2035165
Deriving Parallel Codes via Invariants
Systematic parallelization of sequential programs remains a major challenge in parallel computing. Traditional approaches using program schemes tend to be narrower in scope, as the properties which enable parallelism are difficult to capture via ad-hoc schemes. In [CTH98], a systematic approach to parallelization based on the notion of preserving the context of recursive sub-terms has been proposed. This approach can be used to derive a class of divide-and-conquer algorithms. In this paper, we enhance the methodology by using invariants to guide the parallelization process. The enhancement enables the parallelization of a class of recursive functions with conditional and tupled constructs, which were not possible previously. We further show how such invariants can be discovered and verified systematically, and demonstrate the power of our methodology by deriving a parallel code for maximum segment product. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic parallelization for the maximum segment product problem.
15997088
A New Parallel Skeleton for General Accumulative Computations
Skeletal parallel programming enables programmers to build a parallel program from ready-made components (parallel primitives) for which efficient implementations are known to exist, making both the parallel program development and the parallelization process easier. Constructing efficient parallel programs is often difficult, however, due to difficulties in selecting a proper combination of parallel primitives and in implementing this combination without having unnecessary creations and exchanges of data among parallel primitives and processors. To overcome these difficulties, we propose a powerful and general parallel skeleton, accumulate, which can be used to naturally code efficient solutions to problems as well as be efficiently implemented in parallel using Message Passing Interface (MPI).
5453797
List Homomorphism with Accumulation
This paper introduces accumulation into list homomorphisms for systematic development of both efficient and correct parallel programs. New parallelizable recursive pattern called H-homomorphism is given, and transformations from sequential patterns in the H-form and Hform into (H-)homomorphism are shown. We illustrate the power of our formalization by developing a novel and general parallel program for a class of interesting and challenging problems, known as maximum marking problems.
13526098
Systematic Derivation of Tree Contraction Algorithms
While tree contraction algorithms play an important role in efficient tree computation in parallel, it is difficult to develop such algorithms due to the strict conditions imposed on contracting op...
17460651
A calculational fusion system HYLO
Fusion, one of the most useful transformation tactics for deriving efficient programs, is the process whereby separate pieces of programs are fused into a single one, leading to an efficient program without intermediate data structures produced. In this paper, we report our on-going investigation on the design and implementation of an automatic transformation system HYLO which performs fusion transformation in a more systematic and more general way than any other systems. The distinguished point of our system is its calculational feature based on simple application of transformation laws rather than traditional search-based transformations.
21046907
Construction of List Homomorphisms by Tupling and Fusion
List homomorphisms are functions which can be efficiently computed in parallel since they ideally suit the divide- sand-conquer paradigm. However, some interesting functions, e.g., the maximum segment sum problem, are not list homomorphisms. In this paper, we propose a systematic way of embedding them into list homomorphisms so that parallel programs are derived. We show, with an example, how a simple, and “obviously” correct, but possibly inefficient solution to the problem can be successfully turned into a semantically equivalent almost homomorphism by means of two transformations: tupling and fusion.
18834097
Utilization of two sample t-test statistics from redundant probe sets to evaluate different probe set algorithms in GeneChip studies
BackgroundThe choice of probe set algorithms for expression summary in a GeneChip study has a great impact on subsequent gene expression data analysis. Spiked-in cRNAs with known concentration are often used to assess the relative performance of probe set algorithms. Given the fact that the spiked-in cRNAs do not represent endogenously expressed genes in experiments, it becomes increasingly important to have methods to study whether a particular probe set algorithm is more appropriate for a specific dataset, without using such external reference data.ResultsWe propose the use of the probe set redundancy feature for evaluating the performance of probe set algorithms, and have presented three approaches for analyzing data variance and result bias using two sample t-test statistics from redundant probe sets. These approaches are as follows: 1) analyzing redundant probe set variance based on t-statistic rank order, 2) computing correlation of t-statistics between redundant probe sets, and 3) analyzing the co-occurrence of replicate redundant probe sets representing differentially expressed genes. We applied these approaches to expression summary data generated from three datasets utilizing individual probe set algorithms of MAS5.0, dChip, or RMA. We also utilized combinations of options from the three probe set algorithms. We found that results from the three approaches were similar within each individual expression summary dataset, and were also in good agreement with previously reported findings by others. We also demonstrate the validity of our findings by independent experimental methods.ConclusionAll three proposed approaches allowed us to assess the performance of probe set algorithms using the probe set redundancy feature. The analyses of redundant probe set variance based on t-statistic rank order and correlation of t-statistics between redundant probe sets provide useful tools for data variance analysis, and the co-occurrence of replicate redundant probe sets representing differentially expressed genes allows estimation of result bias. The results also suggest that individual probe set algorithms have dataset-specific performance.
12615323
PIRSF: family classification system at the Protein Information Resource
The Protein Information Resource (PIR) is an integrated public resource of protein informatics. To facilitate the sensible propagation and standardization of protein annotation and the systematic detection of annotation errors, PIR has extended its superfamily concept and developed the SuperFamily (PIRSF) classification system. Based on the evolutionary relationships of whole proteins, this classification system allows annotation of both specific biological and generic biochemical functions. The system adopts a network structure for protein classification from superfamily to subfamily levels. Protein family members are homologous (sharing common ancestry) and homeomorphic (sharing full-length sequence similarity with common domain architecture). The PIRSF database consists of two data sets, preliminary clusters and curated families. The curated families include family name, protein membership, parent-child relationship, domain architecture, and optional description and bibliography. PIRSF is accessible from the website at http://pir.georgetown.edu/pirsf/ for report retrieval and sequence classification. The report presents family annotation, membership statistics, cross-references to other databases, graphical display of domain architecture, and links to multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic trees for curated families. PIRSF can be utilized to analyze phylogenetic profiles, to reveal functional convergence and divergence, and to identify interesting relationships between homeomorphic families, domains and structural classes.
53305921
Substring selection for biomedical document classification
Motivation: Attribute selection is a critical step in development of document classification systems. As a standard practice, words are stemmed and the most informative ones are used as attributes in classification. Owing to high complexity of biomedical terminology, general-purpose stemming algorithms are often conservative and could also remove informative stems. This can lead to accuracy reduction, especially when the number of labeled documents is small. To address this issue, we propose an algorithm that omits stemming and, instead, uses the most discriminative substrings as attributes. 
 
