Souradyuti’s Medical Journal

Sources of Vitamin D

2010-06-20T22:21:00.001-04:00

Vitamin D may be important for auto-immune diseases:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=110

Towards a disease free world

2010-05-21T11:06:00.003-04:00

It may sound impossible, huh? But human history is the history of achieving the unachievables. It is possible to eradicate a disease entirely from the face of the earth so that it may never occur. A virus is a semi-living organism which can cause certain disease. If one can eradicate all such viruses from the surface of earth then it may be assumed free of that disease. I quote from BBC News:

Edward Jenna made the first vaccination against smallpox in 1796. By 1980 the disease had been wiped out - the first that humankind had eradicated entirely.

Life in Laboratory?

2010-05-20T16:10:00.009-04:00

Evolutionary biologists have always suggested that life originated from non-living substances such us nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen etc. Generation of RNA and DNA from those elements is considered the first step towards formation of a cell capable of multiplication which is a telltale sign of life. If it is true, can we then produce a cell in laboratory? It was however deemed a difficult and a very complicated process, as many thought that such chemical reactions might go on for millions of years in order to finally generate a living cell. So such prospects remained only in theory and never got out of sci-fi cinema or book. On the other hand, if we really can, I think it needs no further explanation for the readers to understand the implication of such success: even if we ignore the ethical and moral aspects of such discovery, it takes no effort to see that the entire edifice of our societal structure is coming crumbling down. Note that this phenomenon is a bit different from genetic engineering or animal cloning which -- however great scientific achievements they may be -- at least require mother cells to produce new cells. In the present case we go further beyond and are achieving the unachievable; we are trying to produce living cells afresh from scratch, from chemicals, as it happened several billion years ago on the planet earth, and that too, in a very small time.

OK. Hang on. We are not still able to produce a complete cell in the laboratory. But we produced the most significant part of a cell, namely the gene or the DNA sequence that controls all the characteristics of a living organism. Such accomplishment, in the long run, would give humans the powers to create a plant or an animal of their choice by artificially creating the suitable genetic code of the organisms. They will be fully factory-manufactured, specific-purpose-serving living beings. Is it not the most dangerous discovery for the society? Or may be the most helpful?
Read:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm

At the time of writing, the artificial DNA, so produced, is being used in a biological cell for it to multiply and grow.What remains to be seen is how fast we can have a laboratory-made empty cell too to contain the already manufactured DNA. I think that day is not so far.

I've not yet mentioned the person who is at the center of such remarkable discovery. His name is Dr. Craig Venter.

Modern humans may have originated from interbreeding with the Neanderthal

2010-05-12T17:25:00.012-04:00

If you believe in Darwinian evolutionary theory, which is probably conclusive with the advanced results in genomics, you already know that all the species around us are our cousins. In other words, all living organisms, including plants and bacteria, were descended from one single common ancestor. If the Darwinian thesis is undisputed (or even if it is not), how would you react to that where the modern humans start interbreeding with, say, modern chimpanzees and reproduce a hybrid species that would roam the earth for, say, the next 250,000 years.If you roll your eyes in surprise at the weird idea of interbreeding among different species, you are probably denying your own ancestral history.

Similar kind of interbreeding had happened more than 50,000 years ago between modern humans and another close species namely the Neanderthal (comparable close species are the humans and the chimpanzees). This is to say, as a result of mating between the modern humans and the Neanderthal, even today we carry some traits of the Neanderthal, a species which was assumed to be extinct some 30,000 years ago.

I'm very much intrigued by the idea of spontaneous mating and reproduction between two different species. I always tend to think interbreeding is unusual, unnatural. Can you imagine mating between a cat and a dog? But they did happen in the past. Yes spontaneously. We (our genes) perhaps bear witness to that.

Read more about that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm

Lying is difficult than speaking the truth

2010-05-05T17:11:00.001-04:00

It may be possible to stop you from lying by injecting special chemical called Sodium Penthanol into your blood stream. Check the news here.The chemical which is claimed to have some numbing effects on you effectively saps your powers to tell a lie. This probably shows that it is easier to tell the truth than lying.

