Objective To investigate confidence interval estimation for the amount of heterogeneity in meta-analysis. Methods On the basis of BT’s method, the approximate Q-statistic distribution following linear transformation of Chi-square was applied to improve the accuracy of Q-statistic distribution, and to obtain the confidence interval for the amount of heterogeneity in meta-analysis. Results In case, the Q1 distribution obtained 95%CI 0.07 to 2.20, while the Q2 distribution obtained 95%CI 0.00 to 1.41; The proposed method Q2 narrowed down the range of confidence interval. Conclusion On account of improving the accuracy of Q-statistic distribution, the proposed method effectively strengthens the coverage probabilities of the confidence interval for the amount of heterogeneity. And the proposed method can also improve the precision of the confidence interval estimation for the amount of heterogeneity.
This study aims to determine the salient brain regions with abnormal changes in white matter structures from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) images of the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and to discriminate the patients with TLE from normal controls (NCs). Firstly, the DTI images from 50 subjects (28 NCs and 22 TLE) were acquired. Secondly, the four measures including the fractional anisotropy (FA), the mean diffusivity (MD), the axial diffusivity (AD) and the radial diffusivity (RD) were calculated. Thirdly, the tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) was adopted to extract the measures in brain regions with significant differences between the two compared groups. Fourthly, the obtained measures were used as input features of the support vector machine (SVM) for classification, and the support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) was compared with the support vector machine-tract-based spatial statistics (SVM-TBSS) method. Finally, the essential brain regions and their spatial distribution were analyzed and discussed. The experimental results showed that the FA measures of the TLE group decreased significantly in the corpus callosum, superior longitudinal fasciculus, corona radiata, external capsule, internal capsule, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, fasciculus uncinatus and sagittal stratum, which were nearly bilaterally distributed, while the MD and RD increased significantly in most of these brain regions of the TLE group. Although the AD also increased, the differences were not statistically significant. The SVM-TBSS classifier obtained accuracies of 82%, 76% and 76% using the FA, MD and RD for classification, respectively, and 80% using combined measures. The SVM-RFE classifier obtained accuracies of 90%, 90% and 92% using the FA, MD and RD respectively, while the highest accuracy was 100% using combined measures. These results demonstrated that the SVM-RFE outperformed the SVM-TBSS, and the dominant characteristic influencing classification in brain regions were in associative and commissural fibers. These results illustrated that the measures of DTI images could reveal the abnormal changes in white matter structure of patients with TLE, providing effective information to clarify its pathological mechanism, localize the focus and diagnose automatically.
ObjectiveTo analyze the risk factors of severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and provide consultable evidence for the rational establishment of screening standard.MethodsThe clinical data of 168 prematureinfants (gestational age less than 37 weeks) who was diagnosed in our department from Dec 2002 to Apr 2004 was analyzed retrospectively. Gender, birth count (BC), gestational age (GA), birth weight (BW), duration of oxygen therapy and vascularization devlopment of posterior and peripheral retina examined by binocular indirect ophthalmoscope after mydriasis were recorded. The results were recorded by the international classification of ROP (ICROP), and stage 1, 2 and 3 were mild ROP while threshold disease, stage 4 and 5 were severe ROP. Logistic regression was appliedto analyze the relationship of ROP and gender, BC, GA, BW, and oxygen therapy. ResultsSevere ROP was found in 91 eyes (27.1%) of 47 infants (28.0%) in 336 eyes of 168 premature infants, including threshold disease in 20 eyes (6.0%) and disease at stage 4 in 11 eyes (3.3%) in which the diseases at stage 4A was foundin 2 eyes (0.6%) and stage 4B in 9 eyes (2.7%). There were 60 eyes (17.8%) at stage 5. In all of the factors, GA, BW and oxygen therapy were found to have a significant impact on severe ROP (P=0.000, 0.000 and 0.015,α=0.05) while gender and BC were not (P=0.640 and 0.084, α=0.05). Statistic analysis of subgroupshowed that the risk of severe ROP in premature infants would increase significantly when GA≤30 weeks, BW≤1500 g or oxygen therapy gt;4 days. Conclusions Severe ROP relates to GA, BW and oxygen therapy instead of gender and BC. The risk of occurrence of severe ROP in premature infants increases significantly when GA≤30 weeks, BW≤1500g or oxygen therapy gt;4 days, so it is recommended to screen such premature infants carefully. (Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis,2005,21:271-274)
