The Teaching of Statistics in England: Report of the Royal Statistical Society

Some experiences with the use of student projects in experimental design courses at Wisconsin are described. Each student is given the opportunity of selecting a problem of direct interest to him/her, designing and performing an experiment, collecting and analyzing the data. Some ideas with regard to pedagogy and the use of simulated data are also discussed.     

Statistical issues in epidemiologic studies of the health effects of ambient acid aerosols

Although the ecologic effects of acid rain have been widely reported, relatively little is known about the effects of acidic air pollution on human health. Some epidemiologic and animal studies suggest, however, that acidity is an important determinant of the respiratory health effects of aerosols. This paper reviews some of that evidence and discusses its implications for the design and analysis of epidemiologic studies. We contrast two types of exposure patterns: peak exposures associated with air pollution episodes, and chronic exposures resulting from persistently high levels of air pollutants. Recent work on the analysis of repeated categorical outcome variables provides new methods for the analysis of episode studies. Studies of long-term exposure require comparisons among population groups, and these comparisons can be subject to the design effects characteristic of multistage sample surveys. We examine the implications of these design effects for epidemiologic studies. Finally, the paper discusses the measurement errors induced by the use of outdoor measurements to quantify personal exposure to air pollutants. Recent work on methods for errors-in-variables problems may aid in assessing the effects of such errors on conventional analyses of air-pollution studies.     

关于中国开展非正规部门核算的几个问题

一、非正规部门概念的提出及其特征　　 2 0世纪 70年代初 ,国际劳工组织在其“肯尼亚就业考察报告”中首先提出了“非正规部门”的概念。该报告将那些没有被政府承认、记录、保护和管理的经济现象称为“非正规部门”。一方面 ,该部门为那些成千上万、缺乏生存手段的人提供收入和就业机会 ,堪称是企业家的孵化地 ;另一方面 ,它却逃避管理和监督 ,成了一个贫困、落后、危险、不卫生和非法雇用童工的广袤世界。在过去三十年间 ,许多国家特别是欧盟国家已对非正规部门进行了大量的研究和探索 ,尽管人们在何为非正规部门 ?它为何存在 ?以及它如…     

中国统计学会第七次全国统计科学讨论会纪要

中国统计学会第七次全国统计科学讨论会纪要（１９９３年１１月）中国统计学会第七次全国统计科学讨论会于１９９３年１０月３１日至１１月３日在山东省泰安市召开。大会共收到论文１２０多篇,来自统计工作部门、科研机构、大专院校的１７０余名代表出席了会议。本次科学...     

A Bayesian approach to the statistical analysis of device preference studies

Drug delivery devices are required to have excellent technical specifications to deliver drugs accurately, and in addition, the devices should provide a satisfactory experience to patients because this can have a direct effect on drug compliance. To compare patients' experience with two devices, cross-over studies with patient-reported outcomes (PRO) as response variables are often used. Because of the strength of cross-over designs, each subject can directly compare the two devices by using the PRO variables, and variables indicating preference (preferring A, preferring B, or no preference) can be easily derived. Traditionally, methods based on frequentist statistics can be used to analyze such preference data, but there are some limitations for the frequentist methods. Recently, Bayesian methods are considered an acceptable method by the US Food and Drug Administration to design and analyze device studies. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian statistical method to analyze the data from preference trials. We demonstrate that the new Bayesian estimator enjoys some optimal properties versus the frequentist estimator.     

Hilda Mary Woods MBE, DSc, LRAM, FSS (1892-1971): reflections on a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society

We have previously described the content of a text by Woods and Russell, An Introduction to Medical Statistics, compared it with Principles of Medical Statistics by Hill and set both volumes against the background of vital statistics up until 1937. The two books mark a watershed in the history of medical statistics. Very little has been recorded about the life and career of the first author of the earlier textbook, who was a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society for at least 25 years, an omission which we can now rectify with this paper. We describe her education, entry into medical statistics, relationship with Major Greenwood and her subsequent career and life in Ceylon, Kenya, Australia, England and South Africa.     

Statistical issues in the prospective monitoring of health outcomes across multiple units

Summary.  Following several recent inquiries in the UK into medical malpractice and failures to deliver appropriate standards of health care, there is pressure to introduce formal monitoring of performance outcomes routinely throughout the National Health Service. Statistical process control (SPC) charts have been widely used to monitor medical outcomes in a variety of contexts and have been specifically advocated for use in clinical governance. However, previous applications of SPC charts in medical monitoring have focused on surveillance of a single process over time. We consider some of the methodological and practical aspects that surround the routine surveillance of health outcomes and, in particular, we focus on two important methodological issues that arise when attempting to extend SPC charts to monitor outcomes at more than one unit simultaneously (where a unit could be, for example, a surgeon, general practitioner or hospital): the need to acknowledge the inevitable between-unit variation in 'acceptable' performance outcomes due to the net effect of many small unmeasured sources of variation (e.g. unmeasured case mix and data errors) and the problem of multiple testing over units as well as time. We address the former by using quasi-likelihood estimates of overdispersion, and the latter by using recently developed methods based on estimation of false discovery rates. We present an application of our approach to annual monitoring 'all-cause' mortality data between 1995 and 2000 from 169 National Health Service hospital trusts in England and Wales.     

