Machine Learning for Multiclass Classification and Prediction of Alzheimer\u27s Disease

Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder and a common form of dementia. This research aims to develop machine learning algorithms that diagnose and predict the progression of AD from multimodal heterogonous biomarkers with a focus placed on the early diagnosis. To meet this goal, several machine learning-based methods with their unique characteristics for feature extraction and automated classification, prediction, and visualization have been developed to discern subtle progression trends and predict the trajectory of disease progression. The methodology envisioned aims to enhance both the multiclass classification accuracy and prediction outcomes by effectively modeling the interplay between the multimodal biomarkers, handle the missing data challenge, and adequately extract all the relevant features that will be fed into the machine learning framework, all in order to understand the subtle changes that happen in the different stages of the disease. This research will also investigate the notion of multitasking to discover how the two processes of multiclass classification and prediction relate to one another in terms of the features they share and whether they could learn from one another for optimizing multiclass classification and prediction accuracy. This research work also delves into predicting cognitive scores of specific tests over time, using multimodal longitudinal data. The intent is to augment our prospects for analyzing the interplay between the different multimodal features used in the input space to the predicted cognitive scores. Moreover, the power of modality fusion, kernelization, and tensorization have also been investigated to efficiently extract important features hidden in the lower-dimensional feature space without being distracted by those deemed as irrelevant. With the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, this dissertation introduces a unique color-coded visualization system with a fully integrated machine learning model for the enhanced diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer\u27s disease. The incentive here is to show that through visualization, the challenges imposed by both the variability and interrelatedness of the multimodal features could be overcome. Ultimately, this form of visualization via machine learning informs on the challenges faced with multiclass classification and adds insight into the decision-making process for a diagnosis and prognosis

The effects of U.S. shrimp imports on the Gulf of Mexico dockside price : a source differentiated mixed demand model

The ever increasing demand for the shrimp products in the 1980s and 1990s caused the volume of shrimp imports to increase. The import of shrimp has had an upward trend, from 847 million pounds in 1997 to 1,636 million pounds in 2010.The imports price has declined since 1997. Along with the decrease in imports price, the U.S. domestic shrimp price has also declined. However, the annual production of shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico has, in the long-run, remained relatively stable. These facts indicate that there is not the same quantity-price relation between the U.S. domestic shrimp market and shrimp imports market. Therefore, an ordinary demand or an inverse demand can only demonstrate one aspect of demand behavior either the quantities consumed are a function of prices or the prices are a function of quantities demanded, and are not able to respond in a more complicated system of demand. The basic objective of this dissertation is to determine a closer approximation of the effects of events in the real U.S. shrimp demand market. To accomplish this objective, a mixed demand system was adopted. A mixed set of demand functions contains both coefficients of a regular demand system and of an inverse demand system (Barton, 1989). This study adopts the Brown and Lee parameterization (2006), known as the mixed Rotterdam demand system. The shrimp products were divided into two subgroups: 1) shrimp imports (group a); and 2) Gulf of Mexico shrimp landings (group b). Countries considered in the analysis include China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, and a final category includes all other exporting countries ans named as “Other Countries.” Demand for Gulf shrimp is specified by size of shrimp with three sizes: Large, Medium, and Small. The U.S. imports from these countries were modeled in a quantity dependent framework, while demands for domestic shrimp products were modeled in a price dependent framework. The summary statistics and estimated results for the model parameters indicate that Thailand has the largest share and largest marginal share among all exporting countries and Gulf shrimp landings. As theoretically expected, all own-price elastisities of regular demand are negative, implying an inverse relation between the quantity of imports from a selected country and its price of imports. Among all countries, China, India, Mexico, and Vietnam have the largest and almost the same own-price elasticities (-0.40). Thailand’s own-price elasticity is smaller than these countries, although it has the largest share in U.S. total expenditure on shrimp products. This means that there are fewer substitutes for Thailand’s shrimp than these countries’ shrimp in the U.S. shrimp market. Cross-price elastisities of regular demand were positive, indicating that the price of a selected country’s shrimp has a direct effect on the quantity of other countries’ shrimp exports. The positive cross-price elastisities also indicate that the U.S. shrimp imports from different countries are substitutes for each other, as expected. Thailand’s export prices have the largest cross-price elastisities. This means that other countries’ quantities of exports are more sensitive to a change in Thailand’s export prices than the other countries’ prices and their own prices. The price elasticity/flexibility of inverse demand illustrates that no country’s export prices have a substantial effect on any size of Gulf landings. The most effect is associated with about 0.02% on the price of small size Gulf landings for a 1% change in the price of Thailand’s exports to the United States. Vietnam, India, Mexico, China, and Thailand’s income elasticities are greater than one. Therefore, one can conclude that a change in U.S. expenditure on shrimp products not only increases the consumption of these countries’ shrimp products but that the proportion (share) of these products also goes up in U.S. total expenditure on shrimp. Income elasticities for inverse demand represent the Gulf dockside price sensitivities relative to a change in U.S. expenditure on shrimp. Results illustrate that if U.S. expenditure on shrimp products increases 100%, the Gulf large, medium, and small size shrimp prices will increase 12%, 15%, and 19%, respectively. All of these elasticity estimates are statistically significant at 1% and 5% levels