Objective To analyze the data of external fixation instruments (including Ilizarov instruments) used by QIN Sihe orthopaedic surgical team in the treatment of limb deformities in the past 30 years, and to explore the indications for the application of modern external fixation techniques in the correction of limb deformities and individual device configuration selection strategy. Methods According to QIN Sihe orthopaedic surgical team, the use of external fixator between January 1988 and December 2017 was analyzed retrospectively. The total use of external fixation and the proportion of different external fixators were analyzed in gender, different operation time, different age, different parts, and different diseases. Results External fixators were used in 8 113 patients, 69 of them were used simultaneously in both lower extremity surgery, so 8 182 external fixators were used. Among them, there were 4 725 (57.74%) combined external fixators, 3 388 (41.41%) Ilizarov circle fixators, 64 (0.78%) single arm external fixators (including Orthofix), 5 (0.06%) Taylor space external fixators. There were 4 487 males (55.31%) and 3 626 females (44.69%). According to the analysis of different time periods, the number of external fixators increased year by year, and the number of applications increased after 2000. The main age of the patients was 11-30 years old, of which 1 819 sets (22.23%) were used at the age of 21-25 years. The use of the external fixator covered almost all parts of the limbs, with the ankle and toe areas being the most common, reaching 4 664 sets (57.00%), and the upper extremities the least, with 152 sets (1.86%). The 8 113 cases covered more than a dozen disciplines and more than 150 kinds of diseases. The top 5 diseases were poliomyelitis sequelae, cerebral palsy, deformity of lower extremity after spina bifida, traumatic sequelae, and congenital equinovarus foot. Conclusion Ilizarov technique has been widely used in extremity deformity, disability, and complicated orthopedic diseases caused by vascular, lymphoid, nerve, skin, endocrine, and other diseases. The indication of operation is far beyond the scope of orthopedics. The domestic external fixator and its mounting tools can basically meet the requirements of various treatments. The technique of external fixation has entered a new era of tension tissue regeneration under stress control, natural repair of tissue trauma and deformity, and reconstruction of limb function.
Multivariate time series problems widely exist in production and life in the society. Anomaly detection has provided people with a lot of valuable information in financial, hydrological, meteorological fields, and the research areas of earthquake, video surveillance, medicine and others. In order to quickly and efficiently find exceptions in time sequence so that it can be presented in front of people in an intuitive way, we in this study combined the Riemannian manifold with statistical process control charts, based on sliding window, with a description of the covariance matrix as the time sequence, to achieve the multivariate time series of anomaly detection and its visualization. We made MA analog data flow and abnormal electrocardiogram data from MIT-BIH as experimental objects, and verified the anomaly detection method. The results showed that the method was reasonable and effective.
The key for performing meta-analysis using WinBUGS software is to construct a model of Bayesian statistics. The hand-written code model and Doodle model are two major methods for constructing it. The approach of hand-written code is flexible and convenient, but the language programming is fallibility. The Doodle is complicated, but it is benefit to understand the structure of hand-written code model and prevent error. This article briefly describes how to construct the Doodle model for binary and continuous data of head to head meta-analysis, indirect comparison and network meta-analysis, and ordinal variables meta-analysis.
Objective To explore the knowledge distribution, knowledge clustering, and the trend in development of wound therapy, by revealing the same keywords with multiple statistical method and social network analysis. Methods We searched the CNKI under the term " wound” , " therapy” , and " wound therapy” in February 2016. After the core keywords had been identified by Bicomb and Endnote X6 software in each stage, the co-occurrence matrix was built. Transformation, dimensionality reduction and clustering of the co-occurrence matrix were finished by SPSS 22.0 software, leading the strategic plot to be built. The visualized network images were drawn using Ucinet 6.0 software. Results The visualized domain knowledge-mapping was successfully built, and it directly reflected the structure of knowledge-mapping of the discipline, as well as key clusters. Boost development had been identified in this research. The subject developed own core research areas and clusters, but there was still lack of fitting characteristics. The newly wound therapeutic techniques had limited correlation with other clusters, while provided limited contributions to forward this subject. However, enriched core keywords had been demonstrated, and formed clear domain parts of this subject. Conclusions The analysis demonstrates that wound therapy has developed well, and hot research points follow the direction of medication treatment. The network of wound therapeutic subject has become mature and completed within a short period. Comprehensive therapy and long term follow-up results according to evidence-based nursing have become the domain field. Moreover, the newly therapeutic techniques should be paid more attention to shift the development of this subject. And the interactive research within this subject and among other regions should be enhanced.
