Tag: statistics

Clin Mol Allergy. 2023 Feb 3;21(1):1. doi: 10.1186/s12948-022-00182-z.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: As the process and nature of developing sensitivity to house dust mites (HDMs) remain not fully studied, our goal was to establish the pattern, nature and timeframe of house dust mite (HDM) sensitization development in patients in Ukraine as well as the period when treatment of such patients would be most effective.

METHODS: The data of the multiplex allergy test Alex² was collected from 20,033 patients. To determine age specifics of sensitization, descriptive statistics were used. Bayesian Network analysis was used to build probabilistic patterns of individual sensitization.

RESULTS: Patients from Ukraine were most often sensitized to HDM allergens of group 1 (Der p 1, Der f 1) and group 2 (Der p 2, Der f 2) as well as to Der p 23 (55%). A considerable sensitivity to Der p 5, Der p 7 and Der p 21 allergens was also observed. The overall nature of sensitization to HDM allergens among the population of Ukraine is formed within the first year of life. By this time, there is a pronounced sensitization to HDM allergens of groups 1 and 2 as well as to Der p 23. Significance of sensitization to Der p 5, Der p 7 and Der p 21 allergens grows starting from the age of 3-6. Bayesian Network data analysis indicated the leading role of sensitization to Der p 1 and Der f 2. While developing the sensitivity to group 5 allergens, the leading role may belong to Der p 21 allergen.

CONCLUSION: The results obtained indicate the importance of determining the sensitization profile using the multi-component approach. A more detailed study of the optimal age for AIT prescription is required as the pattern of sensitization to HDMs is formed during the first year of life.

PMID:36737770 | DOI:10.1186/s12948-022-00182-z

Reprod Health. 2023 Feb 3;20(1):28. doi: 10.1186/s12978-022-01554-z.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Teenage pregnancies cause serious health, social and economic consequences including death among adolescent girls worldwide. It is estimated that in 2019 about 55% of unintended pregnancies among adolescent girls aged 15-19 years ended up in abortions, which are often unsafe in developing countries. Little was known about the magnitude of teenage pregnancy and its associated factors in Dodoma Tanzania. Therefore, the study aimed at establishing the magnitude and factors associated with teenage pregnancies among adolescents in Dodoma Region Tanzania.

METHOD: It was a community-based analytical cross-sectional study that included 539 adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 years old. A multistage sampling technique was used to recruit study participants. An interviewer-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by using SPSS v23. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the distribution of the entire study variable while the inferential statistics helped to establish factors associated with teenage pregnancy among adolescent girls and the level of significance was set at two sides of less than 0.05.

RESULTS: The magnitude of teenage pregnancy in Dodoma was 29%. After controlling for possible confounders, factors associated with teenage pregnancy were; urban residence [AOR: 3.02, 95%CI: (1.60-5.68), p = 0.001], low mothers’ education status [AOR: 3.46, 95%CI: (1.47-8.11), p = 0.004]; Poor knowledge on sexual and reproductive health [AOR: 2.09, 95%CI: (1.2-3.63), p = 0.009]; Low family economic status [AOR: 3.83, 95%CI: (1.77-8.30), p = 0.001]; Peer group [AOR: 2.92, 95%CI: (1.33-6.40), p = 0.007]; Early marriage [AOR: 2.58, 95%CI: (1.57-4.26), p < 0.0001]; and Sexual abuse [AOR: 13.56, 95%CI: (7.98-23.06), p < 0.0001].

CONCLUSION: This study found a high magnitude of teenage pregnancy among youth in Dodoma. Teenagers who were more likely to teenage pregnancy were those with limited knowledge about sexual and reproductive health living in urban, from families with low economic status, their mothers had a low level of education, from a culture that encourage early marriages, with the influence of peer and who experienced sexual abuse. An innovative intervention study to come up with a cost-effective strategy to address the challenge of teenage pregnancy in Dodoma is highly recommended.

