Експериментальна перевірка ефективності методичної системи формування компетентності в хімії майбутніх бакалаврів технології медичної діагностики та лікування у вищих медичних навчальних закладах України

The research presents the interpretations of the notions “chemistry competence of future bachelors of medical diagnostics and treatment technologies” and “program results of studying chemistry”. There were determined the formation criteria of chemistry competence of such specialists (“depth of professionally oriented knowledge”, “formation of professionally oriented abilities and skills in chemistry”, “motivation level of studying chemistry”, “mastering of professionally oriented personal qualities, necessary for conducting a chemical experiment”), their indices (correspondent coefficients) and levels (high, sufficient, primary). There were counted the research methods (questionnaire, testing, observation, filling forms of students’ self-estimation and so on). The effectiveness of the experimental methodical system was established by mean values of coefficients of formation of chemistry competence of students that exceeded the limit of 70 % and increment of these indices. Based on the calculation of the empirical value of t-criterion and its comparison with the table one, it was proved, that the level of chemistry competence formation of students increases, if to realize the educational process by the elaborated methodical system, directly oriented on achieving program results of studying chemistry by studentsУ дослідженні встановлено ефективність експериментальної методичної системи формування компетентності в хімії майбутніх бакалаврів технології медичної діагностики та лікування. Доведено, що рівень сформованості компетентності в хімії студентів підвищується, якщо здійснювати освітній процес за розробленою методичною системою, безпосередньо спрямованою на досягнення студентами програмних результатів навчання із хімі

The GoldenBricks assembly: A standardized one-shot cloning technique for complete cassette assembly

BBF RFC 92 proposes a new standard assembly method for the Parts Registry. The method makes one-shot cloning of a complete eukaryotic or prokaryotic cassette possible in one day while keeping compatibility with the BBF RFC 10 BioBrick assembly standard

A crowdsourced analysis to identify ab initio molecular signatures predictive of susceptibility to viral infection

The response to respiratory viruses varies substantially between individuals, and there are currently no known molecular predictors from the early stages of infection. Here we conduct a community-based analysis to determine whether pre- or early post-exposure molecular factors could predict physiologic responses to viral exposure. Using peripheral blood gene expression profiles collected from healthy subjects prior to exposure to one of four respiratory viruses (H1N1, H3N2, Rhinovirus, and RSV), as well as up to 24 h following exposure, we find that it is possible to construct models predictive of symptomatic response using profiles even prior to viral exposure. Analysis of predictive gene features reveal little overlap among models; however, in aggregate, these genes are enriched for common pathways. Heme metabolism, the most significantly enriched pathway, is associated with a higher risk of developing symptoms following viral exposure. This study demonstrates that pre-exposure molecular predictors can be identified and improves our understanding of the mechanisms of response to respiratory viruses

Approches d'analyses de réseaux et d'apprentissage automatique pour les données omiques de dengue

