[BioC] flowCore: logicle transformation of flow cytometry data
Josef Spidlen
jspidlen at bccrc.ca
Thu Oct 8 20:47:42 CEST 2009
Hi Nishant,
> Now that you mention there are issues with the implementation of flowCores
> logicle transform it would be great if you could provide more information
> regarding what exactly is incorrect here so that the issue can be corrected.
I believe that there is a minor issue related to parameterization and
maybe the use of natural vs. decadic logs in the code. When you use
logicle with say d=5 and r=the range of your data, then the max of your
data after the transformation should be d, i.e, 5. Your implementation
seems to stretch it to 5*ln(10). Looking at the actual values, I wasn't
able to match it to my implementation even when I set the range to
5*ln(10). So there may be issues with my implementation, your
implementation, or both of them :-)... or maybe just with matching the
parameters... Anyways, I guess I'll get back to you offline with more
details... And I guess I should get my implementation validated before
blaming you :-)
> Has the results/software used for the Gating ML standards unit tests for
> the logicle transformation been verified by Parks and Moore to be correct
> so that everyone has a gold standard that has been verified to be correct
> from the original authors of the transformation?
Not yet but that is the plan and they agreed to doing so. I gave them
all the necessary bits on September 22 and we have a call with them
scheduled for October 27. These are busy people but I hope to hear back
from them by than.
> Also what is the level of compliance to the standards definition for this
> transformation amongst the currently available flow cytometry software.
I guess zero. But some of them are working on it and trying to refactor
their own code. At this point, third party software is usually
implementing some kind of logicle transformation that does something
reasonable to the data but it is not fully compliant. My understanding
is that they are usually trying to set the parameters automatically
based on the data but it is not even easy for them to understand their
own code. This is particularly due to external programmers having
implemented some functionality in their software and particularly due to
additional optimization and 'magic' with the data making it nicer and
faster for the end users (e.g., combining the transformation with
compensation or applying some smoothing to avoid instrumentation related
artifacts, such as the fence effect with low values). Some of these
software vendors are actually going to meet with the authors of the
transformation during the CDW workshop in Asilomar next week with the
purpose of sorting this out.
Also, Gating-ML 2.0 (the one with Logicle included) has not been
released yet. I believe the Logicle transformation in there is kind of
fixed by now (this took like 8 months to accomplish) but some other
features will likely be added before Gating-ML 2.0 is released (e.g., BD
requests the quad gates to be added).
> 3) Future updates will be made to flowCore to
> a. Add the new parameter "A" defined for the transform.
> b. Move all the inputs to the decade scale...
That sounds great... so maybe once you have that, I'll also have my
implementation validated (and fixed eventually) and than we could
properly compare it to the updated implementation in flowCore. This
should help us resolve all outstanding issues and if we can match, it
would provide additional validation for the both of us.
Thanks again for doing this!
Cheers,
Josef
--
Josef Spidlen, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Agency
675 West 10th Avenue, V5Z 1L3 Vancouver, BC, Canada
Tel: +1 (604) 675-8000 x 7755
More information about the Bioconductor
mailing list