Early Prediction of Autistic Spectrum Disorder Using Developmental Surveillance Data.

Importance: With the continuous increase in the prevalence of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), effective early screening is crucial for initiating timely interventions and improving outcomes.

Objective: To develop predictive models for ASD using routinely collected developmental surveillance data and to assess their performance in predicting ASD at different ages and in different clinical scenarios.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study used nationwide data of developmental assessments conducted between January 1, 2014, and January 17, 2023, with minimal follow-up of 4 years and outcome collection in March 2023.

A Developmental Surveillance Score for Quantitative Monitoring of Early Childhood Milestone Attainment: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Background: Developmental surveillance, conducted routinely worldwide, is fundamental for timely identification of children at risk of developmental delays. It is typically executed by assessing age-appropriate milestone attainment and applying clinical judgment during health supervision visits. Unlike developmental screening and evaluation tools, surveillance typically lacks standardized quantitative measures, and consequently, its interpretation is often qualitative and subjective.

Youth Mental Health Outcomes up to Two Years After SARS-CoV-2 Infection Long-COVID or Long-Pandemic Syndrome: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Purpose: Youth mental distress has substantially increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is unclear if mental symptoms are directly related to SARS-CoV-2 infection or to social restrictions. We aimed to investigate mental health outcomes in infected versus uninfected adolescents, for up to two years after an index polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

Predicting future onset of depression among middle-aged adults with no psychiatric history.

Background: Depression is a major cause of disability worldwide. Recent data suggest that, in industrialised countries, the prevalence of depression peaks in middle age. Identifying factors predictive of future depressive episodes is crucial for developing prevention strategies for this age group.

Data-Driven Assessment of Adolescents' Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: Adolescents' mental health was severely compromised during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longitudinal real-world studies on changes in the mental health of adolescents during the later phase of the pandemic are limited. We aimed to quantify the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents' mental health outcomes based on electronic health records.

An autonomous debating system.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as the ability of machines to perform tasks that are usually associated with intelligent beings. Argument and debate are fundamental capabilities of human intelligence, essential for a wide range of human activities, and common to all human societies. The development of computational argumentation technologies is therefore an important emerging discipline in AI research.

Comparative biology: beyond sequence analysis.

Comparative analysis is a fundamental tool in biology. Conservation among species greatly assists the detection and characterization of functional elements, whereas inter-species differences are probably the best indicators of biological adaptation. Traditionally, comparative approaches were applied to the analysis of genomic sequences.

Faster algorithms for optimal multiple sequence alignment based on pairwise comparisons.

Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) is one of the most fundamental problems in computational molecular biology. The running time of the best known scheme for finding an optimal alignment, based on dynamic programming, increases exponentially with the number of input sequences. Hence, many heuristics were suggested for the problem.

Conservation of expression and sequence of metabolic genes is reflected by activity across metabolic states.

Variation in gene expression levels on a genomic scale has been detected among different strains, among closely related species, and within populations of genetically identical cells. What are the driving forces that lead to expression divergence in some genes and conserved expression in others? Here we employ flux balance analysis to address this question for metabolic genes. We consider the genome-scale metabolic model of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and its entire space of optimal and near-optimal flux distributions.

The design of transcription-factor binding sites is affected by combinatorial regulation.

Background: Transcription factors regulate gene expression by binding to specific cis-regulatory elements in gene promoters. Although DNA sequences that serve as transcription-factor binding sites have been characterized and associated with the regulation of numerous genes, the principles that govern the design and evolution of such sites are poorly understood.

Results: Using the comprehensive mapping of binding-site locations available in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we examined possible factors that may have an impact on binding-site design.

ProtoNet: hierarchical classification of the protein space.

The ProtoNet site provides an automatic hierarchical clustering of the SWISS-PROT protein database. The clustering is based on an all-against-all BLAST similarity search. The similarities' E-score is used to perform a continuous bottom-up clustering process by applying alternative rules for merging clusters.

The advantage of functional prediction based on clustering of yeast genes and its correlation with non-sequence based classifications.

Sequence similarity is probably the most widely used tool to infer functional linkage between proteins. The fully sequenced, much researched, genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae gives us on opportunity to compare and statistically quantify computational methods based on sequence similarity, which aim to detect such linkage. In addition, the amount of data regarding Saccharomyces Cerevisiae genes and proteins, which is not directly based on sequence is rapidly increasing.