Bayesian hierarchical classification and information sharing for clinical trials with subgroups and binary outcomes

Bayesian hierarchical models have been applied in clinical trials to allow for information sharing across subgroups. Traditional Bayesian hierarchical models do not have subgroup classifications; thus, information is shared across all subgroups. When the difference between subgroups is large, it suggests that the subgroups belong to different clusters. In that case, placing all subgroups in one pool and borrowing information across all subgroups can result in substantial bias for the subgroups with strong borrowing, or a lack of efficiency gain with weak borrowing. To resolve this difficulty, we propose a hierarchical Bayesian classification and information sharing (BaCIS) model for the design of multigroup phase II clinical trials with binary outcomes. We introduce subgroup classification into the hierarchical model. Subgroups are classified into two clusters on the basis of their outcomes mimicking the hypothesis testing framework. Subsequently, information sharing takes place within subgroups in the same cluster, rather than across all subgroups. This method can be applied to the design and analysis of multigroup clinical trials with binary outcomes. Compared to the traditional hierarchical models, better operating characteristics are obtained with the BaCIS model under various scenarios.     

Theme C: Medical information systems and databases – results and future work

This paper presents the activities of the theme C “medical information systems and databases” in the GDR Stic Santé. Six one-day workshops have been organized during the period 2011–2012. They were devoted to 1) sharing anatomical and physiological object models for simulation of clinical medical images, 2) advantages and limitations of datawarehouse for biological data, 3) medical information engineering, 4) systems for sharing medical images for research, 5) knowledge engineering for semantic interoperability in e-health applications, and 6) using context in health. In the future, our activities will continue with a specific interest on information systems for translational medicine and the role of electronic healthcare reports in decision-making. Workshops with other research groups will be organized in particular with the e-health research group.     

ISBP: Understanding the Security Rule of Users' Information-Sharing Behaviors in Partnership

The rapid growth of social network data has given rise to high security awareness among users, especially when they exchange and share their personal information. However, because users have different feelings about sharing their information, they are often puzzled about who their partners for exchanging information can be and what information they can share. Is it possible to assist users in forming a partnership network in which they can exchange and share information with little worry? We propose a modified information sharing behavior prediction (ISBP) model that can help in understanding the underlying rules by which users share their information with partners in light of three common aspects: what types of items users are likely to share, what characteristics of users make them likely to share information, and what features of users’ sharing behavior are easy to predict. This model is applied with machine learning techniques in WEKA to predict users’ decisions pertaining to information sharing behavior and form them into trustable partnership networks by learning their features. In the experiment section, by using two real-life datasets consisting of citizens’ sharing behavior, we identify the effect of highly sensitive requests on sharing behavior adjacent to individual variables: the younger participants’ partners are more difficult to predict than those of the older participants, whereas the partners of people who are not computer majors are easier to predict than those of people who are computer majors. Based on these findings, we believe that it is necessary and feasible to offer users personalized suggestions on information sharing decisions, and this is pioneering work that could benefit college researchers focusing on user-centric strategies and website owners who want to collect more user information without raising their privacy awareness or losing their trustworthiness.     

Nonparametric simulation-based statistics for detecting linkage in general pedigrees.

We present here four nonparametric statistics for linkage analysis that test whether pairs of affected relatives share marker alleles more often than expected. These statistics are based on simulating the null distribution of a given statistic conditional on the unaffecteds' marker genotypes. Each statistic uses a different measure of marker sharing: the SimAPM statistic uses the simulation-based affected-pedigree-member measure based on identity-by-state (IBS) sharing. The SimKIN (kinship) measure is 1.0 for identity-by-descent (IBD) sharing, 0.0 for no IBD status sharing, and the kinship coefficient when the IBD status is ambiguous. The simulation-based IBD (SimIBD) statistic uses a recursive algorithm to determine the probability of two affecteds sharing a specific allele IBD. The SimISO statistic is identical to SimIBD, except that it also measures marker similarity between unaffected pairs. We evaluated our statistics on data simulated under different two-locus disease models, comparing our results to those obtained with several other nonparametric statistics. Use of IBD information produces dramatic increases in power over the SimAPM method, which uses only IBS information. The power of our best statistic in most cases meets or exceeds the power of the other nonparametric statistics. Furthermore, our statistics perform comparisons between all affected relative pairs within general pedigrees and are not restricted to sib pairs or nuclear families.     

