# Find genes by training a neural network on reference position data. # # @param seed A seed to get reproducible results. neural <- function(distances, preset, progress = NULL, seed = 448077) { species_ids <- preset$species_ids reference_gene_ids <- preset$reference_gene_ids set.seed(seed) gene_count <- length(preset$gene_ids) # Prefilter distances by species. distances <- distances[species %chin% species_ids] # Input data for the network. This contains the gene ID as an identifier # as well as the per-species gene distances as input variables. data <- data.table(gene = preset$gene_ids) # Buffer to keep track of species included in the computation. Species # from `species_ids` may be excluded if they don't have enough data. species_ids_included <- NULL # Make a column containing distance data for each species. for (species_id in species_ids) { species_distances <- distances[species == species_id, .(gene, distance)] # Only include species with at least 25% known values. species_distances <- stats::na.omit(species_distances) if (nrow(species_distances) >= 0.25 * gene_count) { species_ids_included <- c(species_ids_included, species_id) data <- merge(data, species_distances, all.x = TRUE) # Replace missing data with mean values. The neural network can't # handle NAs in a meaningful way. Choosing extreme values here # would result in heavily biased results. Therefore, the mean value # is chosen as a compromise. However, this will of course lessen the # significance of the results. mean_distance <- round(species_distances[, mean(distance)]) data[is.na(distance), distance := mean_distance] # Name the new column after the species. setnames(data, "distance", species_id) } } # Extract the reference genes. reference_data <- data[gene %chin% reference_gene_ids] reference_data[, neural := 1.0] # Take out random samples from the remaining genes. This is another # compromise with a negative impact on significance. Because there is no # information on genes with are explicitely *not* TPE-OLD genes, we have to # assume that a random sample of genes has a low probability of including # TPE-OLD genes. without_reference_data <- data[!gene %chin% reference_gene_ids] reference_samples <- without_reference_data[ sample( nrow(without_reference_data), nrow(reference_data) ) ] reference_samples[, neural := 0.0] # Merge training data. The training data includes all reference genes as # well as an equal number of random sample genes. training_data <- rbindlist(list(reference_data, reference_samples)) # Construct and train the neural network. nn_formula <- stats::as.formula(sprintf( "neural~%s", paste(species_ids_included, collapse = "+") )) layer1 <- length(species_ids) * 0.66 layer2 <- layer1 * 0.66 layer3 <- layer2 * 0.66 nn <- neuralnet::neuralnet( nn_formula, training_data, hidden = c(layer1, layer2, layer3), linear.output = FALSE ) if (!is.null(progress)) { # We do everything in one go, so it's not possible to report detailed # progress information. As the method is relatively quick, this should # not be a problem. progress(0.5) } # Apply the neural network. data[, score := neuralnet::compute(nn, data)$net.result] if (!is.null(progress)) { # See above. progress(1.0) } data[, .(gene, score)] }