scholarly journals Survey of Early-Diverging Lineages of Fungi Reveals Abundant and Diverse Mycoviruses

mBio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Myers ◽  
A. E. Bonds ◽  
R. A. Clemons ◽  
N. A. Thapa ◽  
D. R. Simmons ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Laboratory Culture ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Screening Methods ◽  
Culture Collections ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Large Scale Survey

ABSTRACT Mycoviruses are widespread and purportedly common throughout the fungal kingdom, although most are known from hosts in the two most recently diverged phyla, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, together called Dikarya. To augment our knowledge of mycovirus prevalence and diversity in underexplored fungi, we conducted a large-scale survey of fungi in the earlier-diverging lineages, using both culture-based and transcriptome-mining approaches to search for RNA viruses. In total, 21.6% of 333 isolates were positive for RNA mycoviruses. This is a greater proportion than expected based on previous taxonomically broad mycovirus surveys and is suggestive of a strong phylogenetic component to mycoviral infection. Our newly found viral sequences are diverse, composed of double-stranded RNA, positive-sense single-stranded RNA (ssRNA), and negative-sense ssRNA genomes and include novel lineages lacking representation in the public databases. These identified viruses could be classified into 2 orders, 5 families, and 5 genera; however, half of the viruses remain taxonomically unassigned. Further, we identified a lineage of virus-like sequences in the genomes of members of Phycomycetaceae and Mortierellales that appear to be novel genes derived from integration of a viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene. The two screening methods largely agreed in their detection of viruses; thus, we suggest that the culture-based assay is a cost-effective means to quickly assess whether a laboratory culture is virally infected. This study used culture collections and publicly available transcriptomes to demonstrate that mycoviruses are abundant in laboratory cultures of early-diverging fungal lineages. The function and diversity of mycoviruses found here will help guide future studies into mycovirus origins and ecological functions. IMPORTANCE Viruses are key drivers of evolution and ecosystem function and are increasingly recognized as symbionts of fungi. Fungi in early-diverging lineages are widespread, ecologically important, and comprise the majority of the phylogenetic diversity of the kingdom. Viruses infecting early-diverging lineages of fungi have been almost entirely unstudied. In this study, we screened fungi for viruses by two alternative approaches: a classic culture-based method and by transcriptome-mining. The results of our large-scale survey demonstrate that early-diverging lineages have higher infection rates than have been previously reported in other fungal taxa and that laboratory strains worldwide are host to infections, the implications of which are unknown. The function and diversity of mycoviruses found in these basal fungal lineages will help guide future studies into mycovirus origins and their evolutionary ramifications and ecological impacts.

Volunteer Science

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Radford ◽  
Andy Pilny ◽  
Ashley Reichelmann ◽  
Brian Keegan ◽  
Brooke Foucault Welles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Online Laboratory ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Online Methods ◽  
Psychological Experiments

Experimental research in traditional laboratories comes at a significant logistic and financial cost while drawing data from demographically narrow populations. The growth of online methods of research has resulted in effective means for social psychologists to collect large-scale survey-based data in a cost-effective and timely manner. However, the same advancement has not occurred for social psychologists who rely on experimentation as their primary method of data collection. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of one online laboratory for conducting experiments, Volunteer Science, and report the results of six studies that test canonical behaviors commonly captured in social psychological experiments. Our results show that the online laboratory is capable of performing a variety of studies with large numbers of diverse volunteers. We advocate for the use of the online laboratory as a valid and cost-effective way to perform social psychological experiments with large numbers of diverse subjects.

scholarly journals mRNA-Based Vaccines

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 390
Author(s):  
Frank Kowalzik ◽  
Daniel Schreiner ◽  
Christian Jensen ◽  
Daniel Teschner ◽  
Stephan Gehring ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Clinical Applications ◽  
Cell Mediated Immunity ◽  
Healthy Individuals ◽  
Emerging Pathogens ◽  
Cell Genome

