Abstract:

Why does the functioning of biological systems seem miraculous? One reason is that we do not know how to design systems that do what cells do, namely molecular computing. However, while we do not know how to design complex molecular systems, we do know how to design highly complex information systems, namely computers. The fundamental reason for the successful evolution of information systems is the development of mathematical abstractions that enable efficient and robust design processes. In particular, Claude Shannon in his classical 1938 Master’s Thesis demonstrated that all Boolean functions can be computed by relay circuits, leading to the development of digital logic and resulting in computer chips with over a billion transistors. Motivated to develop mathematical abstractions to enable the analysis of stochastic computation in gene regulatory networks, we generalize the notion of logic design to probabilistic logic design. Specifically, we consider relay circuits where deterministic switches are replaced by probabilistic switches. We present efficient algorithms for synthesizing probabilistic relay circuits that can compute desired probability distributions.

Bio:

Jehoshua (Shuki) Bruck is the Gordon and Betty Moore Professor of Computation and Neural Systems and Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He served as the founding Director of the Caltech Information Science and Technology (IST) program. His research focuses on the design of information systems and the analysis of biological circuits and systems. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in 1982 and 1985, respectively and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1989. He has an extensive industrial experience, including working with IBM Research where he participated in the design and implementation of the first IBM parallel computer. He was a co-founder and chairman of Rainfinity (acquired by EMC), a spin-off company from Caltech that focused on software products for management of network information storage systems. He is an IEEE fellow, and his awards include the National Science Foundation Young Investigator award and the Sloan fellowship. He published more than 200 journal and conference papers in his areas of interests and he holds 28 US patents. His publications were recognized by awards, including, a selection as an ISI highly cited researcher, winning the 2005 S. A. Schelkunoff Transactions prize paper award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation society and the Best Paper Award in the 2003 Design Automation Conference.