Retention of long-term memories in different age groups of honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers

Honeybees can learn food odors inside the nest during food sharing and use this information during flower choice, dance choice or choice of a trophallactic partner. We investigated for how long odors learned inside the hive are retained by bees of different age groups. In our study, bees retrieved food odors for up to 10–11 days. Our results suggest that olfactory information acquired by young bees while performing in-hive duties can be retrieved when performing foraging duties later in life.     

Kin-selection,reciprocal altruism,and information sharing among Maine lobstermen

In this paper, the sharing of information about the location of lobsters among lobstermen in two Maine harbors is described. First, why the sharing of such information is likely to entail an economic loss for the transmitters is explained. Then, the extent to which the principles of kin-selection and reciprocal altruism can account for the sharing of information is determined. Many cases of information sharing in one of the harbors do not appear to be the type of kin-directed or reciprocal acts expected to be produced by kin-selection or reciprocal altruism as they are usually conceived. The behavior of these lobstermen may be the result of the advantages of maintaining a complex web of social relationships among them. Failure to appreciate the complexity of such relationships in some fishing communities is suggested to be a major shortcoming in the economic models previously used to explain information management among commercial fishermen. I conclude that a more complex model of reciprocal altruism is needed to account for the information sharing among this group of Maine lobstermen, and perhaps many other human social groups.     

Best practices for the use and exchange of invertebrate biological control genetic resources relevant for food and agriculture

The Nagoya Protocol is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity that provides a framework for the effective implementation of the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including invertebrate biological control agents. The Protocol came into force on 12 October 2014, and requires signatories and countries acceding to the Protocol to develop a legal framework to ensure access to genetic resources, benefit-sharing and compliance. The biological control community of practice needs to comply with access and benefit sharing regulations arising under the Protocol. The IOBC Global Commission on Biological Control and Access and Benefit Sharing has prepared this best practices guide for the use and exchange of invertebrate biological control genetic resources for the biological control community of practice to demonstrate due diligence in responding to access and benefit sharing requirements, and to reassure the international community that biological control is a very successful and environmentally safe pest management method based on the use of biological diversity. We propose that components of best practice include: collaborations to facilitate information exchange about what invertebrate biological control agents are available and where they may be obtained; knowledge sharing through freely available databases that document successes (and failures); cooperative research to develop capacity in source countries; and transfer of production technology to provide opportunities for small-scale economic activity. We also provide a model concept agreement that can be used for scientific research and non-commercial release into nature where access and benefit sharing regulations exist, and a model policy for provision of invertebrate biological control agents to other parties where access and benefit sharing regulations are not restrictive or do not exist.     

Confidence Sharing: An Economic Strategy for Efficient Information Flows in Animal Groups

Social animals may share information to obtain a more complete and accurate picture of their surroundings. However, physical constraints on communication limit the flow of information between interacting individuals in a way that can cause an accumulation of errors and deteriorated collective behaviors. Here, we theoretically study a general model of information sharing within animal groups. We take an algorithmic perspective to identify efficient communication schemes that are, nevertheless, economic in terms of communication, memory and individual internal computation. We present a simple and natural algorithm in which each agent compresses all information it has gathered into a single parameter that represents its confidence in its behavior. Confidence is communicated between agents by means of active signaling. We motivate this model by novel and existing empirical evidences for confidence sharing in animal groups. We rigorously show that this algorithm competes extremely well with the best possible algorithm that operates without any computational constraints. We also show that this algorithm is minimal, in the sense that further reduction in communication may significantly reduce performances. Our proofs rely on the Cramér-Rao bound and on our definition of a Fisher Channel Capacity. We use these concepts to quantify information flows within the group which are then used to obtain lower bounds on collective performance. The abstract nature of our model makes it rigorously solvable and its conclusions highly general. Indeed, our results suggest confidence sharing as a central notion in the context of animal communication.     