Stem Cell transplantation for ALS

2010-05-04T15:41:00.005-04:00

ALS is a motor neuron disease that destroys your nerves slowly in various parts of your body making you incapable of moving your limbs, lips, tongue etc, before finally drains your powers to operate internal organs such us the respiratory system, leading you to a slow and certain death.The full form of ALS is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

It is one of the plenty of lethal diseases which are incurable. An important characteristic of the disease is that, although it makes your body slowly degrade into a state of zombie, your mind is still alert till the end.

Well known British physicist Stephen Hawking is an ALS patient. Many other famous people from diverse fields have died from this disease.Wiki Link.

Stem cells are progenitor cells which can grow into various types of body cell such as skin, liver, nerve, muscles in various parts of the body. They have long been claimed to be possible cures for various cell-related diseases such as leukemia, melanoma, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's etc. However, stem cell research is faced with some ethical and moral dilemma as the most potent stem cells are found in human embryo (4-10 days old) and fetus (barely a month old) .

Today's News: Stem cells have been transplanted to an ALS patient by the name John Cornick, 51. It is a clinical trial. Purely experimental. I'm not very sure whether it is the first of its kind. The said patient volunteered for the experiment. His such a noble gesture is hugely appreciated. At the moment, nothing can be said about the success of the experiment and its emergence as a potential cure or, at least, a therapy. We can only keep our fingers crossed. The news.

First Quiz on Weblog

2009-12-26T18:31:00.011-05:00

I have been thinking awhile of migrating my orkut quiz over to my weblog in order to present it to a wider audience. When I started the quiz around two years back on orkut social networking site, my only intention was to share with my friends some facts, information, incidents that I found interesting sometimes, a bit surprising often, and, also, probably not very well known. And if it turns out to be funny as well, nothing better. At the same time, most importantly, it gave me ample opportunities to interact with people on several issues of past, present and future, and to know their opinions which I valued very much. As I started posting questions and asked for correct answers, I came to realize that my audience and I as well, have started to enjoy the episodes to a great degree. So, although, I was never very regular with my posts, I could not totally give up. It is important to make it clear that the goal of the quiz was never to just put questions whose answers were difficult.

“Who is 213th vice-president of Mongolia?” may be a difficult question, but it hardly generates any interest or enthusiasm among the audience. Much less any sense of enrichment, making the whole purpose of the quiz a failure. On the other hand, “Who is the only person in the world to have won all the three great awards: Nobel, Academy and Grammy?” may possibly be an interesting question. It is needless to say that, without the active participation of the audience, the quiz cannot survive. Therefore, the responsibility to make it a success is as much yours as it is mine. I would also like to emphasize that the correct answers alone make little sense unless there is some interactive discussion of the issue in question. So there we go!!!

Now I'm ready to put my first blog-quiz. As happened in the earlier orkut version of this series, I may provide hints from time to assist you to go near the correct answer. The question is: Who is the person in the picture?

To Revive the Moribund Health Care System of the US

2009-12-20T05:31:00.023-05:00

The health care system of the US does not fit well into our idea a first world country. The system is a sad story of corruption, fraud, deceit, lobbying and profiteering. I start off with a few bitter facts.

1. The principal cause of personal bankruptcy in the US is medical debt.

2. Per capita expenditure arising from medical costs is the highest in the US among all other countries in the industrialized world.

3. More than 47 million people in the US are without any medical insurance because they are unable to bear the costs of premium demanded by the private insurance companies. Due to the nature of high medical costs, it would not be unfair to conclude that these 47 million people will be left to die without any professional treatment if any life-threatening condition strikes them. The number does not include several million others who are severely under-insured being restricted very much to less or no medical care in many medical emergencies.

4. When you pay more you may expect to receive superior services. The quality of health care in the US is worse than that of any other developed country. As a matter of fact, according to a ranking done by WHO in 2000 to assess the quality of health care, the US ranks below the countries like Morocco, Colombia.

5. The average life expectancy in the US is less than that in any other developed country. Even less than, for example, that of Costa Rica, Chile and Cuba.

6. Infant mortality rate in the US is the highest among all developed countries. It is even higher than many developing countries such as Cuba.

One may naturally ask why it is so.

