DEODHAR, SUSHAMNA DEODHAR. Using Grammatical Evolution Decision Trees for Detecting Gene-Gene Interactions in Genetic Epidemiology. (Under the direction of Dr. Alison Motsinger-Reif.) A major goal of human genetics is the discovery and validation of genetic polymorphisms that predict common, complex diseases. It is hypothesized that complex diseases are due to a myriad of factors including environmental exposures and complex genetic models. This etiological complexity, coupled with rapid advances in genotyping technology present enormous theoretical and practical concerns for statistical and computational analysis. Specifically, the challenge presented by epistasis, or gene-gene interactions, has sparked the development of a multitude of statistical techniques over the years. Subsequently, pattern matching and machine learning approaches have been explored to overcome the limitations of traditional computational methods. Grammatical Evolution Neural Networks (GENN) uses grammatical ev...
Sushamna Deodhar, Alison A. Motsinger-Reif