| 1. |
- Forzieri, Giovanni, et al.
(författare)
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The Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances: DEFID2
- 2023
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - 1365-2486. ; 29:21, s. 6040-6065
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Insect and disease outbreaks in forests are biotic disturbances that can profoundly alter ecosystem dynamics. In many parts of the world, these disturbance regimes are intensifying as the climate changes and shifts the distribution of species and biomes. As a result, key forest ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, regulation of water flows, wood production, protection of soils, and the conservation of biodiversity, could be increasingly compromised. Despite the relevance of these detrimental effects, there are currently no spatially detailed databases that record insect and disease disturbances on forests at the pan-European scale. Here, we present the new Database of European Forest Insect and Disease Disturbances (DEFID2). It comprises over 650,000 harmonized georeferenced records, mapped as polygons or points, of insects and disease disturbances that occurred between 1963 and 2021 in European forests. The records currently span eight different countries and were acquired through diverse methods (e.g., ground surveys, remote sensing techniques). The records in DEFID2 are described by a set of qualitative attributes, including severity and patterns of damage symptoms, agents, host tree species, climate-driven trigger factors, silvicultural practices, and eventual sanitary interventions. They are further complemented with a satellite-based quantitative characterization of the affected forest areas based on Landsat Normalized Burn Ratio time series, and damage metrics derived from them using the LandTrendr spectral–temporal segmentation algorithm (including onset, duration, magnitude, and rate of the disturbance), and possible interactions with windthrow and wildfire events. The DEFID2 database is a novel resource for many large-scale applications dealing with biotic disturbances. It offers a unique contribution to design networks of experiments, improve our understanding of ecological processes underlying biotic forest disturbances, monitor their dynamics, and enhance their representation in land-climate models. Further data sharing is encouraged to extend and improve the DEFID2 database continuously. The database is freely available at https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/FOREST/DISTURBANCES/DEFID2/.
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| 2. |
- Condoluci, Adalgisa, et al.
(författare)
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International prognostic score for asymptomatic early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia
- 2020
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Ingår i: Blood. - : American Society of Hematology. - 0006-4971 .- 1528-0020. ; 135:21, s. 1859-1869
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are diagnosed with early-stage disease and managed with active surveillance. The individual course of patients with early-stage CLL is heterogeneous, and their probability of needing treatment is hardly anticipated at diagnosis. We aimed at developing an international prognostic score to predict time to first treatment (TTFT) in patients with CLL with early, asymptomatic disease (International Prognostic Score for Early-stage CLL [IPS-E]). Individual patient data from 11 international cohorts of patients with early-stage CLL (n = 4933) were analyzed to build and validate the prognostic score. Three covariates were consistently and independently correlated with TTFT: unmutated immunoglobulin heavy variable gene (IGHV), absolute lymphocyte count higher than 15 x 10(9)/L, and presence of palpable lymph nodes. The IPS-E was the sum of the covariates (1 point each), and separated low-risk (score 0), intermediate-risk (score 1), and high-risk (score 2-3) patients showing a distinct TTFT. The score accuracy was validated in 9 cohorts staged by the Binet system and 1 cohort staged by the Rai system. The C-index was 0.74 in the training series and 0.70 in the aggregate of validation series. By meta-analysis of the training and validation cohorts, the 5-year cumulative risk for treatment start was 8.4%, 28.4%, and 61.2% among low-risk, intermediate-risk, and high-risk patients, respectively. The IPS-E is a simple and robust prognostic model that predicts the likelihood of treatment requirement in patients with early-stage CLL. The IPS-E can be useful in clinical management and in the design of early intervention clinical trials.
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| 3. |
- Geyer, Holly L., et al.