The last 20 years have seen the emergence of powerful measurement technologies, enabling omics analysis of diverse diseases. They often provide non-invasive means to study the etiology of newly emerging complex diseases, such as the mosquito-borne infectious dengue disease. My dissertation concentrates on adapting and applying network and machine learning approaches to genomic and transcriptomic data. The first part goes beyond a previously published genome-wide analysis of 4,026 individuals by applying network analysis to find groups of interacting genes in a gene functional interaction network that, taken together, are associated to severe dengue. In this part, I first recalculated association p-values of sequences polymorphisms, then worked on mapping polymorphisms to functionally related genes, and finally explored different pathway and gene interaction databases to find groups of genes together associated to severe dengue. The second part of my dissertation unveils a theoretical approach to study a size bias of active network search algorithms. My theoretical analysis suggests that the best score of subnetworks of a given size should be size-normalized, based on the hypothesis that it is a sample of an extreme value distribution, and not a sample of the normal distribution, as usually assumed in the literature. I then suggest a theoretical solution to this bias. The third part introduces a new subnetwork search tool that I co-designed. Its underlying model and the corresponding efficient algorithm avoid size bias found in existing methods, and generates easily comprehensible results. I present an application to transcriptomic dengue data. In the fourth and last part, I describe the identification of a biomarker that detects dengue severity outcome upon arrival at the hospital using a novel machine learning approach. This approach combines two-dimensional monotonic regression with feature selection. The underlying model goes beyond the commonly used linear approaches, while allowing controlling the number of transcripts in the biomarker. The small number of transcripts along with its visual representation maximize the understanding and the interpretability of the biomarker by biomedical professionals. I present an 18-gene biomarker that allows distinguishing severe dengue patients from non-severe ones upon arrival at the hospital with a unique biomarker of high and robust predictive performance. The predictive performance of the biomarker has been confirmed on two datasets that both used different transcriptomic technologies and different blood cell subtypes.Les 20 dernières années ont vu l'émergence de technologies de mesure puissantes, permettant l'analyse omique de diverses maladies. Ils fournissent souvent des moyens non invasifs pour étudier l'étiologie des maladies complexes nouvellement émergentes, telles que l'infection de la dengue, transmise par les moustiques. Ma thèse se concentre sur l'adaptation et l'application d'approches utilisant des réseaux d'interaction de gènes et l'apprentissage automatique pour l'analyse de données génomiques et transcriptomiques. La première partie va au-delà d'une analyse pangénomique précédemment publiée de 4 026 personnes en appliquant une analyse de réseaux d'interaction pour trouver des groupes de gènes qui interagissent dans un réseau d'interactions fonctionnelles et qui, pris ensemble, sont associés à la dengue sévère. Dans cette partie, j'ai d'abord recalculé les valeurs-p d'association des polymorphismes séquencés, puis j'ai travaillé sur le mapping des polymorphismes à des gènes fonctionnellement apparentés, et j'ai enfin exploré différentes bases de données de voies métaboliques et d'interactions génétiques pour trouver des groupes de gènes qui, pris ensemble, sont associés à la dengue sévère. La deuxième partie de ma thèse dévoile une approche théorique pour étudier un biais dans les algorithmes de recherche de réseau actifs. Mon analyse théorique suggère que le meilleur score de sous-réseaux d'une taille donnée devrait être normalisé en fonction de la taille, selon l'hypothèse selon laquelle il s'agit d'un échantillon d'une distribution de valeur extrême, et non un échantillon de la distribution normale, comme c'est généralement le cas dans la littérature. Je propose alors une solution théorique à ce biais. La troisième partie présente un nouvel outil de recherche de sous-réseaux que j'ai co-conçu. Son modèle sous-jacent et l'algorithme évite le biais de taille trouvé dans les méthodes existantes et génère des résultats facilement compréhensibles. Je présente une application aux données transcriptomiques de la dengue. Dans la quatrième et dernière partie, je décris l'identification d'un biomarqueur qui détecte la sévérité de la dengue à l'arrivée à l'hôpital en utilisant une nouvelle approche d'apprentissage automatique. Cette approche combine la régression monotone bidimensionnelle avec la sélection des variables. Le modèle sous-jacent va au-delà des approches linéaires couramment utilisées, tout en permettant de contrôler le nombre de transcrits dans le biomarqueur. Le petit nombre de transcrits accompagné de leur représentation visuelle maximisent la compréhension et l'interprétation du biomarqueur par les professionnels de la biomédecine. Je présente un biomarqueur à 18 gènes qui permet de distinguer, à leur arrivée à l'hôpital, les patients qui vont développer des symptômes de dengue sévères de ceux qui auront une dengue non sévère. Ce biomarqueur a une performance prédictive élevée et robuste. La performance prédictive du biomarqueur a été confirmée sur deux ensembles de données qui ont tous deux utilisé différentes technologies transcriptomiques et différents sous-types de cellules sanguines

Network module identification—A widespread theoretical bias and best practices

International audienceBiological processes often manifest themselves as coordinated changes across modules, i.e., sets of interacting genes. Commonly, the high dimensionality of genome-scale data prevents the visual identification of such modules, and straightforward computational search through a set of known pathways is a limited approach. Therefore, tools for the data-driven, computational, identification of modules in gene interaction networks have become popular components of visualization and visual analytics workflows. However, many such tools are known to result in modules that are large, and therefore hard to interpret biologically. Here, we show that the empirically known tendency towards large modules can be attributed to a statistical bias present in many module identification tools, and discuss possible remedies from a mathematical perspective. In the current absence of a straightforward practical solution, we outline our view of best practices for the use of the existing tools

