Wing-Kin Sung

Bio: Wing-Kin Sung is an academic researcher from National University of Singapore. The author has contributed to research in topics: Gene & Chromatin immunoprecipitation. The author has an hindex of 64, co-authored 327 publications receiving 26116 citations. Previous affiliations of Wing-Kin Sung include University of Hong Kong & Yale University.

Fast relative lempel-ziv self-index for similar sequences

Abstract: Recent advances in biotechnology and web technology are generating huge collections of similar strings. People now face the problem of storing them compactly while supporting fast pattern searching. One compression scheme called relative Lempel-Ziv compression uses textual substitutions from a reference text as follows: Given a (large) set S of strings, represent each string in S as a concatenation of substrings from a reference string R . This basic scheme gives a good compression ratio when every string in S is similar to R , but does not provide any pattern searching functionality. Here, we describe a new data structure that supports fast pattern searching.

Learning multi-time delay gene network using Bayesian network framework

Abstract: Exact determination of gene network is required to discover the higher-order structures of an organism and to interpret its behavior. Most research work in learning gene networks either assumes that there is no time delay in gene expression or that there is a constant time delay. The paper shows how Bayesian networks can be applied to represent multitime delay relationships as well as directed loops. The intractability of the network learning algorithm is handled by using an improved mutual information criteria. Also, a new structure learning algorithm, "learning by modification", is proposed to learn the sparse structure of a gene network. The experimental results on synthetic data and real data show that our method is more accurate in determining the gene structure as compared to the traditional methods. Even for transcriptional loops spanning over the whole cell, our algorithm can detect them.

Model gene network by semi-fixed Bayesian network

Abstract: Gene networks describe functional pathways in a given cell or tissue, representing processes such as metabolism, gene expression regulation, and protein or RNA transport. Thus, learning gene network is a crucial problem in the post genome era. Most existing works learn gene networks by assuming one gene provokes the expression of another gene directly leading to an over-simplified model. In this paper, we show that the gene regulation is a complex problem with many hidden variables. We propose a semi-fixed model to represent the gene network as a Bayesian network with hidden variables. In addition, an effective algorithm based on semi-fixed structure learning is proposed to learn the model. Experimental results and comparison with the-state-of-the-art learning algorithms on artificial and real-life datasets confirm the effectiveness of our approach.

Rna secondary structure prediction

Abstract: Understanding secondary structures of RNAs helps to determine their chemical and biological properties. Only a small number of RNA structures have been determined currently since such structure determination experiments are timeconsuming and expensive. As a result, scientists start to rely on RNA secondary structure prediction. Unlike protein structure prediction, predicting RNA secondary structure already has some success. This chapter reviews a number of RNA secondary structure prediction methods.

News sports video shot classification with sports play field and motion features

Abstract: In this paper a novel sports news video shot classification method has been proposed. First two features based on motion and color are constructed and extracted from video shots: play field color ratio for specific types of sports, background motion and consistency ratio, then they are combined to generate an 11-dimension shot feature to feed into a C4.5 decision tree for shot classification. Based on our video data sets-the sports news video from the CNN Headline News video used in the TRECVID 2003, 7 predefined video shot classes were defined: 4 types of sports field video (basketball, baseball, ice hockey and golf) and sports news lead-in/lead-out, text and others. Sports news video segments from 15 half-hour CNN News video were used for the training and testing. A performance of average precision and recall 88%, 82% has been achieved, respectively. The proposed method can be further developed and used to search news video for individual sports news and sports highlights.

Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows–Wheeler transform

Abstract: Motivation: The enormous amount of short reads generated by the new DNA sequencing technologies call for the development of fast and accurate read alignment programs. A first generation of hash table-based methods has been developed, including MAQ, which is accurate, feature rich and fast enough to align short reads from a single individual. However, MAQ does not support gapped alignment for single-end reads, which makes it unsuitable for alignment of longer reads where indels may occur frequently. The speed of MAQ is also a concern when the alignment is scaled up to the resequencing of hundreds of individuals. Results: We implemented Burrows-Wheeler Alignment tool (BWA), a new read alignment package that is based on backward search with Burrows–Wheeler Transform (BWT), to efficiently align short sequencing reads against a large reference sequence such as the human genome, allowing mismatches and gaps. BWA supports both base space reads, e.g. from Illumina sequencing machines, and color space reads from AB SOLiD machines. Evaluations on both simulated and real data suggest that BWA is ~10–20× faster than MAQ, while achieving similar accuracy. In addition, BWA outputs alignment in the new standard SAM (Sequence Alignment/Map) format. Variant calling and other downstream analyses after the alignment can be achieved with the open source SAMtools software package. Availability: http://maq.sourceforge.net Contact: [email protected]

Ultrafast and memory-efficient alignment of short DNA sequences to the human genome

Abstract: Bowtie is an ultrafast, memory-efficient alignment program for aligning short DNA sequence reads to large genomes. For the human genome, Burrows-Wheeler indexing allows Bowtie to align more than 25 million reads per CPU hour with a memory footprint of approximately 1.3 gigabytes. Bowtie extends previous Burrows-Wheeler techniques with a novel quality-aware backtracking algorithm that permits mismatches. Multiple processor cores can be used simultaneously to achieve even greater alignment speeds. Bowtie is open source http://bowtie.cbcb.umd.edu.

An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome

Abstract: The human genome encodes the blueprint of life, but the function of the vast majority of its nearly three billion bases is unknown. The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project has systematically mapped regions of transcription, transcription factor association, chromatin structure and histone modification. These data enabled us to assign biochemical functions for 80% of the genome, in particular outside of the well-studied protein-coding regions. Many discovered candidate regulatory elements are physically associated with one another and with expressed genes, providing new insights into the mechanisms of gene regulation. The newly identified elements also show a statistical correspondence to sequence variants linked to human disease, and can thereby guide interpretation of this variation. Overall, the project provides new insights into the organization and regulation of our genes and genome, and is an expansive resource of functional annotations for biomedical research.

Machine learning

Abstract: Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Model-based Analysis of ChIP-Seq (MACS)

Abstract: We present Model-based Analysis of ChIP-Seq data, MACS, which analyzes data generated by short read sequencers such as Solexa's Genome Analyzer. MACS empirically models the shift size of ChIP-Seq tags, and uses it to improve the spatial resolution of predicted binding sites. MACS also uses a dynamic Poisson distribution to effectively capture local biases in the genome, allowing for more robust predictions. MACS compares favorably to existing ChIP-Seq peak-finding algorithms, and is freely available.