Don Pellegrino's Blog

With the recent release of Maple 14 I have been preparing to upgrade my copy of Maple 13. Maple has been around for many years. During the upgrade process I was wondering how popular the tool is today.  I often use compiled programming languages such as C, C++ and Java.  Maple’s position in my toolbox [...]

While working on code for my Influenza Sequence Mapping Project [url] I ran into a frustrating incompatibility between the IBM DB2 Embedded SQL C client [url] and the NCBI Toolbox [url].  Both of these APIs contain a header file named “asn.h.”  By chance I had been setting my preprocessor include path as: export CPPFLAGS=”-I/usr/include/ncbi -I/home/db2inst1/sqllib/include” [...]

The recent outbreak of H1N1 has increased researchers attention on flu viruses. The strain of H1N1 originating in Mexico in April has already been sequenced by a number of different researchers and the sequences have been posted to the NCBI databases [GenBank, 2009]. An issue of interest to researchers are the similarities and differences between [...]

Graph / network data structures are very useful.  A number of tools and APIs have been written to work with such structures.  Many of these include functions that can be run on the graphs.  A function to calculate node degree is an example.  Unfortunately most of the APIs require that the entire graph be loaded [...]

Reading through a sample of the UsefulChem Experiments / Reactions (http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/All+Reactions) reveals the significance of the Ugi reaction.  “The Ugi reaction is a multi-component reaction in organic chemistry involving a ketone or aldehyde, an amine, an isocyanide and a carboxylic acid to form a bis-amide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugi_reaction).”  The “Applications” section of the Wikipedia page is also [...]

Below is a list of some of the research ideas I am currently working on.  These ideas all need further refinement to get more specific research questions and to build out the theoretical orientations, methodologies and evaluation strategies that will be used.  If these are subjects that interest you please let me know. An Information [...]

I had the opportunity to attend a great talk by Professor Clive Gamble at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology: “Breaking the Mind Barrier: The Archeology and Evolution of Our Social Brain” with Professor Clive Gamble, Co-Director British Academy Centenary Project, Thursday November 13, 2008 6:00 PM, The University of Pennsylvania Museum [...]