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Accurate cell typing is fundamental to analysis of spatial single-cell transcriptomics, but legacy scRNA-seq algorithms can underperform in this new type of data. We have developed a cell typing algorithm, Insitutype, designed for statistical and computational efficiency in spatial transcriptomics data.Insitutype is based on a likelihood model that weighs the evidence from every expression value, extracting all the information available in each cell’s expression profile. This likelihood model underlies a Bayes classifier for supervised cell typing, and an Expectation-Maximization algorithm for unsupervised and semi-supervised clustering. Insitutype also leverages alternative data types collected in spatial studies, such as cell images and spatial context, by using them to inform prior probabilities of cell type calls. We demonstrate rapid clustering of millions of cells and accurate fine-grained cell typing of kidney and non-small cell lung cancer samples.

Purpose As technology integration in auditing continues to grow, it is important to understand how auditors perceive connections between use of generalized audit software (GAS) and audit benefits. Design/methodology/approach The DeLone and McLean information systems success model (2003) is adapted with audit-related uses of GAS as antecedents to information quality. Survey data on 188 current users of GAS, who are financial and IT auditors, is analyzed with partial least squares method. Findings For financial auditors, detecting material misstatements antecedent is the only significant indicator of information quality for GAS. For IT auditors, detecting control deficiencies and fraud significantly impacts information quality. Information quality influences use for both auditors; however, it only influences satisfaction with GAS for financial auditors. System quality impacts GAS satisfaction for only IT auditors and has no impact on GAS use for either type of auditor. Service quality influences use of GAS for financial, but not IT auditors. For both groups, service quality has no impact on satisfaction with GAS, and GAS use and satisfaction with GAS positively increases their perceptions of audit benefits. Originality/value Financial and IT auditors who use GAS are both focused on matching GAS use with their primary audit objectives. Results suggest that as GAS use increases, system quality may be important to satisfaction. Training should first focus on the usefulness of GAS to the audit to increase extent of use. Lastly, the more auditors use GAS and are satisfied with it, the greater their perception GAS contributing directly to benefit the audit.

Background Heat wave early warning systems help alert decision-makers and the public to prepare for hot weather and implement preventive actions to protect health. Prior to harmonization, public health units across Ontario either used independent systems with varying methodologies for triggering and issuing public heat warnings or did not use any system. The federal government also issued heat warnings based on different criteria. During heat events, adjacent public health units in Ontario and the federal government would routinely call heat warnings at different times with separate public messages, leading to confusion. This article describes the collaborative process and key steps in developing a harmonized Heat Warning and Information System (HWIS) for Ontario. Setting Public health units across Ontario, Canada, collaborated with the federal and provincial government to develop the harmonized HWIS for Ontario. Intervention In 2011, stakeholders identified the need to develop a harmonized system across Ontario to improve heat warning services, warning criteria, and health messaging. Through a 5-year process facilitated by a non-governmental organization, the three levels of government collaborated to establish the Ontario HWIS. Outcomes The province-wide HWIS was implemented in 2016 with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s release of the harmonized HWIS Standard Operating Practice, which outlined the notification and warning process. Implications The lessons learned could help spur action in other provinces and jurisdictions internationally in the development of similar health evidence-based warning systems, including in particular those for protecting public health during extreme heat events.

The adoption of risk-based and data-driven (risk–data) approaches is leading to a successful FHWA Scour Program for highway bridges. FHWA, which has oversight for 463,000 bridges spanning waterways, estimates that 60% of bridge failures have hydraulic-related components. Prominent scour failures led to the FHWA Scour Program’s use of legal authority under the National Bridge Inspection Standards. The fundamentals of the FHWA Scour Program include scour evaluations and development of action plans. Quandaries for bridge owners include prioritization and the appropriate level of effort for these fundamentals. In 2011, FHWA implemented a risk–data approach for oversight of the National Bridge Inspection Program. Specific to scour, bridge owners compare the consequence of failure (risk) against facility operational characteristics (data). The risk–data approach prioritizes and applies resources toward bridges posing the greatest threat to public safety or disruption of vital services. The keys to the program’s success are outreach to facilitate progress; comprehensive enhancements to publications and training; and promotion of risk–data within policy, programmatic, stewardship, deployment, and research initiatives.

Mass sporting events in the summertime are influenced by underlying weather patterns, with high temperatures posing a risk for spectators and athletes alike. To better understand weather variations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) during the Pan American Games in 2015 (PA15 Games), Environment and Climate Change Canada deployed a mesoscale monitoring network system of 53 weather stations. Spatial maps across the GTA demonstrate large variations by heat metric (e.g., maximum temperature, humidex, and wet bulb globe temperature), identifying Hamilton, Ontario as an area of elevated heat and humidity, and hence risk for heat-related illness. A case study of the Hamilton Soccer Center examined on-site thermal comfort during a heat event and PA15 Soccer Games, demonstrating that athletes and spectators were faced with thermal discomfort and a heightened risk of heat-related illness. Results are corroborated by First Aid and emergency response data during the events, as well as insight from personal experiences and Twitter feed. Integrating these results provides new information on potential benefits to society from utilizing mesonet systems during large-scale sporting events. Results further improve our understanding of intra-urban heat variability and heat-health burden. The benefits of utilizing more comprehensive modeling approaches for human heat stress that coincide with fine-scale weather information are discussed.

Aeroallergens occur naturally in the environment and are widely dispersed across Canada, yet their public health implications are not well-understood. This review intends to provide a scientific and public health-oriented perspective on aeroallergens in Canada: their distribution, health impacts, and new developments including the effects of climate change and the potential role of aeroallergens in the development of allergies and asthma. The review also describes anthropogenic effects on plant distribution and diversity, and how aeroallergens interact with other environmental elements, such as air pollution and weather events. Increased understanding of the relationships between aeroallergens and health will enhance our ability to provide accurate information, improve preventive measures and provide timely treatments for affected populations.