There are some essential public services that a responsible government can hardly leave in the hands of profit-seeking private industry and allow it to be completely commercialized. Medical and health care system of a country is one of them. Life saving drugs should not be equated to any other consumer products such as sophisticated electronic audio players or six cylinder automobiles with most advanced cruise control system. One can't live without medicines at times of sickness. Medicines are necessary, not a luxury. So it is expected that all possible steps a government should take to keep the medical costs low so that they can be accessible by even the poorest. Unfortunately the medical and health care system in the US does not come anywhere near this principle. The medical costs are exorbitantly high in the US which includes both doctor's fees and costs of medicine, so much so that it is impossible for the common people without "good" insurance coverages to cover the expenditures from their own pockets, in case the ailment is a little serious. If the illness calls for visits to emergency room, the situation quite understandably becomes more horrible. Therefore, a health insurance is an absolute necessity. And this is where the situation turns murkier. In absence of any functional government controlled non-profit heath insurance schemes (known as universal health insurance for all), the private health insurance companies try their level best to overcharge, cheat, defraud the common mass by holding their health to ransom. The people become an easy target for this implicit blackmailing.

The most cruel part of the insurance policies is that, if you have a preexisting condition such as asthma or high blood pressure or pregnancy then you will be denied medical insurance because you, as a new client, pose a potential risk to the profit of the insurance company. In simple terms, due to your preexisting conditions, money going out of the company will be much more than the money coming in. So it is best for them to reject your application. Furthermore, even if the condition is not preexisting, in the event of illness an insurance company leaves no stones unturned so that they can deny the costs on several false grounds, for example, that the treatment is experimental or that the present condition may have some links to certain previous conditions etc. In short, the whole system turns out to be extremely inhuman. There are many such ways the insurance companies cook up with the help of their appointed board of doctors to reject rightful medical claims of the patients. This immoral practice of doing profitable business with human health has been going on in the US for more that three decades now.

There were many attempts earlier to completely reform the health care system as overwhelming majority of the population desperately want change; but all such attempts were defeated, mainly because of the powerful health industry lobbyists in the Washington DC who can influence the congressmen to protect the interests of the insurance companies rather than the people. It is known that health industry spend large amounts of money to prevent any bill for universal health care from being approved by the senators.

When President Barack Obama took office this January, the health care reform to provide health insurance coverage to all citizens at affordable costs was at the top of his agenda. The bill also prevents the private insurance companies from rejecting coverages on grounds of preexisting conditions. Tomorrow (21st Dec 2009) the senate will vote on this issue. If the bill is passed it would be -- although long awaited -- a dream come true for the Americans. At least better late than never.

(Watch the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore to gauge the ruined health care system of the US)

Note: The information, facts mentioned in the post can be sourced, in part, to my personal experience and, also, to various publicly available writings, reports, posts, records, videos. If you don't agree with any of them, feel free to air your disagreements so that I can explain more or stand corrected. In any case, I shall update the post with more examples, facts from time to time.

Bing is eating into Google's market share

2009-09-22T11:01:00.000-04:00

BBC reports:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8268356.stm

The Fritzls of Amstetten Will Surely Leave Us Disturbed for Some time

2008-04-30T14:23:00.006-04:00

When the horrible incident of the Fritzl family of Amstetten, Austria, hit the headlines of the newspapers a few days back, I was trying to remember other crimes of the past that also left us shocked and terrified in a similar way as the present Fritzl case does now.

In the past, we saw the brutalities of many serial killers. Of them, in a recent one, we witnessed the arrest and conviction of Alexander Pichushkin in Russia, and many of us heaved a sigh of relief at the penalty handed to him.

We have been outraged by incidences of pedophilia. We read and heard from the TV channels many cases characterized by sexual abuse of minor children followed by their brutal murders. Who can forget the trial of Marc Dutroux in Brussels which had almost rocked the Belgian justice system?

Everyday in our daily lives, news media deliver incidents of gangrapes, molestations, kidnappings taking place all around the world. We somewhat grew used to it; this, of course, is not a good sign.

However inhuman or violent or odious the aforementioned crimes may have been, we had reasons or at least some excuses not to lose faith totally in the basic values of our society. We take for granted some human values, such as trust, love, respect, to be protected and preserved in close relationships like parentage, friendships and many such. When those humane values are violated in such relationships we try to identify and eliminate the causes of violation, rather than throw away the values themselves, because without them the whole edifice of our emotional constitution collapses.

