Yoxas/statistical_literacy huggingface dataset:
Stable isotopes are routinely applied to determine the impact of factors such as aging, disease, exercise, and feeding on whole-body protein metabolism. The most common approaches to quantify whole-body protein synthesis, breakdown, and oxidation rates and net protein balance are based on the quantification of plasma amino acid kinetics. In the postabsorptive state, plasma amino acid kinetics can easily be assessed using a constant infusion of one or more stable isotope labeled amino acid tracers. In the postprandial state, there is an exogenous, dietary protein-derived amino acid flux that needs to be accounted for. To accurately quantify both endogenous as well as exogenous (protein-derived) amino acid release in the circulation, the continuous tracer infusion method should be accompanied by the ingestion of intrinsically labeled protein. However, the production of labeled protein is too expensive and labor intensive for use in more routine research studies. Alternative approaches have either assumed that 100% of exogenous amino acids are released in the circulation or applied an estimated percentage based on protein digestibility. However, such estimations can introduce large artifacts in the assessment of whole-body protein metabolism. The preferred estimation approach is based on the extrapolation of intrinsically labeled protein-derived plasma bioavailability data obtained in a similar experimental design setting. Here, we provide reference data on exogenous plasma amino acid release that can be applied to allow a more accurate routine assessment of postprandial protein metabolism. More work in this area is needed to provide a more extensive reference data set.
Stage at cancer diagnosis is an important predictor of cancer survival. TNM stage is constructed for anatomic solid cancer diagnoses from tumor size (T), nodal spread (N) and distant metastasis (M) and categorized in groups 0-I, II, II and IV. TNM stage is imperative in cancer diagnosis, management and control, and of high value in cancer surveillance, for example, monitoring of stage distributions. This study yields an overview of TNM availability and trends in stage distribution in the Nordic countries for future use in monitoring and epidemiologic studies. TNM information was acquired from the cancer registries in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland during 2004-2016 for 26 cancer sites in the three former countries and four in Iceland. We studied availability, comparability, and distribution of TNM stage in three periods: 2004-2008, 2009-2013, and 2014-2016, applying a previously validated algorithm of 'N0M0 for NXMX'. For cancers of colon, rectum, lung, breast, and kidney, we examined TNM stage-specific 1-year relative survival to evaluate the quality in registration of TNM between countries. Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland exhibited available TNM stage proportions of 75-95% while proportions were lower in Norway. Proportions increased in Sweden over time but decreased in Denmark. One-year relative survival differed substantially more between TNM stages than between countries emphasizing that TNM stage is an important predictor for survival and that stage recording is performed similarly in the Nordic countries. Assessment and registration of TNM stage is an imperative tool in evaluations of trends in cancer survival between the Nordic countries.
Stakeholders increasingly expect research and care delivery to be guided by and to optimize patient experiences. However, standardized tools to engage patients to gather high-quality data about their experiences, priorities, and desired outcomes are not publicly available. The objective of this study was to develop and test a Toolbox with a disease-agnostic interview guide template and accompanying resources to assist researchers in engaging patients living with chronic disease in a dialogue about their experiences. Guided by a multidisciplinary workgroup, a targeted literature review (PubMed) was conducted, followed by group discussions to identify/thematically organize patient experience concepts, development of a conceptual model, and drafting of an interview guide template and patient-facing visual. Materials were tested/refined via cognitive (n = 5) and pilot (n = 30) interviews conducted virtually with US patients diagnosed with chronic/potentially disabling conditions from December 2020 to April 2021. Patient-facing tools were reviewed by health literacy experts for applicability/accessibility. English-speaking adults who self-reported receiving a chronic condition diagnosis at least 6 months prior participated in a 60-90 min interview. Patient experience concepts were organized thematically under three domains: (1) life before a diagnosis, (2) experiences getting a diagnosis, and (3) experiences living with a diagnosis. A plain language consent sheet template, interview guide template, and patient experience conceptual model were developed and revised based on input from interviewees, interviewers, and the workgroup. A disease-agnostic patient-engagement Toolbox was developed and tested to capture patient experience data. These materials can be customized based on study objectives and leveraged by various stakeholders to identify opportunities to enhance the patient centricity of healthcare delivery and research.
