Duncan Knapp (patiotrade7)

CRISPR-Cas are important systems found in most archaeal and many bacterial genomes, providing adaptive immunity against mobile genetic elements in prokaryotes. The CRISPR-Cas systems are encoded by a set of consecutive cas genes, here termed cassette. The identification of cassette boundaries is key for finding cassettes in CRISPR research field. This is often carried out by using Hidden Markov Models and manual annotation. In this paper, we propose the first method able to automatically define the cassette boundaries. In addition, we present a Cas type predictive model used by the method to assign each gene located in the region defined by a cassette's boundaries a Cas label from a set of pre-defined Cas types. Furthermore, the proposed method can detect potentially new cas genes and decompose a cassette into its modules. We evaluate the predictive performance of our proposed method on data collected from the two most recent CRISPR classification studies. In our experiments, we obtain an average similarity of 0.86 between the predicted and expected cassettes. Besides, we achieve F-scores above 0.9 for the classification of cas genes of known types and 0.73 for the unknown ones. Finally, we conduct two additional study cases, where we investigate the occurrence of potentially new cas genes and the occurrence of module exchange between different genomes. https//github.com/BackofenLab/Casboundary. https//github.com/BackofenLab/Casboundary. The validity of self-reported mammography uptake is often questioned. We assessed the related selection and reporting biases among women aged 50-69 years in the Belgian Health Interview Survey (BHIS) using reimbursement data for mammography stemming from the Belgian Compulsory Health Insurance organizations (BCHI). Individual BHIS 2013 data (n = 1040) were linked to BCHI data 2010-13 (BHIS-BCHI sample). Being reimbursed for mammography within the last 2-years was used as the gold standard. Selection bias was assessed by comparing BHIS estimates reimbursement rates in BHIS-BCHI with similar estimates from the Echantillon Permanent/Permanente Steekproef (EPS), a random sample of BCHI data, while reporting bias was investigated by comparing self-reported versus reimbursement information in the BHIS-BCHI. Reporting bias was further explored through measures of agreement and logistic regression. Mammography uptake rates based on self-reported information and reimbursement from the BHIS-BCHI were 75.5% and 69mmography uptake.Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis as well as a promoter of cell proliferation. Fibulin-3 is a matrix glycoprotein that displays potential for tumor suppression or propagation. The present study aimed to validate the expression levels of survivin and fibulin-3 in benign and malignant respiratory diseases. This case-control study included 219 patients categorized into five groups. Group A included 63 patients with lung cancer, group B included 63 patients with various benign lung diseases, group D included 45 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), and group E included 48 patients with various benign pleural diseases. Group C included 60 healthy individuals (control group). Serum survivin and fibulin-3 levels were measured by ELISA, whereas their nuclear expressions in the lung and pleura were assessed via Western blot analysis. The results showed significantly higher survivin serum levels and significantly lower fibulin-3 levels in group A compared with in group B and controls (P less then 0.001). There were significantly higher serum levels of survivin and fibulin-3 in group D compared with in group E and controls (P less then 0.001), consistent with observed nuclear survivin and fibulin-3 expression levels. Fibulin-3 was determined to have higher value than survivin in discriminating lung cancer from MPM (P less then 0.05). Survivin and fibulin-3 could be useful diagnostic markers for lung and pleural