skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Attention:The NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) system and access will be unavailable from 11:00 PM ET on Thursday, May 14 until 2:00 AM ET on Friday, May 15 due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.


Title: Undesignable RNA Structure Identification via Rival Structure Generation and Structure Decomposition
Award ID(s):
2330737 2009071
PAR ID:
10673111
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Proceedings of RECOMB 2024 (Springer)
Date Published:
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. RNA design is the search for a sequence or set of sequences that will fold into predefined structures, also known as the inverse problem of RNA folding. While numerous RNA design methods have been invented to find sequences capable of folding into a target structure, little attention has been given to the identification of undesignable structures according to the minimum free energy ( ) criterion under the Turner model. In this paper, we address this gap by first introducing mathematical theorems outlining sufficient conditions for recognizing undesignable structures, then proposing efficient algorithms, guided by these theorems, to verify the undesignability of RNA structures. Through the application of these theorems and algorithms to the Eterna100 puzzles, we demonstrate the ability to efficiently establish that 15 of the puzzles indeed fall within the category of undesignable structures. In addition, we provide specific insights from the study of undesignability, in the hope that it will enable more understanding of RNA folding and RNA design. Availability: Our source code is available at https://github.com/shanry/RNA-Undesign. 
    more » « less
  2. null (Ed.)
    Social-structure learning is the process by which social groups are identified on the basis of experience. Building on models of structure learning in other domains, we formalize this problem within a Bayesian framework. According to this framework, the probabilistic assignment of individuals to groups is computed by combining information about individuals with prior beliefs about group structure. Experiments with adults and children provide support for this framework, ruling out alternative accounts based on dyadic similarity. More broadly, we highlight the implications of social-structure learning for intergroup cognition, stereotype updating, and coalition formation. 
    more » « less