To estimate the mean of a quantitative variable in a hierarchical population, it is logistically convenient to sample in two stages (two-stage sampling), i.e. selecting first clusters, and then individuals from the sampled clusters. Allowing cluster size to vary in the population and to be related to the mean of the outcome variable of interest (informative cluster size), the following competing sampling designs are considered: sampling clusters with probability proportional to cluster size, and then the same number of individuals per cluster; drawing clusters with equal probability, and then the same percentage of individuals per cluster; and selecting clusters with equal probability, and then the same number of individuals per cluster. For each design, optimal sample sizes are derived under a budget constraint. The three optimal two-stage sampling designs are compared, in terms of efficiency, with each other and with simple random sampling of individuals. Sampling clusters with probability proportional to size is recommended. To overcome the dependency of the optimal design on unknown nuisance parameters, maximin designs are derived. The results are illustrated, assuming probability proportional to size sampling of clusters, with the planning of a hypothetical survey to compare adolescent alcohol consumption between France and Italy.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8172256 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0962280220952833 | DOI Listing |
EBioMedicine
January 2025
Institute of Immunology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; Cluster of Excellence RESIST (EXC 2155), Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; German Centre for Infection Research, Partner Site Hannover-Braunschweig, Hannover, Germany. Electronic address:
Background: Aging increases disease susceptibility and reduces vaccine responsiveness, highlighting the need to better understand the aging immune system and its clinical associations. Studying the human immune system, however, remains challenging due to its complexity and significant inter-individual variability.
Methods: We conducted an immune profiling study of 550 elderly participants (≥60 years) and 100 young controls (20-40 years) from the RESIST Senior Individuals (SI) cohort.
Br J Hosp Med (Lond)
January 2025
Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Previous research has shown that smoking tobacco is associated with changes or differences in brain volume and cortical thickness, resulting in a smaller brain volume and decreased cortical thickness in smokers compared with non-smokers. However, the effects of smokeless tobacco on brain volume and cortical thickness remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate whether the use of shammah, a nicotine-containing smokeless tobacco popular in Middle Eastern countries, is associated with differences in brain volume and thickness compared with non-users and to assess the influence of shammah quantity and type on these effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlants (Basel)
January 2025
Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora, 5 de Febrero 818, Col. Centro, Cd. Obregón 85000, Mexico.
Strain TE5 was isolated from a wheat ( L. subsp. ) rhizosphere grown in a commercial field of wheat in the Yaqui Valley in Mexico.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK.
Sensor selection is a vital part of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) management. This becomes of increased importance when considering the use of low-cost, bearing-only sensor nodes for the tracking of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). However, traditional techniques commonly form excessively large sensor clusters, which result in the collection of redundant information, which can deteriorate performance while also increasing the associated network costs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Med
January 2025
Department of Internal Medicine, Leiden University Medical Center, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands.
Thymoglobulin is used to prevent allograft rejection and is being explored at low doses as intervention immunotherapy in type 1 diabetes. Thymoglobulin consists of a diverse pool of rabbit antibodies directed against many different targets on human thymocytes that can also be expressed by other leukocytes. Since Thymoglobulin is generated by injecting rabbits with human thymocytes, this conceivably leads to differences between Thymoglobulin batches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!