Pub Date : 2020-10-16DOI: 10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00315
Zhongwen Tang
Drug development has many moving parts. Traditionally they are handled in a more sequential and segmented way. This has served us well due to relatively slow pace of drug development. As the pace of drug development becomes faster and faster, we need to think more in a holistic way. This is especially important due to the advancement of new technologies, which has upended the way how we generate and analyze data. We present a framework to identify integrated evidence opportunities in drug development and demonstrate these opportunities using some real examples.
{"title":"Integrated evidence strategy and drug development efficiency","authors":"Zhongwen Tang","doi":"10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00315","url":null,"abstract":"Drug development has many moving parts. Traditionally they are handled in a more sequential and segmented way. This has served us well due to relatively slow pace of drug development. As the pace of drug development becomes faster and faster, we need to think more in a holistic way. This is especially important due to the advancement of new technologies, which has upended the way how we generate and analyze data. We present a framework to identify integrated evidence opportunities in drug development and demonstrate these opportunities using some real examples.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79469878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-16DOI: 10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00314
Ágatha Yasmin de Sousa Araujo, Maylon Sivalcley da Costa Rocha, E. Alves, A. C. Campos
Aging in Brazil, especially in the Amazon, is a complex and irregular process. Something is happening here that cannot be explained simply due to social inequalities. The objective of this study was to present the development of an artificial neural network and the stages of training, validation and testing for the classification of healthy aging among elderly Brazilians. We constructed a protocol for rapid diagnosis and health screening for the elderly. The form was developed offline in Microsoft Excel. Macros (routines capable of performing pre-programmed tasks) were created using Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language. In the analysis of the confusion matrix, good accuracy were obtained in all stages, training (61.5%), validation (60.0%) and test (80.0%), which indicates that the network learned through the inputs and outputs initially defined and during the sample divisions performed for testing and validation. In the test stage, a ROC curve was obtained with better true positive rates and lower false positive rates, being close to the Y axis (left side), thus indicating better results. We conducted a pilot study with thirty-six community active elderlies from a city in Eastern Amazonia, Brazil. This study was divided into four parts: data collection, data pre-processing, training of an artificial neural network and evaluation methods.
在巴西,尤其是在亚马逊地区,老龄化是一个复杂而不规则的过程。这里发生的事情不能简单地用社会不平等来解释。这项研究的目的是介绍人工神经网络的发展以及巴西老年人健康老龄化分类的训练、验证和测试阶段。我们为老年人构建了快速诊断和健康筛查方案。该表单是在Microsoft Excel中离线开发的。宏(能够执行预编程任务的例程)是使用微软的Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)语言创建的。在混淆矩阵的分析中,训练(61.5%)、验证(60.0%)和测试(80.0%)三个阶段都获得了很好的准确率,这表明网络通过初始定义的输入和输出以及进行测试和验证的样本划分进行学习。在测试阶段,得到的ROC曲线真阳性率较好,假阳性率较低,接近Y轴(左侧),表明结果较好。我们对巴西东亚马逊地区的一个城市的36名社区活跃老人进行了一项试点研究。本研究分为数据采集、数据预处理、人工神经网络训练和评价方法四个部分。
{"title":"An artificial neural network to classify healthy aging in elderly Brazilians","authors":"Ágatha Yasmin de Sousa Araujo, Maylon Sivalcley da Costa Rocha, E. Alves, A. C. Campos","doi":"10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00314","url":null,"abstract":"Aging in Brazil, especially in the Amazon, is a complex and irregular process. Something is happening here that cannot be explained simply due to social inequalities. The objective of this study was to present the development of an artificial neural network and the stages of training, validation and testing for the classification of healthy aging among elderly Brazilians. We constructed a protocol for rapid diagnosis and health screening for the elderly. The form was developed offline in Microsoft Excel. Macros (routines capable of performing pre-programmed tasks) were created using Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language. In the analysis of the confusion matrix, good accuracy were obtained in all stages, training (61.5%), validation (60.0%) and test (80.0%), which indicates that the network learned through the inputs and outputs initially defined and during the sample divisions performed for testing and validation. In the test stage, a ROC curve was obtained with better true positive rates and lower false positive rates, being close to the Y axis (left side), thus indicating better results. We conducted a pilot study with thirty-six community active elderlies from a city in Eastern Amazonia, Brazil. This study was divided into four parts: data collection, data pre-processing, training of an artificial neural network and evaluation methods.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90688256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-31DOI: 10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00313
Lishamol Tomy, Manju Jose, Veena G
These distributions have been widely used to analyze lifetime data, on account of its analytical tractability, also used in physics, queueing theory, and hydrology, often used to model the reliability of electronic systems, which do not typically experience wear-out type failures. Exponential variables can also be used to model situations where certain events occur with a constant probability per unit length, such as the distance between mutations on a DNA strand, or between road kills on a given road.
