Improving early phase oncology clinical trial design: The case for finding the optimal biological dose

Historically early phase oncology drug development programmes have been based on the belief that “more is better”. Furthermore, rule-based study designs such as the “3 + 3” design are still often used to identify the MTD. Phillips and Clark argue that newer Bayesian model-assisted designs such as the BOIN design should become the go to designs for statisticians for MTD finding. This short communication goes one stage further and argues that Bayesian model-assisted designs such as the BOIN12 which balances risk-benefit should be included as one of the go to designs for early phase oncology trials, depending on the study objectives. Identifying the optimal biological dose for future research for many modern targeted drugs, immunotherapies, cell therapies and vaccine therapies can save significant time and resources.     

A Smooth Bootstrap Procedure towards Deriving Confidence Intervals for the Relative Risk

Given a pair of sample estimators of two independent proportions, bootstrap methods are a common strategy towards deriving the associated confidence interval for the relative risk. We develop a new smooth bootstrap procedure, which generates pseudo-samples from a continuous quantile function. Under a variety of settings, our simulation studies show that our method possesses a better or equal performance in comparison with asymptotic theory based and existing bootstrap methods, particularly for heavily unbalanced data in terms of coverage probability and power. We illustrate our procedure as applied to several published data sets.     

An examination of sexual strategies used by urban southern and rural Midwestern university women

The purposes of this study were (a) to determine whether women's use of persuasion, non‐physical coercion, and physical force strategies to obtain sex from a man varied between U.S. women from an urban Southern and rural Midwestern university and (b) to determine if sexual behavior history and early courtship behavior affected the use of these strategies (or not using any strategy). Women from the Midwest and the South did not differ in their use of sexual strategies. There were, however, other variables that accounted for differences in women's use of sexual strategies. Women who used persuasion strategies had fewer lifetime sexual partners than women who used any other strategy. Women who used physical force strategies reported a lower age at first intercourse and more early courtship behaviors than all others. Overall, the results indicated that sexual strategies are related to sexual behavior history and early courtship behaviors rather than cultural setting or demographics.     

Accounting for unsafe sex: Interviews with men who have sex with men

Semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews with 102 gay and bisexual men were conducted to examine the reasoning processes men use to exempt themselves from practicing safe sex. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed the following recurring themes: (a) Many men who were in couple relationships avoided condom use for reasons involving intimacy or trust, or because both partners were HIV‐negative; (b) unsafe sex sometimes occurred inadvertently or involuntarily; (c) negative moods and self‐images were associated with unsafe sex; (d) by “intuiting” that their partner was HIV‐negative, participants exempted themselves from the need for safe sex; and (e) when the boundary between safe and unsafe was unclear, participants used a combination of unofficial and official guidelines to determine what is safe.     

CUSUM Control Charts for Multivariate Poisson Distribution

A cumulative sum control chart for multivariate Poisson distribution (MP-CUSUM) is proposed. The MP-CUSUM chart is constructed based on log-likelihood ratios with in-control parameters, Θ₀, and shifts to be detected quickly, Θ₁. The average run length (ARL) values are obtained using a Markov Chain-based method. Numerical experiments show that the MP-CUSUM chart is effective in detecting parameter shifts in terms of ARL. The MP-CUSUM chart with smaller Θ₁ is more sensitive than that with greater Θ₁ to smaller shifts, but more insensitive to greater shifts. A comparison shows that the proposed MP-CUSUM chart outperforms an existing MP chart.     

Some remarks on the duality of continuous time markov chains

A simple proof of Siegmund's result on the relation between dual q-matrices and dual transition functions for Markov chains is given. A byproduct is a uniqueness result for minimal solutions of stochastically monotone q-matrices.     

Queer-friendly nation? The experience of Chinese gay immigrants in Canada

In the past decade, the People’s Republic of China has become the leading source country of immigrants to Canada. However, little is known about the experience of Chinese gay immigrants in Canada. Using narratives collected through a qualitative study, we show the way in which Chinese gay men construct their experience of immigration in Canada. Unlike the national discourse that claims Canada is a friendly nation for members of the LGBTTQ community, the experiences of Chinese gay immigration present a different story. As racialised gay men, they continue to be subjected to social violence in Canada – albeit differently from what they experienced in China. The analysis demonstrates the complexity of social marginalisation experienced by these men, the understanding of which is essential for social workers to engage in practice with them that is socially transformative.