No abstract

Efforts have been being made to improve the diagnostic performance of colposcopy, trying to help better diagnose cervical cancer, particularly in developing countries. However, improvements in a number of areas are still necessary, such as the time it takes to process the full digital image of the cervix, the performance of the computing systems used to identify different kinds of tissues, and biopsy sampling. In this paper, we explore three different, well-known automatic classification methods (k-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes, and C4.5), in addition to different data models that take full advantage of this information and improve the diagnostic performance of colposcopy based on acetowhite temporal patterns. Based on the ROC and PRC area scores, the k-Nearest Neighbors and discrete PLA representation performed better than other methods. The values of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy reached using this method were 60% (95% CI 50–70), 79% (95% CI 71–86), and 70% (95% CI 60–80), respectively. The acetowhitening phenomenon is not exclusive to high-grade lesions, and we have found acetowhite temporal patterns of epithelial changes that are not precancerous lesions but that are similar to positive ones. These findings need to be considered when developing more robust computing systems in the future.

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The bias-variance dilemma is a well-known and important problem in Machine Learning. It basically relates the generalization capability (goodness of fit) of a learning method to its corresponding complexity. When we have enough data at hand, it is possible to use these data in such a way so as to minimize overfitting (the risk of selecting a complex model that generalizes poorly). Unfortunately, there are many situations where we simply do not have this required amount of data. Thus, we need to find methods capable of efficiently exploiting the available data while avoiding overfitting. Different metrics have been proposed to achieve this goal: the Minimum Description Length principle (MDL), Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), among others. In this paper, we focus on crude MDL and empirically evaluate its performance in selecting models with a good balance between goodness of fit and complexity: the so-called bias-variance dilemma, decomposition or tradeoff. Although the graphical interaction between these dimensions (bias and variance) is ubiquitous in the Machine Learning literature, few works present experimental evidence to recover such interaction. In our experiments, we argue that the resulting graphs allow us to gain insights that are difficult to unveil otherwise: that crude MDL naturally selects balanced models in terms of bias-variance, which not necessarily need be the gold-standard ones. We carry out these experiments using a specific model: a Bayesian network. In spite of these motivating results, we also should not overlook three other components that may significantly affect the final model selection: the search procedure, the noise rate and the sample size.

The biofunctionality of native and nanostructured starch obtained from blue corn was evaluated on prediabetic Wistar rats. The surface of both types of starch was analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Total polyphenols content, antioxidant activity and digestibility were also evaluated. Prediabetes was induced by feeding a diet high in fat, carbohydrates and the administration of streptozotocin. Experimental design included a control group, prediabetic group and two prediabetic groups, one supplemented with native starch and the other with nanostructured starch. AFM analysis showed nano-cavities <5 nm in nanostructured starch. Nanostructured starch also had a higher content of total polyphenols, higher antioxidant activity and higher percentage of slow digestibility starch compared to native starch. Glucose, triglycerides 34 and insulin in the plasma increased significantly in the prediabetic group. Nanostructured starch administration decreased the levels of glucose and insulin in the plasma and therefore has potential as functional ingredient.