bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Florence Nightingale, statistics and the Crimean War
Authors: McDonald Lynn 
Published: October 2013

SummaryThe paper presents Florence Nightingale’s statistical work on the Crimean War, beginning with her iconic polar area charts. These are then adapted to give a more accurate portrayal of the relative causes of war hospital deaths. French statistical reports comparing British and French Army deaths are reported. The contention in the secondary literature that Nightingale was responsible for the high death rates in the war hospitals is rebutted, with comparative death rate data from the different hospitals.
Longitudinal Analysis of Self-Reported Health Status by Mixture Latent Auto-Regressive Models
Authors: Bartolucci Francesco , Bacci Silvia , Pennoni Fulvia 
Published: October 2013

SummaryMotivated by an application to a longitudinal data set coming from the Health and Retirement Study about self-reported health status, we propose a model for longitudinal data which is based on a latent process to account for the unobserved heterogeneity between sample units in a dynamic fashion. The latent process is modelled by a mixture of auto-regressive AR(1) processes with different means and correlation coefficients, but with equal variances. We show how to perform maximum likelihood estimation of the proposed model by the joint use of an expectation–maximization algorithm and a Newton–Raphson algorithm, implemented by means of recursions developed in the hidden Markov model literature. We also introduce a simple method to obtain standard errors for the parameter estimates and suggest a strategy to choose the number of mixture components. In the application the response variable is ordinal; however, the approach may also be applied in other settings. Moreover, the application to the self-reported health status data set allows us to show that the model proposed is more flexible than other models for longitudinal data based on a continuous latent process. The model also achieves a goodness of fit that is similar to that of models based on a discrete latent process following a Markov chain, while retaining a reduced number of parameters. The effect of different formulations of the latent structure of the model is evaluated in terms of estimates of the regression parameters for the covariates.
Linear Mixed Modelling for Data from a Double Mixed Factorial Design with Covariates: A Case-Study on Semantic Categorization Response Times
Authors: González B. Jorge , De Boeck Paul , Tuerlinckx Francis 
Published: October 2013

SummaryLinear mixed modelling is a useful approach for double mixed factorial designs with covariates. It is explained how these designs are appropriate for the study of human behaviour as a function of characteristics of individuals and situations and stimuli in the situations. The behaviour of subjects nested in types of individual responding to stimuli nested in types of stimuli defines a mixed factorial design. The inclusion of additional covariates of the observational units can help to explain the behaviour under study further. A linear mixed modelling approach for such designs allows a combined focus on fixed effects (general effects) and individual and stimulus differences in these effects. This combination has the potential to advance the integration of two different subdisciplines of psychology, general psychology and differential psychology, so that they can borrow strength from each other. An application is presented with semantic categorization response time data from a factorial design with age groups by word types and with age of acquisition as an additional covariate of the words. The results throw light on the processes underlying the effect of age of acquisition and on individual differences and word differences.
A Generalized Quasi-Likelihood Scoring Approach for Simultaneously Testing the Genetic Association of Multiple Traits
Authors: Feng Zeny 
Published: October 2013

SummaryIn the genetic association analysis of Holstein cattle data, researchers are interested in testing the association between a genetic marker with more than one estimated breeding value phenotype. It is well known that testing each trait individually may lead to problems of controlling the overall type I error rate and simultaneous testing of the association between a marker and multiple traits is desired. The analysis of Holstein cattle data has additional challenges due to complicated relationships between subjects. Furthermore, phenotypic data in many other genetic studies can be quantitative, binary, ordinal, count data or a combination of different types of data. Motivated by these problems, we propose a novel statistical method that allows simultaneous testing of multiple phenotypes and the flexibility to accommodate data from a broad range of study designs. The empirical results indicate that this new method effectively controls the overall type I error rate at the desired level; it is also generally more powerful than testing each trait individually at a given overall type I error rate. The method is applied to the analysis of Holstein cattle data as well as to data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism to demonstrate the flexibility of the approach with different phenotypic data types.
A Bayesian Dose Finding Design for Oncology Clinical Trials of Combinational Biological Agents
Authors: Cai Chunyan , Yuan Ying , Ji Yuan 
Published: October 2013

