Revisiting Gaussian copulas to handle endogenous regressors

Marketing researchers are increasingly taking advantage of the instrumental variable (IV)-free Gaussian copula approach. They use this method to identify and correct endogeneity when estimating regression models with non-experimental data. The Gaussian copula approach’s original presentation and performance demonstration via a series of simulation studies focused primarily on regression models without intercept. However, marketing and other disciplines’ researchers mainly use regression models with intercept. This research expands our knowledge of the Gaussian copula approach to regression models with intercept and to multilevel models. The results of our simulation studies reveal a fundamental bias and concerns about statistical power at smaller sample sizes and when the approach’s primary assumptions are not fully met. This key finding opposes the method’s potential advantages and raises concerns about its appropriate use in prior studies. As a remedy, we derive boundary conditions and guidelines that contribute to the Gaussian copula approach’s proper use. Thereby, this research contributes to ensuring the validity of results and conclusions of empirical research applying the Gaussian copula approach.

Embodiment, Autoethnography, Performance Poetry: Living with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

This presentation offers neurodivergence embodied, autoethnography, and performance poetry. The confluence of acquiring severe traumatic brain injury combined with exposure to concepts and paradigms while pursuing a graduate degree in Disability Studies, catalyzed emergence and triggered development of my disabled identity. The brain damage acquired causes issues of decoding/deciphering/processing, which in turn triggers and/or produces episodes of temporal dissonance. When these shifts in timing occur, they have tremendous impact on rational thought processes and emotional stability. The salient aspects of my new life – emotional sensitivity and volatility – may on the surface seem detrimental and undesirable; however, I celebrate these qualities as they greatly enhance my identification with and empathy for others, which in turn drive my artistic, social, cultural, political expression, quest for community and belonging. While temporal dissonance is unlikely to occur during this planned short presentation, I will relate and provide the audience with windows on largely hidden and little understood forms of impairment. Note: To hear recitation of some of these poems, check out fellow VIBE presenter Cheryl Green’s podcast: http://whoamitostopit.com/pigeonhole-podcast-17-autoethnographic-poetry/ The original presentation at VIBE was accompanied by music from Miles Davis and Marcus Miller’s 1987 album Music from Siesta. Readers are encouraged to listen to this album via their music platform of choice while reading the following poetry. Youtube link to the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvtNL_jyeQ

Year-long COVID-19 infection reveals within-host evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in a patient with B cell depletion

ABSTRACTBackgroundB-cell depleting therapies may lead to protracted disease and prolonged viral shedding in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2. Viral persistence in the setting of immunosuppression raises concern for viral evolution.MethodsAmplification of sub-genomic transcripts for the E gene (sgE) was done on nasopharyngeal samples over the course of 355 days in a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2 who had previously undergone CAR T cell therapy and had persistently positive SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal swabs. Whole genome sequencing was performed on samples from the patient’s original presentation and 10 months later.ResultsOver the course of almost a year, the virus accumulated a unique in-frame deletion in the amino-terminal domain of the spike protein, and complete deletion of ORF7b and ORF8, the first report of its kind in an immunocompromised patient. Also, minority variants that were identified in the early samples—reflecting the heterogeneity of the initial infection—were found to be fixed late in the infection. Remdesivir and high-titer convalescent plasma treatment were given, and the infection was eventually cleared after 335 days of infection.ConclusionsThe unique viral mutations found in this study highlight the importance of analyzing viral evolution in protracted SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in immunosuppressed hosts, and the implication of these mutations in the emergence of viral variants.SummaryWe report an immunocompromised patient with persistent symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection for 335 days. During this time, the virus accumulated a unique in-frame deletion in the spike, and a complete deletion of ORF7b and ORF8 which is the first report of its kind in an immunocompromised patient.

