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New Computing Tool Could Lead to Better Crops and Pesticides, Say Researchers

sparky3887 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:54:27 +0000

Researchers from Imperial College London (ICL) and Syngenta have developed a computational tool that uses machine learning to find complex patterns in data about the behavior of plants. The use of machine learning means agricultural researchers will be able to analyze plant biology in minutes, even if they lack certain information about the inner workings of plants. With previous mathematical modeling tools, finding nuggets of information could take months or even years. “We believe our computing tool will revolutionize agricultural research by making the process much faster than is currently possible using conventional techniques,” says ICL professor Stephen Muggleton. “We hope that our new technology will ultimately help farmers to produce hardier, longer lasting, and more nutritious crops.” The researchers are currently testing a prototype of the tool, which will help agricultural scientists predict how genes inside plants will react to different chemicals or environmental conditions. For one project, the tool will be used to analyze how different genes affect the way a tomato’s flesh hardens and tastes, and the findings could lead to new tomato strains that are tastier, or redden earlier and soften later to prevent them from spoiling when they are transported to market.

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Haitians in Crisis: Developing Translation Tools

sparky3887 — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:44:33 +0000

Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute (LTI) have released spoken and textual data on Haitian Creole that will help groups in their efforts to develop translation technologies for relief workers in Haiti. Microsoft has already used the data to develop a Web-based system for translating between English and Haitian Creole. LTI researchers began to update their own translation system for Haitian Creole after the Jan. 12 earthquake, but decided that releasing its data to the public would lead to faster development of translation tools. The French nonprofit Translators Without Borders is working on a medical triage dictionary for doctors in Haiti. LTI’s Robert Frederking says there are few translation resources for Haitian Creole, which is based on the French language and incorporates African syntax. “Nobody is going to make money on a Haitian Creole translator,” Frederking says. “But translation systems could be an important tool, both for the relief workers now involved in emergency response and in the long-term as rebuilding takes place.”

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A Tool to Make More of Many Cores

sparky3887 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:43:29 +0000

Later this year Intel will release a research project code-named Ct, short for C for Throughput, that will automatically make standard C and C++ compilers work with many-core processors–those with 16 to hundreds of cores. Ct will be part of Intel’s Parallel Studio software-development toolkit and will enable programmers to employ all of the cores in many-core processors, ensuring they are running at full efficiency. Traditionally, creating parallel software has required determining which parts of the code were most easily adapted to parallel processors and isolating those parts in the module. However, isolating and applying parallel code would have to be done from scratch for each new processor family or with any significant increase in the number of cores. Intel says that Ct automates this process, and optimizing for many-core processors will not even require a recompile. Ct also is backward compatible with software written for Intel’s x86 architecture. Ct will work with Intel’s new graphics chip, code-named Larrabee, due next year. “Ct is a good match for Larrabee,” says University of Illinois professor Marc Snir. “We have thought of Ct as something that is much more attractive than CUDA or OpenCL for developing data-parallel code.”

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