PMID:36737763 | DOI:10.1186/s12978-022-01554-z

BMC Public Health. 2023 Feb 3;23(1):239. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15048-5.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Childhood is a critical developmental time of wellness patterns, yet little is known about what children know and believe. Even less is known about non-majority cultures like American Indian youth. The purpose of this study was to explore American Indian students’ understandings of nutrition and physical activity.

METHODS: This mixed methods study took place in 10 schools in an American Indian community in the Southwestern U.S. Ninety American Indian students in grades 3-12 (8-19 years old) were interviewed. The interview included an 8-point body size chart. Numerical data were analyzed via t-test statistics while a constant comparison process and analysis was used for the interview data.

RESULTS: Students rated approximately 85% of students in Category 5 or smaller on the scale while placing 60% of adults at or above that size. There was a general trend of a larger body type for boys seen as healthy compared to that for girls. Students generally believed that their classmates were larger than the healthy body size. For students, a healthy body was the result of compliance with “eat right and exercise” rules. They exhibited little understanding of nutrition or physical activity and there were few developmental differences in understanding. Health was a corporeal concept and violators of the eat right and exercise rules were seen as lazy.

CONCLUSIONS: Students held narrow and corporeal focused notions of health focused on simple rules. People who violated the rules were “lazy”, a concept that seemed to underlie multiple constructs and a finding that holds true in other investigations. Students also reported few adult role models, a topic that should be explored with expanded family groups to better represent the multi-generational (e.g. grandparents, uncles, aunts) family housing common in the community. The findings are limited to a single American Indian community and a mixed design of relatively small numbers. This addition to the literature from a non-majority cultural group expands our knowledge of student perspectives on health. These findings can be used to create more effective curricula and interventions. Schools need more effective, but also alternately framed approaches that promote broader views of health.

PMID:36737762 | DOI:10.1186/s12889-023-15048-5

BMC Geriatr. 2023 Feb 3;23(1):72. doi: 10.1186/s12877-022-03710-3.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Chromium (Cr) and cobalt (Co) are the essential elements for producing metal implants, but might have potential health issues. The research on the correlation between metal implants and blood Cr and Co on a large population is still limited.

METHODS: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a program of studies designed to assess the health status of Americans began in the early 1960s. The study was based on the NHANES database from two data collection years (2015-2016 and 2017-2018). The exposure variable of this study was whether the participants had metal objects in the body or not. The outcome variables were blood concentrations of Cr and Co. Age, body mass index, sex, race/ethnicity, income to poverty ratio, tap water behavior, shellfish/fish/tuna/salmon eating habits, level of education, smoking behavior, marital status, blood hemoglobin, and data collection years were included as confounding variables.

RESULTS: A total of 4412 participants, aged 40 years or older, were included in this analysis, consisting of the without metal objects group (n = 3150) and the metal objects group (n = 1262). Metal objects was positively correlated to the accumulation of blood Cr (β = 0.072, 95% CI: 0.043-0.102, p < 0.001) and blood Co (β = 0.079, 95% CI: 0.049-0.109, p < 0.001). However, the positive correlation of metal objects with blood Cr was only presented in women (β = 0.112, 95% CI: 0.074-0.151, p < 0.001), but not in men. Meanwhile, the positive relationship between metal objects and blood Cr/Co was not observed in the Asian subgroup.

CONCLUSIONS: Blood Cr and Co concentrations were statistically higher in people with metal objects, but with race and sex differences.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV, cross-sectional study.

PMID:36737686 | DOI:10.1186/s12877-022-03710-3

BMC Infect Dis. 2023 Feb 3;23(1):68. doi: 10.1186/s12879-023-08030-4.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Understanding the predictors of adverse clinical outcomes following incident Clostridiodes difficile infection (CDI) can help clinicians identify which patients are at risk of complications and help prioritize the provision of their care. In this study, we assessed the associations between epidemiologic case definition categories and adverse clinical outcomes in patients with CDI in San Francisco County, California.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using CDI surveillance data (n = 3274) from the California Emerging Infections Program for the time period 2016 to 2020. After independent associations were established, two multivariable logistic and log-binomial regression models were constructed for the final statistical analysis.

