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PubMedDate not supplied

A new classifier based on information theoretic learning with unlabeled data.

Supervised learning is conventionally performed with pairwise input-output labeled data. After the training procedure, the adaptive system's weights are fixed while the testing procedure with unlabeled data is performed. Recently, in an attempt to improve classification performance unlabeled data has been exploited in the machine learning community. In this paper, we present an information theoretic learning (ITL) approach based on density divergence minimization to obtain an extended training algorithm using unlabeled data during the testing. The method uses a boosting-like algorithm with an ITL based cost function. Preliminary simulations suggest that the method has the potential to improve the performance of classifiers in the application phase.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1991

Brain function, learning styles, and cancer patient education.

As cancer care moves into the outpatient setting and hospital stays are shortened, patients and their family members are expected to take on tremendous responsibilities in providing their own self-care. At the same time, stress and anxiety about the diagnosis of cancer, the disease itself, and cancer therapy can effect learning. Information processing, learning styles, and learning barriers need to be considered when developing and implementing cancer education programs.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

The interaction of criterion and feedback information in learning a drawing task.

Experiments were designed to examine the influence of criterion and feedback information in the learning of a two-dimensional drawing task. Experiment 1 showed that when the task criterion is well known to the subject, the combined presentation of criterion information and information feedback facilitates the rate of acquisition of the skill but not its overall performance level of achievement. Experiment 2 showed that when the task criterion information is not well known to the subject, presentation of criterion information facilitates both the rate of acquisition and the overall performance level and, furthermore, is essential if configuration information feedback is to be utilized effectively. Experiment 3 showed that it is the combined presentation of criterion and configuration information feedback rather than the isolate presentation of either type of information alone, that facilitates learning and performance. Collectively, the findings from the three experiments suggest an interactive effect of prior knowledge by the learner and type of augmented information in facilitating the acquisition of skill, according to the constraints imposed in the task. The data are consistent with the proposal that the degrees of freedom in the information available to support motor skill learning must match the degrees of freedom to be constraint in the perceptual-motor workspace.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1995

The information and learning needs of the caregiving family of the adult patient with cancer.

The need for information by the caregiving family of an adult patient with cancer has been identified by research. This paper is a literature review of the information and learning needs of caregiving relatives. By meeting these needs the health care professional is able to help support the family, and therefore the patient, with the difficult adjustment to the diagnosis and through the subsequent course of the disease. The health care professional facilitates the individual caregivers' coping mechanisms and the benefits can be seen in the caregiving outcome for both the family and the patient. Information needs vary from individual to individual and are dynamic throughout the cancer experience. This paper describes the role of the nurse in this area, and encourages the nurse to act as a resource person for the caregiver by the appropriate delivery of information and by ensuring that the information given to the family by other health care professionals is understood and fulfils their needs.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2001

Canadian Cancer Society Information Services: lessons learned about complementary medicine information needs.

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cancer patients is very common. However, currently valid and reliable information on CAM treatments for cancer is limited. The purpose of this study was to identify the information needs those who called the Canadian Cancer Society's Cancer Information Service (CIS) requesting information on CAM. CIS Information Specialists completed two-page questionnaires for 109 callers who inquired about CAM therapies. Findings show that the majority of callers were women between the ages of 30 and 59, and that most of their questions concerned the safety and/or effectiveness of herbs and compounds like Essiac and 714X. Information Specialists generally utilized one or more of four resources upon receiving a CAM-related call. These resources, while mostly Canadian and reviewed by content experts, are not specific to the type of cancer and are no longer the most up- to-date. To address this issue we have included an appendix that outlines some current CAM resources and websites for cancer patients.

Canada↗
PubMed1993

Modeling technology transfer in health information systems. Learning from the experience of Chad.

Health information systems are complex combinations of methods of organization and computer technologies. They are idiosyncratic to each country. Chad's design of a national information system followed a process that can serve as a model for sustainable technology transfer--using consensual decision making and reinforcing administrative reforms while providing strong Ministry leadership and using technical assistance.

Chad↗
PubMed2002

Using noise to compute error surfaces in connectionist networks: a novel means of reducing catastrophic forgetting.

