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Support vector machine (SVM) is one of the most popular classification algorithms in the machine learning literature. We demonstrate that SVM can be used to balance covariates and estimate average causal effects under the unconfoundedness assumption. Specifically, we adapt the SVM classifier as a kernel-based weighting procedure that minimizes the maximum mean discrepancy between the treatment and control groups while simultaneously maximizing effective sample size. We also show that SVM is a continuous relaxation of the quadratic integer program for computing the largest balanced subset, establishing its direct relation to the cardinality matching method. Another important feature of SVM is that the regularization parameter controls the trade-off between covariate balance and effective sample size. As a result, the existing SVM path algorithm can be used to compute the balance-sample size frontier. We characterize the bias of causal effect estimation arising from this trade-off, connecting the proposed SVM procedure to the existing kernel balancing methods. Finally, we conduct simulation and empirical studies to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology and find that SVM is competitive with the state-of-the-art covariate balancing methods., (© 2025 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Establishing patient-matched cohorts can be a valuable technique for minimizing selection bias in outcomes research pertaining to shoulder arthroplasty. This systematic review evaluated the variety and inconsistency with which matching techniques are employed in matched studies assessing outcomes following shoulder arthroplasty., Methods: The PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane computerized databases were queried from their inception through December 2023 to identify clinical outcome studies of shoulder arthroplasty that employed a matched study design. Study quality was assessed via the Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies criteria. Matching techniques, covariates included, and covariate justification were aggregated., Results: Among 110 studies encompassing 483,738 shoulder arthroplasties, 82 (74.6%) studies employed direct matching and 28 (25.5%) employed propensity score matching. Seventy-four distinct covariates were used in at least one study, with 86 unique combinations of covariates employed. Studies used a median of 4 covariates (range 1-27). The most common covariates were age (94.5%), sex (89.1%), body mass index (26.4%), smoking (19.1%), and follow-up duration (19.1%). Only 16 (14.6%) studies reported justification for the covariates included., Conclusions: There are marked methodological discrepancies among studies using covariate matching methods in the shoulder arthroplasty literature. Future matched studies in shoulder arthroplasty should provide justification for included covariates and properly account for matching in their statistical analyses to enhance the validity of study findings. When patient matching is deemed appropriate, key variables to consider for matching may include patient age, sex, comorbidity burden and, when analyzing multiple clinical conditions, surgical indication., (Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Quantum-inspired neural networks (QNNs) have shown potential in capturing various non-classical phenomena in language understanding, e.g., the emgerent meaning of concept combinations, and represent a leap beyond conventional models in cognitive science. However, there are still two limitations in the existing QNNs: (1) Both storing and invoking the complex-valued embeddings may lead to prohibitively expensive costs in memory consumption and storage space. (2) The use of entangled states can fully capture certain non-classical phenomena, which are described by the tensor product with powerful compression ability. This approach shares many commonalities with the process of word formation from morphemes, but such connection has not been further exploited in the existing work. To mitigate these two limitations, we introduce a Quantum-inspired neural network with Hierarchical Entanglement Embedding (QHEE) based on finer-grained morphemes. Our model leverages the intra-word and inter-word entanglement embeddings to learn a multi-grained semantic representation. The intra-word entanglement embedding is employed to aggregate the constituent morphemes from multiple perspectives, while the inter-word entanglement embedding is utilized to combine different words based on unitary transformation to reveal their non-classical correlations. Both the number of morphemes and the dimensionality of the morpheme embedding vectors are far smaller than the counterparts of words, which would compress embedding parameters efficiently. Experimental results on four benchmark datasets of different downstream tasks show that our model outperforms strong quantum-inspired baselines in terms of effectiveness and compression ability., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