RESULT: The mean cumulative incidence of CDI cases was 78.8 cases per 100,000 population. The overall recurrence rate and the 30-day all-cause mortality rate were 11.1% and 4.5%, respectively. After adjusting for potential confounders, compared to the community associated CDI cases, healthcare facility onset (AOR = 3.1; 95% CI [1.3-7]) and community-onset-healthcare facility associated (AOR = 2.4; 95% CI [1.4-4.3]) CDI cases were found to have higher odds of all-cause 30-day mortality. Community onset-healthcare facility-associated CDI case definition category was found to be significantly associated with an increased risk of recurrence of CDI (ARR = 1.7; 95% CI [1.2-2.4]).

CONCLUSION: Although the incidence of community-associated CDI cases has been rising, the odds of all-cause 30-day mortality and the risk of recurrent CDI associated with these infections are lower than healthcare facility onset and community-onset healthcare facility-associated CDI cases.

PMID:36737685 | DOI:10.1186/s12879-023-08030-4

Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 3;13(1):1990. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28324-6.

ABSTRACT

In this article, the ratio-dependent prey-predator system perturbed with time noise is numerically investigated. It relates to the population densities of the prey and predator in an ecological system. The initial prey-predator models only depend on the time and a couple of the differential equations. We are considering a model where the prey-predator interaction is influenced by both space and time and the need for a coupled nonlinear partial differential equation with the effect of the random behavior of the environment. The existence of the solutions is guaranteed by using Schauder’s fixed point theorem. The computation of the underlying model is carried out by two schemes. The proposed stochastic forward Euler scheme is conditionally stable and consistent with the system of the equations. The proposed stochastic non-standard finite difference scheme is unconditionally stable and consistent with the system of the equations. The graphical behavior of a test problem for different values of the parameters is shown which depicts the efficacy of the schemes. Our numerical results will help the researchers to consider the effect of the noise on the prey-predator model.

PMID:36737648 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-28324-6

Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 3;13(1):1980. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28593-1.

ABSTRACT

Soybean is highly sensitive to flooding and extreme rainfall. The phenotypic variation of flooding tolerance is a complex quantitative trait controlled by many genes and their interaction with environmental factors. We previously constructed a gene-pool relevant to soybean flooding-tolerant responses from integrated multiple omics and non-omics databases, and selected 144 prioritized flooding tolerance genes (FTgenes). In this study, we proposed a comprehensive framework at the systems level, using competitive (hypergeometric test) and self-contained (sum-statistic, sum-square-statistic) pathway-based approaches to identify biologically enriched pathways through evaluating the joint effects of the FTgenes within annotated pathways. These FTgenes were significantly enriched in 36 pathways in the Gene Ontology database. These pathways were related to plant hormones, defense-related, primary metabolic process, and system development pathways, which plays key roles in soybean flooding-induced responses. We further identified nine key FTgenes from important subnetworks extracted from several gene networks of enriched pathways. The nine key FTgenes were significantly expressed in soybean root under flooding stress in a qRT-PCR analysis. We demonstrated that this systems biology framework is promising to uncover important key genes underlying the molecular mechanisms of flooding-tolerant responses in soybean. This result supplied a good foundation for gene function analysis in further work.

PMID:36737640 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-28593-1

Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 3;13(1):1991. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29039-4.

ABSTRACT

Quinoa is an important Andean crop that can play a strategic role in the development of degraded lands in hot arid regions due to its high nutritional value, genetic diversity and its high adaptability to stressful environments. The aim of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance (growth development, grain yield and grain quality characteristics) of seven quinoa genotypes (Giza1, Sajama, Santa Maria, Q102, Q29, Q27 and Q18) cultivated under open field conditions in the Sahara Desert of Algeria. Using randomized complete block design (4 blocks), field trials were conducted during two cropping seasons (2017-2018 and 2018-2019) from November to April. The measured parameters included: plant height, number of panicles per plant, 1000-grain weight (TGW), grain yield (GYd), grain protein content (GPt), grain saponin content (GSC), and maturity indicators. The genotype effect was statistically the main source of variation in most parameters investigated as compared to the effect of cropping year. The Q102 genotype produced the highest GYd (2.87 t/ha) and GPt (16.7 g/100 g DM); and it required medium period (149 days) to reach harvest maturity as compared to other genotypes. The genotype Giza1 showed the lowest GYd and also low values for most of traits measured. However, it had the shortest harvest maturity (139 days) and the lowest GSC (0.62 g/100 g DM). The variety Santa Maria recorded the highest TGW (2.68 g), but it took 164 days to reach harvest maturity and it had high GSC (1.92 g/100 g DM). Though the best yield and grain quality characteristics were not reunited in single genotype, our findings showed that quinoa has multi-benefit potentials as a new crop for the arid agriculture in particular in hot-arid regions of North Africa.

