| 1. |
- Zamora, Juan Carlos, et al.
(författare)
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Considerations and consequences of allowing DNA sequence data as types of fungal taxa
- 2018
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Ingår i: IMA Fungus. - : INT MYCOLOGICAL ASSOC. - 2210-6340 .- 2210-6359. ; 9:1, s. 167-185
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nomenclatural type definitions are one of the most important concepts in biological nomenclature. Being physical objects that can be re-studied by other researchers, types permanently link taxonomy (an artificial agreement to classify biological diversity) with nomenclature (an artificial agreement to name biological diversity). Two proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), allowing DNA sequences alone (of any region and extent) to serve as types of taxon names for voucherless fungi (mainly putative taxa from environmental DNA sequences), have been submitted to be voted on at the 11th International Mycological Congress (Puerto Rico, July 2018). We consider various genetic processes affecting the distribution of alleles among taxa and find that alleles may not consistently and uniquely represent the species within which they are contained. Should the proposals be accepted, the meaning of nomenclatural types would change in a fundamental way from physical objects as sources of data to the data themselves. Such changes are conducive to irreproducible science, the potential typification on artefactual data, and massive creation of names with low information content, ultimately causing nomenclatural instability and unnecessary work for future researchers that would stall future explorations of fungal diversity. We conclude that the acceptance of DNA sequences alone as types of names of taxa, under the terms used in the current proposals, is unnecessary and would not solve the problem of naming putative taxa known only from DNA sequences in a scientifically defensible way. As an alternative, we highlight the use of formulas for naming putative taxa (candidate taxa) that do not require any modification of the ICN.
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| 2. |
- Estanqueiro, Ana, et al.
(författare)
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DLR use for optimization of network design withvery large wind (and VRE) penetration
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Due to the stochastic nature of wind and clouds,the integration of wind and PV generation in the powersystem poses serious challenges to the long-term planning oftransmission systems. Grid reinforcements always involverelevant direct costs while the average load factor of the windand solar PV dedicated transmission lines is usually low.Additionally, in very windy sites, the same high windresource that produces large amounts of wind generation andmay congest the transmission lines transporting it to distantconsumption centres may also have a beneficial effect inincreasing the transmission capacity of those lines. In fact, theoccurrence of wind not only contributes to the loading of theconnecting line, but also increases the line capacity, via theconvective cooling of the cables - one of the main heattransfer mechanisms in conductor heat balance; in otherwords, higher winds speeds contribute to faster cooling ofconductor and therefore higher conductor’s capacitypotential. In this paper the existing methodologies tocharacterize those thermal effects in electrical cables - usuallyreferred as dynamic line rating (DLR) - are applied to severalIEA Task 25 countries case studies to characterize thetechnical value of the dynamic operation of thermallycongested lines, as well as its potential economic benefits.
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| 3. |
- Gericke, Niklas, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Conceptual Variation or Incoherence? Textbook Discourse on Genes in Six Countries
- 2014
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Ingår i: Science & Education. - Netherlands : Springer Netherlands. - 0926-7220 .- 1573-1901. ; 23:2, s. 381-416
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this paper is to investigate in a systematic and comparative way the results of independent studies on the treatment of genes and gene function in high school textbooks from six different countries. We analyze how the conceptual variation within the scientific domain of Genetics regarding gene function models and gene concepts is transformed via the didactic transposition into school science textbooks. The findings indicate that a common textbook discourse on genes and their function exists in textbooks from the different countries. The structure of science as represented by conceptual variation and the use of multiple models was present in all the textbooks. However, the phenomenon of conceptual variation and multiple models is implicit in these textbooks and this brings, as a consequence, the introduction of conceptual incoherence about the gene concept and gene function models within these resources. We conclude that within the textbook discourse on genes found in our study ontological aspects of the academic disciplines of Genetics and Molecular Biology were retained, but without their epistemological underpinnings; these are lost in the didactic transposition. Also within the textbooks explanatory models and concepts that promote a deterministic notion of the gene were found to be most frequent. These results are of interest since students might have problems reconstructing the correct scientific understanding from the transformed school science knowledge as depicted within the high school textbooks. Implications for textbook writing as well as science teaching are discussed in the paper.
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| 4. |
- Kattge, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 26:1, s. 119-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives.
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| 5. |
- Marcer, Arnald, et al.
(författare)
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Quality issues in georeferencing : From physical collections to digital data repositories for ecological research
- 2021
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Ingår i: Diversity and Distributions. - : Wiley. - 1366-9516 .- 1472-4642. ; 27:3, s. 564-567
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Natural history collections constitute an enormous wealth of information of Life on Earth. It is estimated that over 2 billion specimens are preserved at institutions worldwide, of which less than 10% are accessible via biodiversity data aggregators such as GBIF. Moreover, they are a very important resource for eco-evolutionary research, which greatly depends on knowing the precise location where the specimens were collected in order to characterize the environment in which they lived. Yet, only about 55% of the accessible records are georeferenced and only 31% have coordinate uncertainty information, which is critical for conducting rigorous studies. The awareness of this gap of knowledge which hinders the enormous potential of such data in research led to the organization of a workshop which brought together key players in georeferencing of natural history collections. The discussion and outcomes of this workshop are here presented.
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| 6. |
- Perez-Gracia, Jose Luis, et al.
