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Chemical reaction networks (CRNs) are an important tool for molecular programming. This field is rapidly expanding our ability to deploy computer programs into biological systems for various applications. However, CRNs are also difficult to work with due to their massively parallel nature, leading to the need for higher-level languages that allow for more straightforward computation with CRNs. Recently, research has been conducted into various higher-level languages for deterministic CRNs but modeling CRN parallelism, managing error accumulation, and finding natural CRN representations are ongoing challenges. We introduce Reactamole, a higher-level language for deterministic CRNs that utilizes the functional reactive programming (FRP) paradigm to represent CRNs as a reactive dataflow network. Reactamole equates a CRN with a functional reactive program, implementing the key primitives of the FRP paradigm directly as CRNs. The functional nature of Reactamole makes reasoning about molecular programs easier, and its strong static typing allows us to ensure that a CRN is well-formed by virtue of being well-typed. In this paper, we describe the design of Reactamole and how we use CRNs to represent the common datatypes and operations found in FRP. We demonstrate the potential of this functional reactive approach to molecular programming by giving an extended example where a CRN is constructed using FRP to modulate and demodulate an amplitude-modulated signal. We also show how Reactamole can be used to specify abstract CRNs whose structure depends on the reactions and species of its input, allowing users to specify more general CRN behaviors. 

Rigorous, mathematical reasoning, i.e., proof, is the foundation of any undergraduate computer science education. However, students find mathematical proof exceedingly challenging, but also at the same time do not see its relevance to programming. We address these concerns with Snowflake, an educational proof assistant designed to help undergraduates overcome these difficulties when authoring mathematical proof. Snowflake does this by operating in a context where mathematical proof is introduced alongside programming in either a CS1 or CS2 context. The lens that we use to unite the two concepts is program correctness, a topic that immediately makes relevant the concept of formal reasoning as students are perpetually faced with the issue of whether their code is correct. Snowflake is a proof assistant designed for the needs of undergraduates in courses that closely time programming and proof. It is a web-based application that helps students author proofs not only in the context of program correctness in-the-small, but also other topics found in discrete mathematics courses. We report on the design of Snowflake, the kinds of reasoning it enables, and our plans to deploy Snowflake in the classroom. 

Notional Machines (NMs) are a pedagogical device used by teachers in order to help students understand certain concepts. While NMs have been cataloged, the effectiveness of NMs has been rarely evaluated. We build upon this research by exploring what makes certain NMs more effective in various computer science and mathematics courses. We interview professors and students to assess NMs used in the classroom. Notably we found that most students are able to employ the NMs introduced by their professors, and that introductory students prefer template-like NMs, whereas upper level students rely on more conceptual NMs. 

Chemical reaction networks (CRNs) are an important tool for molecular programming, a field that is rapidly expanding our ability to deploy computer programs into biological systems for a variety of applications. However, CRNs are also difficult to work with due to their massively parallel nature, leading to the need for higher-level languages that allow for easier computation with CRNs. Recently, research has been conducted into a variety of higher-level languages for deterministic CRNs but modeling CRN parallelism, managing error accumulation, and finding natural CRN representations are ongoing challenges. We introduce Reactamole, a higher-level language for deterministic CRNs that utilizes the functional reactive programming (FRP) paradigm to represent CRNs as a reactive dataflow network. Reactamole equates a CRN with a functional reactive program, implementing the key primitives of the FRP paradigm directly as CRNs. The functional nature of Reactamole makes reasoning about molecular programs easier, and its strong static typing allows us to ensure that a CRN is well-formed by virtue of being well-typed. In this paper, we describe the design of Reactamole and how we use CRNs to represent the common datatypes and operations found in FRP. We also demonstrate the potential of this functional reactive approach to molecular programming by giving an extended example where a CRN is constructed using FRP to modulate and demodulate an amplitude modulated signal.