Increases in the world’s population and population density promote the spread of emerging pathogens. Vaccines are the most cost-effective means of preventing this spread. Traditional methods used to identify and produce new vaccines are not adequate, in most instances, to ensure global protection. New technologies are urgently needed to expedite large scale vaccine development. mRNA-based vaccines promise to meet this need. mRNA-based vaccines exhibit a number of potential advantages relative to conventional vaccines, namely they (1) involve neither infectious elements nor a risk of stable integration into the host cell genome; (2) generate humoral and cell-mediated immunity; (3) are well-tolerated by healthy individuals; and (4) are less expensive and produced more rapidly by processes that are readily standardized and scaled-up, improving responsiveness to large emerging outbreaks. Multiple mRNA vaccine platforms have demonstrated efficacy in preventing infectious diseases and treating several types of cancers in humans as well as animal models. This review describes the factors that contribute to maximizing the production of effective mRNA vaccine transcripts and delivery systems, and the clinical applications are discussed in detail.

scholarly journals Variable Porous Electrode Compression for Redox Flow Battery Systems

Batteries ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Gurieff ◽  
Victoria Timchenko ◽  
Chris Menictas
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Porous Electrode ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Limiting Current ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Uniform Compression ◽  
Novel Concept

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) offer great promise as a safe, cost effective means of storing electrical energy on a large scale and will certainly have a part to play in the global transition to renewable energy. To unlock the full potential of VRFB systems, however, it is necessary to improve their power density. Unconventional stack design shows encouraging possibilities as a means to that end. Presented here is the novel concept of variable porous electrode compression, which simulations have shown to deliver a one third increase in minimum limiting current density together with a lower pressure drop when compared to standard uniform compression cell designs.

scholarly journals Investigating the usefulness of machine translation for newcomers at the public library

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Bowker ◽  
Jairo Buitrago Ciro
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Public ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Evaluation Survey

This study investigates the potential of machine translation as an efficient and cost-effective means to translate sections of the Ottawa Public Library website into Spanish to better meet the linguistic needs of the Spanish-speaking newcomer community. One-hundred and fourteen community members participated in a recipient evaluation survey, in which they evaluated four different versions of a translated portion of the library’s website — a professional human translation, a maximally post-edited machine translation, a rapidly post-edited machine translation, and a raw machine translation. Participants also considered metadata such as the time and cost required to produce each version. Findings show that while machine translation cannot address every need, there are some instances for which the faster and cheaper post-edited versions are considered useful and acceptable to the community.

scholarly journals Interlaboratory Collaboration for Optimized Screening for Urinary Tract Infection

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Russcher ◽  
Elske Kusters ◽  
Ron Wolterbeek ◽  
Ed J. Kuijper ◽  
Christa M. Cobbaert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Positive Culture ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Objective Evaluation ◽  
University Hospital ◽  
Rapid Screening ◽  
Gram Stain ◽  
Sample Quality ◽  
Positive Culture Result

As the majority of urine samples submitted for culture yields a negative result, rapid screening that accurately predicts culture outcome benefits clinicians by reducing the time to result and improves the efficiency of the microbiological laboratory. Automated urinalysis using the IRIS Diagnostics iQ200 Elite (iQ200) analyzer permits just such a fast and large-scale screening. We aimed to predict and thus to reduce negative cultures with a screening algorithm based on iQ200 urinalysis in a tertiary university hospital. In parallel, we evaluated the performance of the iQ200 screen compared to that of Gram stain for sample quality. We screened 1,442 samples submitted for bacterial culture using the iQ200 analyzer; of these samples, 357 (24.8%) had a positive culture result. We identified the absence of microorganisms in the iQ200 screen as the strongest solitary predictor for a negative culture, with a sensitivity of 90.5% (323/357). The algorithm was further improved by performing logistic regression on leukocyte counts, which gave a cutoff of 65 leukocytes/μl to obtain the desired sensitivity of >95% (95.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 92.5 to 97.0), a negative predictive value of 97.3% (95% CI, 95.7 to 98.3), and an anticipated culture workload reduction of 44% (95% CI, 41 to 46). Concordance between sample quality based on Gram stain and iQ200 screening was only 72%, which was probably a result of interobserver effect in evaluation of the Gram stain. In conclusion, in our setting, screening by iQ200 proved to be a safe and cost-effective means to provide faster culture results, and it has the added benefit of a more objective evaluation of sample quality.