Intractable Seizure Disorders: Efficacy of The Classic Ketogenic Diet

 ObjectiveThe ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low carbohydrate, adequate protein diet,developed in the 1920s for the management of intractable seizure disorders in children. To evaluate efficacy and tolerability of the classic  ketogenic diet, we analyzed records of the children started on the diet from 1999 to 2006 at the Mofid children's hospital.Materials & Methods The subjects were 87 children, mean age 55 months. Before initiation of the diet, 55% of the patients had seizures, at least 1-4 times per day, 36% - 5 or more per day and 9% - 2 to 4 times per week. Mean number of Anti Epileptic Drugs (AEDs) tried for them was 8 and 67% were receiving three or more drugs.Results The ketogenic diet showed drastic improvement, with at least 50% reduction in seizure frequency in 87% of our patients, 39% of whom showed complete seizure control in the third month. After one year, in 80% of the patients who returned, improvement  continued, with 26% of them being seizure free; besides, 23% had one AED decreased, 36% had two or three AEDs decreased, and 25% (one child) had all AEDs discontinued. Of the 30 improved cases, 20%, at the end of the first year, had improved behavior as  well, and 23% of them had become more alert. The median diet duration of the improved group was 15 months.Conclusion The improvement in our patients, low  side effects, and the duration of diet by families reveal that the ketogenic diet can still be a very useful alternative therapy in certain epileptic children.

Relationship between Celiac Disease and Refractory Idiopathic Epilepsy in Children

ObjectiveEpilepsy occurs with a yearly incidence of 40 per 100,000 children, of which more than 25% are resistant to drug therapy. Epilepsy may occur in autoimmunediseases like lupus, celiac disease and myasthenia gravis. In this study, therelationship between celiac disease and refractory epilepsy was evaluated inchildren with idiopathic epilepsy.Material & MethodsHundred-fifty-five children (mean age, 6.7±3.3 years) with idiopathic andcryptogenic epilepsy referred to the neurology clinic were studied in two groups;drug controlled epilepsy (control, 82 patients) and refractory epilepsy groups(case, 73 patients). Both groups underwent serological tissue transglutaminaseantibody measurement by ELISA. In seropositive cases, small intestine biopsywas conducted. Data analysis was performed using student's t test and 2 test.ResultsSeven (0.04%) patients had celiac disease based on a positive tissuetransglutaminase antibody and three patients (0.01%) based on a positive biopsy.Three patients (2.4%) with drug controlled epilepsy (control group) and fivewith refractory epilepsy (case group) had seropositive celiac disease (p=0.255).In the biopsy survey of six seropositive patients, one patient (1.2%) in the drugcontrolled epilepsy and two patients (2.7%) in the refractory epilepsy group hadpositive biopsy for celiac disease (p = 0.604). One seropositive patient did notcooperate for biopsy.ConclusionIf the relationship between celiac disease and epilepsy, especially in casesof symptomatic or oligosymptomatic celiac is proved, using gluten freediet increases the ability to control epilepsy particularly in refractory cases.We suggest celiac disease survey is not required in patients with idiopathicepilepsy

Assessment of Flood Hazard using Analytic Hierarchy Process Method (AHP) in Mazandaran Province, Iran

One of the most important steps to prevent and deal with the destructive effects of floods is to identify areas with the highest flood potential in the watershed and its sub-basins. In this research, an attempt was made to determine the regions with the highest capacity of runoff and flood production in Mazandaran Province basin using the hierarchical analysis process (AHP) model. On this basis, six factors including heights, slope, land use, geology, flow accumulation, and rainfall were used. After calculating the final weight of each input factor using the hierarchical process model in ArcGIS (V. 10.5) software, a combination of input layers was used to construct a flooding map of the study area in five different categories including very high, high , Medium, low, and very little. Results showed that 38.79% of the Mazandaran Province, equivalent to the area of 9244.82 km2, has a high and very high flooding hazard. Moreover, almost half of this province, equivalent to the area of 12028.51 km2 has a moderate flooding hazard. The results reveal that flooding hazard at each hydrometric stations was in good agreement with the historical observations of floods, that most of them have the return periods of 50- and 100-year. It implies the high accuracy of the method and the weights assigned to each of the effective factors. This clarifies the usability of this research results for future preventive implementation

Estimation of Annual Erosion and Sedimentation in Babolroud Catchment using MPSIAC Model