I came across news where a mother, stricken by abject poverty, sold off her newborn to a rich family in order to provide for the remaining members of her family. There were incidents also, where the father forced her daughter into prostitution as means of livelihood. We were faced with examples too, where the molester or the rapist eventually turned out to be the victim's near relation, as close as father's own brother or even the father himself. Any decent person in a civilized society will surely have been dismayed by these acts of crimes. However, in most of these cases of perversions, it had been seen that either the living conditions of the victims were extremely poor or the perpetrators suffered from deep psychological disorders. We could at least explain to ourselves that these diabolic things cannot happen in a normal society; poverty, unstable mental states of the perverts are to be blamed for that.

Against all these past experiences, the recent incident of Amstetten, which is the topic of this post, perhaps had defeated all possible explanations and reasonings by the sociologists and the psychologists. This crime cannot be matched by any other in its cold-bloodedness, in its duration, in its perfect yet singlehanded and long-drawn-out planning, in its elaborateness, deceit, cruelty, manipulation and above all brazen shamelessness. There could be many other attributes and impacts of the crime waiting to be revealed gradually in future as the research and investigation continue.

For those who missed the incident, this is the summary as known from various news reports.

Josef Fritzl (aged 73), a retired engineer from Amstetten (a town 75 miles west of Austrian capital Vienna) has been arrested on charges of imprisonment and sexual abuse of his daughter. Mr. Fritzl locked up his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl in a basement cellar for 24 years, raped her continually and, as a result, became father of seven children by his own daughter. All the children were born without any medical help in a cramped underground bunker completely insulated from sunlight and fresh air. One of the children died shortly after his birth and the corpse was thrown into an incinerator by the father/grandfather immediately, in an attempt to destroy evidence. Three other children aged 19, 18, 5 have never seen sunlight till a few days back when they were rescued ....

On this incident there have been elaborate discussions going on now in a number of reliable news sources on, for example, how it suddenly came to light, what the other members of the Fritzl family think of the patriarch's immoral conduct and similar issues; so I skip the details. Instead, I shall try to point out some of the striking features of the crime that has made it different from other similar crimes.

Mr. Josef Fritzl, the accused, is a well educated, rich and professionally successful person in the society.
He has shown no signs of mental derangement as expected from a man so cruelly and completely devoid of parental conscience and moralities. According to a neighbor, he has been a cheery fellow, and always used to exchange smiles at passing meetings.
There are further evidences that his state of mind was absolutely normal during the entire period of the crime. This has been reflected in the exceptional discipline, caution and meticulousness he displayed in his behavior for as long as a quarter of a century, making his web of lies look absolutely credible to his neighbors, the social service people, his own wife, other children and the police, when all the unimaginable things are happening right under their noses. There were apparently no abnormalities in his day-to-day lifestyle and behavior; while one side of his split-persona was occupied with the dirtiest of crimes hidden away from the public with clinical perfection, in his public life he prospered in his jobs, was regarded as an intelligent and hardworking professional by the colleagues, went on holiday trips with family and friends, always showed up well dressed in public, joked with friends on many present issues and, interestingly, was considered to be an affectionate grandfather by many neighbors.

While I was browsing through many other heinous aspects of this incident, rather than being just shocked I was struck by a different feeling. This incident has wounded a very tender element of our social fabric that underpins a large part of our emotional security. This unprecedented event has made us confused like never before, as some of our age-old faiths have been shaken. We just do not know at this moment how to rearm our broken confidence, so that, in future, a mother does not have to worry at all to send her daughter to school in her father's care. This would not bode well for the human race if such confidence is not sufficiently restored.

Update (1st May 2008): Lydia Gouardo of France went through similar terrors at the hands of her adoptive father supported by her stepmother. The link. Her case, no less brutal than Elisabeth's, nevertheless, did not receive that much public attention and, as a result, the perpetrator almost moved scot free during his lifetime. Is it because that her tormentor was her adoptive father not the biological one? Now, as we have a precedent for a biological father emerging to be dangerously monstrous, shall we feel less outraged in future if another Firtzl case happens?

Who Wins a Game of Chess (Updated)

2007-06-20T14:28:00.002-04:00

When I was in middle school, my grandmother, who is now an octogenarian, used to encourage me to play chess over soccer, as she had been under the firm misconception that chess was meant for the intelligent students while soccer was for the backbenchers. I think that it is just the opposite. Hope that she reads this weblog.

.....

