity of these concerns. I integrate the individual mandate into the model and conduct a general equilibrium analysis of its effects. The simulated results show that the imposition of the individual mandate regime should result in higher levels of aggregate employment and output

Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time by Tom Lynch, Susan Naramore Maher, Drucilla Wall, and O. Alan Weltzien

Review of Thinking Continental: Writing the Planet One Place at a Time by Tom Lynch, Susan Naramore Maher, Drucilla Wall, and O. Alan Weltzien, eds

Using EGA-GC to Analyze Nicotine N-oxide in Order to Explain Low Nicotine Concentrations in E-cigarette Liquids

Evolved-gas analysis coupled with gas chromatography (EGA-GC) was used to analyze e-cigarette liquids. Previous analyses of e-cigarette liquids have shown that the determined concentration of nicotine is lower than the advertised concentration. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the nicotine in the liquids is being oxidized to nicotine N-oxide by exposure to air and thus reducing the concentration of nicotine. This study focused on analyzing samples of thermally-rearranged nicotine N-oxide. Using EGA-GC, a calibration curve was generated for nicotine N-oxide concentration, which could potentially be used to explain reduced nicotine concentrations in e-cigarette liquids

Acceptable Risk

Perhaps the topic of acceptable risk never had a sexier and more succinct introduction than the one Edward Norton, playing an automobile company executive, gave it in Fight Club: “Take the number of vehicles in the field (A), multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), and multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C). A*B*C=X. If X is less than the cost of the recall, we don’t do one.” Of course, this dystopic scene also gets to the heart of the issue in another way: acceptable risk deals with mathematical calculations about the value of life, injury, and emotional wreckage, making calculation a difficult matter ethically, politically, and economically. This entry will explore the history of this idea, focusing on its development alongside statistics into its wide importance today

How Propaganda Became Public Relations: Foucault and the Corporate Government of the Public

How Propaganda Became Public Relations pulls back the curtain on propaganda: how it was born, how it works, and how it has masked the bulk of its operations by rebranding itself as public relations. Cory Wimberly uses archival materials and wide variety of sources — Foucault’s work on governmentality, political economy, liberalism, mass psychology, and history — to mount a genealogical challenge to two commonplaces about propaganda. First, modern propaganda did not originate in the state and was never primarily located in the state; instead, it began and flourished as a for-profit service for businesses. Further, propaganda is not focused on public beliefs and does not operate mainly through lies and deceit; propaganda is an apparatus of government that aims to create the publics that will freely undertake the conduct its clients’ desire. Businesses have used propaganda since the early twentieth century to construct the laboring, consuming, and voting publics that they needed to secure and grow their operations. Over that time, corporations have become the most numerous and well-funded apparatuses of government in the West, operating privately and without democratic accountability. Wimberly explains why liberal strategies of resistance have failed and a new focus on creating mass subjectivity through democratic means is essential to countering propaganda. This book offers a sophisticated analysis that will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in social and political philosophy, Continental philosophy, political communication, the history of capitalism, and the history of public relations