Web-Based Surveillance of Public Information Needs for Informing Preconception Interventions

Background

The risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes can be minimized through the adoption of healthy lifestyles before pregnancy by women of childbearing age. Initiatives for promotion of preconception health may be difficult to implement. Internet can be used to build tailored health interventions through identification of the public''s information needs. To this aim, we developed a semi-automatic web-based system for monitoring Google searches, web pages and activity on social networks, regarding preconception health.

Methods

Based on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines and on the actual search behaviors of Italian Internet users, we defined a set of keywords targeting preconception care topics. Using these keywords, we analyzed the usage of Google search engine and identified web pages containing preconception care recommendations. We also monitored how the selected web pages were shared on social networks. We analyzed discrepancies between searched and published information and the sharing pattern of the topics.

Results

We identified 1,807 Google search queries which generated a total of 1,995,030 searches during the study period. Less than 10% of the reviewed pages contained preconception care information and in 42.8% information was consistent with ACOG guidelines. Facebook was the most used social network for sharing. Nutrition, Chronic Diseases and Infectious Diseases were the most published and searched topics. Regarding Genetic Risk and Folic Acid, a high search volume was not associated to a high web page production, while Medication pages were more frequently published than searched. Vaccinations elicited high sharing although web page production was low; this effect was quite variable in time.

Conclusion

Our study represent a resource to prioritize communication on specific topics on the web, to address misconceptions, and to tailor interventions to specific populations.     

Food sharing and affiliation: An experimental and longitudinal study in cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus)

Food sharing has attracted much attention because of its apparently altruistic nature and its link to prosociality. However, food sharing has been mostly studied in a reproductive context, during courtship and parental care, where the fitness benefits are obvious. We still lack a clear understanding of the functions of food sharing outside any reproductive context and within social groups of same‐aged peers. Previous studies suggest that cofeeding, the action to let another animal feed from the same monopolizable food source, may be used to build and strengthen bonds between individuals. This may be particularly crucial in social birds forming long‐term associations between mates or siblings such as psittacids and corvids. Here, we investigated food sharing and affiliative behaviors such as allopreening in a psittacine species, namely in a group of captive juvenile cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus) consisting of five siblings and five unrelated birds. Our main objective was to study the developmental pattern of food sharing over time and its implication in social bonding depending on kinship, affiliation, and sex. Studying cockatiels in this context is providing many new information since most of the studies on food sharing in birds focused on corvids. We found that, contrary to jackdaws, cockatiels continued to share food with multiple individuals, although the frequency of cofeeding as well as the number of cofeeding partners decreased over time. Cockatiels shared more food with their siblings than with other conspecifics but they were not more likely to do cofeeding with birds of the opposite sex. We also found evidence that young cockatiels exchanged more food with those from whom they received food (reciprocity) and, to a lesser extent, allopreening (interchange), than from other cockatiels. Our findings suggest that in cockatiels, food sharing within social groups serves the formation (and maintenance) of affiliative bonds, especially between siblings, rather than pair bonds, but might additionally be explained by reciprocity, interchange, and harassment avoidance.     

A Wetland Protection Domain Ontology Construction for Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

Over the past years, a large variety of methods have been proposed to protect wetlands—the kidney of the earth. How to apply these methods is an urgently crucial problem. This study applies ontology technology to wetland protection domains, and provides a potential alternative tool to the current mainstream methods in knowledge management and information sharing. We focus on two main objectives. The first is to propose the construction of wetland protection ontology—WP-Onto (Wetland Protection Ontology), which consists of four stages: (i) demand analysis; (ii) establishment of knowledge set; (iii) refinement and extraction of concepts and relations, and establishment of ontology; (iv) encoding and formalization of ontology. The second is the application of ontology, consisting of information sharing and knowledge management.     

