Tel Aviv University

About: Tel Aviv University is a education organization based out in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Medicine. The organization has 47791 authors who have published 115959 publications receiving 3904391 citations. The organization is also known as: TAU & Universiṭat Tel-Aviv.

GUIDANCE: a web server for assessing alignment confidence scores

Abstract: Evaluating the accuracy of multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is critical for virtually every comparative sequence analysis that uses an MSA as input. Here we present the GUIDANCE web-server, a user-friendly, open access tool for the identification of unreliable alignment regions. The web-server accepts as input a set of unaligned sequences. The server aligns the sequences and provides a simple graphic visualization of the confidence score of each column, residue and sequence of an alignment, using a color-coding scheme. The method is generic and the user is allowed to choose the alignment algorithm (ClustalW, MAFFT and PRANK are supported) as well as any type of molecular sequences (nucleotide, protein or codon sequences). The server implements two different algorithms for evaluating confidence scores: (i) the heads-or-tails (HoT) method, which measures alignment uncertainty due to co-optimal solutions; (ii) the GUIDANCE method, which measures the robustness of the alignment to guide-tree uncertainty. The server projects the confidence scores onto the MSA and points to columns and sequences that are unreliably aligned. These can be automatically removed in preparation for downstream analyses. GUIDANCE is freely available for use at http://guidance.tau.ac.il.

Behavioral and intellectual markers for schizophrenia in apparently healthy male adolescents.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: Subtle behavioral and intellectual abnormalities are often present in apparently healthy adolescents who later develop schizophrenia. The authors investigated whether these abnormalities can predict vulnerability for schizophrenia before the first psychotic manifestation. METHOD: The study consisted of linking the Israeli Draft Board Registry with the National Psychiatric Hospitalization Case Registry. The draft board tests measure intelligence, social functioning, organizational ability, interest in physical activity, and individual autonomy. Patients (N=509) were compared to nonpatients, i.e., adolescents not appearing in the National Psychiatric Registry (N=9,215), matched to patients by age, gender, and school attended at time of testing. RESULTS: Healthy male adolescents who were later hospitalized for schizophrenia had significantly lower test scores on all measures than adolescents not reported to the National Psychiatric Registry. The strongest predictors for schizophrenia were deficits...

Equilibrium points of nonatomic games

Abstract: The Nash theorem on the existence of equilibrium points inTV-person non-cooperative games in normal form is generalized to the case when there is a continuum of players endowed with a nonatomic measure. The mathematical tools are those used in mathematical economics, in particular, markets with a continuum of traders. The main result shows that under a restriction on the payoff functions there exists an equilibrium in pure strategies.

Modeling cellular machinery through biological network comparison

Abstract: Molecular networks represent the backbone of molecular activity within the cell. Recent studies have taken a comparative approach toward interpreting these networks, contrasting networks of different species and molecular types, and under varying conditions. In this review, we survey the field of comparative biological network analysis and describe its applications to elucidate cellular machinery and to predict protein function and interaction. We highlight the open problems in the field as well as propose some initial mathematical formulations for addressing them. Many of the methodological and conceptual advances that were important for sequence comparison will likely also be important at the network level, including improved search algorithms, techniques for multiple alignment, evolutionary models for similarity scoring and better integration with public databases.