Machine Learning Methods for One-Session Ahead Prediction of Accesses to Page Categories

This paper presents a comparison among several well-known machine learning techniques when they are used to carry out a one-session ahead prediction of page categories. We use records belonging to 18 different categories accessed by users on the citizen web portal Infoville XXI. Our first approach is focused on predicting the frequency of accesses (normalized to the unity) corresponding to the user’s next session. We have utilized Associative Memories (AMs), Classification and Regression Trees (CARTs), Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs), and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The Success Ratio (SR) averaged over all services is higher than 80% using any of these techniques. Nevertheless, given the …

Risk Assessment of Hip Fracture Based on Machine Learning

[EN] Identifying patients with high risk of hip fracture is a great challenge in osteoporosis clinical assessment. Bone Mineral Density (BMD) measured by Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA) is the current gold standard in osteoporosis clinical assessment. However, its classification accuracy is only around 65%. In order to improve this accuracy, this paper proposes the use of Machine Learning (ML) models trained with data from a biomechanical model that simulates a sideways-fall. Machine Learning (ML) models are models able to learn and to make predictions from data. During a training process, ML models learn a function that maps inputs and outputs without previous knowledge of the probl…

Clustering categorical data: A stability analysis framework

Clustering to identify inherent structure is an important first step in data exploration. The k-means algorithm is a popular choice, but K-means is not generally appropriate for categorical data. A specific extension of k-means for categorical data is the k-modes algorithm. Both of these partition clustering methods are sensitive to the initialization of prototypes, which creates the difficulty of selecting the best solution for a given problem. In addition, selecting the number of clusters can be an issue. Further, the k-modes method is especially prone to instability when presented with ‘noisy’ data, since the calculation of the mode lacks the smoothing effect inherent in the calculation …

Validation of a Reinforcement Learning Policy for Dosage Optimization of Erythropoietin

This paper deals with the validation of a Reinforcement Learning (RL) policy for dosage optimization of Erythropoietin (EPO). This policy was obtained using data from patients in a haemodialysis program during the year 2005. The goal of this policy was to maintain patients' Haemoglobin (Hb) level between 11.5 g/dl and 12.5 g/dl. An individual management was needed, as each patient usually presents a different response to the treatment. RL provides an attractive and satisfactory solution, showing that a policy based on RL would be much more successful in achieving the goal of maintaining patients within the desired target of Hb than the policy followed by the hospital so far. In this work, t…

Predicting service request in support centers based on nonlinear dynamics, ARMA modeling and neural networks

In this paper, we present the use of different mathematical models to forecast service requests in support centers (SCs). A successful prediction of service request can help in the efficient management of both human and technological resources that are used to solve these eventualities. A nonlinear analysis of the time series indicates the convenience of nonlinear modeling. Neural models based on the time delay neural network (TDNN) are benchmarked with classical models, such as auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) models. Models achieved high values for the correlation coefficient between the desired signal and that predicted by the models (values between 0.88 and 0.97 were obtained in th…

An AI Walk from Pharmacokinetics to Marketing

This work is intended for providing a review of reallife practical applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods. We focus on the use of Machine Learning (ML) methods applied to rather real problems than synthetic problems with standard and controlled environment. In particular, we will describe the following problems in next sections: • Optimization of Erythropoietin (EPO) dosages in anaemic patients undergoing Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). • Optimization of a recommender system for citizen web portal users. • Optimization of a marketing campaign. The choice of these problems is due to their relevance and their heterogeneity. This heterogeneity shows the capabilities and versatility …

Enhanced prediction of hemoglobin concentration in a very large cohort of hemodialysis patients by means of deep recurrent neural networks.

Erythropoiesis Stimulating Agents (ESAs) have become a standard anemia management tool for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients. However, dose optimization constitutes an extremely challenging task due to huge inter and intra-patient variability in the responses to ESA administration. Current data-based approaches to anemia control focus on learning accurate hemoglobin prediction models, which can be later utilized for testing competing treatment choices and choosing the optimal one. These methods, despite being proven effective in practice, present several shortcomings which this paper intends to tackle. Namely, they are limited to a small cohort of patients and, even then, they fail to…

Studying the feasibility of a recommender in a citizen web portal based on user modeling and clustering algorithms

This paper presents a methodology to estimate the future success of a collaborative recommender in a citizen web portal. This methodology consists of four stages, three of them are developed in this study. First of all, a user model, which takes into account some usual characteristics of web data, is developed to produce artificial data sets. These data sets are used to carry out a clustering algorithm comparison in the second stage of our approach. This comparison provides information about the suitability of each algorithm in different scenarios. The benchmarked clustering algorithms are the ones that are most commonly used in the literature: c-Means, Fuzzy c-Means, a set of hierarchical …

A finite element-based machine learning approach for modeling the mechanical behavior of the breast tissues under compression in real-time

[EN] This work presents a data-driven method to simulate, in real-time, the biomechanical behavior of the breast tissues in some image-guided interventions such as biopsies or radiotherapy dose delivery as well as to speed up multimodal registration algorithms. Ten real breasts were used for this work. Their deformation due to the displacement of two compression plates was simulated off-line using the finite element (FE) method. Three machine learning models were trained with the data from those simulations. Then, they were used to predict in real-time the deformation of the breast tissues during the compression. The models were a decision tree and two tree-based ensemble methods (extremely…

Non-linear RLS-based algorithm for pattern classification

A new non-linear recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm is presented in the context of pattern classification problems. The algorithm incorporates the non-linearity of the filter's output in the updating rules of the classical RLS algorithm. The proposed method yields lower stationary error levels when compared to the standard LMS and RLS algorithms in a classical application of pattern classification, such as the channel equalization problem.

