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Document clustering is an integral and important part of text mining. There are two types of clustering, namely, hard clustering and soft clustering. In case of hard clustering, data item belongs to only one cluster whereas in soft clustering, data point may fall into more than one cluster. Thus, soft clustering leads to fuzzy clustering wherein each data point is associated with a membership function that expresses the degree to which individual data points belong to the cluster. Accuracy is desired in information retrieval, which can be achieved by fuzzy clustering. In the work presented here, a fuzzy approach for text classification is used to classify the documents into appropriate clusters using Fuzzy C Means (FCM) clustering algorithm. Enron email dataset is used for experimental purpose. Using FCM clustering algorithm, emails are classified into different clusters. The results obtained are compared with the output produced by k means clustering algorithm. The comparative study showed that the fuzzy clusters are more appropriate than hard clusters.

Background: Oral leukoplakia is a potentially malignant disorder that in a small but significant proportion of cases changes into oral cancer. Literature review suggests the association of inflammatory mediator such as cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2) with oral cancer. Expression of COX-2 gene in the oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer may add on a light to the existing diagnostics and therapeutics of these oro-mucosal diseases. Aim: To compare the expression of COX-2 gene in oral leukoplakia with that of controls. Methodology: The present study comprised of 40 subjects. 20 subjects each in oral leukoplakia & controls. Tissue samples were collected at the time of biopsy for the clinically diagnosed cases of leukoplakia and also from control subjects and stored in RNAase free containers. RNA was isolated and COX-2 gene expression was noted through RT- PCR method. Results: Demographic details were expressed in mean±standard deviation. Mann-Whitney test was applied to correlate the COX-2 expression between the groups and other parameters. A statistically significant higher expression of COX-2 was found in oral leukoplakia (0.739±0.078) when compared to controls (0.138±0.103) with P

Background Ductal lavage (DL) allows repeat sampling of breast epithelium for serial observation in a chemoprevention setting; however, the reproducibility of duct cannulation, cell yield and cytology has not been addressed. Methods We conducted a Phase 2 trial, wherein high risk women chose tamoxifen treatment or observation following an entry DL procedure. We present data from the non-intervention arm of our study to assess the reproducibility of cannulation, cell yield, and cytologic diagnosis from DL of the same duct at two time-points. Inter-observer variability was assessed by a blinded review of Papanicoloau-stained slides by two cytopathologists. Results Sixty-five women had a successful lavage of 187 ducts at baseline and chose observation; 63/65 (97%) had a successful lavage 6 months later. Successful recannulation of the same duct was accomplished in 63 women (97%) and162 ducts (87%). Total epithelial cell yields ≥100 were obtained from 57/65 women (88%) and 129/187 ducts (69%) at baseline, and 46/63 women (73%) and 80/162 ducts (49%) at both time-points. Cytologic diagnosis was reproducible in 27/63 (43%) women and 77/162 (48%) ducts. Inter-observer variability for cytologic diagnosis between two observers showed good agreement (κ = 0.62). Conclusions Recannulation and lavage of the same duct after a 6 month interval can be achieved with high frequency; however, reproducibility of cell yield and cytologic findings from the same duct is sub-optimal, leading to significant attrition of evaluable subjects. The utility of DL for the serial monitoring of breast epithelium is therefore limited.

Effective methods of serial epithelial sampling to measure breast-specific biomarkers will aid the rapid evaluation of new preventive interventions. We report here a proof-of-principle phase 2 study to assess the utility of ductal lavage (DL) to measure biomarkers of tamoxifen action. We enrolled women with a 5-year breast cancer risk estimate >1.6% or the unaffected breast of women with T1a or T1b breast cancer. After entry DL, participants chose tamoxifen or observation and underwent repeat DL 6 months later. Samples were processed for cytology and immunohistochemistry for estrogen receptor α, Ki-67, and cyclooxygenase-2. Of 182 women recruited, 115 (63%) underwent entry and repeat DL; 85 (47%) had sufficient cells for analysis from ≥1 duct at both time points; in 78 (43%), cells were sufficient from ≥1 matched ducts. Forty-six women chose observation and 39 chose tamoxifen. We observed greater reductions in the tamoxifen group than in the observation group for Ki-67 (adjusted P = 0.03) and estrogen receptor α (adjusted P = 0.07), but not in cyclooxygenase-2 (adjusted P = 0.4) labeling. Cytologic findings showed a trend toward improvement in the tamoxifen group compared with the observation group. Interobserver variability for cytologic diagnosis between two observers showed good agreement (κ = 0.44). Using DL, we observed the expected changes in tamoxifen-related biomarkers; however, poor reproducibility of biomarkers in the observation group, the 53% attrition rate of subjects from recruitment to biomarker analyses, and the expense of DL are significant barriers to the use of this procedure for biomarker assessment over time.