[OLPC library] OLPC+MATLAB+Greene DNA Chip = Disease Tricorder for developing world

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Kate Davis wrote:
> At Yale, we run Matlab gridWorks (??), which is, as I understand, a 
> distributed client-server type environment.
> 
> Perhaps a slim Sugar client with a Matlab server might be a good option? 
> There are some S+ c/s options, and I can check in to R.

R has several server options, although I've never used them. By the way, 
there is also an interface between R and Python, called "RSPython". I've 
never used it, being Python-illiterate. It lives at

http://www.omegahat.org/RSPython/


There is some documentation on how to "port" Octave or Matlab code to R at

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/R-and-octave.txt

There is an R package to interface with Matlab at 
http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Descriptions/R.matlab.html

and another at

http://www.omegahat.org/RMatlab/

Oh, yeah ... as long as we're talking R and BioConductor, a couple of 
years ago the BioConductor team offered an advanced R programming 
course. It's coming up again in a couple of weeks ... see

https://secure.bioconductor.org/SeattleFeb08/index.php

> 
> Any computational biology projects are well beyond both the cpu and 
> memory capabilities of the XO, but the XO might be an extremely useful 
> remote data collection client, and analytic server client, in the right 
> setup.

Getting this stuff to run on a school server is easy -- the question is 
simply how big a school server one could deploy in the developing world. 
Let me know if you want some help tweaking the R compiles. ;)