No abstract

Airway remodeling in asthma is characterized by reticular basement membrane (RBM) thickening, likely related to epithelial structural and functional changes. Gene expression profiling of the airway epithelium might identify genes involved in bronchial structural alterations. We analyzed bronchial wall geometry (computed tomography (CT)), RBM thickness (histology), and the bronchial epithelium transcriptome profile (gene expression array) in moderate to severe persistent (n = 21) vs. no persistent (n = 19) airflow limitation asthmatics. RBM thickness was similar in the two studied subgroups. Among the genes associated with increased RBM thickness, the most essential were those engaged in cell activation, proliferation, and growth (e.g., CDK20, TACC2, ORC5, and NEK5) and inhibiting apoptosis (e.g., higher mRNA expression of RFN34, BIRC3, NAA16, and lower of RNF13, MRPL37, CACNA1G). Additionally, RBM thickness correlated with the expression of genes encoding extracellular matrix (ECM) components (LAMA3, USH2A), involved in ECM remodeling (LTBP1), neovascularization (FGD5, HPRT1), nerve functioning (TPH1, PCDHGC4), oxidative stress adaptation (RIT1, HSP90AB1), epigenetic modifications (OLMALINC, DNMT3A), and the innate immune response (STAP1, OAS2). Cluster analysis revealed that genes linked with RBM thickness were also related to thicker bronchial walls in CT. Our study suggests that the pro-fibrotic profile in the airway epithelial cell transcriptome is associated with a thicker RBM, and thus, may contribute to asthma airway remodeling.

No abstract

This paper investigates the approaches to an improvement of classifiers quality through the application of a domain knowledge. The expertise may be utilizable on several levels of decision algorithms such as: feature extraction, feature selection, a definition of temporal patterns used in an approximation of the concepts, especially of the complex spatio-temporal ones, an assignment of an object to the concept and a measurement of the objects similarity. The domain knowledge incorporation results then in the reduction of the size of searched spaces. The work constitutes an overview of classifier building methods efficiently utilizing the expertise, worked out latterly by Professor Andrzej Skowron research group. The methods using domain knowledge intended to enhance the quality of classic classifiers, to identify the behavioral patterns and for automatic planning are discussed. Finally it answers a question whether the methods satisfy the hopes vested in them and indicates the directions for future development.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Abstract-This article is a continuation of previous work, in which a new method of decision tree construction was presented. That method is based on the use of so-called verifying cuts, which can provide knowledge obtained from the attributes frequently eliminated when greedy methods of the choice of singleton best cuts are applied. Till now only one strategy of choosing verifying cuts was examined. It exploits a measure based on a number of pairs of objects discerned by a chosen cut. In this paper, we examine two additional measures used for determining the best verifying cuts. They are based on Gini's Index and Entropy. The paper includes the results of experiments that have been performed on data obtained from biomedical database and machine learning repositories.