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Explainable artificial hydrocarbon networks classifier applied to preeclampsia

2024 , Ponce, Hiram , Martinez-Villaseñor, Lourdes , Martínez Velasco, Antonieta Teodora

Explainability is crucial in domains where system decisions have significant implications for human trust in black-box models. Lack of understanding regarding how these decisions are made hinders the adoption of so-called clinical decision support systems. While neural networks and deep learning methods exhibit impressive performance, they remain less explainable than white-box approaches. Artificial Hydrocarbon Networks (AHN) is an effective black-box model that can be used to support critical clinical decisions if accompanied by explainability mechanisms to instill confidence among clinicians. In this paper, we present a use case involving global and local explanations for AHN models, provided with an automatic procedure so-called eXplainable Artificial Hydrocarbon Networks (XAHN). We apply XAHN to preeclampsia prognosis, enabling interpretability within an accurate black-box model. Our approach involves training a suitable AHN model using the cross-validation with ten repetitions, followed by a comparative analysis against four well-known machine learning techniques. Notably, the AHN model outperformed the others, achieving an F1-score of 74.91%. Additionally, we assess the efficacy of our XAHN explainer through a survey applied to clinicians, evaluating the goodness and satisfaction of the provided explanations. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents one of the earliest attempts to address the explainability challenge in preeclampsia prediction.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc.

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The Relevance of Cataract as a Risk Factor for Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Machine Learning Approach

2019 , Martínez Velasco, Antonieta Teodora , Martinez-Villaseñor, Lourdes , Miralles-Pechuán, Luis , Pérez Ortiz, Andric Christopher , Zenteno, Juan Carlos , Estrada Mena, Francisco Javier

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of visual dysfunction and irreversible blindness in developed countries and a rising cause in underdeveloped countries. There is a current debate on whether or not cataracts are significant risk factors for AMD development. In particular, research regarding this association is so far inconclusive. For this reason, we aimed to employ here a machine-learning approach to analyze the relevance and importance of cataracts as a risk factor for AMD in a large cohort of Hispanics from Mexico. We conducted a nested case control study of 119 cataract cases and 137 healthy unmatched controls focusing on clinical data from electronic medical records. Additionally, we studied two single nucleotide polymorphisms in the CFH gene previously associated with the disease in various populations as positive control for our method. We next determined the most relevant variables and found the bivariate association between cataracts and AMD. Later, we used supervised machine-learning methods to replicate these findings without bias. To improve the interpretability, we detected the five most relevant features and displayed them using a bar graph and a rule-based tree. Our findings suggest that bilateral cataracts are not a significant risk factor for AMD development among Hispanics from Mexico. © 2019 by the authors.

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Assessment of CFH and HTRA1 polymorphisms in age-related macular degeneration using classic and machine-learning approaches

2020 , Martínez Velasco, Antonieta Teodora , Pérez Ortiz, Andric Christopher , Antonio-Aguirre, Bani , Martinez-Villaseñor, Lourdes , Palacio-Pastrana, Claudia , Lira, Esmeralda , Zenteno, Juan Carlos , Ramírez-Sánchez, Israel , Zepeda-Palacio, Claudia , Mendoza Vera, Cristina Azucena , Camacho-Ordóñez, Azyadeh , Ortiz Bibriesca, Daniela , Estrada Mena, Francisco Javier

CFH: and HTRA1 are pivotal genes driving increased risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) among several populations. Here, we performed a hospital-based case-control study to evaluate the effects of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among Hispanics from Mexico. Materials and methods: 122 cases and 249 controls were genotyped using Taqman probes. Experienced ophthalmologists diagnosed AMD following the American Association of Ophthalmology guidelines. We studied CFH (rs1329428, rs203687) and HTRA1 (rs11200638) SNPs thoroughly by logistic regression models (assuming different modes of inheritance) and machine learning-based methods (ML). HTRA1: rs11200638 is the most significant polymorphism associated with AMD in our studied population. In a multivariate regression model adjusted for clinically and statistically meaningful covariates, the A/G and A/A genotypes increased the odds of disease by a factor of 2.32 and 7.81, respectively (P < .05) suggesting a multiplicative effect of the polymorphic A allele. Furthermore, this observation remains statistically meaningful in the allelic, dominant, and recessive models, and ML algorithms. When stratifying by phenotype, this polymorphism was significantly associated with increased odds for geographic atrophy (GA) in a recessive mode of inheritance (12.4, p < .05). Conclusions: In sum, this work supports a strong association between HTRA1 genetic variants and AMD in Hispanics from Mexico, especially with GA. Moreover, ML was able to replicate the results of conventional biostatistics methods unbiasedly. © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.