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Priori Predictions (priori + prediction)
Selected AbstractsPsychometric evaluation of the Spanish version of CONNECT: a measure of continuity of care in mental health servicesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF METHODS IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH, Issue 1 2007L.M. Chavez Abstract This article provides the results of the psychometric testing of the Spanish version of CONNECT(-S), a measure of continuity of care in mental health services. CONNECT-S is a multidimensional measure designed for use with seriously mentally ill respondents. Consisting of 12 scales and one single-item indicator, it addresses qualities of interaction in current relationships between mental health service providers and consumers in five conceptual domains: (1) practitioner knowledge of their clients, (2) creating flexibility, (3) practitioner availability, (4) practitioner co-ordination, and (5) smoothing transitions. One-hundred-and-fifty participants took part in the study. Participants were recruited from mental health outpatient clinics in both the Puerto Rican (n = 109) and the San Antonio (n = 41) samples. Internal consistency for scales in a combined site estimate ranged from 0.68 to 0.96. Test-retest reliability ranged from fair to substantial in all but one scale. Concurrent validity hypotheses based on a priori predictions were mostly supported. The Spanish translation and adaptation of CONNECT-S provided sound psychometric results across both sites. CONNECT-S addresses the gap in measurement of continuity of care for the two largest US Latino subgroups, Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans; and provides an encouraging starting point for a measure that is both relevant and culturally sensitive. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Evolutionary history shapes the association between developmental instability and population-level genetic variation in three-spined sticklebacksJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 8 2009S. VAN DONGEN Abstract Developmental instability (DI) is the sensitivity of a developing trait to random noise and can be measured by degrees of directionally random asymmetry [fluctuating asymmetry (FA)]. FA has been shown to increase with loss of genetic variation and inbreeding as measures of genetic stress, but associations vary among studies. Directional selection and evolutionary change of traits have been hypothesized to increase the average levels of FA of these traits and to increase the association strength between FA and population-level genetic variation. We test these two hypotheses in three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.) populations that recently colonized the freshwater habitat. Some traits, like lateral bone plates, length of the pelvic spine, frontal gill rakers and eye size, evolved in response to selection regimes during colonization. Other traits, like distal gill rakers and number of pelvic fin rays, did not show such phenotypic shifts. Contrary to a priori predictions, average FA did not systematically increase in traits that were under presumed directional selection, and the increases observed in a few traits were likely to be attributable to other factors. However, traits under directional selection did show a weak but significantly stronger negative association between FA and selectively neutral genetic variation at the population level compared with the traits that did not show an evolutionary change during colonization. These results support our second prediction, providing evidence that selection history can shape associations between DI and population-level genetic variation at neutral markers, which potentially reflect genetic stress. We argue that this might explain at least some of the observed heterogeneities in the patterns of asymmetry. [source] Validation of a questionnaire (CARAT10) to assess rhinitis and asthma in patients with asthmaALLERGY, Issue 8 2010J. A. Fonseca To cite this article: Fonseca JA, Nogueira-Silva L, Morais-Almeida M, Azevedo L, Sa-Sousa A, Branco-Ferreira M, Fernandes L, Bousquet J. Validation of a questionnaire (CARAT10) to assess rhinitis and asthma in patients with asthma. Allergy 2010; 65: 1042,1048. Abstract Background and aim:, The Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT) was developed to be used in the concurrent management of these diseases, as recommended by the Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines. However, it was necessary to statistically identify and remove redundant questions and to evaluate the new version's factor structure, internal consistency and concurrent validity. Methods:, In this cross-sectional study 193 adults with allergic rhinitis and asthma from 15 outpatient clinics in Portugal were included. The CARAT questionnaire was reduced using descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency. Spearman's correlations were used to compare the CARAT scores with a medical evaluation and other measures of control, including the Asthma Control Questionnaire and symptoms' visual analogue scales. The performance against physician rating of control was summarized using the area under the curve (AUC) from receiver operating characteristic analysis. In addition, CARAT was compared with the physician's decision to reduce, maintain or increase treatment. Results:, The reduced version has 10 questions and 2 factors (CARAT10). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.85. All correlation coefficients of CARAT10 and factors with the different measures of control met the a priori predictions, ranging from 0.58 to 0.79. The AUC was 0.82. For the physician's decision groups of reduce, maintain or increase treatment, the mean (IC95%) scores of CARAT10 were 24 (21.4;26.6), 21 (19.4;21.9) and 15 (13.6;16.5), respectively. Conclusion:, CARAT10 has high internal consistency and good concurrent validity, making it useful to compare groups in clinical studies. [source] Spatial and temporal partitioning of behaviour by adult dacines: direct evidence for methyl eugenol as a mate rendezvous cue for Bactrocera cacuminataPHYSIOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 3 2003S. Raghu Abstract., Resource use in adult Dacinae (Diptera: Tephritidae) is believed to be restricted to the host plant (i.e. the plant that provides fruit for oviposition and larval development). However, studies on Bactrocera cacuminata did not support this hypothesis. Thus, it was hypothesized that adult flies partition their diurnal activities between spatially separated resources (host plant, sugar, protein and methyl eugenol) as