The analysis of data from social media sites can provide useful decision-making information for businesses; however, can small businesses with limited budgets and limited technical expertise compete in this new social media driven market? This study provides a proof of concept for increasing a company’s competitive knowledge through the use of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) framework model by gathering qualitative data about the use of social media from employee interviews. By increasing the competitive knowledge through evaluating the results of the SWOT analysis, this small start-up company will have a strategic plan for increasing their competitive advantage. The authors present the results of the study in the form of practical recommendations for short-term and long-term implementation. Several of the shortterm and long-term recommendations are substantiated through prior research studies. Future research could include a follow-up study of this company using a SWOT framework tool or other methodologies to indicate what social media tools and strategies provide the most beneficial competitive knowledge for a small business, and why. Additionally, comparing the results from this study with a similar study of a different small start-up business could lead to the design of a model for other small businesses trying to increase their competitive knowledge through the effective use of social media.

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate reported false positive FilmArray GI Panel detections of V. cholerae in clinical patient samples. The gold standard for recovery of V. cholerae is routine stool culture. The FilmArray GI Panel contains two sensitive PCR assays for the detection of V. cholerae; one targets the gyrB gene for genus-level Vibrio identification (focused on detection of V. parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus, and V. cholerae) and the second targets the toxR gene for specific identification of V. cholerae. Methods Clinical samples with discordant V. cholerae detections were requested from source laboratories and then tested on the FilmArray GI Panel. Amplicons from positive samples were extracted, sequenced, and assessed using BLAST search. Results A total of 14 samples were tested during this study. Three re-tested samples were reported positive for V. cholerae. One sample was confirmed as V. cholerae by the presence of V. cholerae specific gyrB and toxR gene sequences. A second sample was confirmed to be either Vibrio alginolyticus or Vibrio diabolicus by gyrB gene sequence and possessed a 100% homolog to the V. cholerae specific toxR gene. The third sample was confirmed to contain two species of Vibrio: V. cholerae and V. parahaemolyticus. This sample was also confirmed to have the V. cholerae specific toxR gene sequence. The remaining 11 samples resulted in a negative V. cholerae result upon retesting. Conclusion The investigation confirmed that the FilmArray GI Panel can detect low level V. cholerae organism not recovered by culture. Studies have shown that isolating V. cholerae through specialized media can prove difficult. V. cholerae causing vibriosis can be food-borne or acquired through exposure to affected bodies of water, marine wildlife, or seafood. We found two rare cases, one with the non-cholerae Vibrio species possessing a V. cholerae specific homolog to the toxR regulon and the one novel detection of a co-infection involving two Vibrio species. These data suggest that there will be an increase in Vibrio detections as molecular methods are more sensitive than culture and become much more common for gastrointestinal pathogen testing. Disclosures K. Clarke, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary; M. Rogatcheva, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary; A. Demogines, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary; D. Henderson, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary; D. Saif, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary; K. Kanack, BioFire Diagnostics, LLC: Employee, Salary

Multiple Valued Logic (MVL) has been gaining popularity and practical applications. In addition to the standard MVL benefits, quaternary logic offers the benefit of easy interfacing to binary logic due to the fact that the radix 4=22 allows for simple encoding/decoding circuits. Quaternary cells based on the Supplementary Symmetrical Logic Circuit Structure (SUSLOC) [2] are modeled and used for our adder circuit structures. Several different adder configurations are designed and modeled using the basic quaternary gates and are modeled with the SystemVerilog modeling language. Different adder configurations are compared for their size and estimated logic depth for area and performance estimation and compared with their binary counterparts.

e19536 Background: Routine diagnosis of classical Hodgkin lymphoma is performed with a panel of immunohistochemistry markers to evaluate the biomarker expression profile of the relatively rare Hodgkin cells. One of the key challenges of this technique is that serial immunostains are used and hence it can be difficult or impossible to locate the same Hodgkin cell on adjacent slides. Given the rarity of the Hodgkin cells coupled with the number of markers that are needed for a definitive diagnosis, we developed a new technique in which a single patient slide is multiplexed with nine different antibodies . Methods: One FFPE tissue section from 11 cases was probed for the following nine biomarkers: CD30, CD15, CD45, Pax5, CD20, CD79a, OCT2, Bob1, and CD3. An initial 10x whole slide fluorescent image of CD30 was acquired and presented to the pathologist who based on this staining selected regions of interest for higher magnification (40x) imaging of the CD30 and the other antibodies. The fluorescent images acquired were processed for interpretation using an in-house developed viewing tool. The pathologist was able to view each biomarker as a standard grayscale, monochromatic image, an overlay of two or more biomarkers, or as a virtually created molecular DAB image. Results: A correct diagnosis of classical Hodgkin lymphoma vs. other was able to be made using the MultiOmyx platform in all cases. Subjectively, the pathologist noted that the novel methodology allowed for a significantly more confident assessment of marker expression on the Hodgkin cells in the seven cases of classical Hodgkin lymphoma, eliminating many issues of staining ambiguity and allowing recognition of subtle nuances of staining intensity in the Hodgkin cells. The CD30+ cells in the four other cases, three cases of B-cell lymphoma and one case of lymphocyte predominance Hodgkin lymphoma, showed a B-cell profile that was distinguishable from the classical Hodgkin cell phenotype. Conclusions: This new method of fluorescent multiplexing on a single tissue section allows more accurate interpretation of the biomarker expression profile on the same Hodgkin cell. It is likely that this paradigm can be expanded to a greater range of challenging cases in hematopathology.