A performance evaluation of pruning effects on hybrid neural network

In this paper, we explore the pruning effects on a hybrid mode sequential learning algorithmnamely FuzzyARTMAP-prunable Radial Basis Function (FAM-PRBF) that utilizes FuzzyARTMAP to learn a training dataset and Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN) to performregression and classification. The pruning algorithm is used to optimize the hidden layer ofthe RBFN. The experimental results show that FAM-PRBF has successfully reduced thecomplexity and computation time of the neural network.Keywords: pruning; radial basis function network; fuzzy ARTMAP

Lymphomatous infilration of the peripheral nervous system in enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma

The document attached has been archived with permission from the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.Yoon-Sim Yap, Adrian Cummins, Peter Blumbergs, Jennifer Hardingham, Sunil Dabadghao and John Norma

Three Dimensional Measurements of Asphaltene Deposition in a Transparent Micro-Channel

This study describes a novel experimental approach to directly measure the thicknesses of asphaltene deposits in micro-channels. The thickness of the asphaltene deposit is estimated using a visualization technique based on 3D digital microscopy. The working fluid is a mixture of n-heptane and dead oil. Induced by the addition of n-heptane, the asphaltenes present in crude oil phase separate at ambient temperature to form aggregates of asphaltene-rich phase. Part of the asphaltene aggregates deposit on the walls of the transparent micro-channel. A two-dimensional profile of the deposit across the channel at selected axial sections is measured. The influences of injection mixture volume on the growth of the thickness of deposited asphaltenes is investigated using two experimental conditions, (i) varying elapsed time at constant flow rate and (ii) increasing the flow rate at a constant elapsed time. In both cases the deposit thickness of asphaltene (δ) increases with the total injection volume (V). The experimental results obtained in this work provide new insights into the deposition process at the micro-scale level, which can be used to facilitate the development of more accurate numerical model for this applicatio

Prediction of the amount of PCA for mechanical milling

Abstract Process control agent (PCA) can strongly in¯uence the size of ball milled powder particles. Experimental results show that the mean particle size is affected by: (1) the types of the PCA, (2) the amount of PCA, and (3) the milling duration. Two kinds of materials, namely Al and Mg, were used in the experiment and analysis of the in¯uence of process control agent. It was found that there is a critical amount of process control agent below which the size of the powder particles tends to increase and above which it tends to decrease. In order to predict the amount of PCA required for a particular mean particle size under a particular milling duration resulting from a particular mechanical alloying process, a back-propagation neural network is employed. For each combination of base material and PCA, a neural network is trained using experimental data to achieve the correlation between the amount of PCA and a given particle size under a particular milling duration, i.e., PCA amountf(particle size, milling duration). The testing results show that the trained networks have a fairly good generalization capability # 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved

SPHK1 regulates proliferation and survival responses in triplenegative breast cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by unique aggressive behavior and lack of targeted therapies. Among the various molecular subtypes of breast cancer, it was observed that TNBCs express elevated levels of sphingosine kinase 1 (SPHK1) compared to other breast tumor subtypes. High levels of SPHK1 gene expression correlated with poor overall and progression- free survival, as well as poor response to Doxorubicin-based treatment. Inhibition of SPHK1 was found to attenuate ERK1/2 and AKT signaling and reduce growth of TNBC cells in vitro and in a xenograft SCID mouse model. Moreover, SPHK1 inhibition by siRNA knockdown or treatment with SKI-5C sensitizes TNBCs to chemotherapeutic drugs. Our findings suggest that SPHK1 inhibition, which effectively counteracts oncogenic signaling through ERK1/2 and AKT pathways, is a potentially important anti-tumor strategy in TNBC. A combination of SPHK1 inhibitors with chemotherapeutic agents may be effective against this aggressive subtype of breast cancer

Clinical brca1/2 reversion analysis identifies hotspot mutations and predicted neoantigens associated with therapy resistance

Reversion mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 are associated with resistance to PARP inhibitors and platinum. To better understand the nature of these mutations, we collated, codified, and analyzed more than 300 reversions. This identified reversion “hotspots” and “deserts” in regions encoding the N and C terminus, respectively, of BRCA2, suggesting that pathogenic mutations in these regions may be at higher or lower risk of reversion. Missense and splice-site pathogenic mutations in BRCA1/2 also appeared less likely to revert than truncating mutations. Most rever-sions were <100 bp deletions. Although many deletions exhibited microhomology, this was not universal, suggesting that multiple DNA-repair processes cause reversion. Finally, we found that many reversions were predicted to encode immunogenic neopeptides, suggesting a route to the treatment of reverted disease. As well as providing a freely available database for the collation of future reversion cases, these observations have implications for how drug resistance might be managed in BRCA-mutant cancers. SIGNIFICANCE: Reversion mutations in BRCA genes are a major cause of clinical platinum and PARP inhibitor resistance. This analysis of all reported clinical reversions suggests that the position of BRCA2 mutations affects the risk of reversion. Many reversions are also predicted to encode tumor neoantigens, providing a potential route to targeting resistance

Prostate tumours from an Asian population: examination of bax, bcl-2, p53 and ras and identification of bax as prognostic marker

Molecular studies have suggested that ethnicity may play a significant role in prostate tumorigenesis, but no information exists for groups other than Caucasian or Japanese patients. We examined 62 archival samples of prostate tumours from Asians of non-Japanese origin for the over-expression of p53, for the possible presence of mutated ras genes, for the overexpression of the bcl-2 and bax proteins, as well as directly for the presence of apoptotic cells by the TUNEL methodology. Gene lesions of both ras(0%) and p53 (3%) were rare. While bcl-2 expression was not observed in any sample, bax expression was noted in 76% of samples and was associated with a significantly worse patient prognosis both overall (P< 0.005) and specifically in Chinese patients (P< 0.02). Apoptotic cells were found in 61% of samples, and were significantly associated with the presence of bax expression (P= 0.002), but not patient survival. These results suggest that prostate tumours from non-Japanese Asians are genetically distinct from prostate tumour found in both Japanese and Caucasian patients, and that treatment modalities may need to be tailored for specific population groups. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Dissolved heavy metals and water quality in the surface waters of rivers and drainages of the West Peninsular Malaysia

The dissolved concentrations of metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, Fe and Zn), temperature, total dissolved solids, pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity and conductivity were determined in the surface waters of 24 geographical sampling sites including city and urban drainages and rivers, from the west Peninsular Malaysia, collected in January to April 2005. From these sampling sites, the ranges (min-max) of dissolved metal concentrations (mg/L) were Cd: 0.001-0.055, Cu: 0.001-0.1773, Pb: 0.001-1.523, Ni: 0.001-0.246, Fe: 0.001-35.67 and Zn: 0.0001-0.609 while for the water quality are pH: 4.96-9.81, dissolved oxygen (0.39-7.26 mg/L), total dissolved solids (0.002-10.02 mg/L), salinity (0.00-8.93 ppt), conductivity (3.33-17423 μS/cm) and temperature (27.8-35.3�). Some sites with elevated dissolved concentrations of heavy metals and poor water quality indicated the anthropogenic inputs of industrial and urban wastes. Regular monitoring of water quality in all drainage waters is recommended