Bioinformatics (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning) - Hardcover

Baldi, Pierre; Søren Brunak

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 026202442X ISBN 13: 9780262024426

Publisher: The MIT Press, 1998

Synopsis

An unprecedented wealth of data is being generated by genome sequencing projects and other experimental efforts to determine the structure and function of biological molecules. The demands and opportunities for interpreting these data are expanding more than ever. Biotechnology, pharmacology, and medicine will be particularly affected by the new results and the increased understanding of life at the molecular level. Bioinformatics is the development and application of computer methods for analysis, interpretation, and prediction, as well as for the design of experiments. It has emerged as a strategic frontier between biology and computer science.

Machine learning approaches (e.g., neural networks, hidden Markov models, and belief networks) are ideally suited for areas where there is a lot of data but little theory—and this is exactly the situation in molecular biology. As with its predecessor, statistical model fitting, the goal in machine learning is to extract useful information from a body of data by building good probabilistic models. The particular twist behind machine learning, however, is to automate the process as much as possible.

In this book, Pierre Baldi and Søren Brunak present the key machine learning approaches and apply them to the computational problems encountered in the analysis of biological data. The book is aimed at two types of researchers and students. First are the biologists and biochemists who need to understand new data-driven algorithms, such as neural networks and hidden Markov models, in the context of biological sequences and their molecular structure and function. Second are those with a primary background in physics, mathematics, statistics, or computer science who need to know more about specific applications in molecular biology.

About this title

From the Publisher

An unprecedented wealth of data is being generated by genome sequencing projects and other experimental efforts to determine the structure and function of biological molecules. The demands and opportunities for interpreting these data are expanding rapidly. Bioinformatics is the development and application of computer methods for management, analysis, interpretation, and prediction, as well as for the design of experiments. Machine learning approaches (e.g., neural networks, hidden Markov models, and belief networks) are ideally suited for areas where there is a lot of data but little theory, which is the situation in molecular biology. The goal in machine learning is to extract useful information from a body of data by building good probabilistic models--and to automate the process as much as possible.

In this book, Pierre Baldi and Søren Brunak present the key machine learning approaches and apply them to the computational problems encountered in the analysis of biological data. The book is aimed both at biologists and biochemists who need to understand new data-driven algorithms and at those with a primary background in physics, mathematics, statistics, or computer science who need to know more about applications in molecular biology.

This edition contains expanded coverage of probabilistic graphical models and of the applications of neural networks, as well as a new chapter on microarrays and gene expression. The entire text has been extensively revised.

About the Author

Pierre Baldi is Professor of Information and Computer Science and of Biological Chemistry (College of Medicine) and Director of the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of California, Irvine.

Edition details

• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 026202442X
• ISBN 13: 9780262024426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 360