Recognizing Customer Knowledge Level towards Products for Recommendation in Electronic Commerce

A powerful online recommendation system in Electronic Commerce (EC) must know its targeted customers well and employ effective marketing strategies. Market research is a very important way to know the customers well. For high-tech products with great variety such as computers, cellular phones, and digital cameras, customers’ knowledge level towards products may have a decisive influence on their purchase decision. While many online recommendation systems focus on utilizing data mining techniques in user profile and transaction data, this paper presents a method for recognizing customer knowledge level as a preprocess for more effective online recommendation in EC. The method consists of two Back Propagation Networks (BPN) and predicts based on customer characteristics and online navigation behaviors. A simple simulated digital camera EC store case study was conducted and the good preliminary result implies the good potential of the proposed method

A Framework for Enterprise Knowledge Discovery from Databases

Knowledge discovery from large databases has become an emerging research topic and application area in recent years primarily because of the successful introduction of large business information systems to enterprises in the electronic business era. However, transferring subjects/problems from managerial perspective to data mining tasks from information technology perspective requires multidisciplinary domain knowledge. This paper proposes a practical framework for enterprise knowledge discovery in a systematical manner. The six-step framework employs the cause-andeffect diagram to model enterprise processes, tasks and attributes corresponding diagram to define data mining tasks, and multi-criteria method to assess the mined results in the form of association rules. This research also applied the proposed framework to a real case study of knowledge discovery from service records. The mining results have been proven useful in product design and quality improvement and the framework has demonstrated its applicability of guiding an enterprise to discover knowledge from historical data to tackle existing problems

Use Data Mining to Improve Genetic Algorithm Efficiency for a Job Shop Scheduling Problem

This paper proposes a new improved Genetic Algorithm (GA) by utilizing a Data Mining technique, and demonstrates how it is superior to traditional GA on a popular job shop scheduling problem. GA has long been widely applied to solve complex optimization problems in a good variety of areas. It has advantages of adaptive capability, efficient search, potential to avoid local optimum, etc. In recent literature, researchers have proposed a good number of new GAs by combining basic GA with other techniques, such as heuristic rules, simulated annealing, neural networks, fuzzy sets, and so on, in order to improve the efficiency for various optimization problems. Data mining is a new evolving technology for knowledge extraction, classification, clustering, estimation, etc. The capability of finding frequent patterns in large data set is the key reason why it is integrated with GA in this research. Due to the fundamental concept of GA’s randomness during evolution, a traditional GA may become less efficient in search for optimum. By embedding the frequent schemata into the GA evolution process, the new improved GA could reduce the search time by preserving segments of good solutions without accidentally being lost due to random crossover or mutation. The proposed new GA was experimented on a popular 6x6 job shop scheduling problem. The results have shown its better efficiency than traditional GAs and potential for further research works

An On-Line Personalized Promotion Decision Support System for Electronic Commerce

With the development of the Internet and Electronic Commerce (EC), enterprises have overcome the space and time barriers and are now capable of serving customers electronically. However, it is a great challenge to attract and retain the customers over Internet. One approach is to provide the responsive personalized service to satisfy the customer demand and promote sales at the first time. Hence, in this paper, we propose a decision support system which develops best promotion products based on combinations of different marketing strategies, pricing strategies, and customer behaviors evaluated in terms of multiple criteria. Data mining techniques are utilized to help the business discover patterns to develop on-line sales promotion products for each customer for enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. The proposed system consists of four components: (1) establishing marketing strategies, (2) promotion pattern model, (3) personalized promotion products, and (4) on-line transaction model. A simple example is given to illustrate the implementation and application of proposed decision support system

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the anal canal: an unusual presentation

BACKGROUND: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) of the stomach are the most frequent followed by those of the intestinal tract, while colon and rectum represent rare sites. GIST of the anal canal are extremely rare. They have been studied along with GIST of the rectum, as a single entity, and along with them they represent 5% of GIST. GIST arising from the anal canal account for only 2%–8% of the anorectal GIST. Thus anal GIST must be considered an exceptional case. CASE PRESENTATION: A 78-year-old man was referred to our Institution for an anal mass, in absence of any symptom. The patient was treated by local excision. An histological diagnosis of a low grade GIST was made. No further treatment was necessary. No local recurrence of distant metastases were found at follow-up. CONCLUSION: At the moment, only ten cases of c-kit positive anal GIST are reported in the literature. These few data are not sufficient to establish a widely accepted approach for this neoplasia. We recommend to perform an initial local excision, to define the risk of aggressive behavior and the resection margins and proceed to a more aggressive treatment, if the GIST belongs to high or very high risk group. The role of adjuvant therapy is still uncertain. Although inhibitors of tyrosine-kinase receptor needs further studies before their routine use, their role in case of distant or local recurrence has been accepted. Patients' close follow up is mandatory to disclose as soon as possible local recurrences or metastases