a function of the physiological status of the fly (immature, mature,unmated, mature,mated). In accordance with a priori predictions, the results of a field-cage study show that there are significant diurnal patterns in abundance and behaviour, and that flies of different physiological status use resources differently. Immature flies spend most of their time foraging for sugar and protein to facilitate development. Sexually mature flies forage for sugars during the day, and at dusk, responded strongly to methyl eugenol and mate. The fact that polygynous males wait at methyl eugenol at dusk whereas the mated, monandrous females spend their time ovipositing in fruit and are nonresponsive to methyl eugenol, supports Metcalf's hypothesis that such phenylpropanoids serve as mate rendezvous cues. [source] ORIGINAL ARTICLE: How Should Data on Murine Spontaneous Abortion Rates be Expressed and Analyzed?AMERICAN JOURNAL OF REPRODUCTIVE IMMUNOLOGY, Issue 3 2008David A. Clark Problem, Spontaneous abortions in the CBA × DBA/2 model are normally reported as number of resorptions/total number of implantations (R/T), pooling data from individual mice. The significance of differences between groups has been determined using non-parametric statistics (e.g. chi-square or Fisher's Exact test) based on a priori predictions. Recently, it has been argued that medians with box plots should replace the accepted standard, but this deprives readers of data needed to verify P -values, and leads to inferences incompatible with biological and statistical reality. Method of study, Raw data on 173 individual CBA × DBA/2 matings were analyzed by median and mean, along with R/T data from 18 independent experiments containing 5,10 mice per group. Raw data from 19 CBA × BALB/c matings were similarly analyzed. Results, Individual CBA × DBA/2 mouse resorption rates showed a non-Gaussian distribution, but the mean and median differed by <0.5%. Resorption data from 6 and 12 independent pools of mice were normally distributed. Only the mean enabled a between-group P -value calculation. CBA × BALB/c matings gave a median of 0 and mean of 5.1%; the data were not normally distributed, but that was because of a bimodal distribution. One group of mice had 0 abortions, and the second a mean of 13.9% abortions, and the data from the latter group were normally distributed. Conclusion, Although it is possible to compare individual mice, and even individual implantation sites, in resorption (abortion) studies, as the relevant question is the significance of differences between treatment groups of mice, and reproducibility, the established classical method of reporting R/T should continue to be provided. In CBA × BALB/c matings, where abortion rates are low, using the median is misleading and may obscure the existence of two distinct populations. [source] Old growth and secondary forest site occupancy by nocturnal birds in a neotropical landscapeANIMAL CONSERVATION, Issue 1 2010M. Sberze Abstract High rates of old growth (OG) forest destruction and difficult farming conditions result in increasing cover of secondary forests (SF) in the Amazon. In this setting, it is opportune to ask which animals use newly available SF and which stay restricted to OG. This study presents a comparison of SF and OG site occupancy by nocturnal birds in terra firme forests of the Amazon Guianan shield, north of Manaus, Brazil. We tested species-specific occupancy predictions for two owls (Lophostrix cristata/Glaucidium hardyi), two potoos (Nyctibius leucopterus/Nyctibius griseus) and two nightjars (Caprimulgus nigrescens/Nyctidromus albicollis). For each pair, we predicted that one species would have higher occupancy in OG while the other would either be indifferent to forest type or favor SF sites. Data were collected in 30 OG and 24 SF sites with monthly samples from December 2007 to December 2008. Our analytic approach accounts for the possibility of detection failure and for spatial autocorrelation in occupancy, thus leading to strong inferences about changes in occupancy between forest types and between species. Nocturnal bird richness and community composition were indistinguishable between OG and SF sites. Owls were relatively indifferent to forest type. Potoos followed the a priori predictions, and one of the nightjars (C. nigrescens) favored SF instead of OG as predicted. Only one species, Nyctib. leucopterus, clearly favored OG. The landscape context of our SF study sites, surrounded by a vast expanse of continuous OG forest, partially explains the resemblance between SF and OG fauna but leaves unexplained the higher occupancy for SF than OG sites for several study species. The causal explanation of high SF occupancy remains an open question, but the result itself motivates further comparisons for other groups, as well as recognition of the conservation potential of SF. [source] Testing alternative models for the conservation of koalas in fragmented rural,urban landscapesAUSTRAL ECOLOGY, Issue 4 2006CLIVE A. MCALPINE Abstract Predicting the various responses of different species to changes in landscape structure is a formidable challenge to landscape ecology. Based on expert knowledge and landscape ecological theory, we develop five competing a priori models for predicting the presence/absence of the Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) in Noosa Shire, south-east Queensland (Australia). A priori predictions were nested within three levels of ecological organization: in situ (site level) habitat (<1 ha), patch level (100 ha) and landscape level (100,1000 ha). To test the models, Koala surveys and habitat surveys (n = 245) were conducted across the habitat mosaic. After taking into account tree species preferences, the patch and landscape context, and the neighbourhood effect of adjacent present sites, we applied logistic regression and hierarchical partitioning analyses to rank the alternative models and the explanatory variables. The strongest support was for a multilevel model, with Koala presence best predicted by the proportion of the landscape occupied by high quality habitat, the neighbourhood effect, the mean nearest neighbour distance between forest patches, the density of forest patches and the density of sealed roads. When tested against independent data (n = 105) using a receiver operator characteristic curve, the multilevel model performed moderately well. The study is consistent with recent assertions that habitat loss is the major driver of population decline, however, landscape configuration and roads have an important effect that needs to be incorporated into Koala conservation strategies. [source] | |||||||||||||