{"title":"A review on recent generalizations of exponential distribution","authors":"Lishamol Tomy, Manju Jose, Veena G","doi":"10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00313","url":null,"abstract":"These distributions have been widely used to analyze lifetime data, on account of its analytical tractability, also used in physics, queueing theory, and hydrology, often used to model the reliability of electronic systems, which do not typically experience wear-out type failures. Exponential variables can also be used to model situations where certain events occur with a constant probability per unit length, such as the distance between mutations on a DNA strand, or between road kills on a given road.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85942040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-31DOI: 10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00312
Abdelfattah Ezz
Statisticians use to classify Statistics into two main parts, namely Descriptive and Inferential Statistics. Here, we suggest reclassifying Inferential Statistics into two parts, namely Diagnostic Statistics and Predictive Statistics. Based on that we will have four levels to analyze data (Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive and Perspective Statistics). Descriptive statistics mainly related to Graphs, Frequency tables, Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Variation and Measures of Shape. Diagnostic statistics mainly related to the effects of the Independent variables (inputs) on the Dependent (Target) variable based on the Tests of Correlation or Association, Tests for Means differences and Tests for Classification. Predictive statistics mainly related to Estimation, Regression techniques and Time series Analysis for the Dependent (Target) variable. Perspective statistics mainly related to the previous three levels and acts as a prescription to how to solve or prevent the problem. In this paper, we will clarify the statistical tests used in each level of statistical analysis and will give an example on a real data related to Gynecologic Cancer
{"title":"Reclassifying inferential statistics into diagnostic and predictive statistics with an application on gynecologic cancer","authors":"Abdelfattah Ezz","doi":"10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00312","url":null,"abstract":"Statisticians use to classify Statistics into two main parts, namely Descriptive and Inferential Statistics. Here, we suggest reclassifying Inferential Statistics into two parts, namely Diagnostic Statistics and Predictive Statistics. Based on that we will have four levels to analyze data (Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive and Perspective Statistics). Descriptive statistics mainly related to Graphs, Frequency tables, Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Variation and Measures of Shape. Diagnostic statistics mainly related to the effects of the Independent variables (inputs) on the Dependent (Target) variable based on the Tests of Correlation or Association, Tests for Means differences and Tests for Classification. Predictive statistics mainly related to Estimation, Regression techniques and Time series Analysis for the Dependent (Target) variable. Perspective statistics mainly related to the previous three levels and acts as a prescription to how to solve or prevent the problem. In this paper, we will clarify the statistical tests used in each level of statistical analysis and will give an example on a real data related to Gynecologic Cancer","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84409592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-14DOI: 10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00311
José Luís Sousa Manjate, Félix Salvador Chavane, L. Nhantumbo
Introduction: physical inactivity is a risk factor for chronic non-communicable diseases, causing morbidity and mortality and weight gain in the economy of nations. Objective: to analyze the effect of combined physical exercises on anthropometric and hemodynamic parameters in young and adults people in Cidade da Matola. Methodology: 22 subjects from 23 to 60 years old (8 female and 14 male) were randomly selected in 2017. The anthropometric assessment consisted of weight, height, BMI and waist circumference. Hemodynamic variables were evaluated with an Omron M3-HEM-7131-E tensiometer. The sample performed combined physical exercises for three consecutive months. Using SPSS, 20.0, at 95% CI, the non-parametric WILCOXON test was applied to examine the effect of physical exercises on the variables of interest. Results: globally, weight and BMI increased over the course of the intervention, however without statistical differences, on the other hand, height, WP, SBP, DBP and HR differed statistically: P=(0.019; 0.008; 0.048; 0.006; 0.000) respectively. After analyzing the sex, only male individuals registered statistically significant differences for WP, DBP and HR: P=(0.023; 0.006; 0.000) respectively. The age range of individuals aged ≥ 36 years revealed a significant effect of the intervention on the variables WP, DBP and HR: P=(0.022; 0.042; 0.001) respectively. Conclusions: although the sample size was small, globally, the effect of the intervention on the variables of interest was notorious, especially in Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and Waist Perimeter.