Preparation of selective and segmentally labeled single-stranded DNA for NMR by self-primed PCR and asymmetrical endonuclease double digestion

We demonstrate a new, efficient and easy-to-use method for enzymatic synthesis of (stereo-)specific and segmental 13C/15N/2H isotope-labeled single-stranded DNA in amounts sufficient for NMR, based on the highly efficient self-primed PCR. To achieve this, new approaches are introduced and combined. (i) Asymmetric endonuclease double digestion of tandem-repeated PCR product. (ii) T4 DNA ligase mediated ligation of two ssDNA segments. (iii) In vitro dNTP synthesis, consisting of in vitro rNTP synthesis followed by enzymatic stereo-selective reduction of the C2′ of the rNTP, and a one-pot add-up synthesis of dTTP from dUTP. The method is demonstrated on two ssDNAs: (i) a 36-nt three-way junction, selectively 13C9/15N3/2H(1′,2″,3′,4′,5′,5″)-dC labeled and (ii) a 39-nt triple-repeat three-way junction, selectively 13C9/15N3/2H(1′,2″,3′,4′,5′,5″)-dC and 13C9/15N2/2H(1′,2″,3′,4′,5′,5″)-dT labeled in segment C20-C39. Their NMR spectra show the spectral simplification, while the stereo-selective 2H-labeling in the deoxyribose of the dC-residues, straightforwardly provided assignment of their C1′–H2′ and C2′–H2′ resonances. The labeling protocols can be extended to larger ssDNA molecules and to more than two segments

<i>Trypanosoma brucei</i> DHRF-TS revisited:characterisation of a bifunctional and highly unstable recombinant dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase

<div><p>Bifunctional dihydrofolate reductase–thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS) is a chemically and genetically validated target in African trypanosomes, causative agents of sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle. Here we report the kinetic properties and sensitivity of recombinant enzyme to a range of lipophilic and classical antifolate drugs. The purified recombinant enzyme, expressed as a fusion protein with elongation factor Ts (Tsf) in ThyA^- <i>Escherichia coli</i>, retains DHFR activity, but lacks any TS activity. TS activity was found to be extremely unstable (half-life of 28 s) following desalting of clarified bacterial lysates to remove small molecules. Stability could be improved 700-fold by inclusion of dUMP, but not by other pyrimidine or purine (deoxy)-nucleosides or nucleotides. Inclusion of dUMP during purification proved insufficient to prevent inactivation during the purification procedure. Methotrexate and trimetrexate were the most potent inhibitors of DHFR (<i>K</i>_i 0.1 and 0.6 nM, respectively) and FdUMP and nolatrexed of TS (<i>K</i>_i 14 and 39 nM, respectively). All inhibitors showed a marked drop-off in potency of 100- to 1,000-fold against trypanosomes grown in low folate medium lacking thymidine. The most potent inhibitors possessed a terminal glutamate moiety suggesting that transport or subsequent retention by polyglutamylation was important for biological activity. Supplementation of culture medium with folate markedly antagonised the potency of these folate-like inhibitors, as did thymidine in the case of the TS inhibitors raltitrexed and pemetrexed.</p></div

Rna-Protein Interactions in 30s Ribosomal Subunits Folding and Function of 16s Ribosomal Rna

Chemical probing methods have been used to "footprint" 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) at each step during the in vitro assembly of twenty 30S subunit ribosomal proteins. These experiments yield information about the location of each protein relative to the structure of 16S rRNA and provide the basis for derivation of a detailed model for the three-dimensional folding of 16S rRNA. Several lines of evidence suggest that protein-dependent conformational changes in 16S rRNA play an important part in the cooperativity of ribosome assembly and in fine-tuning of the conformation and dynamics of 16S rRNA in the 30S subunit