Methods of information in medicine
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Heart rate variability (HRV) is a signal obtained from RR intervals of electrocardiography (ECG) signals to evaluate the balance between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system; not only HRV but also pulse rate variability (PRV) extracted from finger pulse plethysmography (PPG) can reflect irregularities that may occur in heart rate and control procedures. ⋯ In conclusion, all the features computed from PRV and HRV have close agreement and correlation according to Bland-Altman analyses' results and features computed from PRV can be used in detection of hypoglycemia.
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Response-adaptive randomisation designs have been proposed to improve the efficiency of phase III randomised clinical trials and improve the outcomes of the clinical trial population. In the setting of failure time outcomes, Zhang and Rosenberger (2007) developed a response-adaptive randomisation approach that targets an optimal allocation, based on a fixed sample size. ⋯ Such Bayesian hybrid adaptive survival trials may be promising alternatives to traditional designs, reducing the duration of survival trials, as well as optimizing the ethical concerns for patients enrolled in the trial.
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To investigate whether reproducibility of gray matter volumetry is influenced by parameter settings for VBM 8 using Diffeomorphic Anatomical Registration Through Exponentiated Lie Algebra (DARTEL) with region-of-interest (ROI) analyses. ⋯ Reproducibility of gray matter volumetry was influenced by parameter settings in VBM 8 using DARTEL and ROI. In multi-center studies, the use of appropriate settings in VBM 8 with DARTEL results in reduced scanner effect.
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Sampling from a large cohort in order to derive a subsample that would be sufficient for statistical analysis is a frequently used method for handling large data sets in epidemiological studies with limited resources for exposure measurement. For clinical studies however, when interest is in the influence of a potential risk factor, cohort studies are often the first choice with all individuals entering the analysis. ⋯ Nested case-control and case-cohort studies, but not random subsamples yield an attractive alternative for analyzing clinical studies in the situation of a low event rate. Power calculations can be conducted straightforwardly to quantify the loss of power compared to the savings in the num-ber of patients using a sampling design instead of analyzing the full cohort.
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This editorial is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on "Big Data and Analytics in Healthcare". The amount of data being generated in the healthcare industry is growing at a rapid rate. ⋯ This Focus Theme aims to disseminate some novel approaches to address these challenges. More specifically, approaches ranging from efficient methods of processing large clinical data to predictive models that could generate better predictions from healthcare data are presented.