Large-scale testing
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Quantifying intraspecific and interspecific trait variability is critical to our understanding of biogeography, ecology and conservation. But quantifying such variability and understanding the importance of intraspecific and interspecific variability remain challenging. This is especially true of large geographic scales as this is where the differences between intraspecific and interspecific variability are likely to be greatest. Our goal is to address this research gap using broad-scale citizen science data to quantify intraspecific variability and compare it with interspecific variability, using the example of bird responses to urbanization across the continental United States. Using more than 100 million observations, we quantified urban tolerance for 338 species within randomly sampled spatial regions and then calculated the standard deviation of each species' urban tolerance. We found that species' spatial variability in urban tolerance (i.e. standard deviation) was largely explained by the variability of urban cover throughout a species' range (R2 = 0.70). Variability in urban tolerance was greater in species that were more tolerant of urban cover (i.e. the average urban tolerance throughout their range), suggesting that generalist life histories are better suited to adapt to novel anthropogenic environments. Overall, species differences explained most of the variability in urban tolerance across spatial regions. Together, our results indicate that (1) intraspecific variability is largely predicted by local environmental variability in urban cover at a large spatial scale and (2) interspecific variability is greater than intraspecific variability, supporting the common use of mean values (i.e. collapsing observations across a species' range) when assessing species-environment relationships. Further studies, across different taxa, traits and species-environment relationships are needed to test the role of intraspecific variability, but nevertheless, we recommend that when possible, ecologists should avoid using discrete categories to classify species in how they respond to the environment.
Cíl: Test, založený na detekci antigenu SARS-CoV-2, je v souvislosti s potřebou screeningu větších skupin obyvatelstva často chápán jako alternativa k metodě PCR. Aby bylo možné posoudit vhodnost takového přístupu, hodnotili jsme senzitivitu dvou antigenních testů na skupině jedinců, zahrnujících jak pacienty s příznaky onemocnění covid-19, tak asymptomatické a zdravé osoby. Metody: Výtěry z nosohltanu jsme vyšetřili pomocí antigenního testu č. 1 (Panbio Covid-19 Ag Rapid Test, Abbott) a antigenního testu č. 2 (Standard F Covid-19 Ag FIA, SD Biosensor). Druhý výtěr z nosohltanu, doplněný o výtěr z orofaryngu od téže osoby jsme zkontrolovali metodou PCR (Allplex SARS-nCoV-2, Seegene). Celkem jsme během 4 dní v říjnu 2020 nasbírali vzorky od 591 jedinců, z nichž 290 mělo symptomy spojené s nemocí covid-19. Výsledky: Pozitivita metodou PCR byla zaznamenána ve 223 případech. Antigenní test č. 1 odhalil 148 pozitivních vzorků (senzitivita 0,664, 95% CI 0,599; 0,722), antigenní test č. 2 zachytil 141 pozitivit (senzitivita 0,623, 95% CI 0,558; 0,684). Senzitivita vyšetření se zvýšila u antigenního testu č. 1 na 0,738 (95 % CI 0,667; 0,799) a u antigenního testu č. 2 na 0,685 (95% CI 0,611, 0,750), pokud byli do analýzy zařazeni pouze symptomatičtí jedinci. Výrazný pokles v citlivosti na 12,9 % (95% CI 0,067; 0,234) jsme pozorovali u vzorků, jejichž prahový cyklus PCR se pohyboval nad hodnotou 30. Závěry: Nízká citlivost antigenních testů přináší významné riziko falešně negativních nálezů. Z tohoto důvodu doporučujeme v případě použití antigenního testu coby screeningového nástroje zavést testování v režimu opakování s dostatečně častou frekvencí. Testování zranitelných skupin obyvatelstva by mělo být doplňováno metodou PCR.