Endotracheal and Tracheostomy Tube Cytology

1979 ◽  
Vol 88 (6) ◽  
pp. 809-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kevin Fortson ◽  
Parviz Janfaza
Keyword(s):  
Lung Carcinoma ◽  
Tracheostomy Tube ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Tracheobronchial Tree ◽  
Screening Methods ◽  
Upper Aerodigestive Tract ◽  
Risk Patients ◽  
Tracheostomy Tubes

Carcinoma of the lung is the leading cause of death from malignancy in this country. Twenty percent of patients with lung carcinoma are asymptomatic early in the course of the disease. Survival rates are much better when lung carcinoma is discovered at the asymptomatic or radiographically occult stage, therefore improved screening methods should be investigated. Many tumors in the tracheobronchial tree shed malignant cells into the bronchi and sputum cytology has been of value in the early diagnosis of carcinoma of the tracheobronchial tree. Thousands of patients are intubated daily. During endotracheal anesthesia, secretions are stimulated in the tracheobronchial tree and endotracheal or tracheostomy tubes are coated with these secretions. In a preliminary study, the cytology examination of the secretions adherent to 50 endotracheal tubes suggests that endotracheal and tracheostomy tube cytology will prove to be a reliable, noninvasive and cost-effective means of screening high risk patients for occult primary carcinomas of the lung and upper aerodigestive tract.

scholarly journals Screening performance of abbreviated versions of the UPSIT smell test

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresita Joseph ◽  
Stephen D. Auger ◽  
Luisa Peress ◽  
Daniel Rack ◽  
Jack Cuzick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Screening Performance ◽  
Smell Test ◽  
Identification Test ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Smell Identification ◽  
Smell Tests

ABSTRACTBackgroundHyposmia features in several neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). The University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) is a widely used screening tool for detecting hyposmia, but is time-consuming and expensive when used on a large scale.MethodsWe assessed shorter subsets of UPSIT items for their ability to detect hyposmia in 891 healthy participants from the PREDICT-PD study. Established shorter tests included Versions A and B of both the 4-item Pocket Smell Test (PST) and 12-item Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT). Using a data-driven approach, we evaluated screening performances of 23,231,378 combinations of 1-7 smell items from the full UPSIT.ResultsPST Versions A and B achieved sensitivity/specificity of 76.8%/64.9% and 86.6%/45.9% respectively, whilst BSIT Versions A and B achieved 83.1%/79.5% and 96.5%/51.8% for detecting hyposmia defined by the longer UPSIT. From the data-driven analysis, two optimised sets of 7 smells surpassed the screening performance of the 12 item BSITs (with validation sensitivity/specificities of 88.2%/85.4% and 100%/53.5%). A set of 4 smells (Menthol, Clove, Gingerbread and Orange) had higher sensitivity for hyposmia than PST-A, -B and even BSIT-A (with validation sensitivity 91.2%). The same 4 smells also featured amongst those most commonly misidentified by 44 individuals with PD compared to 891 PREDICT-PD controls and a screening test using these 4 smells would have identified all hyposmic patients with PD.ConclusionUsing abbreviated smell tests could provide a cost-effective means of screening for hyposmia in large cohorts, allowing more targeted administration of the UPSIT or similar smell tests.