Supervised Quantum Learning without Measurements

We propose a quantum machine learning algorithm for efficiently solving a class of problems encoded in quantum controlled unitary operations. The central physical mechanism of the protocol is the iteration of a quantum time-delayed equation that introduces feedback in the dynamics and eliminates the necessity of intermediate measurements. The performance of the quantum algorithm is analyzed by comparing the results obtained in numerical simulations with the outcome of classical machine learning methods for the same problem. The use of time-delayed equations enhances the toolbox of the field of quantum machine learning, which may enable unprecedented applications in quantum technologies. The…

Prediction of the hemoglobin level in hemodialysis patients using machine learning techniques

HighlightsDifferent prediction algorithms were used to predict Hb levels in CRF patients.Prediction errors in the validation cohorts of patients were around 0.6g/dl.Difficulty to obtain lower errors due to the measuring machine precision (0.2g/dl).Relevance analysis of features have been applied for each predictor. Patients who suffer from chronic renal failure (CRF) tend to suffer from an associated anemia as well. Therefore, it is essential to know the hemoglobin (Hb) levels in these patients. The aim of this paper is to predict the hemoglobin (Hb) value using a database of European hemodialysis patients provided by Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) for improving the treatment of this kind of …

Mathematical Modeling for Neuropathic Pain: Bayesian Linear Regression and Self-Organizing Maps Applied to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

A better understanding of the connection between risk factors associated with pain and function may assist therapists in optimizing therapeutic programs. This study applied mathematical modeling to analyze the relationship of psychological, psychophysical, and motor variables with pain, function, and symptom severity using Bayesian linear regressions (BLR) and self-organizing maps (SOMs) in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The novelty of this work was a transfer of the symmetry mathematical background to a neuropathic pain condition, whose symptoms can be either unilateral or bilateral. Duration of symptoms, pain intensity, function, symptom severity, depressive levels, pinch tip grip force, a…

Spectral Clustering Reveals Different Profiles of Central Sensitization in Women with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Identification of subgroups of patients with chronic pain provides meaningful insights into the characteristics of a specific population, helping to identify individuals at risk of chronification and to determine appropriate therapeutic strategies. This paper proposes the use of spectral clustering (SC) to distinguish subgroups (clusters) of individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), making use of the obtained patient profiling to argue about potential management implications. SC is a powerful algorithm that builds a similarity graph among the data points (the patients), and tries to find the subsets of points that are strongly connected among themselves, but weakly connected to others.…

A Teaching Laboratory in Analog Electronics: Changes to Address the Bologna Requirements

Training new electronics engineers presents several major challenges. This paper proposes a new approach for practical lessons in second-level analog electronics, where students get a closer view of real-world practices in electronic engineering. The authors describe and evaluate a more dynamic way of teaching practical lessons in analog electronics in the first year of an electronic engineering degree. The method consists of creating a virtual company that contracts students to develop prototypes. The design process involves theoretical concepts from the students' lessons, and poses challenges with respect to costs and teamwork. The method brings the students closer to the working environm…

Quantum autoencoders via quantum adders with genetic algorithms

The quantum autoencoder is a recent paradigm in the field of quantum machine learning, which may enable an enhanced use of resources in quantum technologies. To this end, quantum neural networks with less nodes in the inner than in the outer layers were considered. Here, we propose a useful connection between quantum autoencoders and quantum adders, which approximately add two unknown quantum states supported in different quantum systems. Specifically, this link allows us to employ optimized approximate quantum adders, obtained with genetic algorithms, for the implementation of quantum autoencoders for a variety of initial states. Furthermore, we can also directly optimize the quantum autoe…

Quantum pattern recognition in photonic circuits

This paper proposes a machine learning method to characterize photonic states via a simple optical circuit and data processing of photon number distributions, such as photonic patterns. The input states consist of two coherent states used as references and a two-mode unknown state to be studied. We successfully trained supervised learning algorithms that can predict the degree of entanglement in the two-mode state as well as perform the full tomography of one photonic mode, obtaining satisfactory values in the considered regression metrics.