At the dinner after my Ph.D. defence last year, over glasses of chilled champagne, I was discussing with Prof. Seokhie Hong (CIST, Korea University), Prof. Lars Knudsen (Technical University, Denmark) , Prof. Bart Preneel (University of Leuven, Belgium) and my dear friend Dr. Jongsung Kim (CIST, Korea University) why I thought that the game of football was a more creative sport than the game of chess. Chess enthusiasts (yes, I'm also one of them) may hound me for my blood to know that chess should not be regarded as an example of an intelligent game, much less a creative one. I even went to the extent of saying that, in future, chess would become a dead game as people's enthusiasm in this game would dramatically fall when certain information about the game was unearthed. Now trust me that despite myself being an Indian and chesshaving been invented in India too, I'll really feel sad if my prediction comes true. So why such morbid ideas came to my mind and more importantly what was that significant event that, I thought, would mark the end of chess-craziness? It is not because that the computers will repeatedly defeat the best of the chess players and as a result, people will lose interest in the game. It is because that some day, using faster computing machines and larger storage capacity of modern computers, "the chess problem" will be settled once and for all. Loosely speaking, "the chess problem" is:

Can it be determined with certainty who wins a game of chess even before a single piece is moved on the board?

When I say "who wins a game", I, in fact, mean "who can always win" rather than "who will win". To exemplify, suppose that the solution to "the chess problem" is "white can always win". This means that there exists a trick using which white can always win, no matter how intelligently the game is handled by black during the progress of the game. If this small five-letter result regarding who can win (whether it is "white" or "black") is somehow known for once, then a great deal of suspense about chess will subside drastically, along with would decline people's interest in the game, because the result is then unchangeable over time against any adversary. In this post I shall try to discuss this issue in detail. In particular, at the end of the post, we design an algorithm (a tree reduction algorithm) to solve "the chess problem". We cannot give the concrete answer whether the algorithm outputs "white" or "black", as it needs to be implemented in practice with large memory and high computation power, which, I think, is beyond the scope of present day's most resouceful machines. But one can expect that this could be done in future.

On the other hand, given any amount of memory and computation resources it is not possible to make any conclusion a priori regarding a soccer match as to which team can always win, for simple reasons that it requires infinite memory to store all possible parameters and factors influencing the game. Please appreciate the fact that a soccer player can kick a ball in infinitely many directions, thereby, foil any machine's attempt to store all possible shots. Quite contrary to the popular belief, to win a chess game when you only depend on a finite amount of information and sheer luck (because if the solution to "the chess problem" says "white can always win" then you need to play with white pieces), to win a soccer match you have no other option than to be creative, intelligent and innovative right there on the field!!!

Well. Coming back to the main issues regarding chess: let me try to inject some interest into the original chess problem with an easy number counting game-- a senior student in school always used to trap me into losing the game taking advantage of my lack of knowledge of a trick.

Name of the Game: Count-20

Number of players: 2 (call them White and Black)

Rule 1: White starts with zero.

Rule 2: The next player adds either 1 or 2 judiciously to the last number.

Rule 3: The player who reaches 20 earlier is declared the winner.

I give two examples of the game Count-20. Red Color denotes white move and black color denotes black move.

Example 1: 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20. (White wins!!!)

Example 2: 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20. (Black wins!!!)

Now I assert that there exists a trick which always decides the outcome of the game Count-20 in favor of Black. There is no need to even start the game in the first place. What is the trick then?

Just convince yourself that, to reach 20, a sufficient condition is that the winner reach 17; to reach 17 a sufficient condition is reaching 14. Following this way, it is easy to see that a sufficient condition to win the game Count-20 is to reach 2. Now it is always possible for Black to reach 2, therefore, the game Count-20 will always be won by Black, no matter how smart White is at mathematics!!!

In a similar manner, the game Count-21 will always be won by White, and so on.

Now, it is certainly possible to derive many other games from the aforementioned game Count-n. One way is by changing the second rule with more complex operations: for example, rather than addition by 1 or 2, one may try to include subtraction, multiplication or division. Another way is to set several winning targets instead of just 20. Below I show that chess can fit into the model of this simple Count-20 game.

Name of the Game: Chess

Number of players: 2 (White and Black)

Rule 1: White starts with the fixed initial board configuration.

Rule 2: The next player changes the last board configuration judiciously. Note that there is a finite number of ways to do that.

Rule 3: The player who reaches any of the winning configurations is declared the winner. Note that, here also, the number of winning configurations is finite. The game could also end in a draw which is not possible in the gameCount-20.

