Using Bayesian graphical models to model biases in observational studies and to combine multiple sources of data: application to low birth weight and water disinfection by-products

Summary.  Data in the social, behavioural and health sciences frequently come from observational studies instead of controlled experiments. In addition to random errors, observational data typically contain additional sources of uncertainty such as missing values, unmeasured confounders and selection biases. Also, the research question is often different from that which a particular source of data was designed to answer, and so not all relevant variables are measured. As a result, multiple sources of data are often necessary to identify the biases and to inform about different aspects of the research question. Bayesian graphical models provide a coherent way to connect a series of local submodels, based on different data sets, into a global unified analysis. We present a unified modelling framework that will account for multiple biases simultaneously and give more accurate parameter estimates than standard approaches. We illustrate our approach by analysing data from a study of water disinfection by-products and adverse birth outcomes in the UK.     

孔子“出妻”说及相关问题

历代学者多认为孔子"出妻",儒家不重视婚姻家庭,这严重影响了人们对孔子生活实际的认识,甚至导致人们对孔子的学说产生怀疑。实际上,《礼记》、《仪礼》、《孔子家语》等典籍的相关记载,并没有所谓孔子"出妻"之事说,所谓"孔氏三世出妻说"、"四世出妻说"也不符合历史事实。儒家十分重视婚姻家庭的和睦对治理社会的重要作用。     

出生率变化对高等教育的影响研究

建国以来,我国出生率发生了重大转变,随着90年代以来人口出生率的逐年下降,我国高等教育将面临学生数量下滑趋势,未来高等院校将会出现生源不足的困境。但是,由于目前我国高等教育入学率还比较低,加之政府财政时高等教育支持的力度也还有很大提升空阅,因此,尽管出生率会不断下降,但对高等院校整体上生存不会受太大的影响。     

Comparison of dichotomized and distributional approaches in rare event clinical trial design: a fixed Bayesian design

This research was motivated by our goal to design an efficient clinical trial to compare two doses of docosahexaenoic acid supplementation for reducing the rate of earliest preterm births (ePTB) and/or preterm births (PTB). Dichotomizing continuous gestational age (GA) data using a classic binomial distribution will result in a loss of information and reduced power. A distributional approach is an improved strategy to retain statistical power from the continuous distribution. However, appropriate distributions that fit the data properly, particularly in the tails, must be chosen, especially when the data are skewed. A recent study proposed a skew-normal method. We propose a three-component normal mixture model and introduce separate treatment effects at different components of GA. We evaluate operating characteristics of mixture model, beta-binomial model, and skew-normal model through simulation. We also apply these three methods to data from two completed clinical trials from the USA and Australia. Finite mixture models are shown to have favorable properties in PTB analysis but minimal benefit for ePTB analysis. Normal models on log-transformed data have the largest bias. Therefore we recommend finite mixture model for PTB study. Either finite mixture model or beta-binomial model is acceptable for ePTB study.     

Women’s attitudes towards the medicalization of childbirth and their associations with planned and actual modes of birth

Problem

Rates of medical interventions in childbirth have greatly increased in the Western world.

The Diffusion of Tolerance: Birth Cohort Changes in the Effects of Education and Income on Political Tolerance

Political tolerance—the willingness to extend civil liberties to traditionally stigmatized groups—is pivotal to the functioning of democracy and the well‐being of members of stigmatized groups. Although political tolerance has traditionally been more common among American elites, we argue that as tolerance has increased, it has also diffused to less educated and less affluent segments of the population. The relative stability of political attitudes over the life course and the socialization of more recent birth cohorts in contexts of increased tolerance suggest that this diffusion of tolerance occurs across birth cohorts rather than time periods. Using age‐period‐cohort models and more than three and a half decades of repeated cross‐sectional survey data, we find persistent and robust across‐cohort declines in the importance of both income and higher education in determining levels of political tolerance. Declines in the effects of socioeconomic status are evident with tolerance toward all five out‐groups in the analysis—anti‐religionists, gays and lesbians, communists, militarists, and racists—but to varying degrees. These findings fit with a model of changes in public opinion, particularly views of civil and political rights, through processes of cultural diffusion and cohort replacement.     

张载对孝悌思想的发展及其启示

孝悌是"仁"的根本和基础。北宋思想家张载对"孝悌"思想作了重要发展:首先,把天地当作父母,把所有的人和万物都当作兄弟和朋友;其次,把孝悌由一种品德提升为一种精神修养。张载对传统孝悌思想的发展具有深刻的启示:提升道德修养和精神境界需要从孝悌开始,同时需要具备感恩和移情能力。     

“是……的”句型日译汉的偏误分析

据实际语料考察,日本留学生在日译汉过程中使用“是……的”句型的出错率较高。留学生误译语句中有的没有使用“是……的”句型,有的虽然使用了“是……的”句型,但语序等方面存在问题。在分析偏误产生的原因的基础上,通过朗读等语感训练方式,可以提高“是……的”句型使用的正确率。     

张爱玲对女性意识的启蒙

夏志清先生的一本《中国现代小说史》捧红了作家张爱玲。其实早在20世纪40年代初,张爱玲作为现代的女性作家就已闪耀文坛。她的独特之处在于对女性的观照有着个性化的体悟。在文学创作中更全面的表现了女性在封建宗法社会所受的深重压迫。张爱玲从女儿、妻子、母亲的女性不同身份来阐释了女性的内心压抑与伤痛。