Single trajectory characterization via machine learning

[EN] In order to study transport in complex environments, it is extremely important to determine the physical mechanism underlying diffusion and precisely characterize its nature and parameters. Often, this task is strongly impacted by data consisting of trajectories with short length (either due to brief recordings or previous trajectory segmentation) and limited localization precision. In this paper, we propose a machine learning method based on a random forest architecture, which is able to associate single trajectories to the underlying diffusion mechanism with high accuracy. In addition, the algorithm is able to determine the anomalous exponent with a small error, thus inherently provi…

A Pseudo-Supervised Approach to Improve a Recommender Based on Collaborative Filtering

This PhD Thesis develops an optimal recommender. First of all, users accessing to a Web site are clustered. If a user belongs to a cluster, the system offers services which are usually accessed by users from the same cluster in a collaborative filtering scheme. A novel approach based on a users simulator and a dynamic recommendation system is proposed. The simulator is used to create the situations that one can find in a Web site. Introduction of dynamics in the recommender allows to change the clusters and in turn, the decisions which are taken. Since the system is based both on supervised and unsupervised learning whose borders are not too clear in our approach, we talk about a pseudo-sup…

Least-squares temporal difference learning based on an extreme learning machine

Abstract Reinforcement learning (RL) is a general class of algorithms for solving decision-making problems, which are usually modeled using the Markov decision process (MDP) framework. RL can find exact solutions only when the MDP state space is discrete and small enough. Due to the fact that many real-world problems are described by continuous variables, approximation is essential in practical applications of RL. This paper is focused on learning the value function of a fixed policy in continuous MPDs. This is an important subproblem of several RL algorithms. We propose a least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) algorithm based on the extreme learning machine. LSTD is typically combined wi…

A new approach based on Machine Learning for predicting corneal curvature (K1) and astigmatism in patients with keratoconus after intracorneal ring implantation

Keratoconus (KC) is the most common type of corneal ectasia. A corneal transplantation was the treatment of choice until the last decade. However, intra-corneal ring implantation has become more and more common, and it is commonly used to treat KC thus avoiding a corneal transplantation. This work proposes a new approach based on Machine Learning to predict the vision gain of KC patients after ring implantation. That vision gain is assessed by means of the corneal curvature and the astigmatism. Different models were proposed; the best results were achieved by an artificial neural network based on the Multilayer Perceptron. The error provided by the best model was 0.97D of corneal curvature …

Retrieving Quantum Information with Active Learning

Active learning is a machine learning method aiming at optimal design for model training. At variance with supervised learning, which labels all samples, active learning provides an improved model by labeling samples with maximal uncertainty according to the estimation model. Here, we propose the use of active learning for efficient quantum information retrieval, which is a crucial task in the design of quantum experiments. Meanwhile, when dealing with large data output, we employ active learning for the sake of classification with minimal cost in fidelity loss. Indeed, labeling only 5% samples, we achieve almost 90% rate estimation. The introduction of active learning methods in the data a…

Data Mining in Cancer Research [Application Notes

This article is not intended as a comprehensive survey of data mining applications in cancer. Rather, it provides starting points for further, more targeted, literature searches, by embarking on a guided tour of computational intelligence applications in cancer medicine, structured in increasing order of the physical scales of biological processes.

An approach based on the Adaptive Resonance Theory for analysing the viability of recommender systems in a citizen Web portal

This paper proposes a methodology to optimise the future accuracy of a collaborative recommender application in a citizen Web portal. There are four stages namely, user modelling, benchmarking of clustering algorithms, prediction analysis and recommendation. The first stage is to develop analytical models of common characteristics of Web-user data. These artificial data sets are then used to evaluate the performance of clustering algorithms, in particular benchmarking the ART2 neural network with K-means clustering. Afterwards, it is evaluated the predictive accuracy of the clusters applied to a real-world data set derived from access logs to the citizen Web portal Infoville XXI (http://www…

Steady-state and tracking analysis of a robust adaptive filter with low computational cost

This paper analyses a new adaptive algorithm that is robust to impulse noise and has a low computational load [E. Soria, J.D. Martin, A.J. Serrano, J. Calpe, and J. Chambers, A new robust adaptive algorithm with low computacional cost, Electron. Lett. 42 (1) (2006) 60-62]. The algorithm is based on two premises: the use of the cost function often used in independent component analysis and a fuzzy modelling of the hyperbolic tangent function. The steady-state error and tracking capability of the algorithm are analysed using conservation methods [A. Sayed, Fundamentals of Adaptive Filtering, Wiley, New York, 2003], thus verifying the correspondence between theory and experimental results.

Dosage individualization of erythropoietin using a profile-dependent support vector regression

The external administration of recombinant human erythropoietin is the chosen treatment for those patients with secondary anemia due to chronic renal failure in periodic hemodialysis. The objective of this paper is to carry out an individualized prediction of the EPO dosage to be administered to those patients. The high cost of this medication, its side-effects and the phenomenon of potential resistance which some individuals suffer all justify the need for a model which is capable of optimizing dosage individualization. A group of 110 patients and several patient factors were used to develop the models. The support vector regressor (SVR) is benchmarked with the classical multilayer percept…

Patient Profiling Based on Spectral Clustering for an Enhanced Classification of Patients with Tension-Type Headache

Profiling groups of patients in clusters can provide meaningful insights into the features of the population, thus helping to identify people at risk of chronification and the development of specific therapeutic strategies. Our aim was to determine if spectral clustering is able to distinguish subgroups (clusters) of tension-type headache (TTH) patients, identify the profile of each group, and argue about potential different therapeutic interventions. A total of 208 patients (n = 208) with TTH participated. Headache intensity, frequency, and duration were collected with a 4-week diary. Anxiety and depressive levels, headache-related burden, sleep quality, health-related quality of life, pre…

Fuzzy sigmoid kernel for support vector classifiers

This Letter proposes the use of the fuzzy sigmoid function presented in (IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 14(6) (2003) 1576) as non-positive semi-definite kernel in the support vector machines framework. The fuzzy sigmoid kernel allows lower computational cost, and higher rate of positive eigenvalues of the kernel matrix, which alleviates current limitations of the sigmoid kernel.