The selection of summary statistics to use in a meta-analysis is very important for the interpretation and application of its results. This paper introduces some basic concepts of summary statistics in meta-analysis. The selection of a summary statistic for a meta-analysis depends on the following factors: design of the studies being combined, type of data, consistency among the included studies, mathematical properties and ease of interpretation. For continuous data, the weighted mean difference (WMD) is recommended when all trials use the same scale to report their outcomes, while standardized mean difference (SMD) is more appropriate when trials use different scales to report their outcomes, or the means of their outcomes differ greatly. For dichotomous data, rate ratio or relative risk (RR) is bly recommended to be the summary statistics for meta-analyses of randomized trials. The use of odds ratio (OR) as the summary statistic is similar to that of RR, if the event being studied in both the intervention (exposure) and the control group is rare. There is no single measurement that is uniformly best for all meta-analyses.
ObjectiveTo establish an appropriate diabetic retinopathy (DR) risk assessment model for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).MethodsA retrospective clinical analysis. From January 2016 to December 2017, 753 T2DM patients in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University were analyzed retrospectively. Digital fundus photography was taken in all patients. Fasting plasma glucose (FPG), HbA1c, total bilirubin (TB), blood platelet, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), apolipoprotein-A (apoA), apolipoprotein-B (apoB), serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), blood uric acid, fibrinogen (Fg), estimated glomerular filtration (eGFR) were collected. The patients were randomly assigned to model group and testify group, each had 702 patients and 51 patients respectively. Logistic regression was used to screen risk factors of DR and develop an assessment scale that can be used to predict DR. Goodness of fit was examined using the Hosmer-Lemeshow test and the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.ResultsAmong 702 patients in the model group, 483 patients were DR, 219 patients were NDR. The scores for DR risk were duration of diabetes ≥4.5 years, 4 points; total bilirubin ＜6.65 mol/L, 2 points; apoA≥1.18 g/L, 2 points; blood urea≥6.46 mmol/L, 1 points; HbA1c ≥7.75%, 2 points; HDL-c＜1.38 mmol/L, 2 points; diabetic nephropathy, 3 points; fibrinogen, 1 point. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.787. The logistic regression analysis showed that the risk factors independently associated with DR were duration of diabetes (β=1.272, OR=3.569, 95%CI 2.283−5.578, P＜0.001), TB (β=0.744, OR=2.104, 95%CI 1.404−3.152, P＜0.001, BUN (β=0.401, OR=1.494, 95%CI 0.996−2.240, P=0.052), HbA1c (β=0.545, OR=1.724, 95%CI 1.165−2.55, P=0.006), HDL-c (β=0.666, OR=1.986, 95%CI 1.149−3.298, P=0.013), diabetic nephropathy (β=1.151, OR=3.162, 95%CI 2.080−4.806, P=0.013), Fg (β=0.333, OR=1.396, 95%CI 0.945−2.061, P=0.094). The risk model was P=1/[1+exp−(−3.799+1.272X1+0.744X2+0.769X3+0.401X4+0.545X5+0.666X6+1.151X7+0.333X8)]. X1= duration of diabetes, X2=TB, X3=apoA, X4=BUN, X5=HbA1c, X6=HDL-c, X7=diabetic nephropathy, X8=Fg. The area under the ROC curve was 0.787 and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test suggested excellent agreement (χ2=10.125, df=8, P=0.256) in model group. The area under the ROC curve was 0.869 and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test suggested excellent agreement (χ2=5.345, df=7, P=0.618) in model group.ConclusionThe area under the ROC curve for DR was 0.787. The duration of diabetes, TB, BUN, HbA1c, HDL-c, diabetic nephropathy, apoA, Fg are the risk factors of DR in T2DM patients.
The "bnma" package is a Bayesian network meta-analysis software package developed based on the R programming language. The network meta-analysis was performed utilizing JAGS software, which yielded relevant results and visual graphs. Moreover, this software package provides support for various data structures and types, while also providing the advantages of flexible utilization, user-friendly operation, and deliver of rich and accurate outcomes. In this paper, using a network meta-analysis example of different therapies for androgenetic alopecia, the operational process of conducting network meta-analysis using the "bnma" package is briefly introduced.