scholarly journals Petitions in scientific argumentation: dissecting the request to retire statistical significance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Elis Hardwicke ◽  
john Ioannidis

KEY MESSAGES•Petitions have a long history of being used for political, social, ethical, and injustice issues, however, it is unclear how/whether they should be implemented in scientific argumentation. •Recently, an extremely influential commentary published in Nature (Amrhein et al., 2019) calling for the abandonment of “statistical significance” was signed by 854 scientists. •We surveyed signatories and observed substantial heterogeneity in respondents’ perceptions of the petition process, motivations for signing, and views on aspects of abandoning statistical significance. •The top-cited signatories were strongly concentrated in a few scientific fields.•In a random sample of 100 signatories, 62 published at least one paper in 2018 using statistical inference and most of them had used the phrase “statistical significance”. •When scientists sign petitions, they may have variable views on important aspects and it is useful to understand this diversity.

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (12) ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
M. A. Krasnova ◽  
E. M. Belilovsky ◽  
S. E. Borisov ◽  
A. A. Khakhalina ◽  
Yu. D. Mikhaylova ◽  
...  

The article describes a retrospective study of the results of microbiological and molecular genetic tests of 685 M. tuberculosis cultures isolated from 685 adult tuberculosis patients registered for dispensary follow-up in Moscow in 2014.The following was identified during the study: phenotypic drug resistance (FDR) of MTB to rifampicin, isoniazid, fluoroquinolones, kanamycin, amikacin, and capreomycin in groups of patients with different treatment history; the frequency of FDR to the above anti-tuberculosis drugs in strains with mutations being drug resistance markers; the frequency of various mutations in case of FDR of mycobacteria in the patients from different groups; the relationship of FDR or the presence of a particular mutation with various characteristics of the patients and their treatment history.The history of previous treatment was determined as statistical significance to provide the greatest influence on the spread of drug resistant MTB: patients undergoing repeated treatment had FDR more often and also a much more pronounced variety of mutations being markers of FDR to certain anti-tuberculosis drugs.The results of the study showed that the detection of genetic mutations in MBT associated with FDR was a reliable tool for predicting phenotypic resistance and should be used as the main method for selecting anti-tuberculosis drugs when compiling the etiotropic therapy regimen.