The advantage of alternative tactics of prey and predators depends on the spatial pattern of prey and social interactions among predators

Individual variation in behavioral strategies is ubiquitous in nature. Yet, explaining how this variation is being maintained remains a challenging task. We use a spatially-explicit individual-based simulation model to evaluate the extent to which the efficiency of an alternative spacing tactic of prey and an alternative search tactic of predators are influenced by the spatial pattern of prey, social interactions among predators (i.e., interference and information sharing) and predator density. In response to predation risk, prey individuals can either spread out or aggregate. We demonstrate that if prey is extremely clumped, spreading out may help when predators share information regarding prey locations and when predators shift to area-restricted search following an encounter with prey. However, dispersion is counter-selected when predators interact by interference, especially under high predator density. When predators search for more randomly distributed prey, interference and information sharing similarly affect the relative advantage of spreading out. Under a clumped prey spatial pattern, predators benefit from shifting their search tactic to an area-restricted search following an encounter with prey. This advantage is moderated as predator density increases and when predators interact either by interference or information sharing. Under a more random prey pattern, information sharing may deteriorate the inferior search tactic even more, compared to interference or no interaction among predators. Our simulation clarifies how interactions among searching predators may affect aggregation behavior of prey, the relative success of alternative search tactics and their potential to invade established populations using some other search or spacing tactics.     

Epidemiology of Drug Use and HIV-Related Risk Behaviors among People Who Inject Drugs in Mwanza,Tanzania

Heroin trafficking and consumption has increased steadily over the past decade in Tanzania, but limited information regarding HIV and drug use exists for the city of Mwanza. Our study investigates the epidemiology of drug use, and HIV risk behaviors among drug users in the northwestern city of Mwanza. Using a combination of targeted sampling and participant referral, we recruited 480 participants in Mwanza between June and August 2014. The sample was 92% male. Seventy-nine (16.4%) participants reported injecting heroin, while 434 (90.4%) reported smoking heroin. Unstable housing and cohabitation status were the only socioeconomic characteristics significantly associated with heroin injection. More than half of heroin injectors left syringes in common locations, and half reported sharing needles and syringes. Other risk behaviors such as lack of condom use during sex, and the use of illicit drugs during sex was widely reported as well. Among the study sample, there was poor awareness of health risks posed by needle/syringe sharing and drug use. Our results show that heroin use and HIV risk related behaviors are pressing problems that should not be ignored in Mwanza. Harm reduction programs are urgently needed in this population.     

Heterogeneity in IBD allele sharing among covariate-defined subgroups: issues and findings for affected relatives

OBJECTIVES: Modelling of variation in identical-by-descent (IBD) allele sharing using covariates can increase power to detect linkage, identify covariate-defined subgroups linked to particular marker regions, and improve the design of subsequent studies to localize genes and characterize their effects. In this report, we highlight issues that arise in studies of families with affected relatives. METHODS: Mirea et al. [Genet Epidemiol 2003, in press] extended linear and exponential linkage likelihood models [Kong and Cox, Am J Hum Genet 1997;61: 1179-1188] to model variation in NPL scores among covariate-defined groups of families, and proposed likelihood ratio (LR) and t statistics to detect differences in allele sharing between groups defined by a binary covariate. Here we evaluate factors affecting the power of these tests analytically and by example, as well as effects of constraints, nuisance parameters, and incomplete data on test validity by simulation of locus heterogeneity in families with affected siblings or affected cousins. RESULTS: Provided constraints on the parameters are avoided, these tests are particularly useful when one subgroup has less than expected IBD sharing. The distribution of the LR statistic depends on the extent of linkage, particularly in the presence of constraints. The t statistic may be biased by group differences in information content. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend that constraints be applied cautiously, and covariate effects in IBD allele sharing models interpreted with care.     