(författare)
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Strategies to design clinical studies to identify predictive biomarkers in cancer research
- 2017
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Ingår i: Cancer Treatment Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-7372. ; 53, s. 79-97
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The discovery of reliable biomarkers to predict efficacy and toxicity of anticancer drugs remains one of the key challenges in cancer research. Despite its relevance, no efficient study designs to identify promising candidate biomarkers have been established. This has led to the proliferation of a myriad of exploratory studies using dissimilar strategies, most of which fail to identify any promising targets and are seldom validated. The lack of a proper methodology also determines that many anti-cancer drugs are developed below their potential, due to failure to identify predictive biomarkers. While some drugs will be systematically administered to many patients who will not benefit from them, leading to unnecessary toxicities and costs, others will never reach registration due to our inability to identify the specific patient population in which they are active. Despite these drawbacks, a limited number of outstanding predictive biomarkers have been successfully identified and validated, and have changed the standard practice of oncology. In this manuscript, a multidisciplinary panel reviews how those key biomarkers were identified and, based on those experiences, proposes a methodological framework—the DESIGN guidelines—to standardize the clinical design of biomarker identification studies and to develop future research in this pivotal field.
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| 7. |
- Poetzelsberger, Elisabeth, et al.
(författare)
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Mapping the patchy legislative landscape of non-native tree species in Europe
- 2020
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Ingår i: Forestry (London). - : Oxford University Press. - 0015-752X .- 1464-3626. ; 93:4, s. 567-586
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Europe has a history rich in examples of successful and problematic introductions of trees with a native origin outside of Europe (non-native trees, NNT). Many international legal frameworks such as treaties and conventions and also the European Union have responded to the global concern about potential negative impacts of NNT that may become invasive in natural ecosystems. It is, however, national and regional legislation in particular that affects current and future management decisions in the forest sector and shapes the landscapes of Europe. We identified all relevant legal instruments regulating NNT, the different legal approaches and the regulatory intensity in 40 European countries (no microstates). Information on hard and effective soft law instruments were collected by means of a targeted questionnaire and consultation of international and national legislation information systems and databases. In total, 335 relevant legal instruments were in place in June/July 2019 to regulate the use of NNT in the investigated 116 geopolitical legal units (countries as well as sub-national regions with their own legislation). Countries and regions were empirically categorized according to ad hoc-defined legislation indicators. These indicators pay respect to the general bans on the introduction of non-native species, the generally allowed and prohibited NNT, approval mechanisms and specific areas or cases where NNT are restricted or prohibited. Our study revealed a very diverse landscape of legal frameworks across Europe, with a large variety of approaches to regulating NNT being pursued and the intensity of restriction ranging from very few restrictions on species choice and plantation surface area to the complete banning of NNT from forests. The main conclusion is that there is a clear need for more co-ordinated, science-based policies both at the local and international levels to enhance the advantages of NNT and mitigate potential negative effects.
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| 8. |
- Proletov, Ian, et al.
(författare)
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Primary and secondary glomerulonephritides 1.
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation : official publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1460-2385. ; 29 Suppl 3:May, s. 186-200
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 9. |
- Schriever, Valentin A., et al.
(författare)
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Development of an International Odor Identification Test for Children : The Universal Sniff Test
- 2018
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Ingår i: The Journal of Pediatrics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0022-3476 .- 1097-6833. ; 198, s. 265-272
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ObjectiveTo assess olfactory function in children and to create and validate an odor identification test to diagnose olfactory dysfunction in children, which we called the Universal Sniff (U-Sniff) test.Study designThis is a multicenter study involving 19 countries. The U-Sniff test was developed in 3 phases including 1760 children age 5-7 years. Phase 1: identification of potentially recognizable odors; phase 2: selection of odorants for the odor identification test; and phase 3: evaluation of the test and acquisition of normative data. Test-retest reliability was evaluated in a subgroup of children (n = 27), and the test was validated using children with congenital anosmia (n = 14). Results Twelve odors were familiar to children and, therefore, included in the U-Sniff test. Children scored a mean +/- SD of 9.88 +/- 1.80 points out of 12. Normative data was obtained and reported for each country. The U-Sniff test demonstrated a high test-retest reliability (r(27) = 0.83, P < .001) and enabled discrimination between normosmia and children with congenital anosmia with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 86%.ConclusionsThe U-Sniff is a valid and reliable method of testing olfaction in children and can be used internationally.
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| 10. |
- Singer, Susanne, et al.
(författare)
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International validation of the revised European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Head and Neck Cancer Module, the EORTC QLQ-HN43: Phase IV.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Head & neck. - : Wiley. - 1097-0347 .- 1043-3074. ; 41:6, s. 1725-1737
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We validated the new European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Head and Neck Module (EORTC QLQ-HN43).We enrolled 812 patients with head and neck cancer from 18 countries. Group 1 completed the questionnaire before therapy, and 3 and 6 months later. In group 2 (survivors), we determined test-retest reliability using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's Alpha, the scale structure with confirmatory factor analysis, and discriminant validity with known-group comparisons.Cronbach's alpha was >0.70 in 10 of the 12 multi-item scales. All standardized factor loadings exceeded 0.40. The ICC was >0.70 in all but two scales. Differences in scale scores between known-groups were >10 points in 17 of the 19 scales. Sensitivity to change was found to be sufficient in 18 scales.Evidence supports the reliability and validity of the EORTC QLQ-HN43 as a measure of quality of life.
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