Author(s):  
Khalaf Kridin ◽  
Jennifer E. Hundt ◽  
Ralf J. Ludwig ◽  
Kyle T. Amber ◽  
Dana Tzur Bitan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe association between bullous pemphigoid (BP) and melanoma is yet to be investigated. We aimed to assess assess the bidirectional association between BP and melanoma and to delineate the epidemiological features of patients with both diagnoses. A population-based cohort study was performed comparing BP patients (n = 3924) with age-, sex- and ethnicity-matched control subjects (n = 19,280) with regard to incident cases of melanoma. A case–control design was additionally adopted to estimate the risk of BP in individuals with a preexisting diagnosis of melanoma. The prevalence of preexisting melanoma was higher in patients with BP than in control subjects (1.5% vs. 1.0%, respectively; P = 0.004). A history of melanoma confers a 50% increase in the risk of subsequent BP (OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.14–2.06). This risk was higher among males (OR 1.66; 95% CI 1.09–2.54) and individuals older than 80 years (OR 1.63; 95% CI 1.11–2.38), and persisted after adjustment for multiple putative confounders including PD-1/PDL-1 antagonists (adjusted OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.14–2.06). Conversely, the risk of melanoma among patients with BP was slightly elevated, but did not reach the level of statistical significance (adjusted HR 1.13; 95% CI 0.73–1.74). Patients with a dual diagnosis of BP and melanoma were older at the onset of BP and had lower body mass index. A history of melanoma is associated with a 50% increase in the incidence of subsequent BP. Physicians managing patients with both conditions should be aware of this association. Further research is warranted to reveal the underlying mechanism of these findings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
E A Villegas Vázquez ◽  
J C Leyva Chipol ◽  
K C Cervantes Gómez ◽  
S I Valencia Almeida ◽  
F G Márquez Celedonio ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Within the current context in our Mexico, major states of violence for women have been manifested on a daily basis without having any more reason than being female. Veracruz is the first place in feminicides in Mexico with a rate of 3.44 per 100 thousand women. Research question: What is the intensity of the violence committed and victimization in the courtship of young students of the Upper Middle level in the Veracruz - Boca del Río area, according to their gender? Material and Methods A cross-sectional, prospective, observational and analytical study was carried out from December to February 2020. Middle-high school students from the Veracruz-Boca del Río region were included, who had a dating relationship and were excluded those who did not accept to participate. The variable “violence committed and victimization in courtship” was quantified with the CADRI instrument. The spss v22 software was used, Sudent's T was calculated for independent samples, with statistical significance p < 0.05. Results 741 students were included. There was a prevalence of violence committed of 86.2% and victimization of 89.2%. Of the total number of students who suffered and committed violence, women occupy 66.3% and 66.7% respectively. There is a difference in the intensity of violence between women and men in verbal-emotional violence (4.5 ± 4.2 vs. 3.4 ± 3.4), physical violence (0.6 ± 1.3 vs. 0.36 ± 3.6) and violence in general (5.7 ± 5.7 vs 4.3 ± 4.8) (p < 0.05), while victimization scores do not make a difference between both genders (p > 0.05). The history of psychological and sexual violence in previous relationships, as well as sexual violence in daily life are more frequent in the female sex (p < 0.05) Conclusions The violence generated is more intense in women, however, they also have a history of having suffered violence more frequently in previous relationships and in their daily lives. Key messages Women suffer more aggressions at different stages of their lives, which may increase the risk to tolerate aggressions or be more aggressive or suffer mental health problems. We must study if the violence generated by women is a response to a previous aggression from their boyfriend.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 139-174
Author(s):  
Laetitia Lenel

The article investigates the methods and conceptions of statistical inference used in business forecasting in the United States and in Europe in the 1920s. After presenting the methods and arguments used by the members of the Harvard Committee on Economic Research in the first years after its establishment in 1919, the article explores the far-reaching changes in method and conviction from 1922 on. The members’ realization that the future evolved differently than predicted prompted them to give up their hope for mechanical means of forecasting and to revoke their calls for the employment of the mathematical theory of probability in economics. Instead, they established an extensive correspondence with economic and political decision-makers that allowed them to base their forecasts on “inside information.” Subsequently, the article traces European attempts to adopt the Harvard Index of General Business Conditions in the early 1920s. Impressed by the seemingly mechanical working of the Harvard index, European economists and statisticians sought to establish similar indices for their countries. However, numerous revisions of the Harvard index in the mid-1920s cast doubt on the universality of the index and the existence of stable patterns and led European researchers to pursue different paths of investigation. The article complicates the larger history of statistical inference in economics in two meaningful ways. First, it argues that statistical inference with probability was not the long-sought solution for the problem of objectivity but a long-contested, and repeatedly discarded, approach. Second, it shows that these contestations were often triggered by deviations between forecasts and the conditions actually observed and by this means argues for the importance of the historical context in the history of economics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-IT) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Tanga ◽  
Giacomo Gelati ◽  
Marco Casazza