(författare)
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Associations between gender, disease features and symptom burden in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms : an analysis by the MPN QOL International Working Group
- 2017
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Ingår i: Haematologica. - : Ferrata Storti Foundation (Haematologica). - 0390-6078 .- 1592-8721. ; 102:1, s. 85-93
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The myeloproliferative neoplasms, including polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia and myelofibrosis, are distinguished by their debilitating symptom profiles, life-threatening complications and profound impact on quality of life. The role gender plays in the symptomatology of myeloproliferative neoplasms remains under-investigated. In this study we evaluated how gender relates to patients' characteristics, disease complications and overall symptom expression. A total of 2,006 patients (polycythemia vera=711, essential thrombocythemia=830, myelofibrosis=460, unknown=5) were prospectively evaluated, with patients completing the Myeloproliferative Neoplasm-Symptom Assessment Form and Brief Fatigue Inventory Patient Reported Outcome tools. Information on the individual patients' characteristics, disease complications and laboratory data was collected. Consistent with known literature, most female patients were more likely to have essential thrombocythemia (48.6% versus 33.0%; P<0.001) and most male patients were more likely to have polycythemia vera (41.8% versus 30.3%; P<0.001). The rate of thrombocytopenia was higher among males than females (13.9% versus 8.2%; P<0.001) and males also had greater red-blood cell transfusion requirements (7.3% versus 4.9%; P=0.02) with shorter mean disease duration (6.4 versus 7.2 years, P=0.03). Despite there being no statistical differences in risk scores, receipt of most therapies or prior complications (hemorrhage, thrombosis), females had more severe and more frequent symptoms for most individual symptoms, along with overall total symptom score (22.8 versus 20.3; P<0.001). Females had particularly high scores for abdominal-related symptoms (abdominal pain/discomfort) and microvascular symptoms (headache, fatigue, insomnia, concentration difficulties, dizziness; all P<0.01). Despite complaining of more severe symptom burden, females had similar quality of life scores to those of males. The results of this study suggest that gender contributes to the heterogeneity of myeloproliferative neoplasms by influencing phenotypic profiles and symptom expression.
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| 4. |
- Geyer, Holly L., et al.
(författare)
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The role of sexuality symptoms in myeloproliferative neoplasm symptom burden and quality of life : An analysis by the MPN QOL International Study Group
- 2016
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Ingår i: Cancer. - : Wiley. - 0008-543X .- 1097-0142. ; 122:12, s. 1888-1896
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUNDPatients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) including polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia, and myelofibrosis, are faced with oppressive symptom profiles that compromise daily functioning and quality of life. Among these symptoms, sexuality-related symptoms have emerged as particularly prominent and largely unaddressed. In the current study, the authors evaluated how sexuality symptoms from MPN relate to other patient characteristics, disease features, treatments, and symptoms. METHODSA total of 1971 patients with MPN (827 with essential thrombocythemia, 682 with polycythemia vera, 456 with myelofibrosis, and 6 classified as other) were prospectively evaluated and patient responses to the Myeloproliferative Neoplasm Symptom Assessment Form (MPN-SAF) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (EORTC-QLQ C30) were collected, along with information regarding individual disease characteristics and laboratory data. Sexuality scores were compared with an age-matched, healthy control population. RESULTSOverall, patients with MPN were found to have greater sexual dysfunction compared with the healthy population (MPN-SAF score of 3.6 vs 2.0; P<.001), with 64% of patients with MPN describing some degree of sexual dysfunction and 43% experiencing severe symptoms. The presence of sexual symptoms correlated closely with all domains of patient functionality (physical, social, cognitive, emotional, and role functioning) and were associated with a reduced quality of life. Sexual problems also were found to be associated with other MPN symptoms, particularly depression and nocturnal and microvascular-related symptoms. Sexual dysfunction was more severe in patients aged >65 years and in those with cytopenias and transfusion requirements, and those receiving certain therapies such as immunomodulators or steroids. ConclusionsThe results of the current study identify the topic of sexuality as a prominent issue for the MPN population, and this area would appear to benefit from additional investigation and management. Cancer 2016;122:1888-96. (c) 2016 American Cancer Society. Sexuality problems impact all domains of functionality, depression, microvascular symptoms, and overall quality of life among patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms. These problems correlate with patient age, the presence of cytopenias, transfusion requirements, and common therapies for myeloproliferative neoplasms. See also pages 1804-6.
