Patent ID: 8843420
Filing Date: 2014-09-23
Classification: G16B

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: receiving a signature that is a collection of measurement node entities and their expected directions of change with respect to a reference node, the signature having an associated degree of activation that has been determined by scoring one or more data sets against the signature to compute an amplitude score; and determining, in a computing entity, whether the signature's amplitude score is specific to a biological process or occurs by chance in the one or more data sets, wherein the determining step evaluates a Specificity metric associated with the amplitude score and includes computing the Specificity metric as a p-value that is computed from a position of the amplitude score on a distribution of amplitude scores computed from comparable signatures, wherein a comparable signature has a same size as the signature; wherein the comparable signature is generated by replacing at least one measurement in the signature for another measurement from the data set that is equally likely to be modulated as the measurement it replaces.