CLRM-14. OPEN-LABEL, MULTINATIONAL, MULTICENTER, PHASE 3B/4 STUDY OF TRASTUZUMAB DERUXTECAN (T-DXD) IN PATIENTS WITH OR WITHOUT BASELINE BRAIN METASTASIS (BM) WITH PREVIOUSLY TREATED ADVANCED/METASTATIC HUMAN EPIDERMAL GROWTH FACTOR RECEPTOR 2–POSITIVE BREAST CANCER (HER2+ BC): DESTINY-BREAST12

BACKGROUND Despite treatment advances, up to 50% of patients with advanced HER2+ BC develop BM (Zimmer. Cancer Rep. 2020). Patients with HER2+ BC with BM have a worse prognosis than patients without BM. In DESTINY-Breast01, T-DXd demonstrated efficacy in the overall population and preliminary efficacy in a subgroup with stable BM, with a confirmed objective response rate (ORR) of 61.4% and an extracranial confirmed ORR by independent central review (ICR) of 58.3%, median progression-free survival (PFS) of 19.4 and 18.1 mo, and median duration of response (DOR) of 20.8 and 16.9 mo (Modi. Cancer Res. 2021; Jerusalem. Ann Oncol. 2020). Here we describe a trial evaluating T-DXd in patients with previously treated advanced/metastatic HER2+ BC ±BM. DESIGN DESTINY-Breast12 (NCT04739761) is an open-label, multicenter, international (86 sites in the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan), phase 3b/4 study assessing T-DXd 5.4 mg/kg q3w efficacy and safety in patients with previously treated advanced/metastatic HER2+ BC ±BM that progressed with ≥1 prior anti-HER2–based regimen and received ≤2 lines of therapy in the metastatic setting (excluding patients with prior tucatinib). Patients (n=250/cohort) will be enrolled in cohort 1 (−BM at baseline) or 2 (+BM at baseline). BM must be untreated and not needing immediate local therapy or previously treated and stable or progressing. Primary endpoints are ORR (cohort 1) and PFS (cohort 2) (both by RECIST version 1.1 per ICR). Secondary endpoints are OS, DOR, time to progression, duration of subsequent therapy, PFS2, safety, and changes in symptoms, functioning, and QOL in both cohorts; incidence of new symptomatic CNS metastasis (CNSM) in cohort 1; and ORR and CNS ORR by RECIST 1.1 per ICR, CNS PFS and DOR, and time to new CNSM in cohort 2. This is an encore; the original presentation will be at The European Society for Medical Oncology 2021.

The rhetorical ideal of generation Z (based on a sociolinguistic experiment)

This article at the intersection of rhetoric, communication science, psychology and sociology, examines the ideas about the rhetorical ideal of representatives of the so-called “generation Z” - young people born before 1995. For this purpose, the article describes the results of a sociolinguistic experiment conducted among students of the Altai branch of the RANEPA, within the framework of which the best, in the opinion of the respondents, orators of our time were identified and their qualities were described. Analyzing the data obtained, the author comes to the conclusion that the rhetorical ideal for representatives of generation Z is generally similar to Aristotelian and includes such qualities as openness, honesty, truthfulness, sincerity, professionalism, original presentation style, intellectuality, logical thinking and speech, creativity, sense of humor. Also important are a high level of proficiency in speech technologies, easy dispute, mastery of argumentation techniques, simplicity and intelligibility of speech; constant contact with the audience.

What Happened to the Insurrection?

This article revisits Susan Stryker's 2006 introduction to The Transgender Studies Reader to show how her overview of Foucault's “insurrection of subjugated knowledges” in this field-inaugurating text mutes the radical potential of Foucault's genealogical approach to history. Through a close reading of Foucault's original presentation of this concept in his 1976 lecture, the fuller sense of his “antiscience” genealogy becomes clear. The article concludes by proposing a way scholars might redeploy Foucault's insurrectionary method within the field of trans* studies today.

Central Banks of the Visegrad Group States in the Light of Constitutional Regulations

The Visegrad Group is a regional form of cooperation of four Central European states, i.e. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The above states have been members of the European Union since 2004. What is more, the Visegrad Group is recognized as an alliance and forum for exchanging experiences and developing common positions on matters of particular importance for the future of the region and the European Union. The constitutional provisions of the Visegrad Group states regarding the legal and constitutional status of a central bank were analysed and compared on the basis of analogies and differences. Importantly, today central banks play a significant role in the socio-economic and political system of a state. In particular, the article contains an innovative approach to the subject by comparing the subject matter from the perspective of constitutional regulations. The considerations are based on both the literature of scientific representatives and constitutional regulations, creating a complete and original presentation of the issue.