SummaryTreating patients with novel biological agents is becoming a leading trend in oncology. Unlike cytotoxic agents, for which efficacy and toxicity monotonically increase with dose, biological agents may exhibit non-monotonic patterns in their dose–response relationships. Using a trial with two biological agents as an example, we propose a dose finding design to identify the biologically optimal dose combination, which is defined as the dose combination of the two agents with the highest efficacy and tolerable toxicity. A change point model is used to reflect the fact that the dose–toxicity surface of the combinational agents may plateau at higher dose levels, and a flexible logistic model is proposed to accommodate the possible non-monotonic pattern for the dose–efficacy relationship. During the trial, we continuously update the posterior estimates of toxicity and efficacy and assign patients to the most appropriate dose combination. We propose a novel dose finding algorithm to encourage sufficient exploration of untried dose combinations in the two-dimensional space. Extensive simulation studies show that the design proposed has desirable operating characteristics in identifying the biologically optimal dose combination under various patterns of dose–toxicity and dose–efficacy relationships.
Spatially Adaptive Post-Processing of Ensemble Forecasts for Temperature
Authors: Scheuerer Michael , Büermann Luca 
Published: October 2013

SummaryWe propose a statistical post-processing method that yields locally calibrated probabilistic forecasts of temperature, based on the output of an ensemble prediction system. It represents the mean of the predictive distributions as a sum of short-term averages of local temperatures and ensemble prediction system driven terms. For the spatial interpolation of temperature averages and local forecast uncertainty parameters we use an intrinsic Gaussian random-field model with a location-dependent nugget effect that accounts for small-scale variability. Applied to the COSMO-DE ensemble, our method yields locally calibrated and sharp probabilistic forecasts and compares favourably with other approaches.
A Bayesian Semiparametric Approach for the Differential Analysis of Sequence Counts Data
Authors: Guindani Michele , Sepúlveda Nuno , Paulino Carlos Daniel , Müller Peter 
Published: October 2013

SummaryData obtained by using modern sequencing technologies are often summarized by recording the frequencies of observed sequences. Examples include the analysis of T-cell counts in immunological research and studies of gene expression based on counts of RNA fragments. In both cases the items being counted are sequences, of proteins and base pairs respectively. The resulting sequence abundance distribution is usually characterized by overdispersion. We propose a Bayesian semiparametric approach to implement inference for such data. Besides modelling the overdispersion, the approach takes also into account two related sources of bias that are usually associated with sequence counts data: some sequence types may not be recorded during the experiment and the total count may differ from one experiment to another. We illustrate our methodology with two data sets: one regarding the analysis of CD4+ T-cell counts in healthy and diabetic mice and another data set concerning the comparison of messenger RNA fragments recorded in a serial analysis of gene expression experiment with gastrointestinal tissue of healthy and cancer patients.
Craniofacial and dental manifestations of triple X syndrome associated with congenital hypothyroidism: a case report
Authors: Ferrazzo Kívia Linhares , Payeras Marcia Rodrigues , Ferrazzo Vilmar Antonio , Mezomo Maurício Barbieri 
Published: October 2013

ABSTRACTTriple X syndrome (47,XXX) is a numerical chromosomal alteration that affects 1/1,000 women, in which the woman is born with an extra X chromosome. Some oral changes have been reported in the literature, as hypodontia, influence on deposition of crown enamel and discrepancies in cephalometric measurements. Other systemic complications may lead to oral abnormalities similar to those seen in triple X patients, such as congenital hypothyroidism (CH). This paper reports a triple X syndrome case associated with CH later treated. Besides delay in cognitive and intellectual development, the patient had changes in teeth development and in cephalometric measurements with deficiencies in the maxilla and mandible. This is the first report of a triple X syndrome associated with CH. Both conditions may result in changes in dentofacial development.
Financial and Medico‐Legal Implications of Late‐Start Dialysis: Understanding the Present Policies through a Window of Past Performance
Authors: Watnick Suzanne 
Published: October 2013