Filter-free exhaustive odds ratio-based genome-wide interaction approach pinpoints evidence for interaction in the HLA region in psoriasis

Deciphering the genetic architecture of complex traits is still a major challenge for human genetics. In most cases, genome-wide association studies have only partially explained the heritability of traits and diseases. Epistasis, one potentially important cause of this missing heritability, is difficult to explore at the genome-wide level. Here, we develop and assess a tool based on interactive odds ratios (IOR), Fast Odds Ratio-based sCan for Epistasis (FORCE), as a novel approach for exhaustive genome-wide epistasis search. IOR is the ratio between the multiplicative term of the odds ratio (OR) of having each variant over the OR of having both of them. By definition, an IOR that significantly deviates from 1 suggests the occurrence of an interaction (epistasis). As the IOR is fast to calculate, we used the IOR to rank and select pairs of interacting polymorphisms for P value estimation, which is more time consuming.status: publishe

Filter-free exhaustive odds ratio-based genome-wide interaction approach pinpoints evidence for interaction in the HLA region in psoriasis.

BackgroundDeciphering the genetic architecture of complex traits is still a major challenge for human genetics. In most cases, genome-wide association studies have only partially explained the heritability of traits and diseases. Epistasis, one potentially important cause of this missing heritability, is difficult to explore at the genome-wide level. Here, we develop and assess a tool based on interactive odds ratios (IOR), Fast Odds Ratio-based sCan for Epistasis (FORCE), as a novel approach for exhaustive genome-wide epistasis search. IOR is the ratio between the multiplicative term of the odds ratio (OR) of having each variant over the OR of having both of them. By definition, an IOR that significantly deviates from 1 suggests the occurrence of an interaction (epistasis). As the IOR is fast to calculate, we used the IOR to rank and select pairs of interacting polymorphisms for P value estimation, which is more time consuming.ResultsFORCE displayed power and accuracy similar to existing parametric and non-parametric methods, and is fast enough to complete a filter-free genome-wide epistasis search in a few days on a standard computer. Analysis of psoriasis data uncovered novel epistatic interactions in the HLA region, corroborating the known major and complex role of the HLA region in psoriasis susceptibility.ConclusionsOur systematic study revealed the ability of FORCE to uncover novel interactions, highlighted the importance of exhaustiveness, as well as its specificity for certain types of interactions that were not detected by existing approaches. We therefore believe that FORCE is a valuable new tool for decoding the genetic basis of complex diseases

How to help teachers adapt to learners? Teachers' perspective on a competency and error-type centered dashboard for algebra

International audienc

A Blood RNA Signature Detecting Severe Disease in Young Dengue Patients at Hospital Arrival

International audienceand 10 GSK vaccines R&D, Singapore Background. Early detection of severe dengue can improve patient care and survival. To date, no reliable single-gene biomarker exists. We hypothesized that robust multigene signatures exist. Methods. We performed a prospective study on Cambodian dengue patients aged 4 to 22 years. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were obtained at hospital admission. We analyzed 42 transcriptomic profiles of patients with secondary dengue infected with dengue serotype 1. Our novel signature discovery approach controls the number of included genes and captures non-linear relationships between transcript concentrations and severity. We evaluated the signature on secondary cases infected with different serotypes using 2 datasets: 22 PBMC samples from additional patients in our cohort and 32 whole blood samples from an independent cohort. Results. We identified an 18-gene signature for detecting severe dengue in patients with secondary infection upon hospital admission with a sensitivity of 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], .82-.98), specificity of 0.67 (95% CI, .53-.80), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.86 (95% CI, .75-.97). At validation, the signature had empirical AUCs of 0.85 (95% CI, .69-1.00) and 0.83 (95% CI, .68-.98) for the PBMCs and whole blood datasets, respectively. Conclusions. The signature could detect severe dengue in secondary-infected patients upon hospital admission. Its genes offer new insights into the pathogenesis of severe dengue