Prediction models of soil heavy metal(loid)s concentration for agricultural land in Dongli: A comparison of regression and random forest

BACKGROUND Central precocious puberty (CPP) in girls seriously affects their physical and mental development in childhood. The method of diagnosis—gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)–stimulation test or GnRH analogue (GnRHa)–stimulation test—is expensive and makes patients uncomfortable due to the need for repeated blood sampling. OBJECTIVE We aimed to combine multiple CPP–related features and construct machine learning models to predict response to the GnRHa-stimulation test. METHODS In this retrospective study, we analyzed clinical and laboratory data of 1757 girls who underwent a GnRHa test in order to develop XGBoost and random forest classifiers for prediction of response to the GnRHa test. The local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) algorithm was used with the black-box classifiers to increase their interpretability. We measured sensitivity, specificity, and area under receiver operating characteristic (AUC) of the models. RESULTS Both the XGBoost and random forest models achieved good performance in distinguishing between positive and negative responses, with the AUC ranging from 0.88 to 0.90, sensitivity ranging from 77.91% to 77.94%, and specificity ranging from 84.32% to 87.66%. Basal serum luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and insulin-like growth factor-I levels were found to be the three most important factors. In the interpretable models of LIME, the abovementioned variables made high contributions to the prediction probability. CONCLUSIONS The prediction models we developed can help diagnose CPP and may be used as a prescreening tool before the GnRHa-stimulation test.

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Machine Learning in Aging: An Example of Developing Prediction Models for Serious Fall Injury in Older Adults

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.859 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 268-269

Author(s):

Jaime Speiser ◽

Kathryn Callahan ◽

Jason Fanning ◽

Thomas Gill ◽

Anne Newman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Older Adults ◽

Random Forest ◽

Decision Tree ◽

Prediction Models ◽

Receiver Operating Curve ◽

Learning Methods ◽

Life Study ◽

Fall Injury ◽

Machine Learning Methods

Abstract Advances in computational algorithms and the availability of large datasets with clinically relevant characteristics provide an opportunity to develop machine learning prediction models to aid in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of older adults. Some studies have employed machine learning methods for prediction modeling, but skepticism of these methods remains due to lack of reproducibility and difficulty understanding the complex algorithms behind models. We aim to provide an overview of two common machine learning methods: decision tree and random forest. We focus on these methods because they provide a high degree of interpretability. We discuss the underlying algorithms of decision tree and random forest methods and present a tutorial for developing prediction models for serious fall injury using data from the Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders (LIFE) study. Decision tree is a machine learning method that produces a model resembling a flow chart. Random forest consists of a collection of many decision trees whose results are aggregated. In the tutorial example, we discuss evaluation metrics and interpretation for these models. Illustrated in data from the LIFE study, prediction models for serious fall injury were moderate at best (area under the receiver operating curve of 0.54 for decision tree and 0.66 for random forest). Machine learning methods may offer improved performance compared to traditional models for modeling outcomes in aging, but their use should be justified and output should be carefully described. Models should be assessed by clinical experts to ensure compatibility with clinical practice.

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Divergent response of heavy metal bioavailability in soil rhizosphere to agricultural land use change from paddy field to various drylands

Environmental Science Processes & Impacts ◽

10.1039/d0em00501k ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yujuan Gao ◽

Jianli Jia ◽

Beidou Xi ◽

Dongyu Cui ◽

Wenbing Tan

Keyword(s):

Heavy Metals ◽

Heavy Metal ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Rhizosphere Soil ◽

Agricultural Land Use ◽

Metal Bioavailability ◽

Soil Rhizosphere ◽

Divergent Response

The heavy metal pollution induced by agricultural land use change has attracted great attention. In this study, the divergent response of bioavailability of heavy metals in rhizosphere soil to different...

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Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Air Quality

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10249151 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (24) ◽

pp. 9151

Author(s):

Yun-Chia Liang ◽

Yona Maimury ◽

Angela Hsiang-Ling Chen ◽

Josue Rodolfo Cuevas Juarez

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Air Quality ◽

Random Forest ◽

Prediction Models ◽

Superior Performance ◽

Support Vector ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Adaptive Boosting ◽

Series Of Experiments ◽

Artificial Neural Network Ann

Air, an essential natural resource, has been compromised in terms of quality by economic activities. Considerable research has been devoted to predicting instances of poor air quality, but most studies are limited by insufficient longitudinal data, making it difficult to account for seasonal and other factors. Several prediction models have been developed using an 11-year dataset collected by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). Machine learning methods, including adaptive boosting (AdaBoost), artificial neural network (ANN), random forest, stacking ensemble, and support vector machine (SVM), produce promising results for air quality index (AQI) level predictions. A series of experiments, using datasets for three different regions to obtain the best prediction performance from the stacking ensemble, AdaBoost, and random forest, found the stacking ensemble delivers consistently superior performance for R2 and RMSE, while AdaBoost provides best results for MAE.

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