中国统计学会统计发展战略研究组第一次会议纪要

中国统计学会统计发展战略研究组于1986年2月28日至3月1日在北京市召开第一次会议。 会议认为,统计发展战略研究组的任务是:研究统计工作中带有长远性,全面性和方向性的重大问题,以便为制订统计工作现代化和统计工作改革规划提供理论依据。近两年来,我国统计工作改革中提出了一些目标,但有些问题的理论准备做得不够,同时工作实践中也不断提出不少新的问题,都需要深入地进行探讨。中国统计学会在第二届理事会第二次常务理事会上提出成立统计发展战略研究组,是十分必要和及时的,有着重要的现实意义和理论意义。     

25 years of Bayesian methods in the pharmaceutical industry: a personal, statistical bummel

Twenty-five years ago the use of Bayesian methods in Pharmaceutical R&D was non-existent. Today that is no longer true. In this paper I describe my own personal journey along the road of discovery of Bayesian methods to routine use in the pharmaceutical industry.     

Statistical issues in the assessment of health outcomes in children: a methodological review

Summary.  The lack of outcome measures that are validated for use on children limits the effectiveness and generalizability of paediatric health care interventions. Statistical epidemiology is a broad concept encompassing a wide range of useful techniques for use in child health outcome assessment and development. However, the range of techniques that are available is often confusing and prohibits their adoption. In the paper an overview of methodology is provided within the paediatric context. It is demonstrated that in many cases assessment can be performed relatively straightforwardly by using standard statistical techniques, although sometimes more sophisticated techniques are required. Examples of both physiological and questionnaire-based outcomes are given. The usefulness of these techniques is highlighted for achieving specific objectives and ultimately for achieving methodological rigour in clinical outcome studies that are performed in the paediatric population.     

Statistical issues in first‐in‐human studies on BIA 10‐2474: Neglected comparison of protocol against practice

By setting the regulatory‐approved protocol for a suite of first‐in‐human studies on BIA 10‐2474 against the subsequent French investigations, we highlight 6 key design and statistical issues, which reinforce recommendations by a Royal Statistical Society Working Party, which were made in the aftermath of cytokine release storm in 6 healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom in 2006. The 6 issues are dose determination, availability of pharmacokinetic results, dosing interval, stopping rules, appraisal by safety committee, and clear algorithm required if combining approvals for single and multiple ascending dose studies.     

2007年中国全面建设小康社会进程统计监测报告

 本文根据全面建设小康社会统计监测指标体系对中国2000~2007年全面建设小康社会进程进行了监测。监测结果表明：2007年,中国全面建设小康社会实现程度达到72.9%,比2000年的59.3%提高13.6个百分点,其中,东部、东北、中部和西部地区分别达到81.3%、74.8%、70.3%和64.6%。但是,从指标体系的六大方面来看,经济、社会、环境等方面的发展并不均衡;从23项监测指标的实现程度看,难易程度存在较大差异;从全国四大区域来看,区域之间的差距逐年加大。本文也分析了现阶段全面建设小康社会进程中出现的问题,并提出了相应建议。     

浅析封建社会后期中国统计思想滞缓的原因

一、传统的经济思想对中国统计思想的影响　　中国自古以农立国 ,以一家一户为单位的、自给自足的小农经济 ,一直在中国封建社会经济中占据首位。农业是“国之命脉” ,与此相对应的是传统的“强本抑末”的经济思想。手工业和商业一直受到历代封建统治阶级的压制。虽然在中国封建社会后期即明清时期 ,随着生产的发展 ,商品经济有了很大的发展 ,出现了资本主义的萌芽 ,但是 ,在这种思想的影响之下 ,封建统治者采取了一系列的政策 ,政治上 ,明朝皇帝下令“农民之家许穿绸纱绢布 ,商贾之家止穿绢布。如农民家但有一人为商贾 ,亦不许穿绸纱”①,…     

统计信息商品化研究

统计信息商品化研究李朝鲜统计信息,是指运用统计方法取得的以数据形式反映社会、经济、科技发展状况的各种统计资料。包括以书面文字、磁带、”磁盘等物理介质为载体的数据汇总资料及据此进行分析研究而提出的咨询意见和对策建议。长期以来,统计信息一直以封闭的形式存...     

Statistical methods for clinical studies in the presence of surrogate end points

The use of surrogate end points has become increasingly common in medical and biological research. This is primarily because, in many studies, the primary end point of interest is too expensive or too difficult to obtain. There is now a large volume of statistical methods for analysing studies with surrogate end point data. However, to our knowledge, there has not been a comprehensive review of these methods to date. This paper reviews some existing methods and summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of each method. It also discusses the assumptions that are made by each method and critiques how likely these assumptions are met in practice.