6Contemporary science and culture show more and more extended and meaningful signs about the increasing explaining power of evolutionary paradigm. This power overcomes the field of the history of living species. We consider “On the Origin of Species” of 1859 by Charles Darwin as the establishment of this paradigm, but this original and fruitful idea has received the several and different contributions from near and (seemingly) far scientific fields. This process happened according distinguishable waves and leaded the evolutionary theory very far from its starting point, making it something wider and different. The current knowledge of this theory involves many kinds of scholars: biologists, zoologists, botanists, development biologists, genetics/genomics scholars and also scholars of many other disciplines, as statistics, mathematics, ecology, environmental sciences, physics, chemistry, linguistics, sociology, neuro-sciences, epidemiology, informatics, immunology. During the end of XX Century, the study of complexity, of self-organization and of emerging properties has been a decisive factor to extend evolution until beyond the boundaries of Biology. These phenomena, or properties, or features, that are shown by “living” and “not-living” systems (so called basing ourselves on traditional definitions), have deeply modified even the “properly” biologic evolution itself and besides this has demonstrated that, mutatis mutandis, evolutionary processes or phenomena happen also out of biologic dominion, referring “biologic” to “wet-ware world”. This is to say the class of evolutionary phenomena is more widely and more inclusively extended than our opinion. We can mean this as a revolution (according to Kuhn’s definition) that imposes us to restructure the definition of evolution itself and even to redraw the boundaries and the map of Biology itself. Aiming to establish a name of this field of study we propose “PanEvolutionary Theory” (PanEvo Theory). No doubt Prigogine offered an important contribution to this area. The thinking and the work of Enzo Tiezzi can be placed seen in the same perspective. Disregarding direct connections and contacts with the Nobel Prize Prigogine, however the studies of Enzo Tiezzi are neither a fully unexpected work nor a theory lacking of important potentialities: it is not a strange or eccentric academic exercise. Except the close contact and the dense exchanges with Prigogine, we collocate Enzo Tiezzi in the same context of Gregory Chaitin, of Rachel Carson, of John Harte and Robert H. Socolow, of James Paul Wesley, of Sertorio, of Oort and Peixoto, just to cite the most strictly related. Our Academy had the privilege and the honor of having Enzo Tiezzi in its ranks. We think that merits and developments of the thinking of this scholar have to produce important and lasting fruits in the future.


Author(s):  
Drpadmajauday Kumar ◽  
Varsha Kalyanpur

ABSTRACTObjectives: Estimating the hemoglobin (Hb) status in female medicos through prospective cross-sectional study and assessment of influencing ofcofactors were objectives.Methods: Women medicos who volunteered, consented and met selection criteria were enrolled. Hb level was estimated to diagnose anemia.Relationship with influencing factors was assessed statistically.Result: A total of 100 eligible students were enrolled. Mean age±standard deviation (SD) age of the participants’ was 20.9±3.1 years (17-25 years).Mean±SD Hb was 12.25±1.0189 g% (9.0-16.0 g%). 33 were anemic, and mild anemia (32%) was frequent. There was a history of worm infestation inthree students (3%), who were treated adequately. Nine were on iron supplements of which five were still anemic and were continuing the treatmentby the end of the study. 28 (84.84%) anemic students were not on any iron or hematinic treatment. There was no association between the anemiaand nature of diet, consumption of green leafy vegetables, consumption of coffee/tea after food, smoking/tobacco or alcohol consumption, mother’seducation, socioeconomic status, menstrual factors, and physical exercise. The prevalence of anemia was found to be higher in underweight andoverweight students in comparison to students with normal body mass index.Asymptomatic participants (n=78) outnumbered symptomatic ones(n=22), but without any statistical significance. Easy fatigability (14%), pallor (7%), breathlessness (6%), weakness (9%), and easy bruising (1%)were frequent complaints.Conclusion: Anemia is frequent among women medicos, often underdiagnosed, under-reported, many remaining asymptomatic. Negligence ofmedical students toward their anemic status despite the awareness of consequences of low Hb level is a serious cause of concern.Keywords: Awareness, Hemoglobin, Nutritional anemia, Women medical students.