Reevaluating the SIBTEST Classification Heuristics for Dichotomous Differential Item Functioning

A simulation study was conducted to investigate the heuristics of the SIBTEST procedure and how it compares with ETS classification guidelines used with the Mantel–Haenszel procedure. Prior heuristics have been used for nearly 25 years, but they are based on a simulation study that was restricted due to computer limitations and that modeled item parameters from estimates of ACT and ASVAB tests from 1987 and 1984, respectively. Further, suggested heuristics for data fitting a two-parameter logistic model (2PL) have essentially went unused since their original presentation. This simulation study incorporates a wide range of data conditions to recommend heuristics for both 2PL and three-parameter logistic (3PL) data that correspond with ETS’s Mantel–Haenszel heuristics. Levels of agreement between the new SIBTEST heuristics and Mantel–Haenszel heuristics were similar for 2PL data and higher than prior SIBTEST heuristics for 3PL data. The new recommendations provide higher true-positive rates for 2PL data. Conversely, they displayed decreased true-positive rates for 3PL data. False-positive rates, overall, remained below the level of significance for the new heuristics. Unequal group sizes resulted in slightly larger false-positive rates than balanced designs for both prior and new SIBTEST heuristics, with rates less than alpha levels for equal ability distributions and unbalanced designs versus false-positive rates slightly higher than alpha with unequal ability distributions and unbalanced designs.

Does sponsorship of electrophysiology and devices presentations alter conflict of interest disclosures?

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Interaction with industry is often required for the development of electrophysiology (EP) and devices research. Findings from industry-funded research are often presented at sponsored sessions during international conferences. However, industry interactions produce potential conflict of interests (COIs). Such COIs must be disclosed appropriately when presenting research findings to allow viewers to interpret the results correctly. This is particularly true during sponsored sessions. Purpose To assess whether session sponsorship affects the presentation of potential COIs in EP and devices presentations. Methods Recorded presentations from the Arrhythmia & Devices section of ESC Annual Congresses 2016-2020 were assessed. Presentations were excluded if the original presentation contained no slides, was a panel discussion, it was a non-scientific presentation, or part of the presentation was missing. Sponsorship information was gathered from presentation meta-data. Chi-squared and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to assess differences between groups for dichotomous and continuous data respectively. Results Of 1,153 presentations assessed, 1,017 were suitable for inclusion. Of these 14% (n = 142) were sponsored sessions. COI disclosure slides were more likely to be missing in sponsored sessions (13.4%, n = 19) compared with non-sponsored sessions (6.2%, n = 54), p = 0.002. In those with COI disclosure slides, sponsored presentations contained a greater median number of COIs (12, IQR 6-19) compared with non-sponsored sessions (1, IQR 0-5), p < 0.0001. Conversely, the time-per-word spent on COI disclosures was approximately 50% lower in sponsored sessions (125ms, IQR 76-217ms) compared with non-sponsored sessions (250ms, IQR 125-375ms), p < 0.0001. Furthermore, presenters at sponsored sessions were much less likely than those at non-sponsored sessions to provide sufficient verbal details of their conflicts (0% vs 8.5% respectively, p = 0.0008). These findings were not materially altered when limited to only those presentations with COIs. Conclusions Sponsored sessions make up about one seventh of all EP/devices presentations at the ESC annual congress. Presenters at sponsored sessions were less likely to present a COI disclosure slide. Sponsored presentations had a higher number or of potential COIs, yet they were displayed for a far shorter time. This suggests that sponsored sessions have a higher risk of potential bias which viewers are not provided sufficient opportunity to assess.

One or several granular geographies?

This response addresses the issues and potentialities raised by the commentaries on my article, ‘For Granular Geography’. It clarifies some of the tensions within my original presentation of granular geography, and then outlines two diverging trajectories for granular geographies to come. The first outlines a geophilosophical and geomorphological trajectory of granular assemblages that map how sand binds elemental and non-human relations to interrogate the emerging global sand crisis. The second trajectory consists of developing granular relations for the ecological critique of political economy as a set of tools for theorising unstable relations between capital and nature, complementing existing metaphors of metabolism.