Short Term Fellowships: The ECO Methods for selection of structural features that influence substance toxicities.

University of Milano-Bicocca
 
Fachrichtung Toxikologie/Kosmetik, In silico
Beschreibung des Jobs These are short-term appointments for 3-12 months depending on a project. The topics can be either proposed by the applicant or are proposed by the partners or associated partners of the network as indicated below.

STR3 - Available in UMB (University of Milano-Bicocca)

The ECO Methods for selection of structural features that influence substance toxicities.
10 months

Nowadays, substances can be computationally represented by several thousands of molecular descriptors which are numbers encoding structural features of them. Thanks to this huge amount of molecular descriptors, more chemical information is available to study substances from different points of view; however, when the aim is to generate robust predictive models for properties of substances, these are usually based on a few molecular descriptors and thus the problem here is how to select the most predictive ones. To this concern, it must be noted that the presence in a model of not relevant molecular descriptors doesn\'t play a neutral role, i.e. no influence in the model quality, but, on the contrary, it contributes to increase noise in the model and then to lower its predictive ability.
Two basic approaches are defined in literature: variable reduction and variable selection. The former is based on reduction techniques of descriptors without considering the response being modeled and are, basically, founded on the analysis of internal correlation among descriptors. In the latter approach, descriptors are selected considering the response being modeled. Genetic algorithms, in their different forms, step-wise procedures, descriptor annihilation in latent variable techniques are some of the algorithms used to select the most relevant descriptors in QSAR/QSPR modelling.
The main goal of this STF will be to study toxicological properties of substances by using both variable reduction and variable selection approaches. In particular, the study will focus on binary endpoints like active / no active and different techniques will be applied and compared, such as logistic regression, GA-KNN, substructural analysis, cluster significance analysis, together with the most common ones.
The choose of the environmental properties of interest will be performed considering the data produced from the other Partners of the ECO Project.
Qualifikationen For Short-Term Fellowships, the eligibility rules of the European Commission for ESR (Early Stage Researchers) apply:

\"Early Stage researchers are defined as those who are, at the time of selection by the host institution, in the first four years of their research careers. This is measured from date when they obtained the degree which would formally entitle them to embark on a doctorate, either in the country in which the research training is provided...\"

Also keep in mind the European Commission\'s conditions of nationality and mobility of researchers, please:

\"Researchers can be nationals of any country other than the country of the promises of the host organisation where they will carry out their projects. Additionally researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity in the country of the host for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to their recruitment...\"
Art des Jobs Vollzeit
Bewerbungsschluss (Eingangsdatum)
Wie bewerben? You can apply for this position by sending your application electronically through the following web page http://www.eco-itn.eu/

For more details contact Prof. R. Todeschini
Anbieter University of Milano-Bicocca
Straße P.za della Scienza, 1
Postleitzahl/Stadt 20126  Milano
Land Italy
Website http://www.eco-itn.eu
Ansprechpartner/in Prof. Roberto Todeschini
Telefon +39 02 64482820 / Portable: +39 349 6190613
Fax +39 02 64482839
Email roberto.todeschini@unimib.it
Veröffentlicht am Montag, 12. Juli 2010