Assessing students’ abilities in interpreting the correlation and regression analysis

A case study was carried out on students who were being exposed to some theoretical concepts of the correlation and regression topics to investigate their ability to compute and interpret the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the slope of regression. The findings revealed that a low percentage of students (19.43%) successfully completed their interpretation of correlation coefficient and 33.18% of the students managed to interpret the computed value of regression slope completely. It was also found that the students’ ability to interpret regression slope was significantly associated with the ability to interpret the correlation coefficient correctly. It is hoped that the findings obtained from this study will shed some light on improving teaching practices of statistics educators so as to help students in gaining better understanding on interpreting the correlation and regression analysis.Keywords: correlation; Pearson; regression; coefficients; interpretation; students’ abilit

A dichotomous PCR–RFLP identification key for the freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionida) of Peninsular Malaysia

Accurate species identification is the basis for successful species conservation and research, but extensive phenotypic plasticity in freshwater mussel (Bivalvia: Unionida) species often leads to misidentification by morphology alone. Molecular techniques have proven a powerful alternative tool for identification of freshwater mussels in North America and Europe. Unfortunately, no such tools are currently available for tropical mussels, which are subject to particularly severe habitat alteration and destruction. We developed a PCR–RFLP key for the freshwater mussel fauna of Peninsular Malaysia, comprising nine native and one non-native species from seven genera and three unionid subfamilies (Gonideinae, Rectidentinae and Anodontinae). The key enables identification of each species in two to four single digestion steps using six restriction endonucleases. All species can be identified using a single PCR fragment of 374 bp length (Histone H3) with the exception of two Pseudodon species, which can be differentiated through amplification and subsequent digestion of a 709 bp CO1 gene fragment. Reliability of the key was tested with specimens from 46 populations sampled from 13 different river basins of Peninsular Malaysia

Wudu’ workstation design for elderly and disabled people in Malaysia’s mosques

Background: Ablution area is one of the facilities used by most Muslims in all categories. There are numbers of de-sign guidelines for praying facilities but lack on ablution area specification. Therefore, this study was conducted to design an ergonomic ablution area for the Muslim’s disabled and elderly based on their preferences and anthropomet-ric dimension. Methods: Kano questionnaires and user evaluation form, was used to investigate the preferences of elderly and disa-bled in ablution area to 20 respondents at Masjid Bulat, Petaling Jaya and Masjid Kampung Kerinchi,Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur in 2015. Anthropometric dimension of elderly and disabled people was measured. Besides, dimensions of two existing ablution units at selected mosques were evaluated using ‘Ablution Unit Dimension Evaluation’ form. Results: New ablution area design was developed based on elderly and disabled people anthropometric dimension and user preferences as well as user satisfaction survey. This study can be considered as preliminary study for the de-velopment of ergonomic ablution unit design. Conclusion: It is hoped that the findings and recommendations from this research will be referred by the stakehold-ers to determine the best solution to increase the level of comfort and accessibility for elderly and disabled at mosques in Malaysia

Overview of the current status of familial hypercholesterolaemia care in over 60 countries - The EAS Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC)

Background and aims: Management of familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) may vary across different settings due to factors related to population characteristics, practice, resources and/or policies. We conducted a survey among the worldwide network of EAS FHSC Lead Investigators to provide an overview of FH status in different countries. Methods: Lead Investigators from countries formally involved in the EAS FHSC by mid-May 2018 were invited to provide a brief report on FH status in their countries, including available information, programmes, initiatives, and management. Results: 63 countries provided reports. Data on FH prevalence are lacking in most countries. Where available, data tend to align with recent estimates, suggesting a higher frequency than that traditionally considered. Low rates of FH detection are reported across all regions. National registries and education programmes to improve FH awareness/knowledge are a recognised priority, but funding is often lacking. In most countries, diagnosis primarily relies on the Dutch Lipid Clinics Network criteria. Although available in many countries, genetic testing is not widely implemented (frequent cost issues). There are only a few national official government programmes for FH. Under-treatment is an issue. FH therapy is not universally reimbursed. PCSK9-inhibitors are available in ∼2/3 countries. Lipoprotein-apheresis is offered in ∼60 countries, although access is limited. Conclusions: FH is a recognised public health concern. Management varies widely across countries, with overall suboptimal identification and under-treatment. Efforts and initiatives to improve FH knowledge and management are underway, including development of national registries, but support, particularly from health authorities, and better funding are greatly needed. © 2018 Elsevier B.V

Overview of the current status of familial hypercholesterolaemia care in over 60 countries - The EAS Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC)

Background and aims: Management of familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) may vary across different settings due to factors related to population characteristics, practice, resources and/or policies. We conducted a survey among the worldwide network of EAS FHSC Lead Investigators to provide an overview of FH status in different countries. Methods: Lead Investigators from countries formally involved in the EAS FHSC by mid-May 2018 were invited to provide a brief report on FH status in their countries, including available information, programmes, initiatives, and management. Results: 63 countries provided reports. Data on FH prevalence are lacking in most countries. Where available, data tend to align with recent estimates, suggesting a higher frequency than that traditionally considered. Low rates of FH detection are reported across all regions. National registries and education programmes to improve FH awareness/knowledge are a recognised priority, but funding is often lacking. In most countries, diagnosis primarily relies on the Dutch Lipid Clinics Network criteria. Although available in many countries, genetic testing is not widely implemented (frequent cost issues). There are only a few national official government programmes for FH. Under-treatment is an issue. FH therapy is not universally reimbursed. PCSK9-inhibitors are available in ∼2/3 countries. Lipoprotein-apheresis is offered in ∼60% countries, although access is limited. Conclusions: FH is a recognised public health concern. Management varies widely across countries, with overall suboptimal identification and under-treatment. Efforts and initiatives to improve FH knowledge and management are underway, including development of national registries, but support, particularly from health authorities, and better funding are greatly needed. © 2018 Elsevier B.V

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical science. © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press