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Biology subjects

Bi, W.

Publications and source records attributed to Bi, W..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Atlas-CNV: a validated approach to call Single-Exon CNVs in the eMERGESeq gene panel

PurposeTo provide a validated method to confidently identify exon-containing copy number variants (CNVs), with a low false discovery rate (FDR), in targeted sequencing data from a clinical laboratory with particular focus on single-exon CNVs.\n\nMethodsDNA sequence coverage data are normalized within each sample and subsequently exonic CNVs are identified in a batch of samples (midpool), when the target log2 ratio of the sample to the batch median exceeds defined thresholds. The quality of exonic CNV calls is assessed by C-scores (Z-like scores) using thresholds derived from gold standard samples and simulation studies. We integrate an ExonQC threshold to lower FDR and compare performance with alternate software (VisCap).\n\nResultsThirteen CNVs were used as a truth set to validate Atlas-CNV and compared with VisCap. We demonstrated FDR reduction in validation, simulation and 10,926 eMERGESeq samples without sensitivity loss. Sixty-four multi-exon and 29 single-exon CNVs with high C-scores were assessed by MLPA.\n\nConclusionsAtlas-CNV is validated as a method to identify exonic CNVs in targeted sequencing data generated in the clinical laboratory. The ExonQC and C-score assignment can reduce FDR (identification of targets with high variance) and improve calling accuracy of single-exon CNVs respectively. We proposed guidelines and criteria to identify high confidence single-exon CNVs.

genomics

Interaction between static visual cues and force-feedback on the perception of mass of virtual objects

We use force-feedback device and a game engine to measure the effects of material appearance on the perception of mass of virtual objects. We discover that the perceived mass is mainly determined by the ground-truth mass output by the force-feedback device. Different from the classic Material Weight Illusion (MWI), however, heavy-looking objects (e.g. steel) are consistently rated heavier than light-looking ones (e.g. fabric) with the same ground-truth mass. Analysis of the initial accelerated velocity of the movement trajectories of the virtual probe shows greater acceleration for materials with heavier rated mass. This effect is diminished when the participants lift the object for the second time, meaning that the influence of visual appearance disappears in the movement trajectories once it is calibrated by the force-feedback. We also show how the material categories are affected by both the visual appearance and the weight of the object. We conclude that visual appearance has a significant interaction with haptic force-feedback on the perception of mass and also affects the kinematics of how participants manipulate the object.\n\nCCS CONCEPTS* Human-centered computing [->] Empirical studies in HCI; Empirical studies in interaction design; Empirical studies in visualization;\n\nACM Reference FormatWenyan Bi, Jonathan Newport, and Bei Xiao. 2018. Interaction between static visual cues and force-feedback on the perception of mass of virtual objects. In Proceedings of. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5 pages.

neuroscience

Phenotypic expansion in DDX3X -- a common cause of intellectual disability in females

De novo variants in DDX3X account for 1-3% of unexplained intellectual disability (ID), one of the most common causes of ID, in females. Forty-seven patients (44 females, 3 males) have been described. We identified 29 additional individuals carrying 27 unique DDX3X variants in the setting of complex clinical presentations including developmental delay or ID. In addition to previously reported manifestations, rare or novel phenotypes were identified including respiratory problems, congenital heart disease, skeletal muscle mitochondrial DNA depletion, and late-onset neurologic decline. Our findings expand the spectrum of DNA variants and phenotypes associated with DDX3X disorders.

genetics

Estimating mechanical properties of cloth from videos using dense motion trajectories: human psychophysics and machine learning

Humans can visually estimate the mechanical properties of deformable objects (e.g. cloth stiffness). While much of the recent work on material perception has focused on static image cues (e.g., textures and shape), little is known whether humans can integrate information over time to make a judgment. Here, we investigate the effect of spatiotemporal information across multiple frames (multi-frame motion) on estimating the bending stiffness of cloth. Using high-fidelity cloth animations, we first examined how the perceived bending stiffness changed as a function of the physical bending stiffness defined in the simulation model. Using maximum likelihood difference scaling methods (MLDS) we found that the perceived stiffness and the physical bending stiffness were highly correlated. A second experiment in which we scrambled the frame sequences diminished this correlation. This suggests that multi-frame motion plays an important role. To provide further evidence for this finding, we extracted dense motion trajectories from the videos across 15 consecutive frames and used the trajectory descriptors to train a machine-learning model with the measured perceptual scales. The model can predict human perceptual scales in new videos with varied winds, optical properties of cloth, and scene setups. When the correct multi-frame was removed (using either scrambled videos or 2-frame optical flow to train the model), the predictions significantly worsened. Our findings demonstrate that multi-frame motion information is important for both humans and machines to estimate the mechanical properties. In addition, we show that dense motion trajectories are effective features to build a successful automatic cloth estimation system.

neuroscience