In my previous blogpost, I explained what recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are. To read more about this topic, click on the following hyperlink: RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORKS RNNs are a specialized form of the classic feed forward network, which I explained in WHAT IS AN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK? . Used to translate words or summarize text, RNNs ingest sequential inputs, such as the words in a sentence or paragraph ( Figure 1 ). Figure 1.  RNNs are feedforward networks with a hi

Humanity was for centuries under the spell of smallpox, a deadly disease caused by a virus named variola . Smallpox was eradicated in 1977, but for this to happen, vaccine technology had to be invented. And it was a worldwide vaccination campaign that drove smallpox to extinction . Nothing else would have eliminated smallpox. A human-specific Orthopoxvirus, variola was encoded by a DNA genome. To propagate continuously, variola established endemicity in highly populated hum

THE GREAT SICKNESS Centuries ago, a deadly epidemic swept through Mesoamerica. Those who lived through it, called this malady cocoliztli , which means sickness or pestilence in the Nahuatl language. It was a hemorrhagic fever . One which in the spring of 1545, appeared out of nowhere in central Mexico's highlands. Cocoliztli spread with the wind, stopping only because the roads ended. Sonora to the north. Guatemala in the far south. Estimates from population censuses put th

ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS Artificial neural networks , also known as deep learning networks, are a type of machine learning algorithm, which can extract exceedingly complex features from input data. Examples of input data features are the words in a sentence or the patterns in an image. In analogy to the huma n brain’s cognitive processes, deep learning networks acquire the ability to identify feature patterns ( learn )  by modulating the activation state of the artificial n

I provide in this post a high-level introduction to artificial neural networks in the context of MS-proteomics.

The grammar and sentence construction rules in scientific writing are well-defined and accept little or no variation. It is therefore...

This blogpost is about the first two components in a scientific research article ( paper ) — the title and abstract . Below I define...

This blogpost is a postscript  to the previous one — “THE PEPTIDE-SPECTRUM MATCH” — ,  in which I wrote about the peptide-spectrum match...

In my previous blogpost “PROTEOMICS SEARCH ENGINES”   I wrote about the current state-of-the-art of the algorithms used to analyze...

This blog post is a high-level introduction to what a search engine is, in mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MS-proteomics). For those...

But mass spectrometry-based proteomics (MS-proteomics), as we know it, was not born in 1995, which is when the term proteome first...