The ABC of non-inferiority margin setting from indirect comparisons

In a non-inferiority trial to assess a new investigative treatment, there may need to be consideration of an indirect comparison with placebo using the active control in the current trial. We can, therefore, use the fact that there is a common active control in the comparisons of the investigative treatment and placebo. In analysing a non-inferiority trial, the ABC of: Assay sensitivity, Bias minimisation and Constancy assumption needs to be considered. It is highlighted how the ABC assumptions can potentially fail when there is placebo creep or a patient population shift. In this situation, the belief about the placebo response expressed in terms of a prior probability in Bayesian formulation could be used with the observed treatment effects to set the non-inferiority limit.     

Proposed best practice for statisticians in the reporting and publication of pharmaceutical industry‐sponsored clinical trials

In this paper we set out what we consider to be a set of best practices for statisticians in the reporting of pharmaceutical industry‐sponsored clinical trials. We make eight recommendations covering: author responsibilities and recognition; publication timing; conflicts of interest; freedom to act; full author access to data; trial registration and independent review. These recommendations are made in the context of the prominent role played by statisticians in the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of pharmaceutical sponsored trials and the perception of the reporting of these trials in the wider community. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discovering influential cases in linear regression with MINITAB: Peeking into multidimensions with a MINITAB macro

Various diagnostic statistics have been proposed to help identify cases that markedly affect, or influence, the features of a fitted linear regression model. Once influential cases are found, decisions can be made regarding their worth in the model building process. Since a subject data set may contain both singly influential cases and influential multiple case subsets, the capability to assess the joint influence of cases is needed for a complete analysis. The aim of this work is to briefly review Cook’s distance measure for multiple cases, an effective diagnostic for this purpose, and present a method using it to search for influential multiple case subsets. The method is applied in two example analyses by way of a MINITAB Statistical Software macro.     

田野、同行与中国人类学西南研究——访美国著名人类学家斯蒂文·郝瑞教授

美国著名人类学家斯蒂文.郝瑞教授在中国民族问题研究、西南族群研究和彝学研究方面都有大量的著述,在海内外学术界产生了深远的影响。郝瑞教授在回顾自身的中国西南研究历程中,就多点民族志、田野中的合作与对话、民族与族群的论争、中国人类学的本土化、西南区域人类学的研究前景等问题进行了述评。     

EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE ON PREVALENCE AND CUMULATIVE RELATIVE RISK: DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS IN A RECURSIVE HAZARD MODEL

This paper outlines decomposition methods for assessing how exposure affects prevalence and cumulative relative risk. Let     x     denote a vector of exogenous covariates and suppose that a single dimension of time   t   governs two event processes     T ₁  and   T ₂.    If the occurrence of the event     T ₁    determines entry into the risk of the event     T ₂,    then subgroup variation in     T ₁    will affect the prevalence     T ₂,    even if subgroups in the population are otherwise identical. Although researchers often acknowledge this phenomenon, the literature has not provided procedures to assess the magnitude of an exposure effect of     T ₁    on the prevalence of     T ₂.    We derive decompositions that assess how variation in exposure generated by direct and indirect effects of the covariates     x     affect measures of absolute and relative prevalence of     T ₂.    We employ a parametric but highly flexible specification for baseline hazard for the     T ₁  and   T ₂    processes and use the resulting parametric proportional hazard model to illustrate the direct and indirect effects of family structure when     T ₁    is age at first sexual intercourse and     T ₂    is age at a premarital first birth for data on a cohort of non-hispanic white U.S. women.     

Happy alone? Sad young men in East Asian gay cinema

This essay chooses as its texts three films representing contemporary gay male subjects from each of the "three" China's: HK, Taiwan, and the Mainland. Relocating the homoerotic image of the "sad young man," a trope popular from Hollywood rebellion films of the 1950s and 1960s, to contemporary China, I discuss how this masculine icon has been transformed from one of heroic rebellion to one of existential isolation. Indeed, as the politics of both the outmoded Confucian family and fractured Chinese nationhood intersect, what the sad young (gay) man rebels against is a political fluctuation which is no longer fixed; as the young man's opposition is no longer fixed, so too does he become alienated even from his own rebellious cause.     

WORKERS, FIRMS, AND THE DOMINANT IDEOLOGY:

Theorists of work and class relations have argued that organizational processes within the monopoly 'core' induce employees to identify with the firm and consent to the social relations of production. The adequacy of this 'hegemony' thesis is evaluated using data from two Bell operating companies, whose workers hold relatively high-paying primary sector jobs and are exposed to a strong corporate culture. Although these factors should favor the thesis of managerial hegemony, the data provide only limited support. In fact, an oppositional consciousness is fairly common among the workers, but with marked variations between occupational groups. The data indicate that hegemony theory inflates the role of ideological mechanisms in the reproduction of managerial control and underestimates workers' capacity to form a critical consciousness of the employment relationship. Worker consent should be viewed as problematic—that is, as exceptional, occurring only under specific social and organizational conditions.     

Preparation,support, and satisfaction of adoptive families in agency and independent adoptions

Information gathered from over 1000 adoptions in the fourth year of a prospective study of adoptions finds satisfaction levels to be quite high, with those families adopting through private agencies to feel best prepared and satisfied. Differences by adoption auspice are detailed and discussed.The senior authors are Co-Principal Investigators of the California Long-range Adoption Study. This research was supported by the Child Welfare Research Center, Family Welfare Research Group, University of California at Berkeley, through a grant from the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services. The authors wish to thank the families for their participation. Please address correspondence to Mary Berry at the Center for Child Welfare, UTA School of Social Work, P.O. Box 19129, Arlington, Texas 76019.