AbstractIn the United States, multiple stakeholders have impacted the timing of dialysis initiation for patients with end‐stage renal disease. The optimal policy to start dialysis for this vulnerable population remains unknown. Historically, patients initiated dialysis weeks after the appearance of uremic symptoms. This changed not only due to an evolution in medical providers' practice but also due to changes in the care delivery system, the political imperatives, and the economic driving forces surrounding the care of these patients. One large randomized control trial looked at patient outcomes with strategies of early versus late start. The trial included an economic analysis. Depending on the specific comparison, cost was either lower in the late‐start group or was equivalent between groups. This result would tend to favor a late‐start strategy, where patients had an additional 6 months of dialysis‐free time. However, the generalizability of this analysis has been questioned. Future care models that would include patients before and after dialysis initiation would be ideal to study cost and quality at the time of this transition of care. The recently implemented CMS Quality Incentive Program is one mechanism that could use such findings to implement a high‐value strategy for patients starting chronic dialysis therapies.
Safety of Brachial Arteriogram using a 3‐French Dilator to Evaluate Nonmaturing Arteriovenous Fistulae
Authors: Vachharajani Tushar J. , Asif Arif 
Published: October 2013

AbstractNonmaturing arteriovenous fistula remains a hurdle in improving the fistula rate in the hemodialysis population. Timely referral can assist in salvaging fistula with endovascular interventions. Pathology at the inflow segment is frequently encountered as a primary reason for maturation failure. Conventional retrograde angiography can result in poor delineation of the inflow segment and may not be an ideal method for evaluating nonmaturing fistulae. Moreover, the risk of vascular rupture and overzealous diagnosis of accessory veins often result in additional unnecessary therapeutic interventions. Alternatively, a direct brachial arteriogram can provide complete anatomic delineation to perform appropriate endovascular interventions.
Renal Artery Stenosis: To Intervene, or Not to Intervene, “That is the Question”
Authors: Haqqie Syed S. , Nappi Anthony , Siskin Gary , Syed Nouman A. , Ghate Ketan , Mathew Roy O. , Wang Jeffrey , Sidhu Mandeep S. , Kumar Vishesh , Salman Loay , Merrill Donna , Akmal Muhammad UT , Nayer Ali , Asif Arif 
Published: October 2013

AbstractRenal artery stenosis (RAS) due to atherosclerosis continues to be a major cause of secondary hypertension. It can also lead to renal dysfunction due to ischemic nephropathy. While major clinical trials have emphasized that medical management should be preferred over angioplasty and stenting for the treatment of renal artery stenosis, clinical scenarios continue to raise doubts about the optimal management strategy. Herein, we present two cases that were admitted with hypertensive emergency and renal function deterioration. Medical therapy failed to control the blood pressure and in one patient, renal failure progressed to a point where renal replacement therapy was required. Both patients underwent angioplasty (for >90% stenosis) and stent insertion with successful resolution of stenosis by interventional radiology. Postoperatively, blood pressure gradually decreased with improvement in serum creatinine. Dialysis therapy was discontinued. At 4‐ and 8‐month follow‐up, both patients continue to do well with blood pressure readings in the 132–145/70–90 mmHg range. This article highlights the importance of percutaneous interventions in the management of atherosclerotic RAS and calls for heightened awareness and careful identification of candidates who would benefit from angioplasty and stent insertion.
How I Do It: Endovascular Treatment of Arteriovenous Graft Pseudoaneurysms—Watch Out for the Mouth
Authors: Florescu Marius C. , Fillaus Jennifer A. , Plumb Troy J. 
Published: October 2013

AbstractWe present a case of arteriovenous graft pseudoaneurysms treated endovascularly with stent grafts and make suggestions regarding the technique of evaluating the pseudoaneurysms and choosing the proper location to deploy the stent grafts to maximize the outcomes and minimize the length of the graft covered by the stent. We also comment on the selection of lesions that are suitable to be treated with this technique.
Plan‐form evolution of ancient meandering rivers reconstructed from longitudinal outcrop sections
Authors: Ghinassi Massimiliano , Nemec Wojciech , Aldinucci Mauro , Nehyba Slavomir , Özaksoy Volkan , Fidolini Francesco 
Published: October 2013

