title: Neural hypernetwork approach for pulmonary embolism diagnosis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hypernetworks are based on topological simplicial complexes and generalize the concept of two-body relation to many-body relation. Furthermore, Hypernetworks provide a significant generalization of network theory, enabling the integration of relational structure, logic and analytic dynamics. A pulmonary embolism is a blockage of the main artery of the lung or one of its branches, frequently fatal.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our study uses data on 28 diagnostic features of 1427 people considered to be at risk of pulmonary embolism enrolled in the Department of Internal and Subintensive Medicine of an Italian National Hospital "Ospedali Riuniti di Ancona". Patients arrived in the department after a first screening executed by the emergency room. The resulting neural hypernetwork correctly recognized 94% of those developing pulmonary embolism. This is better than previous results obtained with other methods (statistical selection of features, partial least squares regression, topological data analysis in a metric space).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this work we successfully derived a new integrative approach for the analysis of partial and incomplete datasets that is based on Q-analysis with machine learning. The new approach, called Neural Hypernetwork, has been applied to a case study of pulmonary embolism diagnosis. The novelty of this method is that it does not use clinical parameters extracted by imaging analysis.
authors.affiliation: School of Science and Technology, University of Camerino, Via del Bastione, Camerino, Italy. matteo.rucco@unicam.it.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rucco
authors.affiliation: Design Complexity Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sousa-Rodrigues
authors.affiliation: School of Science and Technology, University of Camerino, Via del Bastione, Camerino, Italy.
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Merelli
authors.affiliation: Design Complexity Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
authors.forename: Jeffrey H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Internal and Subintensive Medicine of Ospedali Riuniti, Ancona, Italy.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Falsetti
authors.affiliation: Internal and Subintensive Medicine of Ospedali Riuniti, Ancona, Italy.
authors.forename: Cinzia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nitti
authors.affiliation: Internal and Subintensive Medicine of Ospedali Riuniti, Ancona, Italy.
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Salvi
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D000069550:Machine Learning; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D012372:ROC Curve; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014463:Ultrasonography