{"title":"Effect of physical exercises on anthropometric parameters, blood pressure and heart rate of young people and adults in Matola city–Mozambique","authors":"José Luís Sousa Manjate, Félix Salvador Chavane, L. Nhantumbo","doi":"10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00311","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction: physical inactivity is a risk factor for chronic non-communicable diseases, causing morbidity and mortality and weight gain in the economy of nations. Objective: to analyze the effect of combined physical exercises on anthropometric and hemodynamic parameters in young and adults people in Cidade da Matola. Methodology: 22 subjects from 23 to 60 years old (8 female and 14 male) were randomly selected in 2017. The anthropometric assessment consisted of weight, height, BMI and waist circumference. Hemodynamic variables were evaluated with an Omron M3-HEM-7131-E tensiometer. The sample performed combined physical exercises for three consecutive months. Using SPSS, 20.0, at 95% CI, the non-parametric WILCOXON test was applied to examine the effect of physical exercises on the variables of interest. Results: globally, weight and BMI increased over the course of the intervention, however without statistical differences, on the other hand, height, WP, SBP, DBP and HR differed statistically: P=(0.019; 0.008; 0.048; 0.006; 0.000) respectively. After analyzing the sex, only male individuals registered statistically significant differences for WP, DBP and HR: P=(0.023; 0.006; 0.000) respectively. The age range of individuals aged ≥ 36 years revealed a significant effect of the intervention on the variables WP, DBP and HR: P=(0.022; 0.042; 0.001) respectively. Conclusions: although the sample size was small, globally, the effect of the intervention on the variables of interest was notorious, especially in Blood Pressure, Heart Rate and Waist Perimeter.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74176663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-04DOI: 10.1101/2020.08.01.20166637
Hari Bhimaraju, Nitish Nag, Ramesh C. Jain
The use of face masks is recommended worldwide to reduce the spread of COVID-19. A plethora of facial coverings and respirators, both commercial and homemade, pervade the market, but the true filtration capabilities of many homemade measures against the virus are unclear and continue to be unexplored. In this work, we compare the efficacy of the following masks in keeping out particulate matter below 2.5 microns: N95 respirators, surgical masks, cloth masks, cloth masks with activated carbon air filters, cloth masks with HVAC air filters, lightly starch-enhanced cloth masks, and heavily-starched cloth masks. The experiments utilize an inhalation system and aerosol chamber to simulate a masked individual respiring aerosolized air. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in low-income communities, who often lack the resources to acquire appropriate personal protective equipment and tend to lack the flexibility to shelter in place due to their public-facing occupations. This work tests low-cost enhancements to homemade masks to assist these communities in making better masks to reduce viral transmission. Experimental results demonstrate that the filtration efficacy of cloth masks with either a light or heavy starch can approach the performance of much costlier masks. This discovery supports the idea of low-cost enhancements to reduce transmission and protect individuals from contracting COVID-19.
{"title":"Low-Cost Enhancement of Facial Mask Filtration to Prevent Transmission of COVID-19","authors":"Hari Bhimaraju, Nitish Nag, Ramesh C. Jain","doi":"10.1101/2020.08.01.20166637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.01.20166637","url":null,"abstract":"The use of face masks is recommended worldwide to reduce the spread of COVID-19. A plethora of facial coverings and respirators, both commercial and homemade, pervade the market, but the true filtration capabilities of many homemade measures against the virus are unclear and continue to be unexplored. In this work, we compare the efficacy of the following masks in keeping out particulate matter below 2.5 microns: N95 respirators, surgical masks, cloth masks, cloth masks with activated carbon air filters, cloth masks with HVAC air filters, lightly starch-enhanced cloth masks, and heavily-starched cloth masks. The experiments utilize an inhalation system and aerosol chamber to simulate a masked individual respiring aerosolized air. COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in low-income communities, who often lack the resources to acquire appropriate personal protective equipment and tend to lack the flexibility to shelter in place due to their public-facing occupations. This work tests low-cost enhancements to homemade masks to assist these communities in making better masks to reduce viral transmission. Experimental results demonstrate that the filtration efficacy of cloth masks with either a light or heavy starch can approach the performance of much costlier masks. This discovery supports the idea of low-cost enhancements to reduce transmission and protect individuals from contracting COVID-19.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74797375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-21DOI: 10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00310
Marcos Vinicius de Oliveira Peres, F. D. dos Santos, Ricado Puziol de Oliveira
In many applications related to time to event data, especially in the medical field, it is common the presence of a fraction of individuals not expecting to experience the event of interest, these individuals immune to the event or cured for the disease during the study are known as long–term survivors. To estimate survival and hazard curves, in this situation, it is common the use of Weibull cure rate model due to its great flexibility and simplicity. In this paper, we present the estimation of survival and hazard curves using a extension of Mirra model using the classical cure rate approach and applying it to gastric and breast cancer data. The inferences of interest were obtained using a Bayesian approach and the results achieved from this study showed that the Mirra model has a good fit and could be an useful alternative for estimation and shape prediction of survival and hazard curves for long– term survivors, especially for cancer data. The results could be extended using regression approach in order to identify risk factor that affects the survival probability.