Objectives: Antigen tests have emerged as an alternative to SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic PCR, thought to be valuable especially for the screening of bigger communities. To check appropriateness of the antigen based testing, we determined sensitivity of two point-of-care antigen tests when applied to a cohort of COVID-19 symptomatic, COVID-19 asymptomatic and healthy persons. Methods: We examined nasopharyngeal swabs with antigen test 1 (Panbio Covid-19 Ag Rapid Test, Abbott) and antigen test 2 (Standard F Covid-19 Ag FIA, SD Biosensor). An additional nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swab of the same individual was checked with PCR (Allplex SARS-nCoV-2, Seegene). Within a 4-day period in October 2020, we collected specimens from 591 subjects. Of them, 290 had COVID-19 associated symptoms. Results: While PCR positivity was detected in 223 cases, antigen test 1 and antigen test 2 were found positive in 148 (sensitivity 0.664, 95%CI 0.599, 0.722) and 141 (sensitivity 0.623, 95%CI 0.558, 0.684) patients, respectively. When only symptomatic patients were analysed, sensitivity increased to 0.738 (95%CI 0.667, 0.799) for the antigen test 1 and to 0.685 (95%CI 0.611, 0.750) for the antigen test 2. The substantial drop in sensitivity to 12.9% (95%CI 0.067, 0.234) was observed for samples with the PCR threshold cycle above > 30. Conclusions: Low sensitivity of antigen tests leads to the considerable risk of false negativity. It is advisable to implement repeated testing with high enough frequency if the antigen test is used as a frontline screening tool, and to follow with PCR if it is applied to vulnerable populations.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most deadly solid malignancy, is typically detected late and at an inoperable stage. Early or incidental detection is associated with prolonged survival, but screening asymptomatic individuals for PDAC using a single test remains unfeasible due to the low prevalence and potential harms of false positives. Non-contrast computed tomography (CT), routinely performed for clinical indications, offers the potential for large-scale screening, however, identification of PDAC using non-contrast CT has long been considered impossible. Here, we develop a deep learning approach, pancreatic cancer detection with artificial intelligence (PANDA), that can detect and classify pancreatic lesions with high accuracy via non-contrast CT. PANDA is trained on a dataset of 3,208 patients from a single center. PANDA achieves an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.986-0.996 for lesion detection in a multicenter validation involving 6,239 patients across 10 centers, outperforms the mean radiologist performance by 34.1% in sensitivity and 6.3% in specificity for PDAC identification, and achieves a sensitivity of 92.9% and specificity of 99.9% for lesion detection in a real-world multi-scenario validation consisting of 20,530 consecutive patients. Notably, PANDA utilized with non-contrast CT shows non-inferiority to radiology reports (using contrast-enhanced CT) in the differentiation of common pancreatic lesion subtypes. PANDA could potentially serve as a new tool for large-scale pancreatic cancer screening.
- MeSH
- deep learning * MeSH
- duktální karcinom slinivky břišní * diagnostické zobrazování patologie MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- nádory slinivky břišní * diagnostické zobrazování patologie MeSH
- pankreas diagnostické zobrazování patologie MeSH
- počítačová rentgenová tomografie MeSH
- retrospektivní studie MeSH
- umělá inteligence MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- multicentrická studie MeSH
Recent developments in high-throughput sequencing (HTS), also called next-generation sequencing (NGS), technologies and bioinformatics have drastically changed research on viral pathogens and spurred growing interest in the field of virus diagnostics. However, the reliability of HTS-based virus detection protocols must be evaluated before adopting them for diagnostics. Many different bioinformatics algorithms aimed at detecting viruses in HTS data have been reported but little attention has been paid thus far to their sensitivity and reliability for diagnostic purposes. Therefore, we compared the ability of 21 plant virology laboratories, each employing a different bioinformatics pipeline, to detect 12 plant viruses through a double-blind large-scale performance test using 10 datasets of 21- to 24-nucleotide small RNA (sRNA) sequences from three different infected plants. The sensitivity of virus detection ranged between 35 and 100% among participants, with a marked negative effect when sequence depth decreased. The false-positive detection rate was very low and mainly related to the identification of host genome-integrated viral sequences or misinterpretation of the results. Reproducibility was high (91.6%). This work revealed the key influence of bioinformatics strategies for the sensitive detection of viruses in HTS sRNA datasets and, more specifically (i) the difficulty in detecting viral agents when they are novel or their sRNA abundance is low, (ii) the influence of key parameters at both assembly and annotation steps, (iii) the importance of completeness of reference sequence databases, and (iv) the significant level of scientific expertise needed when interpreting pipeline results. Overall, this work underlines key parameters and proposes recommendations for reliable sRNA-based detection of known and unknown viruses.
