Intranet Implementation of Neural Networks
Many chemical and pharmaceutical companies have developed neural networks
in the last 10 years. However, in many cases the developed neural networks
have not been properly deployed over the people that should have access to
this knowledge. In many cases the neural networks have been implemented in
specical computer programs that are available to, and can only be handled by
a few specialists. So those that SHOULD primarily have access to the
developed knowledge, cannot get it in an easy way.
Computer Chemistry Consultancy is a pioneer in the intranet deployment of
neural networks. For a number of chemical companies and their business units,
a number of neural networks implemented on their intranet:
- The XLogP program for the calculation of hydrophobicity -
LogP(octanol/water) developed at the Molecular Design Laboratory of the
Peking University, which at that time was only available for Silicon
Graphics (Unix) computers, was interfaced to the intranet so that every
researcher in the pharmaceutical company could perform a LogP calculation
through the intranet. Before, researchers had to send a request (written
or by mail) to the "owner" of the SGI machine and hope they would soon
get an answer.
- For a surfactants-developing company, a neural network was deployed on
the intranet for the prediction of
biodegradability of new surfactants. This greatly reduced the
cost of development, as before the neural network was developed, it
happened many times that weeks or months were spend on synthesizing the
new material, and than it was found that it was too less biodegradable to
be commercialized. The intranet tool was username-password protected, so that only people who
had permission, had access to the information.
- For another company, an intranet tool was developed to calculate the
Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC)
of a class of surfactants, using a QSPR (Quantitative
Structure Property Relation). Although the QSPR was
described in public literature, the company did not have the
software-development skills in-house to develop an intranet application,
so we did it for them.
Notes:
- Many people believe that the intranet is only suitable for
"company-public" information. This is however not true at all!
Information on the intranet can very easily be secured so that only
people with permission to view that information have access to it.
Computer Chemistry Consultancy, June 2001
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