One of the problems of controlling erosion in catchment areas is the lack of statistical data to accurately estimate the amount of sedimentation and erosion. In order to implement soil protection programs and determine methods to reduce sedimentation, it is necessary to estimate the total volume of annual sediment production. The purpose of this study was to estimate the erosion intensity and sedimentation rate of Babolroud catchment located in Mazandaran province with an area of 962 km2 and the variety of topography, lithology and vegetation using MPSIAC empirical model and to determine the accuracy of this model using Arc-GIS. In this method, the role of 9 factors affecting soil erosion were evaluated and depending on the severity and weakness of each factor, a score is attributed to it. Finally, considering the sum of the scores obtained for different factors, the sedimentation rate of the catchment was estimated. The results showed that, Babolroud catchment area with sedimentation rate of 166.469 m3/km2.y is located on the low zone of sedimentation. One of the causes is the presence of dense pastures and calcareous formations and rocks with medium to high hardness in most areas. Moreover, according to the results, the highest amount of erosion is in the northern part of the catchment. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the results obtained from the experimental model, the observed information of the two sedimentation stations was used and the results indicate a relative average difference of 21% in the MPSIAC model

SignCol: Open-Source Software for Collecting Sign Language Gestures

Sign(ed) languages use gestures, such as hand or head movements, for communication. Sign language recognition is an assistive technology for individuals with hearing disability and its goal is to improve such individuals' life quality by facilitating their social involvement. Since sign languages are vastly varied in alphabets, as known as signs, a sign recognition software should be capable of handling eight different types of sign combinations, e.g. numbers, letters, words and sentences. Due to the intrinsic complexity and diversity of symbolic gestures, recognition algorithms need a comprehensive visual dataset to learn by. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a Microsoft Kinect-based open source software, called SignCol, for capturing and saving the gestures used in sign languages. Our work supports a multi-language database and reports the recorded items statistics. SignCol can capture and store colored(RGB) frames, depth frames, infrared frames, body index frames, coordinate mapped color-body frames, skeleton information of each frame and camera parameters simultaneously.Comment: The paper is presented at ICSESS conference but the published version by them on the IEEE Xplore is impaired and the quality of figures is inappropriate!! This is the preprint version which had appropriate format and figure

Synthesis of a Nanostructure Molecularly Imprinted Copolymer for Separation of Antifungal Bioactive Di-(2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate from Biocontrol Fungi Metabolites

Among biocontrol fungi, Trichoderma species produce a wide range of bioactive compounds with antifungal activities. In this study, Di-(2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate (DEHP) is identified via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) device in Trichoderma atroviridae (1-3) secondary metabolites and its antifungal effectiveness is confirmed. An eco-friendly approach for the extraction of DEHP is carried out by a nanoporous molecularly imprinted methacrylic acid-based network copolymer as a solid sorbent. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthesized by precipitation polymerization using DEHP as a template, methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer and trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TRIM) as a cross-linker with molecular ratio (1: 4: 8). After the removal of DEHP, the nanoporous polymer can recognize and rebind specifically the same or structurally very similar molecules. The synthesized MIPs exhibit a suitable tendency to absorb the template with the highest binding capacity of 300 mg/g for DEHP in n-Hexane solvent as a solid phase extraction (SPE) system. The measured particle size of the MIPs with dynamic light scattering (DLS) is reported 75.38 nm. In addition, the porosity of the MIPs is evaluated by nitrogen gas adsorption/desorption using Brouneur Emmet Teller (BET) analysis. Results shows that nanoporous MIPs with an average pore diameter of 2.70 nm and a specific surface area of 309 (cm3/g) are achieved. According to the above-mentioned results, nanoporous MIPs can be considered as an acceptable candidate for separation of the antifungal bioactive compounds (natural fungicide) such as DEHP as an eco-friendly method to replace chemical pesticides

Influence of Suspended Sediment Load on Roughness Coefficient and Intensity of Flow Turbulence (Case study: Haraz, Rostamabad and Beheshtabad Rivers)

Estimating the effect of sediment transport, especially suspended load, is important in river planning and management. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of suspended sediment load on the roughness coefficient and the intensity of flow turbulence in Haraz, Rostamabad and Beheshtabad Rivers. In order to better understand these relationships, the geometric characteristics of the sections, the flow velocity and the suspended load were measured in different sections of these rivers. Then shear stress, Manning coefficient and Von karman coefficient were calculated using related equations in each section. The intensity of turbulence was also determined by measuring velocity fluctuations. The study of the effect of suspended load on roughness coefficient and Van Carmen coefficient showed that in most sections roughness coefficient and Van Carmen coefficient have decreased due to the presence of suspended load. In Haraz, Rostamabad and Beheshtabad Rivers, the ratio of roughness coefficient in the presence of suspended load to roughness coefficient without suspended load was 0.9, 0.94 and 0.6, respectively. The results of this study showed that the turbulence intensity distribution is independent from the flow rate and the distribution is always convergent and its maximum value occurred not in the bed but above the bed. Besides, the distribution of turbulence intensity in the presence of suspended load in gravel-boulder rivers is convergent and can be analyzed based on the boundary layer equation. Quadrant analysis was performed on the dominant events at three flow depths. In the areas close to the bed, the predominant phenomena were inward, outward and ejection, respectively, and the contribution of the sweeping event in this section was negligible