Abstract

Abstract
The development and use of computerized decision-support systems in the domain of breast cancer has the potential to facilitate the early detection of disease as well as spare healthy women unnecessary interventions. Despite encouraging trends, there is much room for improvement in the capabilities of such systems to further alleviate the burden of breast cancer. One of the main challenges that current systems face is integrating and translating multi-scale variables like patient risk factors and imaging features into complex management recommendations that would supplement and/or generalize similar activities provided by subspecialty-trained clinicians currently. In this chapter, we discuss the main types of knowledge-objectattribute, spatial, temporal and hierarchical-present in the domain of breast image analysis and their formal representation using two popular techniques from artificial intelligence-Bayesian networks and first-order logic. In particular, we demonstrate (i) the explicit representation of uncertain relationships between low-level image features and high-level image findings (e.g., mass, microcalcifications) by probability distributions in Bayesian networks, and (ii) the expressive power of logic to generally represent the dynamic number of objects in the domain. By concrete examples with patient data we show the practical application of both formalisms and their potential for use in decision-support systems.

Abstract

Abstract
Names in programming are vital for understanding the meaning of code and big data. We define code2brain (C2B) interfaces as maps in compilers and brains between meaning and naming syntax, which help to understand executable code. While working toward an Evolvix syntax for general-purpose programming that makes accurate modeling easy for biologists, we observed how names affect C2B quality. To protect learning and coding investments, C2B interfaces require long-term backward compatibility and semantic reproducibility (accurate reproduction of computational meaning fromcoder-brains to reader-brains by code alone). Semantic reproducibility is often assumed until confusing synonyms degrade modeling in biology to deciphering exercises. We highlight empirical naming priorities from diverse individuals and roles of names in different modes of computing to show how naming easily becomes impossibly difficult. We present the Evolvix BEST (Brief, Explicit, Summarizing, Technical) Names concept for reducing naming priority conflicts, test it on a real challenge by naming subfolders for the Project Organization Stabilizing Tool system, and provide naming questionnaires designed to facilitate C2B debugging by improving names used as keywords in a stabilizing programming language. Our experiences inspired us to develop Evolvix using a flipped programming language design approach with some unexpected features and BEST Names at its core.

Abstract
Medical data is particularly interesting as a subject for relational data mining due to the complex interactions which exist between different entities. Furthermore, the ambiguity of medical imaging causes interpretation to be complex and error-prone, and thus particularly amenable to improvement through automated decision support. Probabilistic Inductive Logic Programming (PILP) is a particularly well-suited tool for this task, since it makes it possible to combine the relational nature of this field with the ambiguity inherent in human interpretation of medical imaging. This work presents a PILP setting for breast cancer data, where several clinical and demographic variables were collected retrospectively, and new probabilistic variables and rules reflecting domain knowledge were introduced. A PILP predictive model was built automatically from this data and experiments show that it can not only match the predictions of a team of experts in the area, but also consistently reduce the error rate of malignancy prediction, when compared to other non-relational techniques.

Abstract
We explore the feasibility of a database storage engine housing up to 307 billion genetic Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) for online access. We evaluate database storage engines and implement a solution utilizing factors such as dataset size, information gain, cost and hardware constraints. Our solution provides a full feature functional model for scalable storage and query-ability for researchers exploring the SNP's in the human genome. We address the scalability problem by building physical infrastructure and comparing final costs to a major cloud provider.