Standard ChIP-seq and RNA-seq processing pipelines typically disregard sequencing reads whose origin is ambiguous ("multimappers"). This usual practice has potentially important consequences for the functional interpretation of the data: genomic elements belonging to clusters composed of highly similar members are left unexplored. In particular, disregarding multimappers leads to the underrepresentation in epigenetic studies of recently active transposable elements, such as AluYa5, L1HS and SVAs. Furthermore, this common strategy also has implications for transcriptomic analysis: members of repetitive gene families, such the ones including major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II genes, are under-quantified. Revealing inherent biases that permeate routine tasks such as functional enrichment analysis, our results underscore the urgency of broadly adopting multimapper-aware bioinformatic pipelines -currently restricted to specific contexts or communities- to ensure the reliability of genomic and transcriptomic studies.
Standard therapy for patients with Relapsed/Refractory Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (RR DLBCL) involves salvage chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant. However, information regarding the number of patients receiving salvage therapy and associated factors is not available from low/middle income countries (LMICs). All patients treated at our center with RR DLBCL from 2016 to 2021 were included in the study. Univariate and multivariate analyses was performed to find factors associated with the lack of receipt of salvage chemotherapy. Eighty-five patients were included in the study. Most patients had primary refractory disease (69.4%). Only 26 patients received standard salvage therapy, while the others (N = 59) received metronomic/palliative oral therapy. On univariate analysis, patients with an annual income below India's Gross National Income per capita (p = 0.014), an education level below Class XII (p = 0.025), Stage III/IV disease at relapse (p = 0.018) and CNS relapse (p = 0.027) were more likely to receive palliative therapy. Conversely, patients with a late relapse were more likely to receive salvage therapy (p = 0.001). On multivariate analysis, patients with Stage III/IV relapse (p = 0.030) and an education level less than Class XII (p = 0.012) were more likely to receive palliative therapy, while patients with a late relapse (p = 0.001) were more likely to receive salvage therapy. Patients who received salvage therapy had a longer Median OS than those who received palliative therapy (p < 0.001). Timing of relapse, stage at relapse and educational status of the patient are significant factors affecting access to effective therapy for patients with RR DLBCL in LMICs.
Standardized routine operation management (SROM) has been widely accepted and applied by kinds of enterprises and played a key supporting role. With full use of the emerging knowledge-based smart management technology, SROM will further increase comprehensive efficiency and save human resources greatly at the same time, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Hence, we propose a systematic knowledge-based smart management method to transfer SROM activities from human operations to automatic response by means of knowledge explicitation, organization, sharing and reusing, which can be further achieved by employing knowledge graph. We took a typical SROM instance, ISO 9000 implementation management, as an example to validate the transformation from human activities to knowledge graph-based automatic operation. We firstly analyzed characteristics of domain knowledge and constructed an ontology model according to the knowledge stability. Secondly, a hybrid knowledge graph construction and dynamic updating framework together with related algorithms were designed by deliberately integrating semantic similarity calculation and natural language processing. Thirdly, we developed a question-answering mechanism and reasoning system based on the ISO 9000 implementation knowledge graph to support automatic decision and feedback for ISO 9000 routine operation management including knowledge learning and processes auditing. Finally, the practicability and effectiveness of SROM knowledge graph has been validated in a SME in China, realizing the application of question-answering, job responsibility recommendation, conflict detection, semantic detection, multidimensional statistical analysis. The proposed method can also be generalized to support auxiliary optimization decision, vertical risk control, operation mode analysis, optimization model improvement experience and so on.
Standardized training programs for open (OKT) and robot-assisted kidney transplantation (RAKT) remain unmet clinical needs. To fill this gap, we designed a modified Delphi Consensus aiming to propose the first structured surgical curricula for both OKT and RAKT, involving a multispecialty international panel of experts. Two web-based surveys were built drafting two separate series of statements (for OKT and RAKT, respectively). The two surveys were delivered to a panel of 63 experts (for OKT) and 21 experts (for RAKT), selected considering their experience, academic profile and involvement in international associations. Consensus was defined as ≥75% agreement between the responders. Overall, 25/63 (40%) and 14/21 (67%) participated in the first round of the Delphi Consensus for the development of the structured curriculum for OKT and RAKT, respectively. During the second round, the experts reached consensus on all statements, as well as on the domains composing the structure of the training pathway: 1) eligibility criteria for trainees and host centres; 2) theoretical training; 3) simulation; 4) real case observation; and 5) modular training in the operating theatre. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first proposal of a dedicated curriculum for OKT and RAKT grounded on insights from international experts of different specialties. Our proposed curriculum provides the foundation to standardize the education and training in KT across Europe and beyond.
