22 research outputs found
Quasi-optimal Learning with Continuous Treatments
Many real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL) require making
decisions in continuous action environments. In particular, determining the
optimal dose level plays a vital role in developing medical treatment regimes.
One challenge in adapting existing RL algorithms to medical applications,
however, is that the popular infinite support stochastic policies, e.g.,
Gaussian policy, may assign riskily high dosages and harm patients seriously.
Hence, it is important to induce a policy class whose support only contains
near-optimal actions, and shrink the action-searching area for effectiveness
and reliability. To achieve this, we develop a novel \emph{quasi-optimal
learning algorithm}, which can be easily optimized in off-policy settings with
guaranteed convergence under general function approximations. Theoretically, we
analyze the consistency, sample complexity, adaptability, and convergence of
the proposed algorithm. We evaluate our algorithm with comprehensive simulated
experiments and a dose suggestion real application to Ohio Type 1 diabetes
dataset.Comment: The first two authors contributed equally to this wor
Policy Learning for Individualized Treatment Regimes on Infinite Time Horizon
With the recent advancements of technology in facilitating real-time
monitoring and data collection, "just-in-time" interventions can be delivered
via mobile devices to achieve both real-time and long-term management and
control. Reinforcement learning formalizes such mobile interventions as a
sequence of decision rules and assigns treatment arms based on the user's
status at each decision point. In practice, real applications concern a large
number of decision points beyond the time horizon of the currently collected
data. This usually refers to reinforcement learning in the infinite horizon
setting, which becomes much more challenging. This article provides a selective
overview of some statistical methodologies on this topic. We discuss their
modeling framework, generalizability, and interpretability and provide some use
case examples. Some future research directions are discussed in the end
AI in Pharma for Personalized Sequential Decision-Making: Methods, Applications and Opportunities
In the pharmaceutical industry, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has
seen consistent growth over the past decade. This rise is attributed to major
advancements in statistical machine learning methodologies, computational
capabilities and the increased availability of large datasets. AI techniques
are applied throughout different stages of drug development, ranging from drug
discovery to post-marketing benefit-risk assessment. Kolluri et al. provided a
review of several case studies that span these stages, featuring key
applications such as protein structure prediction, success probability
estimation, subgroup identification, and AI-assisted clinical trial monitoring.
From a regulatory standpoint, there was a notable uptick in submissions
incorporating AI components in 2021. The most prevalent therapeutic areas
leveraging AI were oncology (27%), psychiatry (15%), gastroenterology (12%),
and neurology (11%). The paradigm of personalized or precision medicine has
gained significant traction in recent research, partly due to advancements in
AI techniques \cite{hamburg2010path}. This shift has had a transformative
impact on the pharmaceutical industry. Departing from the traditional
"one-size-fits-all" model, personalized medicine incorporates various
individual factors, such as environmental conditions, lifestyle choices, and
health histories, to formulate customized treatment plans. By utilizing
sophisticated machine learning algorithms, clinicians and researchers are
better equipped to make informed decisions in areas such as disease prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment selection, thereby optimizing health outcomes for each
individual
Mimicking the Catalytic Center for the Water-Splitting Reaction in Photosystem II
The oxygen-evolving center (OEC) in photosystem II (PSII) of plants, algae and cyanobacteria is a unique natural catalyst that splits water into electrons, protons and dioxygen. The crystallographic studies of PSII have revealed that the OEC is an asymmetric Mn4CaO5-cluster. The understanding of the structure-function relationship of this natural Mn4CaO5-cluster is impeded mainly due to the complexity of the protein environment and lack of a rational chemical model as a reference. Although it has been a great challenge for chemists to synthesize the OEC in the laboratory, significant advances have been achieved recently. Different artificial complexes have been reported, especially a series of artificial Mn4CaO4-clusters that closely mimic both the geometric and electronic structures of the OEC in PSII, which provides a structurally well-defined chemical model to investigate the structure-function relationship of the natural Mn4CaO5-cluster. The deep investigations on this artificial Mn4CaO4-cluster could provide new insights into the mechanism of the water-splitting reaction in natural photosynthesis and may help the development of efficient catalysts for the water-splitting reaction in artificial photosynthesis
