Maximizing the Yield of Small Samples in Prevention Research: A Review of General Strategies and Best Practices

The goal of this manuscript is describe strategies for maximizing the yield of data from small samples in prevention research. We begin by discussing what “small” means as a description of sample size in prevention research. We then present a series of practical strategies for getting the most out of data when sample size is small and constrained. Our focus is the prototypic between-group test for intervention effects; however, we touch on the circumstance in which intervention effects are qualified by one or more moderators. We conclude by highlighting the potential usefulness of graphical methods when sample size is too small for inferential statistical methods

Psychiatry and military conscription in Brazil: the search for opportunity and institutionalized therapy.

Since the fall of the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1984, a number of structural and ideological changes associated with demilitarization and democracy have changed the face of psychiatric theory and practice. Around the country, pockets of innovative, politically sensitive and Marxist-inspired community-based forms of "psi" practice are developing. This emergent psi movement is making a range of positive contributions to the lives of average citizens, including those of poor disenfranchized youth. This paper, however, explores one particular dimension of the work of psi practitioners that has proven antithetical to the psi community's current politicized community-based aims. Based on qualitative and quantitative longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork with therapists and young men in Pelotas, this paper analyzes how certain kinds of psi interventions being carried out in schools for a subset of lower-class young men during their early teen years are encouraging some youth to seek military training as a life option. Although these young men initially had quite captivating, engaged and politicized-if also conflicting-interactions with therapists, their eventual disillusionment with their therapeutic and scholastic experiences resulted in high levels of social alienation and de-politicization. In these young men's search for what can best be described as formulaic solutions to troubling psychological experiences associated with a tumultuous institutionalized transition to adulthood, military training came to represent a form of self-cultivation and self-therapy. Several youth also hoped military training would enable them to actively disengage with local political processes and find shelter from troubling social inequities and injustice. The paper ends by reviewing the implications of these results for the future of psi knowledge and practice in Brazil

Thigh-length compression stockings and DVT after stroke

Controversy exists as to whether neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves survival in patients with invasive bladder cancer, despite randomised controlled trials of more than 3000 patients. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effect of such treatment on survival in patients with this disease

Maximizing the Yield of Small Samples in Prevention Research: A Review of General Strategies and Best Practices

The goal of this manuscript is describe strategies for maximizing the yield of data from small samples in prevention research. We begin by discussing what “small” means as a description of sample size in prevention research. We then present a series of practical strategies for getting the most out of data when sample size is small and constrained. Our focus is the prototypic between-group test for intervention effects; however, we touch on the circumstance in which intervention effects are qualified by one or more moderators. We conclude by highlighting the potential usefulness of graphical methods when sample size is too small for inferential statistical methods

The synergistic effects of increasing temperature and CO2 levels on activity capacity and acid–base balance in the spider crab, Hyas araneus

With global climate change ocean warming and acidification occur concomitantly. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that increasing CO2 levels affect the acid-base balance and reduce the activity capacity of the Arctic spider crab Hyas araneus, especially at the limits of thermal tolerance. Crabs were acclimated to projected oceanic CO2 levels for 12 days (today: 380, towards the year 2100: 750 and 1,120, and beyond: 3,000 µatm) and at two temperatures (1° and 4°C). Effects of these treatments on the righting response (RR) were determined 1) at acclimation temperatures followed by 2) righting when exposed to an additional acute (15 min) heat stress at 12°C. Prior to (resting) and after the consecutive stresses of combined righting activity and heat exposure, acid-base status and lactate contents were measured in the haemolymph. Under resting conditions, CO2 caused a decrease in haemolymph pH and an increase in oxygen partial pressure. Despite some buffering via an accumulation of bicarbonate, the extracellular acidosis remained uncompensated at 1°C, a trend exacerbated when animals were acclimated to 4°C. The additional combined exposure to activity and heat had only a slight effect on blood gas and acid-base status. Righting activity in all crabs incubated at 1° and 4°C was unaffected by elevated CO2 levels or acute heat stress but was significantly reduced when both stressors acted synergistically. This impact was much stronger in the group acclimated at 1°C where some individuals acclimated to high CO2 levels stopped responding. Lactate only accumulated in the haemolymph after combined righting and heat stress. In the group acclimated to 1°C lactate content was highest under normocapnia and lowest at the highest CO2 level in line with the finding that RR was largely reduced. In crabs acclimated to 4°C the RR was less affected by CO2 such that activity caused lactate to increase with rising CO2 levels. In line with the concept of oxygen and capacity limited thermal tolerance, all animals exposed to temperature extremes displayed a reduction in scope for performance, a trend exacerbated by increasing CO2 levels. Additionally, the differences seen between cold and warm acclimated Hyas araneus after heat stress indicate that a small shift to higher acclimation temperatures also alleviates the response to temperature extremes, indicating a shift in the thermal tolerance window which reduces susceptibility to additional CO2 exposure