Search

Abstract  By applying recent results in optimisation theory variously known as optimisation transfer or majorise/minimise algorithms, an algorithm for binary, kernel, Fisher discriminant analysis is introduced that makes use of a non-smooth penalty on the coefficients to provide a parsimonious solution. The problem is converted into a smooth optimisation that can be solved iteratively with no greater overhead than iteratively re-weighted least-squares. The result is simple, easily programmed and is shown to perform, in terms of both accuracy and parsimony, as well as or better than a number of leading machine learning algorithms on two well-studied and substantial benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether myocardial contractile impairment contributes to orthostatic intolerance (OI) is controversial. Accordingly, we used transient bilateral carotid occlusion (TBCO) to compare the in vivo pressor, chronotropic, and inotropic responses (parts 1 and 2) to open-loop selective carotid baroreceptor unloading in anesthetized mice. In part 3, in vitro myocyte responses to isoproterenol in mice exposed to hindlimb unweighting (HLU) for ∼2 wk were determined. Heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) responses to TBCO were measured. In control mice, TBCO increased HR (15 ± 2 beats/min, P < 0.05) and MAP (17 ± 2 mmHg, P < 0.05). These responses were markedly potentiated in denervated control (DC) mice, in which the aortic depressor nerve and sympathetic trunk were sectioned before measurement. Baroreflex responses to TBCO were eliminated by blockade with hexamethonium bromide (10 µg/kg). In HLU (denervated) mice, HR and MAP responses were reduced ∼70% compared with DC mice. In part 2, myocardial contractile responses to TBCO were measured with a left ventricular micromanometer-conductance catheter. TBCO in DC mice increased the slope of the end-systolic pressure-volume relation (end-systolic elastance) by 86 ± 13%. This inotropic response was attenuated (14 ± 10%, P < 0.005) after HLU. In part 3, contractile responses to isoproterenol were impaired in myocytes isolated from HLU mice. In conclusion, selective carotid baroreceptor unloading stimulates HR, blood pressure, and myocardial contractility, and HLU attenuates each response. These findings have important implications for the management of OI in astronauts, the elderly, and individuals subjected to prolonged bed rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The accumulation of high-throughput genomic, proteomic and metabolical data allows for increasingly accurate modeling and reconstruction of metabolic networks. Alignment of the reconstructed networks can help to catch model inconsistencies and infer missing elements. In this note, we present the web service tool MetNetAligner which aligns metabolic networks, taking in account the similarity of network topology and the enzymes functions. It can be used for predicting unknown pathways, comparing and finding conserved patterns and resolving ambiguous identification of enzymes. The tool supports several alignment options including allowing or forbidding enzyme deletion and insertion. It is based on a novel scoring scheme which measures enzyme-to-enzyme functional similarity and a fast algorithm which efficiently finds optimal mappings from a directed graph with restricted cyclic structure to an arbitrary directed graph. Availability: MetNetAligner is available as web-server at: http://alla.cs.gsu.edu:8080/MinePW/pages/gmapping/GMMain.html. Contact: alexz@cs.gsu.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Logistic regression and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifiers have been trained to estimate the probability of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients based upon the concentrations of a panel of cardiac markers. The panel consists of two new markers, fatty acid binding protein (FABP) and glycogen phosphorylase BB (GPBB), in addition to the traditional cardiac troponin I (cTnI), creatine kinase MB (CKMB) and myoglobin. The effect of using principal component analysis (PCA) and Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) to preprocess the marker concentrations was also investigated. The need for classifiers to give an accurate estimate of the probability of AMI is argued and three categories of performance measure are described, namely discriminatory ability, sharpness, and reliability. Numerical performance measures for each category are given and applied. The optimum classifier, based solely upon the samples take on admission, was the logistic regression classifier using FDA preprocessing. This gave an accuracy of 0.85 (95% confidence interval: 0.78–0.91) and a normalised Brier score of 0.89. When samples at both admission and a further time, 1–6 h later, were included, the performance increased significantly, showing that logistic regression classifiers can indeed use the information from the five cardiac markers to accurately and reliably estimate the probability AMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic process in which allele-specific gene expression is dependent on the parental inheritance. Although only a minority of human genes are imprinted, those that have been identified to date have been preferentially implicated in prenatal growth and neurodevelopment. Mutations or epimutations in imprinted genes or imprinting control centres are associated with imprinting disorders such as Angelman syndrome (AS) and Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome (BWS). Recently, an increased frequency of assisted reproductive technology (ART) conceptions has been reported in children with BWS and AS. However, the risk of imprinting disorders in ART children is unknown. METHODS We undertook a survey of 2492 children born after ART in the Republic of Ireland and Central England with the aim of detecting cases (both clinically diagnosed and previously unrecognized) of BWS and AS in this cohort. The response rate to an initial questionnaire was 61%, corresponding to data for 1524 children. After evaluation of the questionnaire, 70 children were invited for a detailed clinical assessment, and 47 accepted (response rate of 67%). RESULTS In this entire cohort, we detected one case of BWS and no cases of AS. We did not find evidence that there exists a significant group of ART children with unrecognized milder forms of AS or BWS. CONCLUSIONS Although previous studies have suggested an increased relative risk of BWS and AS after ART, our findings suggest that the absolute risk of imprinting disorders in children conceived by ART is small ( [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]