Cieľom práce bolo porovnať výkon bilingválnych jednotlivcov pri testovaní pozornosti, pamäti a inteligencie v ich prvom a druhom jazyku. Výskumný súbor tvorilo 126 bilingválnych respondentov s priemerným vekom 17.87 (SD = 7.77), 66 žien a 60 mužov. Súbor bol rozdelený na štyri vekové skupiny – mladší školský vek, obdobie pubescencie, adolescencie a dospelosti. Vybrané kognitívne funkcie boli merané slovenskými a maďarskými jazykovými formami nasledovných psychologických testov: Číselný štvorec, Pamäťový test učenia, Wechslerov inteligenčný test pre dospelých a Wechslerova inteligenčná škála pre deti. Z výsledkov vyplýva zhoršenie výkonu pri psychodiagnostickom vyšetrení pozornosti, pamäti a inteligencie v druhom jazyku bilingvistov a to bez ohľadu na ich vek.
The aim of the study was to compare the performance of bilingual individuals in testing attention, memory and intelligence using their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. These abilities were selected by us based on the fact that they are the diagnostic criteria of many diagnostic units, e.g. ADHD, ADD etc., so if they are not correctly determined, there is a chance of issuing inadequate psychological report. The issue of psychological testing of bilingual individuals is also topical problem in other European countries, such as the Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Croatia etc., where there is also a large percentage of ethnic minorities, but also countries outside of Europe, such as the USA are no exception. Our intention was to test the implicit assumption that the performance of bilingual individuals deteriorates during psychodiagnostic testing, if the test is not performed in their first language. The sample consisted of 126 bilingual respondents with an average age of 17.87 (SD = 7.77), of which 66 were female and 60 male. The sample was divided into four age related groups - young school age children, preadolescent, adolescencents and adults. The selected cognitive abilities were measured by using Slovak and Hungarian language forms of the following psychological tests: Number Square, Learning Memory Test; Wechsler Intelligence Test for Adults (WAIS-R) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC III). The results indicate a deterioration of performance at psychodiagnostic test of attention, memory and intelligence using L2 of bilinguals regardless of their age. The conclusion of the study shows the importance of choosing appropriate language for psychological testing for bilingual clients in order to eliminate adverse conditions compared to monolingual clients.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is indicated for the treatment of large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke. MT should be provided as quickly as possible; therefore, a test identifying suspected LVO in the prehospitalization stage is needed to ensure direct transport to a comprehensive stroke center (CSC). We assume that patients with clinically severe hemiparesis have a high probability of LVO stroke. We modified the FAST test into the FAST PLUS test: The first part is the FAST test and the second part evaluates the presence of severe arm or leg motor deficit. This prospective multicenter study evaluates the specificity and sensitivity of the FAST PLUS test in detecting LVO stroke. METHODS: Paramedics were trained through e-learning to conduct the FAST PLUS test. All prehospital suspected stroke patients who were administered the FAST PLUS test were included. Demographics, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, brain computed tomography (CT), and CT angiography (CTA) were recorded. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and receiver operating curve (ROC) area for LVO were calculated. RESULTS: The study included 435 patients. LVO were found in 124 patients (28%). Sensitivity was 93%, specificity was 47%, PPV was 41%, NPV was 94%, and ROC area for ICA/MCA occlusion was 0.65. Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) was identified in 48 patients (11%). CONCLUSION: We found that the FAST PLUS test had a high sensitivity for LVO stroke. Of the 435 patients, 41% were all directly transported to a CSC based on positive FAST PLUS test scores and were potential candidates for MT.