Standards contribute to comprehensive and programmatic implementation of educational strategies, such as scaffolding. Although the development of educational standards follows a rigorous consensus approach, they are socially constructed and could result in varied interpretations by users. Reports of varied implementation of standards in health professions education underscore the need to test the developed standards for scaffolding in health sciences programmes. Usability entails determining whether a product like standards works as intended under the expected conditions and contexts. This study aimed to describe the usability of standards for scaffolding in a health sciences programme through a pilot study. A multi-method design employing user and expert-based usability evaluation techniques sought to describe the usability of the standards for scaffolding in a three-year pre-registration nursing programme. The user sample of nurse educators drawn from the programme, conducted a self-assessment on scaffolding practices in the programme using a developed standards checklist. For the expert sample, three-panel members with an understanding of the discipline and programme context were purposively sampled. These panelists studied the users' self-assessment reports before completing an author-generated heuristics checklist to support or refute any of the standards. Descriptive statistics, comparative and content analysis were applied to analyse data from users' interviews and expert's completed heuristics checklist, determining the standards' usability, and identifying the usability flaws or strengths. The users had three or more years of teaching experience in the competency-based curriculum for nursing. The experts shared an average of 16 years of experience in teaching in higher education, and seven years of experience in quality assurance and programme accreditation. The four standards had a usability score of above average (68%). Seven usability strengths and four usability flaws were identified. Usability flaws related to misinterpretation of some criteria statements and terminologies, multiple meanings, and users' challenges in generating evidence for some criteria. The pilot study revealed the context-based 'truth' regarding the fidelity of a health sciences programme evaluation on scaffolding, as well as identifying the ideal contextual conditions in which the standards for scaffolding health sciences programmes would work best. The identified usability flaws highlighted the need for further revisions of the standards. Future research on the feasibility of the standards in other health sciences programmes and contexts is recommended.
Statins are effective for preventing cardiovascular disease. However, many patients decide not to take statins because of negative influences, such as online misinformation. Online health information may affect decisions on medication adherence, but measuring it is challenging. This study aimed to examine the associations between online health information behaviour and statin adherence in patients with high cardiovascular risk. A prospective cohort study involving 233 patients with high cardiovascular risk was conducted at a primary care clinic in Malaysia. Participants used a digital information diary tool to record online health information they encountered for 2 months and completed a questionnaire about statin necessity, concerns and adherence at the end of the observation period. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results showed that 55.8% (130 of 233 patients) encountered online health information. Patients who actively sought online health information (91 of 233 patients) had higher concerns about statin use (β = 0.323, p = 0.023). Participants with higher concern about statin use were also more likely to be non-adherent (β = -0.337, p < 0.001). Patients who actively sought online health information were more likely to have lower statin adherence, mediated by higher concerns about statin use (indirect effect, β = -0.109, p = 0.048). Our results suggest that patients with higher levels of concern about statins may be actively seeking online information about statins, and their concerns might influence how they search, what they find, and the potential to encounter misinformation. Our study highlights the importance of addressing patients' concerns about medications to improve adherence.
Statistical books can provide deep insights into statistics and software. There are, however, many resources available to the practitioner. Book reviews have the capacity to function as a critical mechanism for the learner to assess the merits of engaging in part, in full, or at all with a book. The "ten simple rules" format, pioneered in computational biology, was applied here to writing effective book reviews for statistics because of the wide breadth of offerings in this domain, including topical introductions, computational solutions, and theory. Learning by doing is a popular paradigm in statistics and computation, but there is still a niche for books in the pedagogy of self-taught and instruction-based learning. Primarily, these rules ensure that book reviews function as a form of short syntheses to inform and guide readers in deciding to use a specific book relative to other options for resolving statistical challenges.
Statistical indices of masculinity-femininity (M-F) summarize multivariate profiles of sex-related traits as positions on a single continuum of individual differences, from masculine to feminine. This approach goes back to the early days of sex differences research; however, a systematic discussion of alternative M-F indices (including their meaning, their mutual relations, and their psychometric properties) has been lacking. In this paper I present an integrative theoretical framework for the statistical assessment of masculinity-femininity, and provide practical guidance to researchers who wish to apply these methods to their data. I describe four basic types of M-F indices: sex-directionality, sex-typicality, sex-probability, and sex-centrality. I examine their similarities and differences in detail, and consider alternative ways of computing them. Next, I discuss the impact of measurement error on the validity of these indices, and outline some potential remedies. Finally, I illustrate the concepts presented in the paper with a selection of real-world datasets on body morphology, brain morphology, and personality. An R function is available to easily calculate multiple M-F indices from empirical data (with or without correction for measurement error) and draw summary plots of their individual and joint distributions.
