Chi-square-based scoring function for categorization of MEDLINE citations

Objectives: Text categorization has been used in biomedical informatics for identifying documents containing relevant topics of interest. We developed a simple method that uses a chi-square-based scoring function to determine the likelihood of MEDLINE citations containing genetic relevant topic. Methods: Our procedure requires construction of a genetic and a nongenetic domain document corpus. We used MeSH descriptors assigned to MEDLINE citations for this categorization task. We compared frequencies of MeSH descriptors between two corpora applying chi-square test. A MeSH descriptor was considered to be a positive indicator if its relative observed frequency in the genetic domain corpus was greater than its relative observed frequency in the nongenetic domain corpus. The output of the proposed method is a list of scores for all the citations, with the highest score given to those citations containing MeSH descriptors typical for the genetic domain. Results: Validation was done on a set of 734 manually annotated MEDLINE citations. It achieved predictive accuracy of 0.87 with 0.69 recall and 0.64 precision. We evaluated the method by comparing it to three machine learning algorithms (support vector machines, decision trees, na\"ive Bayes). Although the differences were not statistically significantly different, results showed that our chi-square scoring performs as good as compared machine learning algorithms. Conclusions: We suggest that the chi-square scoring is an effective solution to help categorize MEDLINE citations. The algorithm is implemented in the BITOLA literature-based discovery support system as a preprocessor for gene symbol disambiguation process.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figure

Description of a cave-dwelling species Duvalius karaormanicus sp. n. (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Trechinae) from the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia

A new species, Duvalius karaormanicus sp. n., in the subgenus Euduvalius, is described from the type locality: Mlečnik cave in the Karaorman Mountain in the south-western part of the Republic of Macedonia. This is the second cave-dwelling Duvalius and the sixth representative of the genus so far recorded from the Republic of Macedonia. Based on its diagnostic characters, the new species is found to be related to the species in the “gogalai” and “petroclzilosi” groups. D. karaormanicus sp. n. occupies an intermediate position between the species from these two groups and is therefore placed in a separate “karaormanicus” species group

Sign project telegenetics - providing remote genetic services in the cross-border region of Italy and Slovenia

This paper describes the telegenetics component of the SIGN project. Telegenetics is a subfield of telemedicine applied to clinical genetics. In the SIGN project, telegenetics aims to provide remote genetic services in the cross-border region of Italy and Slovenia. More specifically, the goal is to develop remote genetic services in areas without them and to provide best expertise in clinical genetics without the need to travel large distances (patients or professionals). The major telegenetics activities within the SIGN project are the development of remote genetic services: for genetic counseling, for expert to expert communication, and for communication between the partners of the project. To accomplish the activities, these major tasks had to be done: testing and selection of video-conferencing equipment and software for secure data sharing and exchange; development of work protocols; end-user education; installation, configuration and testing of necessary hardware, software and developed protocols; and evaluation of user satisfaction (both patients and genetic service providers). The preliminary evaluation results show promising user-satisfaction. They also highlight areas where further improvement of the remote services is possible

Hold design supports learning and transfer of climbing fluency

Being a discipline with a broad range of genres, rock climbing is an activity where participants seek to generalize the skills they learn in different performance contexts. A training strategy for achieving skill transfer was explored in a group of experienced climbers. Specifically, we tested the effect of practising on three routes, each of the same difficulty, but where handholds supported opportunities for using either a single technical action or multiple actions. Transfer of climbing fluidity in terms of the geometric index of entropy (GIE) of the hip trajectory was then assessed. We expected that learning would be induced on the route where multiple actions were usable. Results revealed that GIE showed a learning effect only when practice was undertaken on a route designed with multiple graspable edges. Practice on the multi-functional route best explains why the participants' successfully generalized climbing fluency under transfer conditions

Radial patterns of 13 elements in the tree rings of beech trees from Mavrovo National park, FYROM

The radial patterns of 13 elements (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Na, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb, Cd and Co) were analyzed in the tree rings of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). The study site was located in an 'unpolluted' beech ecosystem in Mavrovo National Park. Thus, the obtained radial patterns in the beech trees were considered to be physiologically driven without significant pollution influence. The influence of the main climatic factors (temperature and rainfall) was tested. The radial patterns of individual trees were compared in order to find individual responses to environmental impacts. For most of the elements, higher concentrations were recorded in the pith and outer-most rings and lower in the middle part of the wood. The concentration of heavy metals was low, and followed the physiological patterns of other biogenic elements

Iron oxide-modified nanoporous geopolymers for arsenic removal from ground water

AbstractComposite materials of hierarchically porous geopolymer and amorphous hydrous ferric oxide were produced and characterized as a new potentially cost-effective arsenic adsorbent. The arsenic removal capabilities of the iron (hydr)oxide (HFO) media were carried out using batch reactor experiments and laboratory scale continuous flow experiments. The Rapid Small-Scale Column Tests (RSSCT) were employed to mimic a scaled up packed bed reactor and the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test of arsenic adsorbed solid material was carried out to investigate the mechanical robustness of the adsorbent. The best performing media which contained ~20 wt% Fe could remove over 95 µg of arsenic per gram of dry media from arsenic only water matric. The role of the high porosity in arsenic adsorption characteristics was further quantified in conjunction with accessibility of the adsorption sites. The new hierarchically porous geopolymer-based composites were shown to be a good candidate for cost-effective removal of arsenic from contaminated water under realistic conditions owing to their favorable adsorption capacity and very low leachability

Speleothems in the cave Slatinski Izvor

According to the environments in which speleothems are formed in the cave Slatinski Izvor, they belong to three groups: speleothems formed by flowing and dripping water, speleothems formed by capillary water and pool deposits. Three samples of speleothems were analyzed. In all samples the mineral calcite was detected. The chemical composition showed that CaO and SiO2 were the dominantly represented, whereas Sr and B were the dominant trace elements in all rocky samples. Hydrochemical properties of water samples of three drips from the same cave were analyzed in the period December 2011 - October 2013, in the dry period of the year. Four methods (Piper diagram, Stiff diagram, Chadha diagram, and D’Amore diagram) were applied in order to determine the hydrochemical properties of the water samples. The results showed that all water samples had the same origin, dolomite rocks had the dominant impact of the drip water, HCO3 and SO4 were dominant dissolved species in the water, and there was no contaminants in the aquife