Robust Design of Artificial Neural Networks Methodology in Neutron Spectrometry

Applications of artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been reported in literature in various areas. [1–5] The wide use of ANNs is due to their robustness, fault tolerant and the ability to learn and generalize, through training process, from examples, complex nonlinear and multi input/output relationships between process parameters using the process data. [6–10] The ANNs have many other advantageous characteristics, which include: generalization, adaptation, universal function approximation, parallel data processing, robustness, etc. Multilayer perceptron (MLP) trained with backpropagation (BP) algorithm is the most used ANN in modeling, optimization classification and prediction processes. [11, 12] Although BP algorithm has proved to be efficient, its convergence tends to be very slow, and there is a possibility to get trapped in some undesired local minimum. [4, 10, 11, 13] Most literature related to ANNs focused on specific applications and their results rather than the methodology of developing and training the networks. In general, the quality of the developed ANN is highly dependable not only on ANN training algorithm and its parameters but also on many ANN architectural parameters such as the number of hidden layers and nodes per layer which have to be set during training process and these settings are very crucial to the accuracy of ANN model. [8, 14–19

Multigram Scale Synthesis of A21, A New Antibiotic Equally Effective and Less Toxic than Amphotericin B

A21 (<b>2</b>) is a new polyene macrolide Amphotericin B amide antibiotic derived from amphotericin B AmB (<b>1</b>), which has been tested extensively on preclinical trials showing the same antimycotic effectiveness and increased margin of safety over AmB (<b>1</b>). We present the multigram scale synthesis, isolation, purity assessment by HPLC, and key aspects of its characterization by NMR studies of A21 (<b>2</b>)

Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis

Background There is a substantial gap in provision of adequate surgical care in many low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to identify the economic burden of unmet surgical need for the common condition of appendicitis. Methods Data on the incidence of appendicitis from 170 countries and two different approaches were used to estimate numbers of patients who do not receive surgery: as a fixed proportion of the total unmet surgical need per country (approach 1); and based on country income status (approach 2). Indirect costs with current levels of access and local quality, and those if quality were at the standards of high-income countries, were estimated. A human capital approach was applied, focusing on the economic burden resulting from premature death and absenteeism. Results Excess mortality was 4185 per 100 000 cases of appendicitis using approach 1 and 3448 per 100 000 using approach 2. The economic burden of continuing current levels of access and local quality was US $92 492 million using approach 1 and$73 141 million using approach 2. The economic burden of not providing surgical care to the standards of high-income countries was $95 004 million using approach 1 and$75 666 million using approach 2. The largest share of these costs resulted from premature death (97.7 per cent) and lack of access (97.0 per cent) in contrast to lack of quality. Conclusion For a comparatively non-complex emergency condition such as appendicitis, increasing access to care should be prioritized. Although improving quality of care should not be neglected, increasing provision of care at current standards could reduce societal costs substantially