Toward Prediction of Financial Crashes with a D-Wave Quantum Annealer

The prediction of financial crashes in a complex financial network is known to be an NP-hard problem, which means that no known algorithm can efficiently find optimal solutions. We experimentally explore a novel approach to this problem by using a D-Wave quantum annealer, benchmarking its performance for attaining a financial equilibrium. To be specific, the equilibrium condition of a nonlinear financial model is embedded into a higher-order unconstrained binary optimization (HUBO) problem, which is then transformed into a spin-1/2 Hamiltonian with at most, two-qubit interactions. The problem is thus equivalent to finding the ground state of an interacting spin Hamiltonian, which can be app…

Crane collision modelling using a neural network approach

Abstract The objective of the present work is to find a Collision Detection algorithm to be used in the Virtual Reality crane simulator (UVSim®), developed by the Robotics Institute of the University of Valencia for the Port of Valencia. The method is applicable to box-shaped objects and is based on the relationship between the colliding object positions and their impact points. The tool chosen to solve the problem is a neural network, the multilayer perceptron, which adapts to the characteristics of the problem, namely, non-linearity, a large amount of data, and no a priori knowledge. The results achieved by the neural network are very satisfactory for the case of box-shaped objects. Furth…

Regularized RBF Networks for Hyperspectral Data Classification

In this paper, we analyze several regularized types of Radial Basis Function (RBF) Networks for crop classification using hyperspectral images. We compare the regularized RBF neural network with Support Vector Machines (SVM) using the RBF kernel, and AdaBoost Regularized (ABR) algorithm using RBF bases, in terms of accuracy and robustness. Several scenarios of increasing input space dimensionality are tested for six images containing six crop classes. Also, regularization, sparseness, and knowledge extraction are paid attention.

Preface to Data Mining in Biomedical Informatics and Healthcare

Estimation of the elastic parameters of human liver biomechanical models by means of medical images and evolutionary computation.

This paper presents a method to computationally estimate the elastic parameters of two biomechanical models proposed for the human liver. The method is aimed at avoiding the invasive measurement of its mechanical response. The chosen models are a second order Mooney–Rivlin model and an Ogden model. A novel error function, the geometric similarity function (GSF), is formulated using similarity coefficients widely applied in the field of medical imaging (Jaccard coefficient and Hausdorff coefficient). This function is used to compare two 3D images. One of them corresponds to a reference deformation carried out over a finite element (FE) mesh of a human liver from a computer tomography image, …

Modeling the Mechanical Behavior of the Breast Tissues Under Compression in Real Time

This work presents a data-driven model to simulate the mechanical behavior of the breast tissues in real time. The aim of this model is to speed up some multimodal registration algorithms, as well as some image-guided interventions. Ten virtual breast phantoms were used in this work. Their deformation during a mammography was performed off-line using the finite element method. Three machine learning models were trained with the data from those simulations. Then, they were used to predict the deformation of the breast tissues. The models were a decision tree and two ensemble methods (extremely randomized trees and random forest). Four experiments were designed to assess the performance of th…

Toward Pricing Financial Derivatives with an IBM Quantum Computer

Pricing interest-rate financial derivatives is a major problem in finance, in which it is crucial to accurately reproduce the time evolution of interest rates. Several stochastic dynamics have been proposed in the literature to model either the instantaneous interest rate or the instantaneous forward rate. A successful approach to model the latter is the celebrated Heath-Jarrow-Morton framework, in which its dynamics is entirely specified by volatility factors. In its multifactor version, this model considers several noisy components to capture at best the dynamics of several time-maturing forward rates. However, as no general analytical solution is available, there is a trade-off between t…

Experimentally Realizing Efficient Quantum Control with Reinforcement Learning

Robust and high-precision quantum control is crucial but challenging for scalable quantum computation and quantum information processing. Traditional adiabatic control suffers severe limitations on gate performance imposed by environmentally induced noise because of a quantum system's limited coherence time. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate an alternative approach {to quantum control} based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) on a trapped $^{171}\mathrm{Yb}^{+}$ ion. In particular, we find that DRL leads to fast and robust {digital quantum operations with running time bounded by shortcuts to adiabaticity} (STA). Besides, we demonstrate that DRL's robustness against both Rabi and…

Use of Reinforcement Learning in Two Real Applications

In this paper, we present two sucessful applications of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in real life. First, the optimization of anemia management in patients undergoing Chronic Renal Failure is presented. The aim is to individualize the treatment (Erythropoietin dosages) in order to stabilize patients within a targeted range of Hemoglobin (Hb). Results show that the use of RL increases the ratio of patients within the desired range of Hb. Thus, patients' quality of life is increased, and additionally, Health Care System reduces its expenses in anemia management. Second, RL is applied to modify a marketing campaign in order to maximize long-term profits. RL obtains an individualized policy depe…

Adaptive treatment of anemia on hemodialysis patients: A reinforcement learning approach

