Bioinformatics software tools and Kolmogorov complexity

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This research proposal focuses on two areas: bioinformatics and Kolmogorov complexity. In bioinformatics, we plan to continue to do research in creating algorithms and software systems for dealing with molecular biological data. In particular, we are interested in further understanding how to compute protein structures from (a) nothing, (b) structural databases, (c) NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectra. In Kolmogorov complexity, we will do theoretical research in information distance and its applications. In particular, we are building a Question and Answer (QA) search engine which uses information distance to measure distances between a query and an answer, and to measure the completeness of an answer. We are supported by IDRC (The International Development Research Center) to develop a full fledged cross language (English and Chinese) QA system for the 500 million elementary cell phone users in China. This research will strengthen and complement the already going-on activities supported by IDRC and will result in a working system.