In error-driven distributed feedforward networks, new information typically interferes, sometimes severely, with previously learned information. We show how noise can be used to approximate the error surface of previously learned information. By combining this approximated error surface with the error surface associated with the new information to be learned, the network's retention of previously learned items can be improved and catastrophic interference significantly reduced. Further, we show that the noise-generated error surface is produced using only first-derivative information and without recourse to any explicit error information.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Conditioning experiences in spider phobics.

Using the Phobic Origin Questionnaire (Ost, L. G. & Hugdahl, K. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 19, 439-477, 1981), the present study examined the extent to which severe spider phobics (N = 42) attributed their phobia to conditioning experiences, modeling experiences and/or informational learning experiences. Modeling was most often reported (71%), followed by conditioning (57%), and informational learning experiences (45%). It was also found that patients with a conditioning background reported less extreme cognitive symptoms when confronted with the phobic stimulus than patients with an indirect mode of acquisition (modeling and/or informational learning).

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Two time periods of hippocampal mRNA synthesis are required for memory consolidation of fear-motivated learning.

Information storage in the brain is a temporally graded process involving different memory types or phases. It has been assumed for over a century that one or more short-term memory (STM) processes are involved in processing new information while long-term memory (LTM) is being formed. It has been repeatedly reported that LTM requires de novo RNA synthesis around the time of training. Here we show that LTM formation of a one-trial inhibitory avoidance training in rats, a hippocampal-dependent form of contextual fear conditioning, depends on two consolidation periods requiring synthesis of new mRNAs. By injecting the RNA polymerase II inhibitors 5,6-dichloro-1-beta-d-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole or alpha-amanitin into the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus at various times before and after training, we found that hippocampal gene expression is critical in two time windows: around the time of training and 3-6 hr after training. Interestingly, these two periods of sensitivity to transcriptional inhibitors are similar to those observed using the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin. These findings underscore the parallel dependence of LTM formation of contextual fear on mRNA and protein synthesis in the hippocampus and suggest that the two time periods of anisomycin-induced amnesia depend at least in part on new mRNA synthesis.

Amanitins↗
PubMed1978

Complex learning and information processing by pigeons: a critical analysis.

THREE MODELS OF CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION LEARNING BY PIGEONS ARE DESCRIBED: stimulus configuration learning, the multiple-rule model, and concept learning. A review of the literature reveals that true concept learning is not characteristic of the behavior of pigeons in matching-to-sample, oddity-from-sample, or symbolic matching studies. Instead, pigeons learn a set of sample-specific S(D) rules. Transfer of the discrimination to novel stimuli, at least along the hue dimension, is predicted by a "coding hypothesis", which holds that pigeons make a unique, but usually unobserved response, R(1), to each sample, and that the comparison stimulus chosen depends on which R(1) was emitted in the presence of the sample. Convincing evidence is found that pigeons do code sample hues, but there is little evidence that allows one to infer that the "coding event" must have behavioral properties. Parameters of the conditional discrimination paradigm are identified, and it is shown that by appropriate parametric manipulation, a variety of analogous tasks may be generated for both human and animal subjects. The tasks make possible the comparative study of complex learning, attention, memory, and information processing, with the added advantage that behavior processes may be compared systematically across tasks.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Increased hindsight bias in schizophrenia.

An underlying theme common to prominent theoretical accounts of cognition in schizophrenia is that information processing is disproportionately influenced by recently/currently encountered information relative to the influence of previously learned information. In this study, the authors tested this account by using the hindsight bias or knew-it-all-along (KIA) paradigm, which demonstrates that newly acquired knowledge influences recall of past events. In line with the account that patients with schizophrenia display a disproportionately strong influence of recently encountered information relative to the influence of previously learned information, patients displayed a KIA effect that was significantly greater than in controls. This result is discussed in the context of the cognitive underpinnings of the KIA effect and delusion formation.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Catastrophic forgetting in connectionist networks.

All natural cognitive systems, and, in particular, our own, gradually forget previously learned information. Plausible models of human cognition should therefore exhibit similar patterns of gradual forgetting of old information as new information is acquired. Only rarely does new learning in natural cognitive systems completely disrupt or erase previously learned information; that is, natural cognitive systems do not, in general, forget 'catastrophically'. Unfortunately, though, catastrophic forgetting does occur under certain circumstances in distributed connectionist networks. The very features that give these networks their remarkable abilities to generalize, to function in the presence of degraded input, and so on, are found to be the root cause of catastrophic forgetting. The challenge in this field is to discover how to keep the advantages of distributed connectionist networks while avoiding the problem of catastrophic forgetting. In this article the causes, consequences and numerous solutions to the problem of catastrophic forgetting in neural networks are examined. The review will consider how the brain might have overcome this problem and will also explore the consequences of this solution for distributed connectionist networks.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1992

Pathways to spider phobia.

