Browsing by Author "Van Zyl, G."
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemGraph-based semi-supervised learning for the detection of potential disease causing genes(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Van Zyl, G.; Van Vuuren, J. H.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Industrial Engineering.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: AbstractIt is widely believed that almost all diseases are, to some extent, influenced by individuals’ geneticmake-up. Ample insight into this relationship may usher in a new age where preventative,precision medicine is the norm. The identification of human genes associated with diseases(disease genesin short) is a central step in the realisation of this ambition. The developmentof computational approaches aimed at identifying putative disease genes among a large pool ofcandidates — so as to reduce the number of alternatives to be explored in further validationexperiments and functional studies — has, therefore, become one of the fundamental problemsin bioinformatics.In the realm of bioinformatics, disease gene classification is primarily based on the principlethat “the network neighbour of a disease gene is likely to cause the same or a similar disease.”In this dissertation, a novel computational approach to the disease gene identification problemis proposed. This methodological framework utilises the aforementioned principle and exploitsboth the modular nature of biological networks and the abundance of available data related tothe similarities between genes within a semi-supervised machine learning paradigm.The proposed disease gene identification methodology is demonstrated practically and found toexhibit significant classification abilities. In addition, the framework is successfully applied toobtain ranked sets of putative disease gene predictions — a number of which are verified byretrieving evidence of their involvement in the origins of diseases from the literature.
- ItemThe Namibian poliomyelitis outbreak and its consequences for South Africa(Medpharm Publications, 2006) Taljaard, J.; Cameron, N.; Cotton, M.; Van Zyl, G.; Vurgarellis, P.; Preiser, WolfgangThis editorial is based on a Public Health Forum presented by the Centre for Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, on 22 June 2006. It summarises the most important facts about polio in the context of the 2006 outbreak of the disease in Namibia and aims to provide the practitioner with the necessary information to face the unexpected re-emergence in the sub-region of an almost forgotten disease.