{"title":"Estimation of survival and hazard curves of mixture Mirra cure rate model: Application to gastric and breast cancer data","authors":"Marcos Vinicius de Oliveira Peres, F. D. dos Santos, Ricado Puziol de Oliveira","doi":"10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00310","url":null,"abstract":"In many applications related to time to event data, especially in the medical field, it is common the presence of a fraction of individuals not expecting to experience the event of interest, these individuals immune to the event or cured for the disease during the study are known as long–term survivors. To estimate survival and hazard curves, in this situation, it is common the use of Weibull cure rate model due to its great flexibility and simplicity. In this paper, we present the estimation of survival and hazard curves using a extension of Mirra model using the classical cure rate approach and applying it to gastric and breast cancer data. The inferences of interest were obtained using a Bayesian approach and the results achieved from this study showed that the Mirra model has a good fit and could be an useful alternative for estimation and shape prediction of survival and hazard curves for long– term survivors, especially for cancer data. The results could be extended using regression approach in order to identify risk factor that affects the survival probability.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88616261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-14DOI: 10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00309
J. Tallon, Paulo Gomes, L. Bacelar-Nicolau
Introduction It is essential to understand, on a large geographical scale, the dimension of the COVID–19 pandemic by identifying the most affected countries, knowing that all the world is suffering an unusual disruption regarding several health impacts, but also heavy economic, financial and social effects. A key role is reserved to Data Science to understand the present and to deepen a prospective analysis at COVID–19 day after. Objective The main objective of the present study is to describe the COVID–19 prevalence in EU and five other OECD countries using five epidemiological variables. Secondly their association with non–pharmaceutical measures taken in some countries to control and attenuate the evolution of the epidemic was analyzed. Methods The COVID–19 study covers twenty–six EU countries and additionally Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Israel and United Kingdom. Five epidemiologic variables were analyzed by 100.000 inhabitants at the beginning of May 2020: total number of cases, total number of deaths, total number of active cases, total number of critical or serious cases and total number of tests. Also, eight non–pharmaceutical measures were selected for association purposes. A multivariate statistical exploratory approach with principal components, hierarchical and non–hierarchical (k–means) cluster analyses was applied. Results A COVID–19 prevalence typology of four country clusters was identified regarding EU countries and five OECD countries on early May. In the two clusters, with a total of ten countries where the pandemic seemed to evolve more seriously, different patterns regarding the number of tests are observed. Two other clusters, with 12 and 9 countries, show an intermediate or low prevalence but differences in testing patterns. For EU countries of both clusters more affected, COVID–19 containment strategies were studied considering three modalities of implementation timing for eight non–pharmaceutical measures. The three different behaviors mirrored the clusters findings. Countries previously classified into cluster 1 appear together again, as do countries belonging to cluster 2. In spite of a common behavior for some measures, generally countries of cluster 2 implemented other interventions later in time. Sweden is a “special case”, taking just a few of these measures, most of them later than other countries.