Using a revised version of the Phobic Origin Questionnaire (POQ; Ost, L. G. & Hugdahl, K. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 19, 439-477; 1981), the present study examined whether conditioning experiences, modeling experiences, and/or informational learning experiences were more often reported by spider phobics (n = 41) than by non-fearful controls (n = 30). The two groups did not differ with regard to the overall frequency of conditioning or modeling events. Remarkably, the frequency of informational learning was higher among non-fearful Ss than among phobics. Although the limitations inherent to the retrospective nature of the present study should be borne in mind, the data suggest that, at least in spider phobics, conditioning events, modeling experiences, and/or informational learning do not necessarily give rise to phobic fears.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

The impact of managed care on nurses' workplace learning and teaching.

This paper examines the impact of managed care on the informal learning process for nurses in a major US-based health organisation. Through the analysis of focus group data we report the nurses' view of the effect recent changes have had on the nurse/patient/care relationship. Managed care, our research indicates, has transformed the learning milieus for nurses with two effects. First, nurses have seen their need for informal learning increase while the time and context for that learning has diminished. Second, the process of teaching patients and families has also been adversely affected even as managed care creates the need for more patient education. We report the analysis of the data collected at group interviews involving nurses working in both hospital and community settings of a leading US-based HMO. All interviews took place during September of 1997 at various sites in California. This study is part of a larger Social Science Research Council of Canada funded investigation into managed care in the US and Canada.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1999

[Significance of CD-ROM in medicine].

The article evaluates some multimedia programs offer for computers for medicine information, teaching and learning. Information technology has the potential to revolutionize the way medicine is learned by students and practitioners. Medicine with its abundance of facts and richness of imaging techniques has always been adopting new technologies to improve teaching and training. As a natural consequence, the use of computer-based multimedia technology is generally increasing in medicine. Especially the use of interactive multimedia technology seems promising to improve training and education and increase accessability of highly specific material. It can combine the best of the text-book and the video, but above all the use of interaction should produce untold benefits.

CD-ROM↗
PubMed2025

CaXML: Chemistry-informed machine learning explains mutual changes between protein conformations and calcium ions in calcium-binding proteins using structural and topological features.

Proteins' flexibility is a feature in communicating changes in cell signaling instigated by binding with secondary messengers, such as calcium ions, associated with the coordination of muscle contraction, neurotransmitter release, and gene expression. When binding with the disordered parts of a protein, calcium ions must balance their charge states with the shape of calcium-binding proteins and their versatile pool of partners depending on the circumstances they transmit. Accurately determining the ionic charges of those ions is essential for understanding their role in such processes. However, it is unclear whether the limited experimental data available can be effectively used to train models to accurately predict the charges of calcium-binding protein variants. Here, we developed a chemistry-informed, machine-learning algorithm that implements a game theoretic approach to explain the output of a machine-learning model without the prerequisite of an excessively large database for high-performance prediction of atomic charges. We used the ab initio electronic structure data representing calcium ions and the structures of the disordered segments of calcium-binding peptides with surrounding water molecules to train several explainable models. Network theory was used to extract the topological features of atomic interactions in the structurally complex data dictated by the coordination chemistry of a calcium ion, a potent indicator of its charge state in protein. Our design created a computational tool of CaXML, which provided a framework of explainable machine learning model to annotate ionic charges of calcium ions in calcium-binding proteins in response to the chemical changes in an environment. Our framework will provide new insights into protein design for engineering functionality based on the limited size of scientific data in a genome space.

Machine Learning↗
PubMed2005

Social learning: public information in insects.

Although it has received less coverage than in vertebrates, the study of insect social learning has a rich history with spectacular examples of how individuals extract knowledge from other animals. Several new studies on crickets and social bees have now shown how insects can adjust their behaviour adaptively by making use of cues generated inadvertently by other individuals.

Animals↗