Statistical inference, the ability to use limited information to draw conclusions about the likelihood of an event, is critical for decision-making during uncertainty. The ability to make statistical inferences was thought to be a uniquely human skill requiring verbal instruction and mathematical reasoning.1 However, basic inferences have been demonstrated in both preliterate and pre-numerate individuals,2,3,4,5,6,7 as well as non-human primates.8 More recently, the ability to make statistical inferences has been extended to members outside of the primate lineage in birds.9,10 True statistical inference requires subjects use relative rather than absolute frequency of previously experienced events. Here, we show that crows can relate memorized reward probabilities to infer reward-maximizing decisions. Two crows were trained to associate multiple reward probabilities ranging from 10% to 90% to arbitrary stimuli. When later faced with the choice between various stimulus combinations, crows retrieved the reward probabilities associated with individual stimuli from memory and used them to gain maximum reward. The crows showed behavioral distance and size effects when judging reward values, indicating that the crows represented probabilities as abstract magnitudes. When controlling for absolute reward frequency, crows still made reward-maximizing choices, which is the signature of true statistical inference. Our study provides compelling evidence of decision-making by relative reward frequency in a statistical inference task.
Statistical learning (SL) is a method of learning based on the transitional probabilities embedded in sequential phenomena such as music and language. It has been considered an implicit and domain-general mechanism that is innate in the human brain and that functions independently of intention to learn and awareness of what has been learned. SL is an interdisciplinary notion that incorporates information technology, artificial intelligence, musicology, and linguistics, as well as psychology and neuroscience. A body of recent study has suggested that SL can be reflected in neurophysiological responses based on the framework of information theory. This paper reviews a range of work on SL in adults and children that suggests overlapping and independent neural correlations in music and language, and that indicates disability of SL. Furthermore, this article discusses the relationships between the order of transitional probabilities (TPs) (i.e., hierarchy of local statistics) and entropy (i.e., global statistics) regarding SL strategies in human's brains; claims importance of information-theoretical approaches to understand domain-general, higher-order, and global SL covering both real-world music and language; and proposes promising approaches for the application of therapy and pedagogy from various perspectives of psychology, neuroscience, computational studies, musicology, and linguistics.
Statistical learning (SL) plays a key role in literacy acquisition. Studies have increasingly revealed the influence of distributional statistical properties of words on visual word processing, including the effects of word frequency (lexical level) and mappings between orthography, phonology, and semantics (sub-lexical level). However, there has been scant evidence to directly confirm that the statistical properties contained in print can be directly characterized by neural activities. Using time-resolved representational similarity analysis (RSA), the present study examined neural representations of different types of statistical properties in visual word processing. From the perspective of predictive coding, an equal probability sequence with low built-in prediction precision and three oddball sequences with high built-in prediction precision were designed with consistent and three types of inconsistent (orthographically inconsistent, orthography-to-phonology inconsistent, and orthography-to-semantics inconsistent) Chinese characters as visual stimuli. In the three oddball sequences, consistent characters were set as the standard stimuli (probability of occurrence p = 0.75) and three types of inconsistent characters were set as deviant stimuli (p = 0.25), respectively. In the equal probability sequence, the same consistent and inconsistent characters were presented randomly with identical occurrence probability (p = 0.25). Significant neural representation activities of word frequency were observed in the equal probability sequence. By contrast, neural representations of sub-lexical statistics only emerged in oddball sequences where short-term predictions were shaped. These findings reveal that the statistical properties learned from long-term print environment continues to play a role in current word processing mechanisms and these mechanisms can be modulated by short-term predictions.
Statistical literacy and knowledge is needed to read and understand the public health literature. The purpose of this study was to quantify basic and advanced statistical methods used in public health research. We randomly sampled 216 published articles from seven top tier general public health journals. Studies were reviewed by two readers and a standardized data collection form completed for each article. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and frequency distributions. Results were summarized for statistical methods used in the literature, including descriptive and inferential statistics, modeling, advanced statistical techniques, and statistical software used. Approximately 81.9% of articles reported an observational study design and 93.1% of articles were substantively focused. Descriptive statistics in table or graphical form were reported in more than 95% of the articles, and statistical inference reported in more than 76% of the studies reviewed. These results reveal the types of statistical methods currently used in the public health literature. Although this study did not obtain information on what should be taught, information on statistical methods being used is useful for curriculum development in graduate health sciences education, as well as making informed decisions about continuing education for public health professionals.