A Calibration-Free Hybrid BCI Speller System Based on High-Frequency SSVEP and sEMG
Hybrid brain-computer interface (hBCI) systems that combine steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) and surface electromyography (sEMG) signals have attracted attention of researchers due to the advantage of exhibiting significantly improved system performance. However, almost all existing studies adopt low-frequency SSVEP to build hBCI. It produces much more visual fatigue than high-frequency SSVEP. Therefore, the current study attempts to build a hBCI based on high-frequency SSVEP and sEMG. With these two signals, this study designed and realized a 32-target hBCI speller system. Thirty-two targets were separated from the middle into two groups. Each side contained 16 sets of targets with different high-frequency visual stimuli (i.e., 31-34.75 Hz with an interval of 0.25 Hz). sEMG was utilized to choose the group and SSVEP was adopted to identify intra-group targets. The filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA) and the root mean square value (RMS) methods were used to identify signals. Therefore, the proposed system allowed users to operate it without system calibration. A total of 12 healthy subjects participated in online experiment, with an average accuracy of 93.52 ± 1.66% and the average information transfer rate (ITR) reached 93.50 ± 3.10 bits/min. Furthermore, 12 participants perfectly completed the free-spelling tasks. These results of the experiments indicated feasibility and practicality of the proposed hybrid BCI speller system
Recent research progress on the correlation between metabolic syndrome and Helicobacter pylori infection
Background Globally, metabolic syndrome (MS) and Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection, which have gained an epidemic status, are major challenges to human health, society, and medical professionals. Recent studies have demonstrated that MS is closely related to HP infection. Additionally, HP is an important risk factor for gastric cancer. However, systematic reviews on HP are lacking. This review aimed to summarize and analyze the potential correlation of HP infection with MS and its components, as well as the underlying mechanism, to provide reference and strategies for clinical prevention and treatment. Methodology Previous studies examining the correlation between HP and MS since 1990 were retrieved from the PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases. The potential correlation between HP infection and MS and its components was comprehensively analyzed. The keywords “Helicobacter pylori,” “HP,” “metabolic syndrome,” “hypertension,” “obesity,” “diabetes,” or “dyslipidemia” were used in all fields. No language restrictions were imposed. Results MS was strongly correlated to HP infection. The inflammatory response and inflammatory factors produced during HP infection are important etiological factors for insulin resistance and MS. The co-occurrence of long-term chronic inflammation and immune dysfunction with MS may be the predisposing factor for HP infection. MS components, such as diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity were also correlated with HP infection in one or both directions. Conclusions HP infection and MS may promote the pathogenesis of each other. The contribution of HP infection and MS to gastric cancer cannot be ruled out based on co-occurrence. The MS components diabetes and obesity may be bidirectionally correlated with HP infection
Highly efficient isolation and 3D printing of fibroblasts for cultured meat production
Fibroblasts are important components of animal tissues such as muscle and skin, as they are the major producers of various matrix proteins. Matrix proteins such as collagen play an important role in meat products by providing unique nutrition, texture, and flavor. Cultured meat is an innovative meat alternative produced by culturing animal cells, but currently, relatively few studies have been conducted using fibroblasts as seed cells for cultured meat manufacturing. In this work, we first developed an innovative digestion-friction method for isolating fibroblasts from porcine skin efficiently and cost-effectively. After optimizing the enzymatic digestion and physical friction conditions, 2.39 ± 0.28 × 105 fibroblasts were obtained from 1 cm2 of porcine skin tissue, which was about 9 times higher than the conventional tissue explant method. In addition, we identified an edible bio-ink composed of gelatin and chitosan that has good printing properties and supports fibroblast adhesion and growth. Furthermore, we fabricated fibroblast-based cultured meat by 3D printing with an initial cell density of 1.0 × 107 mL−1 and evaluated its texture and nutritional properties. This work provides valuable insights and references for introducing fibroblasts into the production of cultured meat that is more comparable to structured animal meat