The aim of this work is to study the applicability of reinforcement learning methods to design adaptive treatment strategies that optimize, in the long-term, the dosage of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) in the management of anemia in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Adaptive treatment strategies are recently emerging as a new paradigm for the treatment and long-term management of the chronic disease. Reinforcement Learning (RL) can be useful to extract such strategies from clinical data, taking into account delayed effects and without requiring any mathematical model. In this work, we focus on the so-called Fitted Q Iteration algorithm, a RL approach that deals with the data very…

Quantum Machine Learning: A tutorial

This tutorial provides an overview of Quantum Machine Learning (QML), a relatively novel discipline that brings together concepts from Machine Learning (ML), Quantum Computing (QC) and Quantum Information (QI). The great development experienced by QC, partly due to the involvement of giant technological companies as well as the popularity and success of ML have been responsible of making QML one of the main streams for researchers working on fuzzy borders between Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science. A possible, although arguably coarse, classification of QML methods may be based on those approaches that make use of ML in a quantum experimentation environment and those others that take…

Memory degradation induced by attention in recurrent neural architectures

This paper studies the memory mechanisms in recurrent neural architectures when attention models are included. Pure-attention models like Transformers are more and more popular as they tend to outperform models with recurrent connections in many different tasks. Our conjecture is that attention prevents the recurrent connections from transferring information properly between consecutive next steps. This conjecture is empirically tested using five different models, namely, a model without attention, a standard Loung attention model, a standard Bahdanau attention model, and our proposal to add attention to the inputs in order to fill the gap between recurrent and parallel architectures (for b…

Regression Modeling of the Antioxidant-to-Nephroprotective Relation Shows the Pivotal Role of Oxidative Stress in Cisplatin Nephrotoxicity

The clinical utility of the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin is significantly limited by its nephrotoxicity, which is characterized by electrolytic disorders, glomerular filtration rate decline, and azotemia. These alterations are consequences of a primary tubulopathy causing injury to proximal and distal epithelial cells, and thus tubular dysfunction. Oxidative stress plays a role in cisplatin nephrotoxicity and cytotoxicity, but its relative contribution to overall toxicity remains unknown. We studied the relation between the degree of oxidative reduction (provided by antioxidant treatment) and the extent of nephrotoxicity amelioration (i.e., nephroprotection) by means of a regression anal…

Support Vector Machines for Crop Classification Using Hyperspectral Data

In this communication, we propose the use of Support Vector Machines (SVM) for crop classification using hyperspectral images. SVM are benchmarked to well–known neural networks such as multilayer perceptrons (MLP), Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and Co-Active Neural Fuzzy Inference Systems (CANFIS). Models are analyzed in terms of efficiency and robustness, which is tested according to their suitability to real–time working conditions whenever a preprocessing stage is not possible. This can be simulated by considering models with and without a preprocessing stage. Four scenarios (128, 6, 3 and 2 bands) are thus evaluated. Several conclusions are drawn: (1) SVM yield better outcomes than neura…

Probabilistic quantum clustering

Abstract Quantum Clustering is a powerful method to detect clusters with complex shapes. However, it is very sensitive to a length parameter that controls the shape of the Gaussian kernel associated with a wave function, which is employed in the Schrodinger equation with the role of a density estimator. In addition, linking data points into clusters requires local estimates of covariance which requires further parameters. This paper proposes a Bayesian framework that provides an objective measure of goodness-of-fit to the data, to optimise the adjustable parameters. This also quantifies the probabilities of cluster membership, thus partitioning the data into a specific number of clusters, w…

Detecting rottenness caused by Penicillium genus fungi in citrus fruits using machine learning techniques

Penicillium fungi are among the main defects that may affect the commercialization of citrus fruits. Economic losses in fruit production may become enormous if an early detection of that kind of fungi is not carried out. That early detection is usually based either on UltraViolet light carried out manually. This work presents a new approach based on hyperspectral imagery for defect segmentation. Both the physical device and the data processing (geometric corrections and band selection) are presented. Achieved results using classifiers based on Artificial Neural Networks and Decision Trees show an accuracy around 98%; it shows up the suitability of the proposed approach.

This paper presents the use of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for prediction and analysis of antisense oligonucleotide (AO) efficacy. The collected database comprises 315 AO molecules including 68 features each, inducing a problem well-suited to SVMs. The task of feature selection is crucial given the presence of noisy or redundant features, and the well-known problem of the curse of dimensionality. We propose a two-stage strategy to develop an optimal model: (1) feature selection using correlation analysis, mutual information, and SVM-based recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE), and (2) AO prediction using standard and profiled SVM formulations. A profiled SVM gives different weights to …

Self-Organising Maps: A new way to screen the level of satisfaction of dialysis patients

Highlights? FME as dialysis services global provider monitors patient satisfaction in its network. ? A specific questionnaire was developed and administered to the hemodialysis patients. ? To detect residual area of low satisfaction the Self-Organising Map was implemented. ? This method allows identifying niches of dissatisfaction for specific patient groups. Evaluation of patient satisfaction has become an important indicator for assessing health care quality. Fresenius Medical Care (FME) as a global provider of dialysis services through its NephroCare network has a strong interest in monitoring patient satisfaction.The aim of the paper is to test and validate a methodology for detecting a…

Real-time biomechanical modeling of the liver using Machine Learning models trained on Finite Element Method simulations

