Preface

AimThis was a one-year follow-up of families referred to support services after the parents visited the emergency department due to intimate partner violence, substance abuse or a suicide attempt. Its aim was to evaluate the well-being of any children. MethodsData on families identified a year earlier by the Amsterdam protocol were gathered from child protective services and parent and child self-reports in two Dutch regions from 2012-2015. ResultsWe included 399 children (52%) boys with a median age of eight years (range 1-18) in the study using child protective services data. Of the 101 families who participated in the first measurement, 67 responded one year after the parent's emergency department visit. The results showed that 20% of the children had no or minor problems, voluntary support services were involved in 60% of cases and child protective services were involved in 20%. Compared to their first assessment a year earlier, the children's psychosocial problems had not increased, but this could have been an underestimation due to selective responses. ConclusionThe Amsterdam protocol was valuable in referring families to voluntary support services, but given the ongoing problems in some families, professionals need to carefully monitor whether support services are sufficiently effectiv

Integrated analysis of DNA copy number and gene expression microarray data using gene sets

Background: Genes that play an important role in tumorigenesis are expected to show association between DNA copy number and RNA expression. Optimal power to find such associations can only be achieved if analysing copy number and gene expression jointly. Furthermore, some copy number changes extend over larger chromosomal regions affecting the expression levels of multiple resident genes.

Linking Chronic Infection and Autoimmune Diseases: Mycobacterium avium Subspecies paratuberculosis, SLC11A1 Polymorphisms and Type-1 Diabetes Mellitus

(MAP) has been reported to be a possible trigger in the development of T1DM. gene (274C/T) associated to type 1 diabetic patients and not to controls. The presence of MAP DNA was also significantly associated with T1DM patients and not with controls. alter the processing or presentation of MAP antigens triggering thereby an autoimmune response in T1DM patients

Reflections on how Stata enhances creativity and problem solving in the real world

Many people think of science and statistics as dry and even lifeless endeavors. In fact, the wellspring of good science and statistics is creativity, and creativity is enhanced by memory, imagination, beauty, and collaboration. I will discuss some of the Stata features that I believe work together to stimulate the creative impulse, including a unified interface design and syntax structure, the "type a little, get a little" paradigm, a very large suite of statistical procedures, expandability, excellent documentation, automation, beautiful and flexible graphics, and inter-operability with other statistical packages.

CLEANLOG: Stata module to clean log files

cleanlog takes a plain text or SMCL log file as input and writes a new log file cleaned of all command syntax. It also removes some extraneous material such as the lines of dots displayed for entertainment purposes by programs like bootstrap.log files

MRDUM: Stata module to create dummy variables and summary table for multiple response data

mrdum searches across varlist for integer codes and creates corresponding dummy variables. Each dummy is equal to 1 if the integer code was found anywhere in varlist, 0 if not, and missing if all of varlist is missing. It also displays a table summarizing the results. This program was created specifically to deal with survey questions wherein the respondent can give multiple responses to a single question (e.g. "Check all that apply"). Sometimes these data are coded as a series of variables with the responses entered in the order that the respondent indicated them. Often, however, it is useful to have instead a set of dummy variables that indicate whether the respondent indicated a particular response regardless of the order in which it was indicated.questionnaires, dummy variables, responses

Epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease in indigenous and non-indigenous adults in northwestern Ontario, Canada, 2006–2015

Abstract Background Despite the use of pneumococcal vaccines, indigenous populations are consistently disproportionately affected by invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). With recent changes in Ontario’s provincial pneumococcal vaccination program, we sought to evaluate the epidemiology and burden of IPD in northwestern Ontario (NWO) Canada – a region that contains a substantial (19.2%) indigenous population. Methods We retrospectively reviewed all adult cases of IPD that were reported to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, over a 10-year period (2006–2015). Patients admitted to the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre with IPD had their charts reviewed to abstract clinical data. Statistical analysis, including incidence rates of IPD, was performed. Results Two hundred sixty-two cases of IPD occurred over the 10-year observation period and clinical data was available for 182 cases. Fifty-three of 182 (29.1%) patients were indigenous. 73 of 182 (40.1%) of patients were immunocompromised. Indigenous patients with IPD were more likely to be immunocompromised than non-indigenous patients (p < 0.001). Serotype data was available for 159 cases of IPD; PCV7, PCV13, and PPV23 covered 5.7%, 28.3%, and 79.2% of isolates, respectively, while 29 (20.8%) were non-vaccine serotypes. The annual incidence rate of IPD ranged from 8.9 to 25.9 per 100,000 among adults 18–64 years old; among adults 65 years of age and older the annual incidence of IPD ranged from 18.5 to 60.7 per 100,000. Conclusion Among adults in NWO, Canada, there is a high incidence of IPD. Immunocompromised indigenous adults in NWO may benefit from pneumococcal vaccination coverage. Emerging non-vaccine serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae warrant the consideration of the provincial pneumococcal vaccination program