An Overview of the Use of Neural Networks for Data Mining Tasks

In the recent years the area of data mining has experienced a considerable demand for technologies that extract knowledge from large and complex data sources. There is a substantial commercial interest as well as research investigations in the area that aim to develop new and improved approaches for extracting information, relationships, and patterns from datasets. Artificial Neural Networks (NN) are popular biologically inspired intelligent methodologies, whose classification, prediction and pattern recognition capabilities have been utilised successfully in many areas, including science, engineering, medicine, business, banking, telecommunication, and many other fields. This paper highlights from a data mining perspective the implementation of NN, using supervised and unsupervised learning, for pattern recognition, classification, prediction and cluster analysis, and focuses the discussion on their usage in bioinformatics and financial data analysis tasks

Mitigating slipping-related mortality from purse seine fisheries for small pelagic fish: case studies from European Atlantic waters

The release of unwanted catches (UWC) from purse seines, while the catch is still in the water, is known as “slipping”. Once thought to be a benign process, compared to discarding UWC overboard from the fishing vessel, it is now recognised that “slipping” can lead to significant mortality in the released fish if done inappropriately. In this chapter, we examine purse seining and slipping operations, and discuss what drives slipping and potential mitigation measures to reduce slipping mortality. We use three examples of purse seine fisheries for small pelagic species in the North-east Atlantic; from Norway, Portugal and Spain. The ideal solution (identifying and avoiding UWC before the net is set) requires the development of tools to enable fishers to better characterise target schools in terms of key selection criteria, e.g., with respect to species, individual size and catch biomass. Such tools are being developed, based primarily on hydro-acoustic technology. However, some UWC in purse seine catches are inevitable, and operational improvements in slipping practices have been shown to significantly reduce stress and mortality in the released UWC. We conclude with a discussion on the challenges currently facing the implementation of the European Union (EU) Landing Obligation with regards to minimising slipping related mortality.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Surveillance strategies for Classical Swine Fever in wild boar – a comprehensive evaluation study to ensure powerful surveillance

Surveillance of Classical Swine Fever (CSF) should not only focus on livestock, but must also include wild boar. To prevent disease transmission into commercial pig herds, it is therefore vital to have knowledge about the disease status in wild boar. In the present study, we performed a comprehensive evaluation of alternative surveillance strategies for Classical Swine Fever (CSF) in wild boar and compared them with the currently implemented conventional approach. The evaluation protocol was designed using the EVA tool, a decision support tool to help in the development of an economic and epidemiological evaluation protocol for surveillance. To evaluate the effectiveness of the surveillance strategies, we investigated their sensitivity and timeliness. Acceptability was analysed and finally, the cost-effectiveness of the surveillance strategies was determined. We developed 69 surveillance strategies for comparative evaluation between the existing approach and the novel proposed strategies. Sampling only within sub-adults resulted in a better acceptability and timeliness than the currently implemented strategy. Strategies that were completely based on passive surveillance performance did not achieve the desired detection probability of 95%. In conclusion, the results of the study suggest that risk-based approaches can be an option to design more effective CSF surveillance strategies in wild boar

Thrombosis Is Reduced by Inhibition of COX-1, but Unaffected by Inhibition of COX-2, in an Acute Model of Platelet Activation in the Mouse

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Kidney transplantation in Pittsburgh: experience and innovations.

1. The introduction of combined CsA and steroid treatment as the baseline immunosuppressive medication significantly enhanced the results of kidney transplantation in our series. But various other preexisting recipient or donor conditions may still have an important effect on kidney transplant survival and should not go unrecognized. 2. Living-related kidney transplants were almost totally abandoned at our institution. Reasons for this approach are the increased availability of cadaveric donor organs, the improved results with cadaveric transplants under CsA and the possible risks to the living donors. 3. Combined liver/kidney transplants have been shown to offer a favorable treatment modality for patients with endstage liver and renal failure. 4. A newly developed center-oriented Transplant Information Management System (TIMY) significantly facilitates the clinical and research tasks in our department. 5. An integrated, computerized scoring system for equitable allocation of donor organs has proven to be highly effective during routine clinical use

The antisaccade task as an index of sustained goal activation in working memory: modulation by nicotine

The antisaccade task provides a laboratory analogue of situations in which execution of the correct behavioural response requires the suppression of a more prepotent or habitual response. Errors (failures to inhibit a reflexive prosaccade towards a sudden onset target) are significantly increased in patients with damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and patients with schizophrenia. Recent models of antisaccade performance suggest that errors are more likely to occur when the intention to initiate an antisaccade is insufficiently activated within working memory. Nicotine has been shown to enhance specific working memory processes in healthy adults. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We explored the effect of nicotine on antisaccade performance in a large sample (N = 44) of young adult smokers. Minimally abstinent participants attended two test sessions and were asked to smoke one of their own cigarettes between baseline and retest during one session only. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Nicotine reduced antisaccade errors and correct antisaccade latencies if delivered before optimum performance levels are achieved, suggesting that nicotine supports the activation of intentions in working memory during task performance. The implications of this research for current theoretical accounts of antisaccade performance, and for interpreting the increased rate of antisaccade errors found in some psychiatric patient groups are discussed

Reading faces: differential lateral gaze bias in processing canine and human facial expressions in dogs and 4-year-old children

Sensitivity to the emotions of others provides clear biological advantages. However, in the case of heterospecific relationships, such as that existing between dogs and humans, there are additional challenges since some elements of the expression of emotions are species-specific. Given that faces provide important visual cues for communicating emotional state in both humans and dogs, and that processing of emotions is subject to brain lateralisation, we investigated lateral gaze bias in adult dogs when presented with pictures of expressive human and dog faces. Our analysis revealed clear differences in laterality of eye movements in dogs towards conspecific faces according to the emotional valence of the expressions. Differences were also found towards human faces, but to a lesser extent. For comparative purpose, a similar experiment was also run with 4-year-old children and it was observed that they showed differential processing of facial expressions compared to dogs, suggesting a species-dependent engagement of the right or left hemisphere in processing emotions

Redox linked flavin sites in extracellular decaheme proteins involved in microbe-mineral electron transfer

Extracellular microbe-mineral electron transfer is a major driving force for the oxidation of organic carbon in many subsurface environments. Extracellular multi-heme cytochromes of the Shewenella genus play a major role in this process but the mechanism of electron exchange at the interface between cytochrome and acceptor is widely debated. The 1.8 Å x-ray crystal structure of the decaheme MtrC revealed a highly conserved CX8C disulfide that, when substituted for AX8A, severely compromised the ability of S. oneidensis to grow under aerobic conditions. Reductive cleavage of the disulfide in the presence of flavin mononucleotide (FMN) resulted in the reversible formation of a stable flavocytochrome. Similar results were also observed with other decaheme cytochromes, OmcA, MtrF and UndA. The data suggest that these decaheme cytochromes can transition between highly reactive flavocytochromes or less reactive cytochromes, and that this transition is controlled by a redox active disulfide that responds to the presence of oxygen