Background. Variable adherence to standardized case definitions, clinical procedures, specimen collection techniques, and laboratory methods has complicated the interpretation of previous multicenter pneumonia etiology studies. To circumvent these problems, a program of clinical standardization was embedded in the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study. Methods. Between Ma...

Several instruments measuring social functioning have been developed in the last four decades, as a result of the increasing interest in community care of the chronic mentally ill. SCARF Social Functioning Index (SSFI) was developed to meet the pressing need for an instrument which was easy to administer and which could be used by all mental health professionals. The SSFI comprises four main se...

Developing and implementing a set of personal health device interoperability standards is key to cultivating a healthy global industry ecosystem. The standardization organizations, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 11073 Personal Health Device Workgroup (IEEE 11073-PHD WG) and Continua Health Alliance, are striving for this purpose. However, factors like the medial...

Glycated haemoglobin (HbA(1c)) measurements are used in clinical studies and for the management of diabetic patients. Various efforts were made to standardize the HbA(1c) measurements with consensus standards and standards based on a reference measurement procedure with external calibration. According to ISO 17511 a standard should meet highest accuracy possible, have a defined uncertainty of m...

Multicentre patch test studies (MPTSs) can contribute useful information for diagnostic and preventive measures. The aim of the present paper is to propose how to perform high-quality MPTSs. To this end, factors of significance for the patch test result are discussed with regard to the standardization and calibration of high-quality MPTSs. The 16 factors discussed are scored 0, 1, 2, or 3, depe...

A solution containing (68)Ge in equilibrium with its daughter, (68)Ga, has been standardized for the first time at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) using 3 liquid scintillation-based techniques: live-timed 4πβ -γ anticoincidence (LTAC) counting, the Triple-to-Double Coincidence Ratio (TDCR) method, and (3)H-standard efficiency tracing with the CIEMAT(1)/NIST (CNET) meth...

BACKGROUND α-Klotho is a protein mainly produced in the kidney. Its circulating form has been suggested to link renal damage and distant tissue pathology. As three assays to measure α-Klotho became commercially available, we performed an evaluation of these commercially available Klotho assays. METHODS We studied within-run variation, between-run variation, matrix effects, linearity, and reco...

We re-examine the original Group Lasso paper of Yuan and Lin (2007). The form of penalty in that paper seems to be designed for problems with uncorrelated features, but the statistical community has adopted it for general problems with correlated features. We show that for this general situation, a Group Lasso with a different choice of penalty matrix is generally more effective. We give insigh...

The present report provides an overview of terminology studies in audiology including topics and study characteristics, as well as categorizing the main issues. The goals are to improve the understanding of the current issues for terminology in audiology and to provide some basic information that will be useful to develop an international standard. Search procedures were completed over two phas...