Results: The approach was tested on five annotated sets of abstracts from iProLINK that report on the experimental evidence about five types of protein post-translational modifications. The experiments showed that Naive Bayes and support vector machine classifiers perform consistently better [with area under the ROC curve (AUC) accuracy in range 0.92--0.97] when using the proposed attribute selection than when using attributes obtained by the Porter stemmer algorithm (AUC in 0.86--0.93 range). The proposed approach is particularly useful when labeled datasets are small. 
 
Contact: vucetic@ist.temple.edu 
 
Supplementary Information: The supplementary data are available from www.ist.temple.edu/PIRsupplement
3641866
The iProClass integrated database for protein functional analysis
Increasingly, scientists have begun to tackle gene functions and other complex regulatory processes by studying organisms at the global scales for various levels of biological organization, ranging from genomes to metabolomes and physiomes. Meanwhile, new bioinformatics methods have been developed for inferring protein function using associative analysis of functional properties to complement the traditional sequence homology-based methods. To fully exploit the value of the high-throughput system biology data and to facilitate protein functional studies requires bioinformatics infrastructures that support both data integration and associative analysis. The iProClass database, designed to serve as a framework for data integration in a distributed networking environment, provides comprehensive descriptions of all proteins, with rich links to over 50 databases of protein family, function, pathway, interaction, modification, structure, genome, ontology, literature, and taxonomy. In particular, the database is organized with PIRSF family classification and maps to other family, function, and structure classification schemes. Coupled with the underlying taxonomic information for complete genomes, the iProClass system (http://pir.georgetown.edu/iproclass/) supports associative studies of protein family, domain, function, and structure. A case study of the phosphoglycerate mutases illustrates a systematic approach for protein family and phylogenetic analysis. Such studies may serve as a basis for further analysis of protein functional evolution, and its relationship to the co-evolution of metabolic pathways, cellular networks, and organisms.
471313
Dependence network modeling for biomarker identification
MOTIVATION
Our purpose is to develop a statistical modeling approach for cancer biomarker discovery and provide new insights into early cancer detection. We propose the concept of dependence network, apply it for identifying cancer biomarkers, and study the difference between the protein or gene samples from cancer and non-cancer subjects based on mass-spectrometry (MS) and microarray data.


RESULTS
Three MS and two gene microarray datasets are studied. Clear differences are observed in the dependence networks for cancer and non-cancer samples. Protein/gene features are examined three at one time through an exhaustive search. Dependence networks are constructed by binding triples identified by the eigenvalue pattern of the dependence model, and are further compared to identify cancer biomarkers. Such dependence-network-based biomarkers show much greater consistency under 10-fold cross-validation than the classification-performance-based biomarkers. Furthermore, the biological relevance of the dependence-network-based biomarkers using microarray data is discussed. The proposed scheme is shown promising for cancer diagnosis and prediction.


AVAILABILITY
See supplements: http://dsplab.eng.umd.edu/~genomics/dependencenetwork/