Who Attends and Who Benefits from CBT “Self-Confidence” Workshops Run in Routine Practice? A Pilot Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 585-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Prytys ◽  
Kate Harman ◽  
Rachel Lee ◽  
June S. L. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Psychological Interventions ◽  
Routine Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Depression Symptomatology

Background:This study examined characteristics of members of the public who self-referred and the effectiveness of psycho-educational CBT self-confidence workshops when run in routine practice.Method:Repeated measures were employed at pre- and post-workshop stages.Results:Of the 56 members of the general public who self-referred to the workshops, 70% were above the clinical cut-offs for Global Distress (CORE OM) and 86% were above the clinical cut offs for depression symptomatology (CES-D). Follow up data (n= 31) showed significant reduction in self-reported distress and depression at 4-week follow-up. A further analysis showed that those whose scores were above the clinical threshold at initial presentation benefited most but those with scores below the threshold did not seem to benefit.Conclusions:This study demonstrates that psycho-educational CBT workshops attract those with high levels of distress and depression, and have potential as a cost effective means of disseminating psychological interventions.

scholarly journals Recombinant subunit vaccines for soil-transmitted helminths

Parasitology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 144 (14) ◽  
pp. 1845-1870 ◽  
Author(s):  
JASON B. NOON ◽  
RAFFI V. AROIAN
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Gastrointestinal Nematodes ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Expression Systems ◽  
Subunit Vaccines ◽  
The Public ◽  
Soil Transmitted Helminths ◽  
Minimum Number

SUMMARYSoil-transmitted helminths (STHs) collectively infect one fourth of all human beings, and the majority of livestock in the developing world. These gastrointestinal nematodes are the most important parasites on earth with regard to their prevalence in humans and livestock. Current anthelmintic drugs are losing their efficacies due to increasing drug resistance, particularly in STHs of livestock and drug treatment is often followed by rapid reinfection due to failure of the immune system to develop a protective response. Vaccines against STHs offer what drugs cannot accomplish alone. Because such vaccines would have to be produced on such a large scale, and be cost effective, recombinant subunit vaccines that include a minimum number of proteins produced in relatively simple and inexpensive expression systems are required. Here, we summarize all of the previous studies pertaining to recombinant subunit vaccines for STHs of humans and livestock with the goal of both informing the public of just how critical these parasites are, and to help guide future developments. We also discuss several key areas of vaccine development, which we believe to be critical for developing more potent recombinant subunit vaccines with broad-spectrum protection.

scholarly journals An outbreak of meningococcal disease in Stonehouse: planning and execution of a large-scale survey

1987 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 579-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Stuart ◽  
K. A. V. Cartwright ◽  
D. M. Jones ◽  
N. D. Noah ◽  
R. J. Wall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Meningococcal Disease ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Blood Group Antigens ◽  
Laboratory Service ◽  
The Public ◽  
Resistant Strains ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
The Many ◽  
Group B ◽  
Preliminary Planning

SUMMARYIn November 1986 a large-scale survey was undertaken in the Gloucestershire town of Stonehouse during an outbreak of meningococcal disease due to group B type 15 subtype Pl. 16 sulphonamide-resistant strains. There were 15 cases in Stonehouse residents during the 4 years from April 1983, an annual attack rate of 56·5 per 100000. Four secondary cases occurred despite rifampicin prophylaxis. The objectives of this community survey were to investigate patterns of meningococcal carriage, transmission and immunity and to determine the proportion of non-secretors of blood group antigens in the Stonehouse population find amongst meningococcal carriers. A total of 6237 subjects participated including 75% of the 6635 Stonehouse residents. Over 97% of the participants provided all three of the requested specimens – nasopharyngeal swabs, saliva and blood samples.The co-operation between the many organizations involved in the detailed preliminary planning was instrumental in the success of the survey; in particular the value of effective collaboration between Departments of Community Medicine and Microbiology and of the Public Health Laboratory Service network of laboratories in undertaking investigations of this size and type was clearly demonstrated.

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