国家农作物种质资源平台的建立和应用

农作物种质资源是生物多样性的重要组成部分, 是作物育种和农业生产的物质基础。长期以来, 我国农作物种质资源标准不统一、资源保存相对分散、信息网络设施薄弱, 制约了农作物种质资源的共享利用。本文提出了国家农作物种质资源平台的概念和架构, 它是一个虚拟式的农作物种质资源机构, 由国家长期种质库、国家复份种质库、国家中期种质库、国家种质圃和国家种质信息中心组成。阐述了农作物种质资源技术规范体系构建的原则和方法, 建立了由110种作物的描述规范、数据规范和数据质量控制规范组成的技术规范体系。提出了以信息共享带动实物共享的思路、方法和途径, 建成了拥有39万份种质信息的国家农作物种质资源数据库和中国作物种质资源信息网(http://www.cgris.net/)。创建了日常性服务、展示性服务、针对性服务、需求性服务和引导性服务等5种农作物种质资源服务模式, 有效解决了农作物种质资源共享利用的难题。     

Legislation for trial registration and data transparency

Sharing of final research data from clinical research is an essential part of the scientific method. The U.S. National Institutes of Health require some grant applications to include plans for sharing final research data, which it defines as the factual materials necessary to document, support, and validate research findings. In the U.S., however, the Privacy Rule adopted under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act impedes the sharing of final research data. In most situations, final research data may be shared only where all information that could possibly be used to identify the subject has been deleted, or where the subject has given authorization for specific research, or an Institutional Review Board has granted a waiver.     

Reverse simulation for collaborative commerce: A study of integrating object-oriented database technology with object-oriented simulator

Collaborative commerce has been used for communication, design, planning, information sharing, and information discovery in business-to-business (B2B) applications. The collaboration between buyers and sellers enhances product quality and customer satisfaction. However, most effort currently focuses on information sharing with customers and suppliers instead of joint product development or manufacturing. Moreover, traditional analytical methods have limited capability in solving problems. This study presents a framework for doing reverse simulation, where designers can reuse past experiments and change system parameters in manufacturing system for collaborative commerce. The framework integrates the object-oriented simulator and the object-oriented database. In this framework, the object-oriented database records the whole experiment scenarios and allows multiple planners with different expertise to involve concurrently and collaboratively. Then, simulations of advanced planning and scheduling in a product manufacturing environment that involves several planners working collaboratively are used for demonstration.     

我国生态环境大数据建设方案实施及其公开效果评估

生态环境大数据建设是新一代环境管理手段,也是我国建设"数据强国"的基本要求。在《生态环境大数据建设总体方案》实施2年后,针对31个省级、27个省会城市、6个大数据建设试点城市的环境保护厅/局落实生态环境大数据的建设进行调查分析,通过文献分析和资料调查,全面评估我国生态环境大数据建设的总体状况,以期为生态环境大数据建设的下一步工作提供建议。结果表明,尽管生态环境大数据建设在数据资源整合方面取得了较大进步,但在地区发展、机构建设、数据共享开放和大数据应用等方面还存在着许多问题,针对这些不足,提出了未来几年我国生态环境大数据建设的发展方向,包括扩充环境信息中心相关职能、推进大数据整合与共享、加强国际交流和提升大数据在重点领域的应用范围。     

医院临床信息模型建立的研究

长期以来,信息的标准化问题一直是我国医院信息化发展的瓶颈。医院信息化建设需要解决的核心问题是医疗信息资源共享,而医疗信息共享的水平和程度从根本上说依赖于统一的标准,特别是临床信息标准。建立一个好的临床信息模型是卫生信息的一项重要工作,就医院临床信息模型进行了研究。