Author(s):  
Ville L. Langén ◽  
Teemu J. Niiranen ◽  
Juhani Mäki ◽  
Jouko Sundvall ◽  
Antti M. Jula

AbstractPrevious studies with mainly selected populations have proposed contradicting reference ranges for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and have disagreed on how screening, age and gender affect them. This study aimed to determine a TSH reference range on the Abbott Architect ci8200 integrated system in a large, nationwide, stratified random sample. To our knowledge this is the only study apart from the NHANES III that has addressed this issue in a similar nationwide setting. The effects of age, gender, thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPOAb)-positivity and medications on TSH reference range were also assessed.TSH was measured from 6247 participants randomly drawn from the population register to represent the Finnish adult population. TSH reference ranges were established of a thyroid-healthy population and its subpopulations with increasing and cumulative rigour of screening: screening for overt thyroid disease (thyroid-healthy population, n=5709); screening for TPOAb-positivity (risk factor-free subpopulation, n=4586); and screening for use of any medications (reference subpopulation, n=1849).The TSH reference ranges of the thyroid-healthy population, and the risk factor-free and reference subpopulations were 0.4–4.4, 0.4–3.7 and 0.4–3.4 mU/L (2.5th–97.5th percentiles), respectively. Although the differences in TSH between subgroups for age (p=0.002) and gender (p=0.005) reached statistical significance, the TSH distribution curves of the subgroups were practically superimposed.We propose 0.4–3.4 mU/L as a TSH reference range for adults for this platform, which is lower than those presently used in most laboratories. Our findings suggest that intensive screening for thyroid risk factors, especially for TPOAb-positivity, decreases the TSH upper reference limit.


Author(s):  
Inês Carolina Siqueira Freitas ◽  
Micheli Cristiane Hintz ◽  
Larissa Chaiane Orth ◽  
Tamara Gonçalves da Rosa ◽  
Betine Moehlecke Iser ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective The present study aims to compare the maternal and fetal outcomes of parturients with and without a gestational diabetes diagnosis. Methods A case-control study including parturients with (cases) and without (control) a gestational diabetes diagnosis, who delivered at a teaching hospital in Southern Brazil, between May and August 2018. Primary and secondary data were used. Bivariate analysis and a backward conditional multivariate logistic regression were used to make comparisons between cases and controls, which were expressed by odds ratio (OR), with a 95% confidence interval (95%CI) and a statistical significance level of 5%. Results The cases (n = 47) were more likely to be 35 years old or older compared with the controls (n = 93) (p < 0.001). The cases had 2.56 times greater chance of being overweight (p = 0.014), and a 2.57 times greater chance of having a positive family history of diabetes mellitus (p = 0.01). There was no significant difference regarding weight gain, presence of a previous history of gestational diabetes, height, or delivery route. The mean weight at birth was significantly higher in the infants of mothers diagnosed with diabetes (p = 0.01). There was a 4.7 times greater chance of macrosomia (p < 0.001) and a 5.4 times greater chance of neonatal hypoglycemia (p = 0.01) in the infants of mothers with gestational diabetes. Conclusion Therefore, maternal age, family history of type 2 diabetes, obesity and pregestational overweightness are important associated factors for a higher chance of developing gestational diabetes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 1985-95
Author(s):  
Thomas Obinchemti Egbe ◽  
Charmaine Ngo Mbaki ◽  
Nicholas Tendongfor ◽  
Elvis Temfack ◽  
Eugene Belley-Priso

Aim: We determined the prevalence and factors associated with couple infertility in three hospitals in Douala, Cameroon. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study from December 18th 2015 to March 18th 2016 in three public hospitals in Douala. Three hundred and sixty participants were studied prospectively for associated fac- tors using a multivariate logistic regression model and 4732 files were studied retrospectively for the prevalence of infertility. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: The prevalence of couple infertility was 19.2%. In logistic models, the factors which independently increased the risk of couple infertility were a history of reproductive tract infection/STI, a history of uterine fibroids, a history of dys- menorrhea and abortion for the females while for males it was a history of mumps, erectile dysfunction and exposure to chemicals/toxic substances/pesticides. Conclusion: One in every five couples in this study was infertile. Several factors affect the risks associated with couple in- fertility. The identification of these factors could help detect subgroups of couples at high risk of infertility. Reproductive health education, screening programmes for STI’s that may lead to infertility should be offered to couples. Keywords: Couple infertility; prevalence; associated factors; Douala; Cameroon.


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