New Methods for Splice Site Recognition

Splice sites are locations in DNA which separate protein-coding regions (exons) from noncoding regions (introns). Accurate splice site detectors thus form important components of computational gene finders. We pose splice site recognition as a classification problem with the classifier learnt from a labeled data set consisting of only local information around the potential splice site. Note that finding the correct position of splice sites without using global information is a rather hard task. We analyze the genomes of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and of humans using specially designed support vector kernels. One of the kernels is adapted from our previous work on detecting translation initiation sites in vertebrates and another uses an extension to the well-known Fisher-kernel. We fin

On an Ant Colony-Based Approach for Business Fraud Detection

Nowadays we witness an increasing number of business frauds. To protect investors’ interest, a financial firm should possess an effective means to detect such frauds. In this regard, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are widely used for fraud detection. Traditional back-propagation-based algorithms used for training an ANN, however, exhibit the local optima problem, thus reducing the effectiveness of an ANN in detecting frauds. To alleviate the problem, this paper proposes an approach to training an ANN using an ant colony optimization technique, through which the local optima problem can be solved and the effectiveness of an ANN in fraud detection can be improved. Based on our approach, an associated prototype system is designed and implemented, and an exploratory study is performed. The results of the study are encouraging, showing the viability of our proposed approach.School of Accounting and Financ

Osteoporosis epidemiology update

Osteoporosis remains a major public health problem through its association with fragility fractures. Despite the availability of preventative therapeutic agents, the incidence and its associated costs continue to rise globally. Understanding osteoporosis epidemiology is essential to developing strategies to reduce the burden of osteoporotic fracture in the population. This article reviews the epidemiology of osteoporosis globally, highlighting recent advances. It describes the burden of common osteoporotic fractures, the associated morbidity and mortality, the clustering of fractures in individuals, and the identification of at-risk groups. It also highlights the development of new algorithms to identify individuals at high risk of fracture, enabling the implementation of appropriate treatment strategie

Results from tests on matrices of lead tungstate crystals using high-energy beams

The performance of lead tungstate crystals using photomultipliers and Si avalanche photodiodes to detect the scintillation light has been studied using high energy electron, pion and muon beams at CERN. Results from tests carried out in 1993 and 1994 are presented. Good energy resolution has been obtained using photomultipliers. Some further development is required of crystals and avalanche photodiodes in order to achieve a performance, with avalanche photodiode readout, similar to that obtained using photomultipliers

Studies of lead tungstate crystal matrices in high-energy beams for the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter at the LHC

Using matrices of lead tungstate crystals energy resolutions better than 0.6% at 100 GeV have been achieved in the test beam in 1995. It has been demonstrated that a lead tungstate electromagnetic calorimeter read out by avalanche photodiodes can consistently achieve the excellent energy resolutions necessary to justify its construction in the CMS detector. The performance achieved has been understood in terms of the properties of the crystals and photodetectors