AbstractThe mode of channel‐bend transformation (i.e. expansion, translation, rotation or a combination thereof) has a direct bearing on the dimensions, shape, bedding architecture and connectivity of point‐bar sandstone bodies within a fluvial meander belt, but is generally difficult to recognize in vertical outcrops. This study demonstrates how the bend transformation mode and relative rate of channel‐floor aggradation can be deciphered from longitudinal outcrop sections aligned parallel to the meander‐belt axis, as a crucial methodological aid to the reconstruction of ancient fluvial systems and the development of outcrop analogue models for fluvial petroleum reservoirs. The study focuses on single‐storey and multi‐storey fluvial meander‐belt sandstone bodies in the Palaeogene piggyback Boyabat Basin of north‐central Turkey. The sandstone bodies are several hundred metres wide, 5 to 40 m thick and encased in muddy floodplain deposits. The individual channel‐belt storeys are 5 to 9 m thick and their transverse sections show lateral‐accretion bed packages representing point bars. Point bars in longitudinal sections are recognizable as broad mounds whose parts with downstream‐inclined, subhorizontal and upstream‐inclined bedding represent, respectively, the bar downstream, central and upstream parts. The inter‐bar channel thalweg is recognizable as the transition zone between adjacent point‐bar bedsets with opposing dip directions into or out of the outcrop section. The diverging or converging adjacent thalweg trajectories, or a trajectory migrating in up‐valley direction, indicate point‐bar broadening and hence channel‐bend expansion. A concurrent down‐valley migration of adjacent trajectories indicates channel‐bend translation. Bend rotation is recognizable from the replacement of a depositional riffle by an erosional pool zone or vice versa along the thalweg trajectory. The steepness of the thalweg trajectory reflects the relative rate of channel‐floor aggradation. This study discusses further how the late‐stage foreland tectonics, with its alternating pulses of uplift and subsidence and a progressive narrowing of the basin, has forced aggradation of fluvial channels and caused vertical stacking of meander belts.
The Role of Th17/Tc17 Peripheral Blood T cells in Psoriasis and Their Positive Therapeutic Response
Authors: Eysteinsdóttir J. H. , Sigurgeirsson B. , Ólafsson J. H. , Fridriksson Th. , Agnarsson B. A. , Davíðsson S. , Valdimarsson H. , Lúðvíksson B. R. 
Published: October 2013

AbstractIt is known that NB‐UVB therapy can suppress a broad range of immune cells, but the additional effect of bathing in geothermal seawater still remains unclear. To study the influence of treatment on the expression of circulating immune cells contributing to the pathogenesis of psoriasis, six patients with psoriasis were treated with bathing in geothermal seawater two times daily combined with NB‐UVB five times/week for 2 weeks and six patients were treated with NB‐UVB therapy three times/week for 8 weeks. Disease severity (Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, PASI), chemokines, inflammatory cytokines, T cells and Toll‐like receptors in the blood and skin samples were evaluated on enrolment (W0) and at 1 (W1), 3 (W3) and 8 (W8) weeks. Compared with healthy controls, psoriasis patients with active disease had significantly higher proportion of peripheral CLA+ T cells expressing CCR10 and CD103 and T cells with both Th1/Tc1 (CD4+/CD8+ IFN‐γ+ or TNF‐α+ cells) and Th17/Tc17 (CD4+CD45R0+IL‐23R+, CD4+/CD8+ IL‐17A+ or IL‐22+ cells) phenotypes. Both treatments gave a significant clinical effect; however, bathing in geothermal seawater combined with NB‐UVB therapy was more effective than NB‐UVB therapy alone. This clinical improvement was reflected by a reduction in circulating CLA+ peripheral blood T cells and by a decreased Th1/Th17 and Tc1/Tc17 inflammatory response. These findings suggest that the inflammatory response in psoriasis is predominantly driven by both CD4+ and CD8+ skin‐homing tissue retaining T cells of the Th17/Tc17 lineages.
On Measuring Uncertainty of Benchmarked Predictors with Application to Disease Risk Estimate
Authors: Kubokawa Tatsuya , Hasukawa Mana , Takahashi Kunihiko 
Published: October 2013

