Functional programming based CACSD environment

An engineering design environment should allow users to design complex engineering systems, to manage and coordinate the designs as they proceed, and to develop and modify the software tools used for designs. These requirements call for a programming environment with an integrated set of software tools of different functionalities. The required functionalities are mainly: the provision of design algorithms based on suitable numeric software, appropriate data structures for the application area, a user-friendly interface, and the provision of a design database for the long term management of the designs generated. The provision of such an integrated design environment in a functional programming environment with particular emphasis on the provision of appropriate control-theoretic data structures and data model is described. Object-orientation is used to model entities in the application domain, which are represented by persistent objects in the database. Structural properties, relationships and operations on entities are modelled through objects and functions classified into strict types with inheritance semantics and a recursive structure.

Inference approach to grammar construction

A system of computer assisted grammar construction (CAGC) is presented in this paper. The CAGC system is designed to generate broad-coverage grammars for large natural language corpora by utilizing both an extended inside-outside algorithm and an automatic phrase bracketing (AUTO) system which is designed to provide the extended algorithm with constituent information during learning. This paper demonstrates the capability of the CAGC system to deal with realistic natural language problems and the usefulness of the AUTO system for constraining the inside-outside based grammar re-estimation. Performance results, including coverage, recall and precision, are presented for a grammar constructed for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus using the Penn Treebank.

On the relationship between hidden Markov Models and convex functional transforms for simulating scanning probe Microscopy

Models for simulating Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) may serve as a reference point for validating experimental data and practice. Generally, simulations use a microscopic model of the sample-probe interaction based on a first-principles approach, or a geometric model of macroscopic distortions due to the probe geometry. Examples of the latter include use of neural networks, the Legendre Transform, and dilation/erosion transforms from mathematical morphology. Dilation and the Legendre Transform fall within a general family of functional transforms, which distort a function by imposing a convex solution.In earlier work, the authors proposed a generalized approach to modeling SPM using a hidden Markov model, wherein both the sample-probe interaction and probe geometry may be taken into account. We present a discussion of the hidden Markov model and its relationship to these convex functional transforms for simulating and restoring SPM images.©2009 SPIE.

Genome-wide high-resolution mapping and functional analysis of DNA methylation in arabidopsis.

Cytosine methylation is important for transposon silencing and epigenetic regulation of endogenous genes, although the extent to which this DNA modification functions to regulate the genome is still unknown. Here we report the first comprehensive DNA methylation map of an entire genome, at 35 base pair resolution, using the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana as a model. We find that pericentromeric heterochromatin, repetitive sequences, and regions producing small interfering RNAs are heavily methylated. Unexpectedly, over one-third of expressed genes contain methylation within transcribed regions, whereas only approximately 5% of genes show methylation within promoter regions. Interestingly, genes methylated in transcribed regions are highly expressed and constitutively active, whereas promoter-methylated genes show a greater degree of tissue-specific expression. Whole-genome tiling-array transcriptional profiling of DNA methyltransferase null mutants identified hundreds of genes and intergenic noncoding RNAs with altered expression levels, many of which may be epigenetically controlled by DNA methylation.