[EN] The development of accurate real-time models of the biomechanical behavior of different organs and tissues still poses a challenge in the field of biomechanical engineering. In the case of the liver, specifically, such a model would constitute a great leap forward in the implementation of complex applications such as surgical simulators, computed-assisted surgery or guided tumor irradiation. In this work, a relatively novel approach for developing such a model is presented. It consists in the use of a machine learning algorithm, which provides real-time inference, trained on tens of thousands of simulations of the biomechanical behavior of the liver carried out by the finite element me…

Sectors on sectors (SonS): A new hierarchical clustering visualization tool

Clustering techniques have been widely applied to extract information from high-dimensional data structures in the last few years. Graphs are especially relevant for clustering, but many graphs associated with hierarchical clustering do not give any information about the values of the centroids' attributes and the relationships among them. In this paper, we propose a new visualization approach for hierarchical cluster analysis in which the above-mentioned information is available. The method is based on pie charts. The pie charts are divided into several pie segments or sectors corresponding to each cluster. The radius of each pie segment is proportional to the number of patterns included i…

A framework for modelling the biomechanical behaviour of the human liver during breathing in real time using machine learning

Progress in biomechanical modelling of human soft tissue is the basis for the development of new clinical applications capable of improving the diagnosis and treatment of some diseases (e.g. cancer), as well as the surgical planning and guidance of some interventions. The finite element method (FEM) is one of the most popular techniques used to predict the deformation of the human soft tissue due to its high accuracy. However, FEM has an associated high computational cost, which makes it difficult its integration in real-time computer-aided surgery systems. An alternative for simulating the mechanical behaviour of human organs in real time comes from the use of machine learning (ML) techniq…

Regularized extreme learning machine for regression problems

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is a new learning algorithm for single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs) proposed by Huang et al. [1]. Its main advantage is the lower computational cost, which is especially relevant when dealing with many patterns defined in a high-dimensional space. This paper proposes an algorithm for pruning ELM networks by using regularized regression methods, thus obtaining a suitable number of the hidden nodes in the network architecture. Beginning from an initial large number of hidden nodes, irrelevant nodes are then pruned using ridge regression, elastic net and lasso methods; hence, the architectural design of ELM network can be automated. Empirical studies…

Neural networks for analysing the relevance of input variables in the prediction of tropospheric ozone concentration

Abstract This paper deals with tropospheric ozone modelling by using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In this study, ambient ozone concentrations are estimated using surface meteorological variables and vehicle emission variables as predictors. The work is especially focused on analysing the importance of the input variables used by these models. This analysis is carried out in different time windows: all the time of study (April of 1997, 1999 and 2000), one month (April 1999), and finally, an hourly analysis. All the information extracted from these analyses can determine the most important factors in tropospheric ozone formation, thus achieving a qualitative model from the quantitative …

Scalable implementation of measuring distances in a Riemannian manifold based on the Fisher Information metric

This paper focuses on the scalability of the Fisher Information manifold by applying techniques of distributed computing. The main objective is to investigate methodologies to improve two bottlenecks associated with the measurement of distances in a Riemannian manifold formed by the Fisher Information metric. The first bottleneck is the quadratic increase in the number of pairwise distances. The second is the computation of global distances, approximated through a fully connected network of the observed pairwise distances, where the challenge is the computation of the all sources shortest path (ASSP). The scalable implementation for the pairwise distances is performed in Spark. The scalable…

Quantum clustering in non-spherical data distributions: Finding a suitable number of clusters

Quantum Clustering (QC) provides an alternative approach to clustering algorithms, several of which are based on geometric relationships between data points. Instead, QC makes use of quantum mechanics concepts to find structures (clusters) in data sets by finding the minima of a quantum potential. The starting point of QC is a Parzen estimator with a fixed length scale, which significantly affects the final cluster allocation. This dependence on an adjustable parameter is common to other methods. We propose a framework to find suitable values of the length parameter σ by optimising twin measures of cluster separation and consistency for a given cluster number. This is an extension of the Se…

Optimization of anemia treatment in hemodialysis patients via reinforcement learning

Objective: Anemia is a frequent comorbidity in hemodialysis patients that can be successfully treated by administering erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs). ESAs dosing is currently based on clinical protocols that often do not account for the high inter- and intra-individual variability in the patient's response. As a result, the hemoglobin level of some patients oscillates around the target range, which is associated with multiple risks and side-effects. This work proposes a methodology based on reinforcement learning (RL) to optimize ESA therapy. Methods: RL is a data-driven approach for solving sequential decision-making problems that are formulated as Markov decision processes (MDP…

How to assess the risks associated with the usage of a medical device based on predictive modeling: the case of an anemia control model certified as medical device.