ABSTRACTEmpirical Bayes (EB) estimates in general linear mixed models are useful for the small area estimation in the sense of increasing precision of estimation of small area means. However, one potential difficulty of EB is that the overall estimate for a larger geographical area based on a (weighted) sum of EB estimates is not necessarily identical to the corresponding direct estimate such as the overall sample mean. Another difficulty is that EB estimates yield over‐shrinking, which results in the sampling variance smaller than the posterior variance. One way to fix these problems is the benchmarking approach based on the constrained empirical Bayes (CEB) estimators, which satisfy the constraints that the aggregated mean and variance are identical to the requested values of mean and variance. In this paper, we treat the general mixed models, derive asymptotic approximations of the mean squared error (MSE) of CEB and provide second‐order unbiased estimators of MSE based on the parametric bootstrap method. These results are applied to natural exponential families with quadratic variance functions. As a specific example, the Poisson‐gamma model is dealt with, and it is illustrated that the CEB estimates and their MSE estimates work well through real mortality data.
A Generic Web Service for Ad‐hoc Statistical Spatio‐Temporal Aggregation
Authors: Härtwig Mario , Müller Matthias , Bernard Lars 
Published: October 2013

AbstractFor the analysis of geospatial data, statistical spatio‐temporal aggregation (SSTA) is a frequently used functionality. Possible applications include information extraction, data fusion, generalization and schema transformation. On the basis of spatial and temporal references, SSTA transfers thematic attribute values into a coarser spatio‐temporal resolution using descriptive statistical operations. Reusable geoprocessing functions are increasingly offered in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) through standardized interfaces using mainstream network technologies. Due to the variety of use cases, a Web service for SSTA promises a high potential for reuse. However, offering functionalities for geoprocessing within an SDI raises some challenges. The aggregation process itself, as well as the encapsulation of the aggregation functionalities within an SDI, require thorough design considerations. This article addresses these challenges by developing a generic framework for SSTA services within an SDI. A prototype of the framework is realized using several open‐source software components. Following a modular approach, the communication between those loosely‐coupled components is enabled through open, standardized interfaces. The result of the proposed work is a framework that enables users to easily perform a statistical ad‐hoc aggregation on distributed spatio‐temporal data.
Diabetic ketoacidosis: an overlooked child killer in sub‐Saharan Africa?
Authors: Murunga A. N. , Owira P. M. O. 
Published: October 2013

SummaryThe true incidence of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in sub‐Saharan Africa is unknown but unlike in the Western countries, DKA is also uniquely frequent among type 2 diabetes patients of African origin. Increased hyperglycaemia and hepatic ketogenesis lead to osmotic diuresis, dehydration and tissue hypoxia. Acute complications of DKA include cerebral oedema, which may be compounded by malnutrition, parasitic and microbial infections with rampant tuberculosis and HIV. Overlapping symptoms of these conditions and misdiagnosis of DKA contribute to increased morbidity and mortality. Inability of the patients to afford insulin treatment leads to poor glycemic control as some patients seek alternative treatment from traditional healers or use herbal remedies further complicating the disease process. Standard treatment guidelines for DKA currently used may not be ideal as they are adapted from those of the developed world. Children presenting with suspected DKA should be screened for comorbidities which may complicate fluid and electrolyte replacement therapy protocol. Patient rehabilitation should take into account concurrent treatment for infectious conditions to avoid possible life‐threatening drug interactions. We recommend that health systems in sub‐Saharan Africa leverage the Expanded Immunization Programme or TB/HIV/AIDS programmes, which are fairly well entrenched to support diabetes services.