Comparing chess and Count-20

We now address the question: how chess compares to the game Count-20?

Compare rule 1: Count-20 starts with a fixed number which is zero. Chess starts with a fixed board arrangement.

Compare rule 2: On the next move, Count-20 does addition by 1 or 2 to the previous number. Chess applies one of the certain fixed moves to the previous board configuration.

Compare rule 3: There is only one winning point in Count-20. There are multiple winning points in chess. Note that White and Black have disjoint sets of winning points in chess unlike in Count-20. A game of chess can be drawn when Count-20 always produces result.

Now, the incisive reader would surely doubt that a mere comparison of two games is not a tenable proof that a result, true for Count-20, will also true for chess; more so when there are significant differences between the games. In particular, she would ask two concrete questions to settle the issue:

Question 1:If the winner of Count-20 (the winner is always Black as already proved above) can be known beforehand, then who can always win in a game of chess?

Question 2: What is an explicit algorithm to establish the answer to Question 1? (Note that such algorithm forCount-20 exists and has already been provided before.)

We confront the second question only. We are able to construct an algorithm of Question 2 (~~such an algorithm, as far as I know is still unknown. If you know of any previous attempt in this direction, please let me know.~~). We can not answer Question 1 at this moment because of practical constraints in implementing the algorithm described below.

Now, try to agree with me on the following facts.

Fact1. There are three possible outcomes in a game of chess: (i) white wins, (ii) black wins and (iii) the game ends in a draw.

Fact2. For each of the above outcomes there is a finite number of board arrangements.

Fact3. Also note that the total number of board configurations is also finite.

Fact4. All possible games of chess can be represented in a finite sized tree with the root node being the initial board arrangement and the leaf nodes denoting board arrangements of the possible outcomes of a game. Any branch from the root to a leaf node represents a game.

Tree Reduction Algorithm:

We shall answer Question 2 using a Tree Reduction Algorithm. To give an essence of the algorithm: it starts with a big tree representing all possible games of chess which is essentially the tree mentioned in Fact 4 and then gradually reduces the height of the tree following some simple rules.

The rules of the tree reduction process are presented in the diagrams below. Let us first settle the notation used in the diagrams.

B=Board configuration after a black move,

W=Board configuration after a white move,

BW=Board configuration after a black move leading to a black win,

BD= Board configuration after a black move leading to a draw,

BL=Board configuration after a black move leading to a black loss,

WW=Board configuration after a white move leading to a whitewin,

WD=Board configuration after a white move leading to a white draw,

WL=Board configuration after a white move leading to a white loss.

The reduction process starts at the leaf nodes of the original tree. The leaf nodes can be WW, WD, WL, BW, BD and BL only. In the algorithm, the leaf nodes of the original tree are removed and the predecessor nodes are changed according to the rules shown in the diagrams (we leave out a couple of rules as they would be understood from the ones given in the diagrams) .

Now the new tree is smaller in size than the preceding one. The same reduction process continues until the height of the tree is 1. Now, a moment's contemplation reveals that the leaf nodes of the minimized tree can be a combination of the following: WW,WL, WD.

Now one can deduce the final result in the following way (let us call it the final chess solution):

1. If there is at least one node with WW then white can always win in chess.

2. If all the nodes are WL then black can always win in chess.

3. If there is no node with WW, but there is at least one node with WD, then none of the players can defeat the other, that is, the game ends in a draw.

I think I should stop here. I'm quite interested to know any previous work in this direction. Your comments, remarks of any nature on this topic is greatly encouraged.

Update1 (23rd June 2007): The Tree Reduction Algorithm described above is a well known method studied in Game Theory. Therefore, I cannot claim any credit for re-inventing an old technique. Thanks to Orr Dunkelman for pointing this out.

Update2 (23rd June 2007): A related internet site has been found discussing this problem. I think it may be useful. Link.

Update 3(24th June 2007) : Suppose that there are 1,000 possible games in a particular board game which is played by two players. It is very interesting to note that it is possible

That there is only 1 game where "white" wins.
In each of other 999 games "black" wins.
But, even in that highly unfavorable situtaion, "white" can always pull off that particular win.

In other words what I try to emphasize is that the distribution of number of games won, lost and drawn by "white" or "black" is of no use to solve the "chess problem".