BackgroundClinical researchers have often preferred to use a fixed effects model for the primary interpretation of a meta-analysis. Heterogeneity is usually assessed via the well known Q and I2 statistics, along with the random effects estimate they imply. In recent years, alternative methods for quantifying heterogeneity have been proposed, that are based on a 'generalised' Q statistic.MethodsWe review 18 IPD meta-analyses of RCTs into treatments for cancer, in order to quantify the amount of heterogeneity present and also to discuss practical methods for explaining heterogeneity.ResultsDiffering results were obtained when the standard Q and I2 statistics were used to test for the presence of heterogeneity. The two meta-analyses with the largest amount of heterogeneity were investigated further, and on inspection the straightforward application of a random effects model was not deemed appropriate. Compared to the standard Q statistic, the generalised Q statistic provided a more accurate platform for estimating the amount of heterogeneity in the 18 meta-analyses.ConclusionsExplaining heterogeneity via the pre-specification of trial subgroups, graphical diagnostic tools and sensitivity analyses produced a more desirable outcome than an automatic application of the random effects model. Generalised Q statistic methods for quantifying and adjusting for heterogeneity should be incorporated as standard into statistical software. Software is provided to help achieve this aim.
Neutron Star Measurements Neutron stars are one of the densest manifestations of matter in the universe. Yagi and Yunes (p. 365) examined the moment of inertia of neutron stars, which determines how fast they can spin, and the quadrupole moment and tidal Love number, which determine how much they can be deformed. The findings suggest that these three quantities obey universal relationships that are independent of the internal structure of the stars, implying that measurements of one of the three could accurately predict the other two. The relation of inertia, Love number, and quadrupole moment is independent of neutron and quark stars’ internal structure. Neutron stars and quark stars are not only characterized by their mass and radius but also by how fast they spin, through their moment of inertia, and how much they can be deformed, through their Love number and quadrupole moment. These depend sensitively on the star’s internal structure and thus on unknown nuclear physics. We find universal relations between the moment of inertia, the Love number, and the quadrupole moment that are independent of the neutron and quark star’s internal structure. These can be used to learn about neutron star deformability through observations of the moment of inertia, break degeneracies in gravitational wave detection to measure spin in binary inspirals, distinguish neutron stars from quark stars, and test general relativity in a nuclear structure–independent fashion.
The exterior gravitational field of a slowly-rotating neutron star can be characterized by its multipole moments, the first few being the neutron star mass, moment of inertia, and quadrupole moment to quadratic order in spin. In principle, all of these quantities depend on the neutron star's internal structure, and thus, on unknown nuclear physics at supra-nuclear energy densities. We here find relations between the moment of inertia, the Love numbers and the quadrupole moment (I-Love-Q relations) that do not depend sensitively on the neutron star's internal structure. Three important consequences derive from these I-Love-Q relations. On an observational astrophysics front, the measurement of a single member of the I-Love-Q trio would automatically provide information about the other two, even when the latter may not be observationally accessible. On a gravitational wave front, the I-Love-Q relations break the degeneracy between the quadrupole moment and the neutron-star spins in binary inspiral waveforms, allowing second-generation ground-based detectors to determine the (dimensionless) averaged spin to $\mathcal{O}(10)%$, given a sufficiently large signal-to-noise ratio detection. On a fundamental physics front, the I-Love-Q relations allow for tests of General Relativity in the neutron-star strong-field that are both theory- and internal structure-independent. As an example, by combining gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations, one may constrain dynamical Chern-Simons gravity in the future by more than 6 orders of magnitude more stringently than Solar System and table-top constraints.
Ramtin Zargari Marandi, Mette Jørgensen, Emma Elizabeth Ilett
et al.
Gut microbiota is thought to influence host responses to allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT). Recent evidence points to this post-transplant for acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD). We asked whether any such association might be found pre-transplant and conducted a metagenome-wide association study (MWAS) to explore. Microbial abundance profiles were estimated using ensembles of Kaiju, Kraken2, and DeepMicrobes calls followed by dimensionality reduction. The area under the curve (AUC) was used to evaluate classification of the samples (aGvHD vs. none) using an elastic net to test the relevance of metagenomic data. Clinical data included the underlying disease (leukemia vs. other hematological malignancies), recipient age, and sex. Among 172 aHSCT patients of whom 42 developed aGVHD post transplantation, a total of 181 pre-transplant tool samples were analyzed. The top performing model predicting risk of aGVHD included a reduced species profile (AUC = 0.672). Beta diversity (37% in Jaccard’s Nestedness by mean fold change, p < 0.05) was lower in those developing aGvHD. Ten bacterial species including Prevotella and Eggerthella genera were consistently found to associate with aGvHD in indicator species analysis, as well as relief and impurity-based algorithms. The findings support the hypothesis on potential associations between gut microbiota and aGvHD based on a data-driven approach to MWAS. This highlights the need and relevance of routine stool collection for the discovery of novel biomarkers.
We extract the e+e− → π+π− cross section in the energy range between 600 and 900 MeV, exploiting the method of initial state radiation. A data set with an integrated luminosity of 2.93 fb−1 taken at a centerof-mass energy of 3.773 GeV with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider is used. The cross section is measured with a systematic uncertainty of 0.9%. We extract the pion form factor |Fπ| as well as the contribution of the measured cross section to the leading-order hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to (g − 2)μ. We find this value to be a μ (600 − 900 MeV) = (368.2 ± 2.5stat ± 3.3sys) · 10−10, which is between the corresponding values using the BaBar or KLOE data.
During the development of this package, the author was funded by the Department of Research of the Basque Government. The author is grateful to Steven Brown and Peter Schmolck for making Q datasets publicly available and for allowing the Lipset dataset to be used in this R package; to Laurent Gatto for his advice in developing it; and to Ben Fried, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their useful comments on the manuscript.