In recent years, likelihood-based higher order asymptotic methods have been developed to obtain inference for a scalar parameter of interest. In this paper, a directional test for a vector parameter of interest from a natural exponential family model is derived based on the likelihood-based higher order asymptotic methods. The proposed method is then applied to obtain p-value for testing homoge...

BACKGROUND The p value obtained from a significance test provides no information about the magnitude or importance of the underlying phenomenon. Therefore, additional reporting of effect size is often recommended. Effect sizes are theoretically independent from sample size. Yet this may not hold true empirically: non-independence could indicate publication bias. METHODS We investigate whether...

Pathway enrichment analysis represents a key technique for analyzing high-throughput omic data, and it can help to link individual genes or proteins found to be differentially expressed under specific conditions to well-understood biological pathways. We present here a computational tool, SEAS, for pathway enrichment analysis over a given set of genes in a specified organism against the pathway...

Mold specific quantitative PCR (MSQPCR) was used to measure the concentrations of the 36 mold species in indoor and outdoor air samples that were taken simultaneously for 48 h in and around 17 homes in Cincinnati, Ohio. The total spore concentrations of 353 per m(3) of indoor air and 827 per m(3) of outdoor air samples were significantly different (p<or=0.05). However, only the concentrations o...

BACKGROUND Following an epidemiological assessment to map out the endemicity of trachoma in Ghana, Trachoma control interventions were put in place in two districts in Upper West and three in Northern Regions in the year 2001. The control activities were based on the WHO recommended strategy of SAFE. After two years of intervention, a study was undertaken to determine the impact of the control ...

The value of a developed prediction model depends on its performance outside the development sample. The key is therefore to externally validate the model on a different but related independent data. In this study, we propose a permutation method to assess heterogeneity in external validation for risk prediction models. The permutation p value measures the extent of homology between development...

Colorectal cancer can be grouped into Dukes A, B, C, and D stages based on its developments. Generally speaking, more advanced patients have poorer prognosis. To integrate progression stage prediction systems with recurrence prediction systems, we proposed an ensemble prognostic model for colorectal cancer. In this model, each patient was assigned a most possible stage and a most possible recur...

BACKGROUND Health research training is an important part of medical education. This study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge and attitudes regarding health research in a group of Pakistani medical students at Aga Khan University, Karachi. METHODS It was a cross-sectional pilot study conducted among a group of Pakistani medical students. Through stratified random sampling, a pre-te...

The purpose of this article is to propose a simple effect size estimate (obtained from the sample size, N, and a p value) that can be used (a) in meta-analytic research where only sample sizes and p values have been reported by the original investigator, (b) where no generally accepted effect size estimate exists, or (c) where directly computed effect size estimates are likely to be misleading....

In this study, we estimate the statistical significance of structure prediction by threading. We introduce a single parameter epsilon that serves as a universal measure determining the probability that the best alignment is indeed a native-like analog. Parameter epsilon takes into account both length and composition of the query sequence and the number of decoys in threading simulation. It can ...