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| 5. |
- Prezza, N., et al.
(författare)
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ERNE-BS5 : Aligning BS-treated sequences by multiple hits on a 5-letters alphabet
- 2012
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Ingår i: BCB '12 Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Biomedicine. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. - 9781450316705 ; , s. 12-19
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cytosine methylation is a DNA modification that has great impact on the regulation of gene expression and important implications for the biology and health of several living beings, including humans. Bisulfite conversion followed by next generation sequencing (BS-seq) of DNA is the gold standard technique used to detect DNA methylation at single-base resolution on a genome scale through the identification of 5-methylcytosine (5-mC). However, by converting unmethylated cytosines into thymines, BS-seq poses computational challenges to read alignment and aggravates the issue of multiple hits due to the ambiguity raised by the reduced sequence complexity. Here we present ERNE-BS5 (Extended Randomized Numerical alignEr - BiSulfite 5 ), an aligning program developed to efficiently map BS-treated reads against large genomes (e.g., human). To achieve this goal we have implemented three different ideas: (i) we use a 5-letters alphabet for storing methylation information, (ii) we use a weighted context-aware Hamming distance to identify a T coming from an unmethylated C context, and (iii) we use an iterative process to position multiple-hit reads starting from a preliminary map built using single-hit alignments. The map is corrected and extended at each cycle using the alignments added in the previous iteration. ERNE-BS5 is based on a new improved version of the rNA [20] aligning software with a more efficient core. ERNE (Extended Randomized Numerical alignEr) is a short string alignment package whose goal is to provide an all-inclusive set of tools to handle short reads. ERNE comprises: ERNE-MAP, ERNE-DMAP, ERNEFILTER, ERNE-VISUAL, and, from now on, ERNE-BS5. ERNE is free software and distributed with an Open Source License (GPL V3) and can be downloaded at: http://erne.sourceforge.net.
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| 6. |
- Scotch, Allison H, et al.
(författare)
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Symptom burden profile in myelofibrosis patients with thrombocytopenia : Lessons and unmet needs
- 2017
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Ingår i: Leukemia Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0145-2126 .- 1873-5835. ; 63, s. 34-40
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Myelofibrosis is a myeloproliferative neoplasm associated with progressive cytopenias and high symptom burden. MF patients with thrombocytopenia have poor prognosis but the presence of thrombocytopenia frequently precludes the use of JAK2 inhibitors. In this study, we assessed quality of life and symptom burden in 418 MF patients with (n = 89) and without (n = 329) thrombocytopenia using prospective data from the MPN-QOL study group database, including the Myeloproliferative Neoplasm Symptom Assessment Form (MPN-SAF) and Total Symptom Score (MPN10). Thrombocytopenia, defined as platelet count < 100 x10(9)/L (moderate 51-100 x 10(9)/L; severe <= 50 x10(9)/L), was associated with anemia (76% vs. 45%, p < 0.001), leukopenia (29% vs. 11%, p < 0.001), and need for red blood cell transfusion (35% vs. 19%, p = 0.002). Thrombocytopenic patients had more fatigue, early satiety, inactivity, dizziness, sad mood, cough, night sweats, itching, fever, and weight loss; total symptom scores were also higher (33 vs. 24, p < 0.001). Patients with severe thrombocytopenia were more likely to have anemia (86% vs. 67%, p = 0.04), leukopenia (40% vs. 20%, p = 0.04), and transfusion requirements (51% vs. 20%, p = 0.002) but few differences in symptoms when compared to patients with moderate thrombocytopenia. These results suggest that MF patients with thrombocytopenia experience greater symptomatic burden than MF patients without thrombocytopenia and may benefit from additional therapies.
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