- MeSH
- arteriální okluzní nemoci diagnóza etiologie patofyziologie MeSH
- bérec patofyziologie MeSH
- cévní mozková příhoda komplikace diagnóza patofyziologie MeSH
- CT angiografie MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mladý dospělý MeSH
- mozek diagnostické zobrazování patofyziologie MeSH
- obličej patofyziologie MeSH
- paréza diagnóza etiologie patofyziologie MeSH
- paže patofyziologie MeSH
- prediktivní hodnota testů MeSH
- prospektivní studie MeSH
- senioři nad 80 let MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- senzitivita a specificita MeSH
- urgentní zdravotnické služby metody MeSH
- Check Tag
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mladý dospělý MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- senioři nad 80 let MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- multicentrická studie MeSH
- Geografické názvy
- Česká republika MeSH
The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) has become one of the most heavily applied measurement tools for the assessment of basic personality traits. Correspondingly, the inventory has been translated to many languages for use in cross-cultural research. However, formal tests examining whether the different language versions of the HEXACO-PI-R provide equivalent measures of the 6 personality dimensions are missing. We provide a large-scale test of measurement invariance of the 100-item version of the HEXACO-PI-R across 16 languages spoken in European and Asian countries (N = 30,484). Multigroup exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses revealed consistent support for configural and metric invariance, thus implying that the factor structure of the HEXACO dimensions as well as the meaning of the latent HEXACO factors is comparable across languages. However, analyses did not show overall support for scalar invariance; that is, equivalence of facet intercepts. A complementary alignment analysis supported this pattern, but also revealed substantial heterogeneity in the level of (non)invariance across facets and factors. Overall, results imply that the HEXACO-PI-R provides largely comparable measurement of the HEXACO dimensions, although the lack of scalar invariance highlights the necessity for future research clarifying the interpretation of mean-level trait differences across countries.
- MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- osobnostní dotazník normy MeSH
- psychometrie normy MeSH
- srovnání kultur MeSH
- Check Tag
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
There is ample experimental evidence describing changes of tonotopic organisation in the auditory cortex due to environmental factors. In order to uncover the underlying mechanisms, we designed a large-scale computational model of the auditory cortex. The model has up to 100 000 Izhikevich's spiking neurons of 17 different types, almost 21 million synapses, which are evolved according to Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) and have an architecture akin to existing observations. Validation of the model revealed alternating synchronised/desynchronised states and different modes of oscillatory activity. We provide insight into these phenomena via analysing the activity of neuronal subtypes and testing different causal interventions into the simulation. Our model is able to produce experimental predictions on a cell type basis. To study the influence of environmental factors on the tonotopy, different types of auditory stimulations during the evolution of the network were modelled and compared. We found that strong white noise resulted in completely disrupted tonotopy, which is consistent with in vivo experimental observations. Stimulation with pure tones or spontaneous activity led to a similar degree of tonotopy as in the initial state of the network. Interestingly, weak white noise led to a substantial increase in tonotopy. As the STDP was the only mechanism of plasticity in our model, our results suggest that STDP is a sufficient condition for the emergence and disruption of tonotopy under various types of stimuli. The presented large-scale model of the auditory cortex and the core simulator, SUSNOIMAC, have been made publicly available.
- MeSH
- akční potenciály fyziologie MeSH
- akustická stimulace MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- modely neurologické * MeSH
- nervová síť fyziologie MeSH
- neurony fyziologie MeSH
- počítačová simulace * MeSH
- sluchové korové centrum cytologie fyziologie MeSH
- zvířata MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- zvířata MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
Glycosylation is one of the most important post-translational modifications of proteins and plays an essential role in spermatogenesis, maturation, extracellular quality control, capacitation, sperm-egg recognition, and final fertilization. Spermatozoa are synthesized in the testes inactively with a thick glycocalyx and passed through the epididymis for further modification by glycosylation, deglycosylation, and integration to reach maturation. Subsequently, sperm capacitation and further fertilization require redistribution of glycoconjugates and dramatic glycocalyx modification of the spermatozoa surface. Furthermore, glycoproteins and glycans in seminal plasma are functional in maintaining spermatozoa structure and stability. Therefore, aberrant glycosylation may cause alteration of semen function and even infertility. Currently, mass spectrometry-based technologies have allowed large-scale profiling of glycans and glycoproteins in human semen. Quantitative analysis of semen glycosylation has also indicated many involved glycoproteome issues in male infertility and the potential biomarkers for diagnosis of male infertility in clinical. This review summarizes the role of glycosylation during spermatozoa development, the large-scale profiling of glycome and glycoproteome in human semen, as well as the association of aberrant glycosylation with infertility.
- MeSH
- epididymis MeSH
- glykosylace MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mužská infertilita * diagnóza MeSH
- sperma * MeSH
- spermie metabolismus MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- přehledy MeSH
