Search results for "Comparability"

Cost-efficiency assessments of marine monitoring methods lack rigor—a systematic mapping of literature and an end-user view on optimal cost-efficienc…

2021

Global deterioration of marine ecosystems, together with increasing pressure to use them, has created a demand for new, more efficient and cost-efficient monitoring tools that enable assessing changes in the status of marine ecosystems. However, demonstrating the cost-efficiency of a monitoring method is not straightforward as there are no generally applicable guidelines. Our study provides a systematic literature mapping of methods and criteria that have been proposed or used since the year 2000 to evaluate the cost-efficiency of marine monitoring methods. We aimed to investigate these methods but discovered that examples of actual cost-efficiency assessments in literature were rare, contr…

Administrative Coding in Electronic Health Care Record‐Based Research of NAFLD: An Expert Panel Consensus Statement

2021

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Electronic health record (EHR)-based research allows the capture of large amounts of data, which is necessary in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), where the risk of clinical liver outcomes is generally low. The lack of consensus on which International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes should be used as exposures and outcomes limits comparability and generalizability of results across studies. We aimed to establish consensus among a panel of experts on ICD codes that could become the reference standard and provide guidance around common methodological issues.APPROACH AND RESULTS: Researchers with an interest in EHR-based NAFLD research were invited to collect…

2020

To validly assess teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), performance-based tasks with open-response formats are required. Automated scoring is considered an appropriate ap-proach to reduce the resource-intensity of human scoring and to achieve more consistent scor-ing results than human raters. The focus is on the comparability of human and automated scor-ing of PCK for economics teachers. The answers of (prospective) teachers (N=852) to six open-response tasks from a standardized and validated test were scored by two trained human raters and the engine "Educational SCoRIng TOolkit" (ESCRITO). The average agreement between human and computer ratings, κw = .66, suggests a convergent …

2019

Worries about possible harmful effects of new technologies (modern health worries) have intensely been investigated in the last decade. However, the comparability of translated self-report measures across countries is often problematic. This study aimed to overcome this problem by developing psychometrically sound brief versions of the widely used 25-item Modern Health Worries Scale (MHWS) suitable for multi-country use. Based on data of overall 5,176 individuals from four European countries (England, Germany, Hungary, Sweden), Ant Colony Optimization was used to identify the indicators that optimize model fit and measurement invariance across countries. Two scales were developed. A short (…

Participation rates by educational levels have diverged during 25 years in Finnish health examination surveys

2018

Background Declining participation rates in health examination surveys may impair the representativeness of surveys and introduce bias into the comparison of results between population groups if participation rates differ between them. Changes in the characteristics of non-participants over time may also limit comparability with earlier surveys. Methods We studied the association of socio-economic position with participation, and its changes over the past 25 years. Occupational class and educational level are used as indicators of socio-economic position. Data from six cross-sectional FINRISK surveys conducted between 1987 and 2012 in Finland were linked to national administrative registers…

International Education Studies: Increasing Their Linguistic Comparability by Developing Judgmental Reviews

2012

In international education studies, the different-language test versions need to be equally difficult to read and answer for the test to be valid. To ensure comparability, several quality control procedures have been developed. Among these, surprisingly little attention has been paid to judgmental reviews and their ability to identify language-related sources of bias. Also, the reviews have often failed in identifying biases. This paper explored whether it is possible to improve the ability of judgmental reviews to identify language-related sources of bias. A new review was made of two Finnish items which in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2000 reading test showed …

A new method for morphometric analysis of opal phytoliths from plants.

2014

Micro-morphometry has substantially gained ground in the field of phytolith analysis, but the comparability of results is limited due to the use of different methods. This paper presents a new, user-friendly method based on open-source software (FIJI) that is proposed as a step towards the introduction of a standard method. After obtaining a mask of a phytolith by making a digital drawing, 27 commonly used variables of size and shape are measured automatically. This method is not only useful for phytolith analysis, but may also be used for other fields of morphometric research. Users can furthermore customize the software tool when additional variables are required.

Quality, comparability and methods of analysis of data on childhood cancer in Europe (1978-1997): report from the Automated Childhood Cancer Informat…

2006

International audience; In collaboration with 62 population-based cancer registries contributing to the Automated Childhood Cancer Information System (ACCIS), we built a database to study incidence and survival of children and adolescents with cancer in Europe. We describe the methods and evaluate the quality and internal comparability of the database, by geographical region, period of registration, type of registry and other characteristics. Data on 88,465 childhood and 15,369 adolescent tumours registered during 1978-1997 were available. Geographical differences in incidence are caused partly by differences in definition of eligible cases. The observed increase in incidence rates cannot b…

The EUROCARE-5 study on cancer survival in Europe 1999-2007: Database, quality checks and statistical analysis methods

2015

Abstract Background Since 25 years the EUROCARE study monitors the survival of cancer patients in Europe through centralised collection, quality check and statistical analysis of population-based cancer registries (CRs) data. The European population covered by the study increased remarkably in the latest round. The study design and statistical methods were also changed to improve timeliness and comparability of survival estimates. To interpret the EUROCARE-5 results on adult cancer patients better here we assess the impact of these changes on data quality and on survival comparisons. Methods In EUROCARE-5 the survival differences by area were studied applying the complete cohort approach to…

Completeness and timeliness: Cancer registries could/should improve their performance.

2015

Abstract Cancer registries must provide complete and reliable incidence information with the shortest possible delay for use in studies such as comparability, clustering, cancer in the elderly and adequacy of cancer surveillance. Methods of varying complexity are available to registries for monitoring completeness and timeliness. We wished to know which methods are currently in use among cancer registries, and to compare the results of our findings to those of a survey carried out in 2006. Methods In the framework of the EUROCOURSE project, and to prepare cancer registries for participation in the ERA-net scheme, we launched a survey on the methods used to assess completeness, and also on t…