Background The successful application of Machine Learning (ML) to many clinical problems can lead to its implementation as medical devices (MD), being important to assess the associated risks. Methods An anemia control model (ACM), certified as MD may face adverse events as the result of wrong predictions that are translated into suggestions of doses of erythropoietic stimulating agents to dialysis patients. Risks are assessed as the combination of severity and probability of a given hazard. While severities are typically assessed by clinicians, probabilities are tightly related to the performance of the predictive model. Results A post-marketing dataset formed by all adult patients registe…

A reinforcement learning approach for individualizing erythropoietin dosages in hemodialysis patients

This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL) approach for anemia management in patients undergoing chronic renal failure. Erythropoietin (EPO) is the treatment of choice for this kind of anemia but it is an expensive drug and with some dangerous side-effects that should be considered especially for patients who do not respond to the treatment. Therefore, an individualized treatment appears to be necessary. RL is a suitable approach to tackle this problem. Moreover, resulting policies are similar to medical protocols, and hence, they can easily be transferred to daily practice. A cohort of 64 patients are included in the study. An implementation of the Q-learning algorithm based on a st…

Robust Resolution-Enhanced Prostate Segmentation in Magnetic Resonance and Ultrasound Images through Convolutional Neural Networks

[EN] Prostate segmentations are required for an ever-increasing number of medical applications, such as image-based lesion detection, fusion-guided biopsy and focal therapies. However, obtaining accurate segmentations is laborious, requires expertise and, even then, the inter-observer variability remains high. In this paper, a robust, accurate and generalizable model for Magnetic Resonance (MR) and three-dimensional (3D) Ultrasound (US) prostate image segmentation is proposed. It uses a densenet-resnet-based Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) combined with techniques such as deep supervision, checkpoint ensembling and Neural Resolution Enhancement. The MR prostate segmentation model was tra…

Online fitted policy iteration based on extreme learning machines

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a learning paradigm that can be useful in a wide variety of real-world applications. However, its applicability to complex problems remains problematic due to different causes. Particularly important among these are the high quantity of data required by the agent to learn useful policies and the poor scalability to high-dimensional problems due to the use of local approximators. This paper presents a novel RL algorithm, called online fitted policy iteration (OFPI), that steps forward in both directions. OFPI is based on a semi-batch scheme that increases the convergence speed by reusing data and enables the use of global approximators by reformulating the valu…

The number of symptoms at the acute COVID-19 phase is associated with anxiety and depressive long-term post-COVID symptoms: A multicenter study

Differences in Long-COVID Symptoms between Vaccinated and Non-Vaccinated (BNT162b2 Vaccine) Hospitalized COVID-19 Survivors Infected with the Delta Variant

This study compared differences in the presence of post-COVID symptoms among vaccinated and non-vaccinated COVID-19 survivors requiring hospitalization due to the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant. This cohort study included hospitalized subjects who had survived SARS-CoV-2 infection (Delta variant) from July to August 2021 in an urban hospital in Madrid, Spain. Individuals were classified as vaccinated if they received full administration (i.e., two doses) of BNT162b2 (“Pfizer-BioNTech”) vaccines. Other vaccines were excluded. Those with just one dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine were considered as non-vaccinated. Patients were scheduled for a telephone interview at a follow-up around six months after …

Web mining based on Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing Maps: Analysis of a real citizen web portal☆

This work is focused on the usage analysis of a citizen web portal, Infoville XXI (http://www.infoville.es) by means of Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). In this paper, a variant of the classical SOM has been used, the so-called Growing Hierarchical SOM (GHSOM). The GHSOM is able to find an optimal architecture of the SOM in a few iterations. There are also other variants which allow to find an optimal architecture, but they tend to need a long time for training, especially in the case of complex data sets. Another relevant contribution of the paper is the new visualization of the patterns in the hierarchical structure. Results show that GHSOM is a powerful and versatile tool to extract relevant …

Robust Conditional Independence maps of single-voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectra to elucidate associations between brain tumours and metabolites.

The aim of the paper is two-fold. First, we show that structure finding with the PC algorithm can be inherently unstable and requires further operational constraints in order to consistently obtain models that are faithful to the data. We propose a methodology to stabilise the structure finding process, minimising both false positive and false negative error rates. This is demonstrated with synthetic data. Second, to apply the proposed structure finding methodology to a data set comprising single-voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectra of normal brain and three classes of brain tumours, to elucidate the associations between brain tumour types and a range of observed metabolites that are known to b…

Machine Learning for Modeling the Biomechanical Behavior of Human Soft Tissue

An accurate modeling of the biomechanical properties of human soft tissue is crucial in many clinical applications, such as, radiotherapy administration or surgery. The finite element method (FEM) is the usual choice to carry out such modeling due to its high accuracy. However, FEM is computationally very costly, and hence, its application in real-time or even off-line with short delays are still challenges to overcome. This paper proposes a framework based on Machine Learning to learn FEM modeling, thus having a tool able to yield results that may be sufficiently fast for clinical applications. In particular, the use of ensembles of Decision Trees has shown its suitability in modeling the …

Corrigendum to “Predicting service request in support centers based on nonlinear dynamics, ARMA modeling and neural networks” [Expert Systems with Applications 34/1 (2008) 665–672]

Post-COVID functional limitations on daily living activities are associated with symptoms experienced at the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection and internal care unit admission: A multicenter study

Efficient pruning of multilayer perceptrons using a fuzzy sigmoid activation function

This Letter presents a simple and powerful pruning method for multilayer feed forward neural networks based on the fuzzy sigmoid activation function presented in [E. Soria, J. Martin, G. Camps, A. Serrano, J. Calpe, L. Gomez, A low-complexity fuzzy activation function for artificial neural networks, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 14(6) (2003) 1576-1579]. Successful performance is obtained in standard function approximation and channel equalization problems. Pruning allows to reduce network complexity considerably, achieving a similar performance to that obtained by unpruned networks.

