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A Boolean model is a simple, discrete and dynamic model without the need to consider the effects at the intermediate levels. However, little effort has been made into constructing activation, inhibition, and protein decay networks, which could indicate the direct roles of a gene (or its synthesized protein) as an activator or inhibitor of a target gene. Therefore, we propose to focus on the general Boolean functions at the subfunction level taking into account the effectiveness of protein decay, and further split the subfunctions into the activation and inhibition domains. As a consequence, we developed a novel data-driven Boolean model; namely, the Fundamental Boolean Model (FBM), to draw insights into gene activation, inhibition, and protein decay. This novel Boolean model provides an intuitive definition of activation and inhibition pathways and includes mechanisms to handle protein decay issues. To prove the concept of the novel model, we implemented a platform using R language, called FBNNet. Our experimental results show that the proposed FBM could explicitly display the internal connections of the mammalian cell cycle between genes separated into the connection types of activation, inhibition and protein decay. Moreover, the method we proposed to infer the gene regulatory networks for the novel Boolean model can be run in parallel and; hence, the computation cost is affordable. Finally, the novel Boolean model and related Fundamental Boolean Networks (FBNs) could show significant trajectories in genes to reveal how genes regulated each other over a given period. This new feature could facilitate further research on drug interventions to detect the side effects of a newly-proposed drug.

New Zealand farmers practice a form of ‗industrialised' agriculture that relies on relatively high inputs of fossil fuels, not only to power machinery directly but also for manufacturing artificial fertilizers and agrichemicals (Wells, 2001). Consequently, New Zealand is one of the countries with the highest energy input per unit weight (in agriculture) in the world (Conforti & Giampietro, 1997). Furthermore, in terms of shipping, the influence of increasing global fuel costs is greater on New Zealand farming than in other countries. The main aim of this study was to estimate energy consumption in wheat production. Energy determination can give a clear picture of farms in order to compare different farming systems and energy inputs. The second main target of this study was to develop a neural network model to simulate and predict energy use in wheat production under different conditions incorporating social, geographical, and technical factors. Additionally, the interaction effects between different factors were examined in this study.This study was conducted on irrigated and dryland wheat fields in Canterbury, New Zealand, in the 2007-2008 harvest year. Canterbury represents 87% of the wheat area and 66% of the arable area harvested in New Zealand.Energy consumption here is defined as the energy used for the production of wheat until it leaves the farm. The data were collected from three different sources:questionnaire, literature review, and field measurements. The energy inputs estimated in this study are those that go into on-farm production systems before the post-harvest processes. The study considered only the energy used in wheat production, without taking into account the natural sources of energy (radiation, wind, rain, etc). IVA survey was conducted to collect the most important data and to identify farmers' attitudes and opinions about energy consumption. In this study, 40 arable farms were selected randomly, as far as possible. From the initial analysis, it was found that 30 farms were irrigated and the rest were dryland farms. Irrigated farms were irrigated between one to ten times annually depending on the rainfall. Some irrigated farms have also been converted to dryland farms, or vice versa, in different years. The data for a large number of farming factors were gathered in the survey.Average energy consumption for wheat production was estimated at around 22,600 MJ/ha. On average, fertilizer and electricity (mostly for irrigation) were used more than other energy sources, at around 10,654 MJ/ha (47%) and 4,870 MJ/ha (22%), respectively. The average energy consumption for wheat production in irrigated farming systems and dryland farming systems was estimated at 25,600 and 17,458 MJ/ha, respectively. This study is the first to create an appropriate Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model to predict energy consumption in wheat production with optimum variables. This study would be the first to investigate the factors related to the efficient use of energy in agricultural production. A careful study o...

Two types of artificial neural networks, multilayer perceptron (MLP) and self-organizing feature map (SOM) were used to detect mastitis by automatic milking systems (AMS) using a new mastitis indicator that combined two previously reported indicators based on higher electrical conductivity (EC) and lower quarter yield (QY). Four MLPs with four combinations of inputs were developed to detect infected quarters. One input combination involved principal components (PC) adopted for addressing multi-collinearity in the data. The PC-based MLP model was superior to other non-PC-based models in terms of less complexity and higher predictive accuracy. The overall correct classification rate (CCR), sensitivity and specificity of this model were 90 . 74 %, 86 . 90 % and 91 . 36 %, respectively. The SOM detected the stage of progression of mastitis in a quarter within the mastitis spectrum and revealed that quarters form three clusters : healthy, moderately ill and severely ill. The clusters were validated using k-means clustering, ANOVA and least significant difference. Clusters reflected the characteristics of healthy and subclinical and clinical mastitis, respectively. We conclude that the PC based model based on EC and QY can be used in AMS to detect mastitis with high accuracy and that the SOM model can be used to monitor the health status of the herd for early intervention and possible treatment.Keywords : Mastitis, automatic milking systems, artificial neural networks, multilayer perceptron, selforganizing feature maps, principal component analysis.Bovine mastitis is the most costly disease in the dairy industry and exists, to varying degrees, in every herd. Recent research conducted by DairyNZ shows that mastitis costs the New Zealand dairy industry $180 million annually (Malcolm, 2006). Early detection of mastitis is important to minimize economic loss and to safeguard the welfare of the herd because it allows prompt treatment leading to a higher rate of recovery (Milner et al. 1997), reduces the risk of spread of infection and helps prevent the development of chronic infections.The presence of mastitis can be detected in-line by detection models embedded in automatic milking systems (AMS). These advanced milking systems use electronic sensors and management information systems to assist the herdsman in monitoring and detecting mastitis incidence in the herd. While AMS are not common in New Zealand, they are a useful research tool for developing mastitis detection systems.Mastitis detection systems based on electrical conductivity (EC), which reflects changes in the blood-milk barrier due to bacteria entering the udder, have been in use for many years (Milner et al. 1996). However, the value of EC as a method for monitoring mastitis has been debated because although changes in EC reflect changes in the udder due to infection, EC is also easily influenced by a number of factors unrelated to infection status, including food and water intake (Mein et al. 2004;Grennstam, 2005). In a previous study, a thorough investigat...

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