---
title: "Qualitative Modeling of RNA Structure"
authors:
  - "Kyungsook Han"
  - "Andrew Gelsey"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/216"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1993/0216.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1993
pages: "1558-1562"
track: "Qualitative Reasoning and Naive Physics"
keywords:
---

# Qualitative Modeling of RNA Structure

Kyungsook Han, Andrew Gelsey

*Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 1558-1562.

## Abstract

Determining the folding structure of an RNA molecule from its und erlying lin ea r sequence is a complex problem involving both spatial reasoning and th e use of knowledge of chemistry and biology. Most research in qualitative physics has traditionally focused on certain types of processes only, and does not provide a method for properly modeling folding. This paper introduces a new AI method for reasoning abo ut the folding process. We present a discrete model for predicting a folding structure and for qualitatively simulating the process of the s tructur e form at ion over time. We use a simple and approximate model for the task, but accuracy in the prediction is achieved by capturing knowledge from several sources. Th e modell~as been impl emented in a working program and ha s been successfully tested on several types of RNA s, including RNAs whose structures have not been fully determined yet.