This study examined the prediction of dropouts through data mining approaches in an online program. The subject of the study was selected from a total of 189 students who registered to the online Information Technologies Certificate Program in 2007-2009. The data was collected through online questionnaires (Demographic Survey, Online Technologies Self-Efficacy Scale, Readiness for Online Learning Questionnaire, Locus of Control Scale, and Prior Knowledge Questionnaire). The collected data included 10 variables, which were gender, age, educational level, previous online experience, occupation, self efficacy, readiness, prior knowledge, locus of control, and the dropout status as the class label (dropout/not). In order to classify dropout students, four data mining approaches were applied based on k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN), Decision Tree (DT), Naive Bayes (NB) and Neural Network (NN). These methods were trained and tested using 10-fold cross validation. The detection sensitivities of 3-NN, DT, NN and NB classifiers were 87%, 79.7%, 76.8% and 73.9% respectively. Also, using Genetic Algorithm (GA) based feature selection method, online technologies self-efficacy, online learning readiness, and previous online experience were found as the most important factors in predicting the dropouts.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to develop a new method for automated lung nodule detection in serial section CT images with using the characteristics of the 3D appearance of the nodules that distinguish themselves from the vessels.Materials and MethodsLung nodules were detected in four steps. First, to reduce the number of region of interests (ROIs) and the computation time, the lung regions of the CTs were segmented using Genetic Cellular Neural Networks (G-CNN). Then, for each lung region, ROIs were specified with using the 8 directional search; +1 or -1 values were assigned to each voxel. The 3D ROI image was obtained by combining all the 2-Dimensional (2D) ROI images. A 3D template was created to find the nodule-like structures on the 3D ROI image. Convolution of the 3D ROI image with the proposed template strengthens the shapes that are similar to those of the template and it weakens the other ones. Finally, fuzzy rule based thresholding was applied and the ROI's were found. To test the system's efficiency, we used 16 cases with a total of 425 slices, which were taken from the Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset.ResultsThe computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system achieved 100% sensitivity with 13.375 FPs per case when the nodule thickness was greater than or equal to 5.625 mm.ConclusionOur results indicate that the detection performance of our algorithm is satisfactory, and this may well improve the performance of computer-aided detection of lung nodules.

ObjectiveThe combination of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non-pharmacological form of therapy for treating major depressive disorder (MDD), and electroencephalogram (EEG) is a valuable tool for investigating the functional connectivity in the brain. This study aims to explore whether pre-treating frontal quantitative EEG (QEEG) cordance is associated with response to rTMS treatment among MDD patients by using an artificial intelligence approach, artificial neural network (ANN).MethodsThe artificial neural network using pre-treatment cordance of frontal QEEG classification was carried out to identify responder or non-responder to rTMS treatment among 55 MDD subjects. The classification performance was evaluated using k-fold cross-validation.ResultsThe ANN classification identified responders to rTMS treatment with a sensitivity of 93.33%, and its overall accuracy reached to 89.09%. Area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) value for responder detection using 6, 8 and 10 fold cross validation were 0.917, 0.823 and 0.894 respectively.ConclusionPotential utility of ANN approach method can be used as a clinical tool in administering rTMS therapy to a targeted group of subjects suffering from MDD. This methodology is more potentially useful to the clinician as prediction is possible using EEG data collected before this treatment process is initiated. It is worth using feature selection algorithms to raise the sensitivity and accuracy values.

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In this paper, a Computer Aided Detection (CAD) system based on three-dimensional (3D) feature extraction is introduced to detect lung nodules. First, eight directional search was applied in order to extract regions of interests (ROIs). Then, 3D feature extraction was performed which includes 3D connected component labeling, straightness calculation, thickness calculation, determining the middle slice, vertical and horizontal widths calculation, regularity calculation, and calculation of vertical and horizontal black pixel ratios. To make a decision for each ROI, feed forward neural networks (NN), support vector machines (SVM), naive Bayes (NB) and logistic regression (LR) methods were used. These methods were trained and tested via k-fold cross validation, and results were compared. To test the performance of the proposed system, 11 cases, which were taken from Lung Image Database Consortium (LIDC) dataset, were used. ROC curves were given for all methods and 100% detection sensitivity was reached except naive Bayes.