This study elaborates the Rasch differential item functioning (DIF) model formulation under the marginal maximum likelihood estimation context. Also, the Rasch DIF model performance was examined and compared with the Mantel–Haenszel (MH) procedure in small sample and short test length conditions through simulations. The theoretically known relationship of the DIF estimators between the Rasch DI...

OBJECTIVES This study was developed to determine contemporary management of digoxin toxicity and clinical outcomes. BACKGROUND Although the use of digoxin in heart failure management has declined, toxicity remains a prevalent complication. METHODS The Premier Perspective Comparative Hospital Database (Premier Inc., Charlotte, North Carolina) was used to retrospectively identify patients dia...

BACKGROUND Pemphigus is a chronic autoimmune bullous disorder characterized by autoantibodies directed against desmoglein 3 and/or 1. Demonstration of intercellular deposition of IgG on the cell surface of keratinocytes by direct immunofluorescence (DIF) of the skin is the gold standard in the diagnosis of pemphigus. Recently, DIF of plucked hair demonstrating intercellular deposition of IgG in...

This study aimed at investigating differential item functioning (DIF) on the Special English Test of the Iranian National University Entrance Exam (INUEE). The effect of gender and subject area was taken into account. The study utilized one-parameter IRT model with a sample of 36000 students who sat for the INUEE Special English Test in 2004 and/or 2005. The findings confirmed the presence of D...

Bacteria harbouring circular chromosomes have a Xer site-specific recombination system that resolves chromosome dimers at division. In Escherichia coli, the activity of the XerCD/dif system is controlled and coupled with cell division by the FtsK DNA translocase. Most Xer systems, as XerCD/dif, include two different recombinases. However, some, as the Lactococcus lactis XerS/dif(SL) system, inc...

The polyketide DIF-1 induces Dictyostelium amoebae to form stalk cells in culture. To better define its role in normal development, we examined the phenotype of a mutant blocking the first step of DIF-1 synthesis, which lacks both DIF-1 and its biosynthetic intermediate, dM-DIF-1 (des-methyl-DIF-1). Slugs of this polyketide synthase mutant (stlB(-)) are long and thin and rapidly break up, leavi...

Differential item functioning (DIF) is a critical step in providing evidence to support scoring inference building validity argument for psychological or educational assessment. Effect sizes can assist understanding the accumulation of DIF at test score level. The current simulation study investigated performance several proposed effect size measures under variety conditions. Conditions include...

The differentiation-inducing factor-1 (DIF-1) isolated from Dictyostelium discoideum is a potent antiproliferative agent that induces growth arrest and differentiation in mammalian cells in vitro. However, the specific target molecule(s) of DIF-1 has not been identified. In this study, we have tried to identify the target molecule(s) of DIF-1 in mammalian cells, examining the effects of DIF-1 a...