Dendritic Algorithm

Dendritic Algorithm (DENDRAL) is one of the first expert systems designed for automatic interpretation of the mass spectra to derive molecular structures. 

One of the most successful approaches to structure identification by means of computers was achieved at Stanford University with the Heuristic Dendral Program, based on the dendritic algorithm of Lederberg The Heuristic Dendral Program (HDP), as it was before 1970, is explained in various publications 40-42i and summarized in Fig. 1. The data, a mass... 

Richards, et. al. s idea is to use a genetic algorithm to search through a space of a certain class of cellular automata rules for a local rule that best reproduces the observed behavior of the data. Their learning algorithm (which was applied specifically to sequential patterns of dendrites formed by NH4 Br as it solidifies from a supersaturated solution) starts with no a-priori knowledge about the physical system. R, instead, builds increasingly sophisticated models that reproduce the observed behavior. 

Figure 20. Projectional side views of rat hippocampal dendrites stained with Lucifer yellow Top Original confocal data set Bottom Restored data following 100 iterations of the maximum likelihood blind de-convolution algorithm...

---