How could complex, enzymeor ribozyme-like molecules first have arisen on planet Earth? Several authors have suggested autocatalytic cycles as a partial answer to this question, since such reactions exhibit the life-like property of exponential growth while being composed of relatively simple molecules. However, a question remains as to the likelihood of an autocatalytic cycle forming spontaneou...

Sensitivity is one of the simplest, and block sensitivity one of the most useful, invariants of a boolean function. Nisan [SIAM J. Comput. 20 (6) (1991) 999] and Nisan and Szegedy [Comput. Complexity 4 (4) (1994) 301] have shown that block sensitivity is polynomially related to a number of measures of boolean function complexity. Themain open question is whether or not a polynomial relationship...

Sensitivity is one of the simplest and block sensitivity one of the most useful invariants of a boolean function Nisan and Nisan and Szegedy have shown that block sensitivity is polynomially related to a number of measures of boolean function complexity The main open question is whether or not a polynomial relationship exists between sensitivity and block sensitivity We de ne the intermediate n...

The significance of miRNAs has been clarified over the last decade as thousands of these small non-coding RNAs have been found in a wide variety of species. By binding to specific target mRNAs, miRNAs act as negative regulators of gene expression in many different biological processes. Computational approaches for discovery of miRNAs in genomes usually take the form of an algorithm that scans s...

Measurement efficiency is of concern when a large number of observations are required to obtain reliable estimates for parametric models of vision. The standard entropy-based Bayesian adaptive testing procedures addressed the issue by selecting the most informative stimulus in sequential experimental trials. Noninformative, diffuse priors were commonly used in those tests. Hierarchical adaptive...

Introduction: Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an imaging method in which light source and detector are installed on the head; consequently, re-emission of light from human skin contains information about cerebral hemodynamic alteration. The spatial probability distribution profile of photons penetrating tissue at a source spot, scattering into the tissue, and being released at ...