Julio Alvarez
Area of expertise
Veterinary diagnostics, Bayesian Latent Class Models (BLCMs) applied on dichotomic test results
Area of interest
Analysis of continuous data to select optimal cut-offs and/or models that incorporate covariates
Current research task
Analysis of data coming from bovine tuberculosis (bTB) ELISA tests
Robertas Alzbutas
Area of expertise
Advanced Safety Assessment Methodologies, Bayesian Analysis, Probabilistic Dynamics, Structural analysis, Joint Evaluation of
Connected Health Technologies, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Human Reliability, Smart Wearable Sport and Health Solutions, Reliability Engineering, Extreme Events Analysis, Design and Optimization, Structural analysis, Uncertainty analysis, Risk and hazard analysis, Nuclear fusion research, Integrated Risk-Informed Decision Making
Area of interest
Coordination of New International Projects
Current research task
Probabilistic assessment of resistance parameters for COVID-19 related decisions. The project’s activities would aim to determine the relevant resistance parameters, derive relevant formulas, acquire new knowledge and create probabilistic models, software tools and use the available data to evaluate the probabilistic parameters and their accuracy. The mathematical theory of reliability, random processes, survival and epidemiology, mathematical data analysis and statistical methods (e. g. Bayesian methods, various probabilistic distributions) will be applied in the analysis and modeling of events and dynamics. If necessary, big data analytics and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be used
Miroslav Benić
Area of expertise
Microbiology, Mastitis, Epidemiology
Area of interest
Genotyping of bacterial pathogens
Boris Bikbov
Area of expertise
Epidemiology of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), Public Health, Kidney disease, Systematic reviews
Area of interest
Systematic reviews, Modeling of diagnostic tests Se/ Sp, Modeling of disease prevalence
Sorana D. Bolboacă
Area of expertise
Radiology and medical imaging, Medical research methods
Area of interest
Understanding BLCMs
Current research task
Blood measurements on patients with cancer – try to identify which ones are useful markers for prediction
Dora Buonfrate
Area of expertise
Clinical aspects of infectious diseases and public health aspects related to the control of neglected tropical diseases
Area of interest
1. Methodology for evaluation of diagnostic tests in absence of a diagnostic gold standard
2. Methodology for estimation of disease prevalence
3. Cost-effectiveness in different settings (high-low incomes countries)
Arianna Comin
Area of expertise
1. Epidemiological analyses of animal health and welfare data
2. Basic BLCMs for diagnostic test evaluation
Area of interest
BLCMs for evaluation of diagnostic tests with continuous outcome, test dependencies and different test performances across populations, demonstrating freedom from disease
Current research task
BLCMs for the evaluation of diagnostic tests, estimate accuracy of meat inspection, scenario tree modelling for demonstrating disease freedom
Paolo Eusebi
Area of expertise
Diagnostic meta-analyses & mixture models
Area of interest
Programming and systematic review of literature
Current research task
1. Use of healthcare electronic data for incidence and prevalence estimation
2. Collaboration for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
David Faraggi
Area of expertise
Biostatistics, Clinical trials, Receiver Operating characteristic (ROC) curves, Neural networks
Area of interest
Clinical and practical aspects, Bayesian approach
Current research task
1. Development of a web based modular platform to manage and collect data that can be easily adapted to any study design
2. Head of the Statistical Consulting Unit that can serve as a Data Coordinating Center for any study
Felix Fischer
Area of expertise
Patient-reported outcome measurement and use of health questionnaires as diagnostic tools
Area of interest
Accounting for measurement error in prevalence estimation
Current research task
Diagnostic accuracy of the Patient Health Questionaire-9 (PHQ-9)
Oscar Franco
Area of expertise
Epidemiology, Life tables, Cardiovascular prevention, Ageing
Area of interest
Health economics, modelling
Sonja Hartnack
Area of expertise
Veterinary Public Health, Biostatistics, Veterinary Medical Ethics
Area of interest
BLCMs with covariates and random effects
Current research task
BLCM for COVID-19 diagnostic tests
Tomas Iesmantas
Area of expertise
Bayesian inference, MCMC, Machine learning, Deep learning
Area of interest
1. Application of deep learning development of new methods (and more general machine learning) to biomedical cases like cell segmentation, histological image classification, MRI segmentation for multiple sclerosis, etc.
