Input variable selection in time-critical knowledge integration applications: A review, analysis, and recommendation paper

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Advanced Engineering Informatics. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.The purpose of this research is twofold: first, to undertake a thorough appraisal of existing Input Variable Selection (IVS) methods within the context of time-critical and computation resource-limited dimensionality reduction problems; second, to demonstrate improvements to, and the application of, a recently proposed time-critical sensitivity analysis method called EventTracker to an environment science industrial use-case, i.e., sub-surface drilling. Producing time-critical accurate knowledge about the state of a system (effect) under computational and data acquisition (cause) constraints is a major challenge, especially if the knowledge required is critical to the system operation where the safety of operators or integrity of costly equipment is at stake. Understanding and interpreting, a chain of interrelated events, predicted or unpredicted, that may or may not result in a specific state of the system, is the core challenge of this research. The main objective is then to identify which set of input data signals has a significant impact on the set of system state information (i.e. output). Through a cause-effect analysis technique, the proposed technique supports the filtering of unsolicited data that can otherwise clog up the communication and computational capabilities of a standard supervisory control and data acquisition system. The paper analyzes the performance of input variable selection techniques from a series of perspectives. It then expands the categorization and assessment of sensitivity analysis methods in a structured framework that takes into account the relationship between inputs and outputs, the nature of their time series, and the computational effort required. The outcome of this analysis is that established methods have a limited suitability for use by time-critical variable selection applications. By way of a geological drilling monitoring scenario, the suitability of the proposed EventTracker Sensitivity Analysis method for use in high volume and time critical input variable selection problems is demonstrated.E

Belief Revision and Delusions: How Do Patients with Schizophrenia Take Advice?

The dominant cognitive model that accounts for the persistence of delusional beliefs in schizophrenia postulates that patients suffer from a general deficit in belief revision. It is generally assumed that this deficit is a consequence of impaired reasoning skills. However, the possibility that such inflexibility affects the entire system of a patient's beliefs has rarely been empirically tested. Using delusion-neutral material in a well-documented advice-taking task, the present study reports that patients with schizophrenia: 1) revise their beliefs, 2) take into account socially provided information to do so, 3) are not overconfident about their judgments, and 4) show less egocentric advice-discounting than controls. This study thus shows that delusional patients' difficulty in revising beliefs is more selective than had been previously assumed. The specificities of the task and the implications for a theory of delusion formation are discussed

Evidence for Sub-Haplogroup H5 of Mitochondrial DNA as a Risk Factor for Late Onset Alzheimer's Disease

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease and the leading cause of dementia among senile subjects. It has been proposed that AD can be caused by defects in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. Given the fundamental contribution of the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) for the respiratory chain, there have been a number of studies investigating the association between mtDNA inherited variants and multifactorial diseases, however no general consensus has been reached yet on the correlation between mtDNA haplogroups and AD. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We applied for the first time a high resolution analysis (sequencing of displacement loop and restriction analysis of specific markers in the coding region of mtDNA) to investigate the possible association between mtDNA-inherited sequence variation and AD in 936 AD patients and 776 cognitively assessed normal controls from central and northern Italy. Among over 40 mtDNA sub-haplogroups analysed, we found that sub-haplogroup H5 is a risk factor for AD (OR=1.85, 95% CI:1.04-3.23) in particular for females (OR=2.19, 95% CI:1.06-4.51) and independently from the APOE genotype. Multivariate logistic regression revealed an interaction between H5 and age. When the whole sample is considered, the H5a subgroup of molecules, harboring the 4336 transition in the tRNAGln gene, already associated to AD in early studies, was about threefold more represented in AD patients than in controls (2.0% vs 0.8%; p=0.031), and it might account for the increased frequency of H5 in AD patients (4.2% vs 2.3%). The complete re-sequencing of the 56 mtDNAs belonging to H5 revealed that AD patients showed a trend towards a higher number (p=0.052) of sporadic mutations in tRNA and rRNA genes when compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that high resolution analysis of inherited mtDNA sequence variation can help in identifying both ancient polymorphisms defining sub-haplogroups and the accumulation of sporadic mutations associated with complex traits such as AD

Design concepts for the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA: an advanced facility for ground-based high-energy gamma-ray astronomy

Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has had a major breakthrough with the impressive results obtained using systems of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy has a huge potential in astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. CTA is an international initiative to build the next generation instrument, with a factor of 5-10 improvement in sensitivity in the 100 GeV-10 TeV range and the extension to energies well below 100 GeV and above 100 TeV. CTA will consist of two arrays (one in the north, one in the south) for full sky coverage and will be operated as open observatory. The design of CTA is based on currently available technology. This document reports on the status and presents the major design concepts of CTA

Mitochondrial superclusters influence age of onset of Parkinson’s disease in a gender specific manner in the Cypriot population: A case-control study

Despite evidence supporting an involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of some neurodegenerative disorders, there are inconsistent findings concerning mitochondrial haplogroups and their association to neurodegenerative disorders, including idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD).To test this hypothesis for the Greek-Cypriot population, a cohort of 230 PD patients and 457 healthy matched controls were recruited. Mitochondrial haplogroup distributions for cases and controls were determined. Association tests were carried out between mitochondrial haplogroups and PD.Mitochondrial haplogroup U was associated with a reduced PD risk in the Cypriot population. After pooling mitochondrial haplogroups together into haplogroup clusters and superclusters, association tests demonstrated a significantly protective effect of mitochondrial haplogroup cluster N (xR) and supercluster LMN for PD risk only in females. In addition, for female PD cases belonging to UKJT and R (xH, xUKJT) haplogroup, the odds of having a later age of onset of PD were 13 and 15 times respectively higher than the odds for female cases with an H haplogroup.Statistically significant associations regarding PD risk and PD age of onset were mostly detected for females thus suggesting that gender is a risk modifier between mitochondrial haplogroups and PD status / PD age of onset. The biological mechanisms behind this gender specificity remain to be determined

Allocation of elements in a chronosequence of silver birch afforested on former agricultural lands

Research on the effect of birch regeneration on changes occurring in the environment on former farmlands included a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the biomass growing on the research plots. Five experimental plots were selected in the Mazovia region: two in Dobieszyn and the Kampinos National Park and one in Kozienice. The analysis performed on each plot was concerned with the amount and chemical composition of biomass in four patches of vegetation, characterised by the different ages of the birch trees growing there. The vegetation patches were classified according to age group, i.e. I: 1–4 years old, II: 5–8 years old, III: 9–12 years old and IV: over 12 years old. Biomass samples were collected in the field and determined in kg DM/ha using the following components: roots, stem, bark,branches, assimilation apparatus, litterfall and the total biomass of the other (except birch) plants. For all the above-mentioned groups, the content of the elements N, C, S, Ca, K, Mg, Na, P, Mn, Cu, Fe, Zn, Pb, and Cd was determined. This allowed us to obtain both the values of the concentrations of particular substancesand their allocation in both the organic matter and litterfall. The aim of theresearch was to discover whether the allocation of elements changes with the age of birch growing on former farmland