{"title":"Profiling European countries on COVID–19 prevalence and association with non–pharmaceutical interventions","authors":"J. Tallon, Paulo Gomes, L. Bacelar-Nicolau","doi":"10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00309","url":null,"abstract":"Introduction It is essential to understand, on a large geographical scale, the dimension of the COVID–19 pandemic by identifying the most affected countries, knowing that all the world is suffering an unusual disruption regarding several health impacts, but also heavy economic, financial and social effects. A key role is reserved to Data Science to understand the present and to deepen a prospective analysis at COVID–19 day after. Objective The main objective of the present study is to describe the COVID–19 prevalence in EU and five other OECD countries using five epidemiological variables. Secondly their association with non–pharmaceutical measures taken in some countries to control and attenuate the evolution of the epidemic was analyzed. Methods The COVID–19 study covers twenty–six EU countries and additionally Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Israel and United Kingdom. Five epidemiologic variables were analyzed by 100.000 inhabitants at the beginning of May 2020: total number of cases, total number of deaths, total number of active cases, total number of critical or serious cases and total number of tests. Also, eight non–pharmaceutical measures were selected for association purposes. A multivariate statistical exploratory approach with principal components, hierarchical and non–hierarchical (k–means) cluster analyses was applied. Results A COVID–19 prevalence typology of four country clusters was identified regarding EU countries and five OECD countries on early May. In the two clusters, with a total of ten countries where the pandemic seemed to evolve more seriously, different patterns regarding the number of tests are observed. Two other clusters, with 12 and 9 countries, show an intermediate or low prevalence but differences in testing patterns. For EU countries of both clusters more affected, COVID–19 containment strategies were studied considering three modalities of implementation timing for eight non–pharmaceutical measures. The three different behaviors mirrored the clusters findings. Countries previously classified into cluster 1 appear together again, as do countries belonging to cluster 2. In spite of a common behavior for some measures, generally countries of cluster 2 implemented other interventions later in time. Sweden is a “special case”, taking just a few of these measures, most of them later than other countries.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78253073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-15DOI: 10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00308
Aghimien E.V, Osikabor B, A. M.S, Adams O.T
Dimensions are essential characteristics to estimate standing and lying dead wood volumes. Therefore, the study is aimed at estimating standing and lying dead wood volumes with a view to identify the variation that exist amongst volume equations in Okomu National Park. Hossfeld’s equation and other volume equations should be considered suitable for estimating volume of standing and lying deadwood, depending on the available variable.
{"title":"Volume techniques for estimating standing and lying dead wood in Okomu national park, Edo state, Nigeria","authors":"Aghimien E.V, Osikabor B, A. M.S, Adams O.T","doi":"10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/BBIJ.2020.09.00308","url":null,"abstract":"Dimensions are essential characteristics to estimate standing and lying dead wood volumes. Therefore, the study is aimed at estimating standing and lying dead wood volumes with a view to identify the variation that exist amongst volume equations in Okomu National Park. Hossfeld’s equation and other volume equations should be considered suitable for estimating volume of standing and lying deadwood, depending on the available variable.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80446090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-06-11DOI: 10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00307
Flynn Mf, Black Ct
A thorough examination of the head and neck is necessary to establish a diagnosis in pyrexial children, and for the exclusion of rare, but not to be missed conditions, such as Lymphoma and EBV. Scoring systems are a key tool in providing feedback to clinicians on how well these are carried out, and tracking their improvements. This audit looked at how well children with suspected respiratory illness were examined and how this was improved with such a tool. Feverish children over the age of 6 months were tracked: by whom they saw and how well they were examined. The quality of examination was stratified under a 3-teir standard (Gold, Silver and Bronze) with the “Gold” examinations including correct documentation of the state of ears, throat and lymph nodes, with Silver and Bronze allocated to standards approaching this. This Fennobacci-weighted scoring system was employed to average a score achieved by each grade over 21-month periods. Clinicians had re-education on the clinical exams in the interim. Junior doctors improved scores by 25%, nurse practitioners by 112% and more senior grades by 6%. The scoring system proved a motivational feedback mechanism across teams. Revalidation and confidence-building are required for doctors in training to achieve a high consistency in clinical examination, and novel scoring systems can be helpful in achieving this.
{"title":"A simple Fibonacci weighted scoring system to rate examinations of children with respiratory illness","authors":"Flynn Mf, Black Ct","doi":"10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15406/bbij.2020.09.00307","url":null,"abstract":"A thorough examination of the head and neck is necessary to establish a diagnosis in pyrexial children, and for the exclusion of rare, but not to be missed conditions, such as Lymphoma and EBV. Scoring systems are a key tool in providing feedback to clinicians on how well these are carried out, and tracking their improvements. This audit looked at how well children with suspected respiratory illness were examined and how this was improved with such a tool. Feverish children over the age of 6 months were tracked: by whom they saw and how well they were examined. The quality of examination was stratified under a 3-teir standard (Gold, Silver and Bronze) with the “Gold” examinations including correct documentation of the state of ears, throat and lymph nodes, with Silver and Bronze allocated to standards approaching this. This Fennobacci-weighted scoring system was employed to average a score achieved by each grade over 21-month periods. Clinicians had re-education on the clinical exams in the interim. Junior doctors improved scores by 25%, nurse practitioners by 112% and more senior grades by 6%. The scoring system proved a motivational feedback mechanism across teams. Revalidation and confidence-building are required for doctors in training to achieve a high consistency in clinical examination, and novel scoring systems can be helpful in achieving this.","PeriodicalId":90455,"journal":{"name":"Biometrics & biostatistics international journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85859210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}