Deep Learning for fully automatic detection, segmentation, and Gleason Grade estimation of prostate cancer in multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Images

The emergence of multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) has had a profound impact on the diagnosis of prostate cancers (PCa), which is the most prevalent malignancy in males in the western world, enabling a better selection of patients for confirmation biopsy. However, analyzing these images is complex even for experts, hence opening an opportunity for computer-aided diagnosis systems to seize. This paper proposes a fully automatic system based on Deep Learning that takes a prostate mpMRI from a PCa-suspect patient and, by leveraging the Retina U-Net detection framework, locates PCa lesions, segments them, and predicts their most likely Gleason grade group (GGG). It uses 490 mp…

Artificial neural networks for predicting dorsal pressures on the foot surface while walking

In this work, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are proposed to predict the dorsal pressure over the foot surface exerted by the shoe upper while walking. A model that is based on the multilayer perceptron (MLP) is used since it can provide a single equation to model the exerted pressure for all the materials used as shoe uppers. Five different models are produced, one model for each one of the four subjects under study and an overall model for the four subjects. The inputs to the neural model include the characteristics of the material and the positions during a whole step of 14 pressure sensors placed on the foot surface. The goal is to find models with good generalization capabilities, (…

Clinical Applications

The study of the diagnostic accuracy of Infrared Thermal Imaging in the diagnosis of orthopaedic injuries in childhood has been motivated by the high incidence of these injuries throughout the world, being one of the most common reasons for urgent medical consultation. Diagnosis of musculoskeletal injuries usually involves radiography, but this exposes children without fractures to unnecessary ionising radiation. This chapter assesses whether infrared thermography could provide a viable alternative in cases of trauma. To evaluate the accuracy of this technique new thermographic variables have been added to those commonly analysed, such as the extent of the injury and the difference in the s…

A new machine learning approach for predicting the response to anemia treatment in a large cohort of End Stage Renal Disease patients undergoing dialysis

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) anemia is one of the main common comorbidities in patients undergoing End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Iron supplement and especially Erythropoiesis Stimulating Agents (ESA) have become the treatment of choice for that anemia. However, it is very complicated to find an adequate treatment for every patient in each particular situation since dosage guidelines are based on average behaviors, and thus, they do not take into account the particular response to those drugs by different patients, although that response may vary enormously from one patient to another and even for the same patient in different stages of the anemia. This work proposes an advance with respec…

Unbiased sensitivity analysis and pruning techniques in neural networks for surface ozone modelling

Abstract This paper presents the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for surface ozone modelling. Due to the usual non-linear nature of problems in ecology, the use of ANNs has proven to be a common practice in this field. Nevertheless, few efforts have been made to acquire knowledge about the problems by analysing the useful, but often complex, input–output mapping performed by these models. In fact, researchers are not only interested in accurate methods but also in understandable models. In the present paper, we propose a methodology to extract the governing rules of trained ANN which, in turn, yields simplified models by using unbiased sensitivity and pruning techniques. Our propos…

Description and evaluation of an introductory course to Matlab for a heterogeneous group of university students

This paper presents the experience of the authors in teaching the Matlab™ software to students with different levels of academic training, even though all of them belong to the field of Science. Matlab™ is a worldwide standard in technical programming and computing, and its use is still growing; therefore, it is taught in many different university degree programs (Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, etc.). The course analyzed in this paper contains examples of different fields of knowledge to show the students the versatility and power of this tool. At the end of each course, which consists of 30 h, the students expressed their opinions about the content in a private opinion poll (questionna…

Assigning discounts in a marketing campaign by using reinforcement learning and neural networks

In this work, RL is used to find an optimal policy for a marketing campaign. Data show a complex characterization of state and action spaces. Two approaches are proposed to circumvent this problem. The first approach is based on the self-organizing map (SOM), which is used to aggregate states. The second approach uses a multilayer perceptron (MLP) to carry out a regression of the action-value function. The results indicate that both approaches can improve a targeted marketing campaign. Moreover, the SOM approach allows an intuitive interpretation of the results, and the MLP approach yields robust results with generalization capabilities.

Breaking adiabatic quantum control with deep learning

In the era of digital quantum computing, optimal digitized pulses are requisite for efficient quantum control. This goal is translated into dynamic programming, in which a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agent is gifted. As a reference, shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA) provide analytical approaches to adiabatic speed up by pulse control. Here, we select single-component control of qubits, resembling the ubiquitous two-level Landau-Zener problem for gate operation. We aim at obtaining fast and robust digital pulses by combining STA and DRL algorithm. In particular, we find that DRL leads to robust digital quantum control with operation time bounded by quantum speed limits dictated by STA. I…

Making nonlinear manifold learning models interpretable: The manifold grand tour

Smooth nonlinear topographic maps of the data distribution to guide a Grand Tour visualisation.Prioritisation of data linear views that are most consistent with data structure in the maps.Useful visualisations that cannot be obtained by other more classical approaches. Dimensionality reduction is required to produce visualisations of high dimensional data. In this framework, one of the most straightforward approaches to visualising high dimensional data is based on reducing complexity and applying linear projections while tumbling the projection axes in a defined sequence which generates a Grand Tour of the data. We propose using smooth nonlinear topographic maps of the data distribution to…