[Fis] Fwd: Chemical information: a field of fuzzy contours ?
Michel -- Regarding: Now, I ask you the following: please can you provide an extremely simple example (the most simple you could imagine) of situation in which you can say: << in this situation, information is ... >>. Chemical information is welcome, but an example from physics would be great, too. However, please, no biology example, that will be dicussed at the occasion of a future session. Would it not be the case that chemical information would relate to catalysts? That is, chemical scale configurations which have the property of forming enabling constraints for some chemical bond alterations. Then, of course, at the physical level we have the fermion / boson transactions that actually make up the basis of a chemical reaction. STAN On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 7:07 AM, Michel Petitjean < petitjean.chi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear FISers, > > Pedro raises several points. > Among them: > > 1. "Chemoinformatics" or "Cheminformatics" ? > Both terms are encountered. I would say that unless some authority > takes a decision, both terms will continue to be used. > > 2. Despite I gave an example of what could be cheminformation in a > concrete case, I did not tell what was exactly cheminformation in this > concrete case. I just asked the question of what it could be. > Now, I ask you the following: please can you provide an extremely > simple example (the most simple you could imagine) of situation in > which you can say: << in this situation, information is ... >>. > Chemical information is welcome, but an example from physics would be > great, too. However, please, no biology example, that will be dicussed > at the occasion of a future session. > These examples are expected to help us to define information in more > general situations. > > 3. The comparison Pedro did with symmetry is of interest: can anyone > define symmetry ? > During a long time, symmetry had in common with information that many > people attempted to define it in its own field, giving raise to many > particular definitions, but not to a common and widely accepted one. > Some years ago, although I needed to mention a definition of symmetry > in one of my papers, I was surprised that I could not find an unifying > one (symmetry is known since millenaries!!). Even in the book of Weyl > I did not find the expected one. > So, I decided to build my own one (Symmetry: Culture and Science, > 2007, 18[2-3], 99-119; free reprint at > http://petitjeanmichel.free.fr/itoweb.paper.SCS.2007). See also: > http://petitjeanmichel.free.fr/itoweb.petitjean.html > In fact, the group structure which is generally a priori imposed, is a > consequence of several properties that the definition should satisfy > to be in agreement with some obvious intuitive requirements (and so, > five different groups appear naturally, none of them being imposed a > priori). Of course, the proposed unifying definition applies to a > broad spectrum of situations, not only the geometric one: matrices, > functions, distributions, graphs, etc. > But that was possible because I already had knowledge of the many > definitions in particular domains or situations. > > Thus I expect that that you will post several examples of information > in very simples cases. > From the analysis of these situations we should move forward. > > E.g., for symmetry, one of the simple examples I gave was the set of > three points of the real line: if one point is the mid of the two > other, there is symmetry (in fact, it is a case of achirality, i.e. > indirect symmetry, because here we deal with reflections rather than > with rotations). > It would be great to have so simple situations for information in > chemistry or physics. > > Thanks by advance, > ll my best, > > Michel. > > ___ > fis mailing list > fis@listas.unizar.es > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] Chemical information: a field of fuzzy contours ?
Dear FISers, Many thanks to Xueshan Yan for these three examples of cheminformation. I agree that among the various cheminformation concepts, some are technological. E.g., the Infonortics conferences (the 2011 one held in Barcelona: http://www.infonortics.com/call-11.html, http://www.haxel.com/icic/) are oriented to professional information, rather in the sense of publishing. That should be of interest for professional information people in a broader sense, not only in a technology of publication one and related. On the other hand, cheminformatics conferences and workshops organized in various countries, such as in USA (by CINF division of the ACS, mentioned in a previous post), in Germany (https://www.gdch.de/index.php?id=780), in UK (http://cisrg.shef.ac.uk/shef2010/), in France (http://infochim.u-strasbg.fr/spip.php?rubrique12), etc., seem to target attendees mainly interested in a different technolgical cheminformation, closer to the one mentioned in case 1 by Xueshan Yan. It seems to me that the two respective scopes of these two classes of conferences have a reduced intersection. Nevertheless, none of them should be ignored. Regarding cases 2 and 3 mentioned by Xueshan Yan, I would like to read more from FISers before commenting. Thanks also to Robin Faichney for the example of information in physics, that I would comment a bit (not joking). I can understand that a two states system such as a spin can be viewed as carrying a bit of information. This is a good example of application of information theory to a physical system. This class of examples is nice because it takes benefit from the rigorous definitions available in the field, which can be found in textbooks (Cover, Renyi, etc.). However, since we assumed that information theory is a subfield of information science (in addition to be a subfield of probability theory), we also need very simple examples of information outside the field of information theory. Best regards, Michel. 2011/9/24 Xueshan Yan : > Dear Michel， > > It is very interesting for you telling us so many stories about the study of > chemical information which took place in France and your university. > > As an information researcher, I once was invited to deliver a speech on > Information Science at a meeting about chmoinformatics here a few years ago; > I found their interests are far different from mine. Their main concerns are > what information technology can be applied to chemistry――It seems as if you > like this one according to your introductory post.But what we are eager to > know is where the chemical information exists and how it functions between > two molecules or supermolecules. As a matter of fact, I found there are > three kinds of studies about information in chemistry. > > 1. Chmoinformatics: A study about how to manage and compute chemical > information, such as management of chemical abstracts, retrieval of chemical > information through internet, molecules represented by graphs, data mining > etc. there are many books like this in the bookstore. Of course, this may > not be a subject that could arouse real interests among true information > researchers, because there are thousands of applications of information > technology in different areas, it is difficult for us to call all these > applications of information technology as informatics or information > science. > > 2. Chmoinformatics: A study about how chemical information function between > two molecules or two supermolecules, according to the terms in biology and > chemistry: between substrate and receptor, or in coordination chemistry: > between donor and acceptor, or host and guest, we can only consider this > thought as a conjecture which proposed by Jean-Marie Lehn of University > Louis Pasteur――the noble prize winner of 1987. As a matter of fact, we all > know that in the process of molecule reaction and recognition, an > intelligent is in esse. This has been proved by Fischer’s lock-and-key model > early in 1894. > > 3. Semiochemistry: A study about chemical information materials that mediate > interactions between members of different species. This study consider > pheromone, quinonyl compounds etc. as messengers. It is an interdiscipline > of chemistry and biology. > > We especially want to know what advance about the second study about > chemical information in chemists has made recent years. Because Lehn said in > many places: “Supramolecular chemistry (chmoinformatics) has paved the way > toward apprehending chemistry as an information science”. > > Best wishes, > Xueshan Yan > Peking University, FIS Beijing Group > ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