2.Application of MCMC techniques for Bayesian inference in survival models (hierarchical, spatial dependence, etc.)
Andrzej Jarynowski
Area of expertise
Computational epidemiology
Area of interest
Infectious disease epidemiology and epizootiology
Current research task
Risk perception of infectious disease and infodemiology
Jörn Klein
Area of expertise
Infection prevention, Virology
Area of interest
Epidemiology
Current research task
Airborne transmission of SARS-COV2
Tanja Knific
Area of expertise
Veterinary epidemiology and economics
Area of interest
1. Sampling design for Bayesian diagnostic test evaluation
2. Bayesian methods for disease transmission and cost estimation
Current research task
I developed a compartmental model for paratuberculosis spread in a small herd (using EMULSION) and a model for human exposure assessment (using @RISK). Later this year I plan to extend these models and try to use Bayesian methods
Xhelil Koleci
Area of expertise
Veterinary epidemiology and infectious diseases
Area of interest
Modeling, Data Analyzing, R
Polychronis Kostoulas
Area of expertise
1. Epidemiological analyses
2. BLCMs for diagnostic test evaluation
Area of interest
Evaluation of diagnostic tests
Current research task
BLCMs for the evaluation of diagnostic tests, true prevalence estimation and poof of disease freedom
Siniša Lakić
Area of expertise
Educating students in statistics (frequentist and Bayesian; statistics for psychologists), frequentist Latent Class Analysis, as used in social science
Area of interest
Participate in writing a common-sense argumentative guide and/or creating an online tutorial on conducting analyses using BLCMs for beginners
Marcel Leppée
Area of expertise
Networking and Knowledge sharing
Area of interest
Data of true disease prevalence with BLCMs
Current research task
Epidemiological research of zoonosis
Thibaut Lurier
Area of expertise
BLCMs, Farm animal medicine and surgery
Area of interest
Handling of continuous data
Current research task
BLCMs generalization to continuous data
Eleftherios Meletis
Area of expertise
Application of Bayesian methods in the evaluation of diagnostic tests and true prevalence estimation
Area of interest
Available datasets that can be used to develop & apply BLCMs
Saša Missoni
Area of expertise
Research on complex diseases
Area of interest
Bioinformatics
Current research task
Child growth, prevention of complex disease, isolated population
Søren Saxmose Nielsen
Area of expertise
Paratuberculosis, Cattle, Infectious diseases
Area of interest
Modelling prevalence when the infection is latent
Ömer Orkun
Area of expertise
Epidemiology, mainly relating with ticks and tick-borne pathogens
Area of interest
1. Novel research projects dealing with the epidemiology of tick-borne pathogens, and their early warning systems (using statistical methods)
2. Writing scientific papers relating with spatial distribution of ticks and tick-borne diseases and some meta-analyses of them
Current research task
Molecular epidemiology of multiple tick-borne pathogens, which cause infection in both animals and/or humans, in ticks and vertebrate host (mainly including wild and domestic animals); such as Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), Spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsiae, Lyme borreliosis, babesiosis, theileriosis, anaplasmosis etc.
László Ózsvári
Area of expertise
Animal health economics and veterinary administration (State veterinary medicine)
Area of interest
1. Application of BLCMs
2. Estimations on prevalence and production impact of diseases
Current research task
Paratuberculosis (PTBC) – related issues
Sara Savic
Area of expertise
Zoonotic diseases, Vector borne diseases, Diagnostics, Methodology
Area of interest
True prevalence estimation
Current research task
True prevalence estimation instead of apparent prevalence estimation (positive/analyzed), which is currently used in our research
Carolina Soledad Romero García
Area of expertise
Anesthesia and Critical Care, Evidence based research, Statistics communicator in human medicine
Area of interest
Application of BLCMs and Neural Networks
Current research task
Clinical scores for predicting COVID-19 hospitalisation, Spatiotemporal spread of COVID-19, Pain and neural networks, Medical software and health digitalization
Michel Vaillant
Area of expertise
Public Health, Clinical Trials, Neglected Tropical Diseases
Area of interest
BLCMs & Metanalyses
Current research task
Metanalysis of diagnostic studies of Schistosomiasis in low prevalence settings