Neural networks complemented with genetic algorithms and fuzzy systems for predicting nitrogenous effluent variables in wastewater treatment plants

This work focuses on the prediction of the two main nitrogenous variables that describe the water quality at the effluent of a Wastewater Treatment Plant. We have developed two kind of Neural Networks architectures based on considering only one output or, in the other hand, the usual five effluent variables that define the water quality: suspended solids, biochemical organic matter, chemical organic matter, total nitrogen and total Kjedhal nitrogen. Two learning techniques based on a classical adaptative gradient and a Kalman filter have been implemented. In order to try to improve generalization and performance we have selected variables by means genetic algorithms and fuzzy systems. The training, testing and validation sets show that the final networks are able to learn enough well the simulated available data specially for the total nitrogen

Repeated doses of methylone, a new drug of abuse, induce changes in serotonin and dopamine systems in the mouse

Rationale Methylone, a new drug of abuse sold as"bath salts' has similar effects to ecstasy or cocaine. Objective We have investigated changes in dopaminergic and serotoninergic markers, indicative of neuronal damage, induced by methylone in the frontal cortex, hippocampus and striatum of mice and according two different treatment schedules. Methods Methylone was given subcutaneously to male Swiss CD1 mice and at an ambient temperature of 26ºC. Treatment A: three doses of 25 mg/Kg at 3.5 h interval between doses for two consecutive days. Treatment B: four doses of 25 mg/Kg at 3 h interval in one day. Results Repeated methylone administration induced hyperthermia and a significant loss in body weight. Following treatment A, methylone induced transient dopaminergic (frontal cortex) and serotoninergic (hippocampus) impairment. Following treatment B, transient dopaminergic (frontal cortex) and serotonergic (frontal cortex and hippocampus) changes 7 days after treatment were found. We found evidence of astrogliosis in the CA1 and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus following treatment B. The animals also showed an increase in immobility time in the forced swim test, pointing to a depressive-like behavior. In cultured cortical neurons, methylone (for 24 and 48 h) did not induce a remarkable cytotoxic effect. Conclusions The neural effects of methylone differ depending upon the treatment schedule. Neurochemical changes elicited by methylone are apparent when administered at an elevated ambient temperature, four times per day at 3 h intervals, which is in accordance with its short half-life.

A Comparative Study of Desktop, Fishtank, and Cave Systems for the Exploration of Volume Rendered Confocal Data Sets

We present a participant study that compares biological data exploration tasks using volume renderings of laser confocal microscopy data across three environments that vary in level of immersion: a desktop, fishtank, and cave system. For the tasks, data, and visualization approach used in our study, we found that subjects qualitatively preferred and quantitatively performed better in the cave compared with the fishtank and desktop. Subjects performed real-world biological data analysis tasks that emphasized understanding spatial relationships including characterizing the general features in a volume, identifying colocated features, and reporting geometric relationships such as whether clusters of cells were coplanar. After analyzing data in each environment, subjects were asked to choose which environment they wanted to analyze additional data sets in - subjects uniformly selected the cave environment.