PMID:36737632 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-29039-4

Transl Psychiatry. 2023 Feb 3;13(1):38. doi: 10.1038/s41398-023-02332-6.

ABSTRACT

Human brain development starts in the embryonic period. Maternal preconception nutrition and nutrient availability to the embryo may influence brain development at this critical period following conception and early cellular differentiation, thereby affecting offspring neurodevelopmental and behavioural disorder risk. However, studying this is challenging due to difficulties in characterizing preconception nutritional status and few studies have objective neurodevelopmental imaging measures in children. We investigated the associations of maternal preconception circulating blood nutrient-related biomarker mixtures (~15 weeks before conception) with child behavioural symptoms (Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), aged 3 years) within the Singapore Preconception Study of Long-Term Maternal and Child Outcomes (S-PRESTO) study. The CBCL preschool form evaluates child behaviours based on syndrome scales and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) oriented scales. These scales consist of internalizing problems, externalizing problems, anxiety problems, pervasive developmental problems, oppositional defiant, etc. We applied data-driven clustering and a method for modelling mixtures (Bayesian kernel machine regression, BKMR) to account for complex, non-linear dependencies between 67 biomarkers. We used effect decomposition analyses to explore the potential mediating role of neonatal (week 1) brain microstructure, specifically orientation dispersion indices (ODI) of 49 cortical and subcortical grey matter regions. We found that higher levels of a nutrient cluster including thiamine, thiamine monophosphate (TMP), pyridoxal phosphate, pyridoxic acid, and pyridoxal were associated with a higher CBCL score for internalizing problems (posterior inclusion probability (PIP) = 0.768). Specifically, thiamine independently influenced CBCL (Conditional PIP = 0.775). Higher maternal preconception thiamine level was also associated with a lower right subthalamic nucleus ODI (P-value = 0.01) while a lower right subthalamic nucleus ODI was associated with higher CBCL scores for multiple domains (P-value < 0.05). One potential mechanism is the suboptimal metabolism of free thiamine to active vitamin B1, but additional follow-up and replication studies in other cohorts are needed.

PMID:36737601 | DOI:10.1038/s41398-023-02332-6

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Feb 4. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-25665-7. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study deals with the asymmetric effect of economic policy uncertainty and political stability on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions considering also energy consumption and economic growth. In this context, the study investigates G-7 countries, which make up an important part of the world economy. Also, the study uses yearly data between 1997 and 2021 as the most available intersection data for all countries included. Besides, this study applies a novel nonlinear approach as quantile-on-quantile regression (QQR) as the base model, and quantile regression (QR) is used for robustness. The empirical results present that (i) economic policy uncertainty has a decreasing effect on CO₂ emissions in Italy, Japan, and the United States of America (USA), whereas it has a mixed effect in Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK); (ii) political stability also has a mixed effect on CO₂ emissions; (iii) energy consumption has an accelerating effect on CO₂ emissions while the power of effect changes at quantiles; (iv) economic growth has generally an increasing effect on CO₂ emissions, whereas it has a decreasing effect at lower quantiles in Japan, at middle quantiles in France and Germany, and at higher quantiles in Italy; and (v) the QR results support the robustness of QQR findings. Thus, the empirical results highlight that G-7 countries should consider the asymmetric and quantile-based varying effects of the economic policy uncertainty, political stability, and economic growth to reach their carbon neutrality targets.

PMID:36737567 | DOI:10.1007/s11356-023-25665-7