One primary goal of precision medicine is to estimate the individualized treatment rules that optimize patients' health outcomes based on individual characteristics. Health studies with multiple treatments are commonly seen in practice. However, most existing individualized treatment rule estimation methods were developed for the studies with binary treatments. Many require that the outcomes are fully observed. In this article, we propose a matching-based machine learning method to estimate the optimal individualized treatment rules in observational studies with multiple treatments when the outcomes are fully observed or right-censored. We establish theoretical property for the proposed method. It is compared with the existing competitive methods in simulation studies and a hepatocellular carcinoma study., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Background: A large, retrospective study was designed to interrogate current NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) HLA matching strategies for the provision of HLA selected platelets (HLA SP) and to determine whether additional factors such as ABO blood group matching, patient diagnosis, patient and/or donor age, sex, ethnicity, age of platelet unit at transfusion and possibly seasonal variation also play a role in transfusion efficacy., Materials and Methods: Data for 56 640 HLA SP transfusions over a 3-year period were collected. Transfusions with missing data for any factor under consideration were excluded, resulting in a cohort of 13 044 transfusions for analysis. Univariable and multivariable regression models were used to determine if any factors influenced an increase in platelet count of ≥10 × 10 9 /L. A stepwise logistic regression was applied, such that each influential factor was adjusted for effects on other factors included in the study., Results: HLA match grade was confirmed as a significant factor in transfusion efficacy, with ABO mismatched units 20% less likely to give an adequate platelet increment (≥10 × 10 9 /L). Platelet donor age, gender and ethnicity were not significant. Conversely, patient diagnosis, ethnicity, gender and age showed significant associations with platelet increments. Some seasonal variation in efficacy of platelet transfusion was also demonstrated., Conclusion: This study has demonstrated the efficacy of HLA SP transfusions in refractory patients with a wide range of diagnoses, the importance of HLA match grade, plus the marginal effect of ABO matching. A wide range of donor-related factors was excluded, while a number of patient-related factors were identified, requiring more extensive investigation in ongoing and independent studies, with implications for donor registry, clinical and laboratory practices., (© 2025 British Blood Transfusion Society.)

Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular fitness are powerful confounders in age and sex-related comparisons. This paper provides a perspective on the benefits and limitations of matching participants by physical activity behaviour, objectively measured fitness and normative fitness percentiles. Data presented herein are a subset of a larger study, and highlight that matching by physical activity, does not necessarily match on other metrics like physical fitness, especially when age-related comparisons are being made. Our data showed that young and older adults matched by physical activity behaviours showed the expected higher CRF and muscular fitness in male and younger participants, but older adults had higher CRF percentiles. This suggests that matching by physical activity behaviour may select older adults with relatively higher CRF. Researchers must choose their matching method carefully to ensure the appropriate aspects of fitness have been matched between groups. For clarity, they should also report when certain aspects of fitness have not been accounted for and give an explanation as to why., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2025 Schweitzer, Fuller, Fliss and Mitchell.)

Background: The majority of people in need of care in Germany are cared for at home by relatives or other close individuals. Many informal caregivers are also in paid employment and face the challenge of juggling the demands of both areas of life. This can adversely affect the caregiver's own health., Objectives: (1) To what extent is informal caregiving related to health complaints among people in paid employment? (2) Within the group of working caregivers, how are the amounts of informal care and work related to health complaints?, Material and Methods: This secondary data analysis is based on the BIBB/BAuA employment survey 2018. To account for systematic differences between caregivers and non-caregivers in the analyses, propensity score matching was applied., Results: Working caregivers more frequently experience psychosomatic and physical complaints compared to people in paid employment without caregiving responsibilities. The working hours and the extent of caregiving are interrelated and a high burden in both areas of life is associated with poorer health., Conclusion: People who provide informal care in addition to their work are often burdened with health problems. Targeted health promotion interventions are therefore necessary to support this vulnerable group and improve their health., Competing Interests: Einhaltung ethischer Richtlinien. Interessenkonflikt: J. M. Elling, C. Hetzel, S. Hampel, A. von Spee und G. Ollertz geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht. Ein Ethikvotum ist bei Analysen, die ausschließlich auf Sekundärdaten basieren, nicht erforderlich., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Clinical trials (CTs) often suffer from small sample sizes due to limited budgets and patient enrollment challenges. Using historical data for the CT data analysis may boost statistical power and reduce the required sample size. Existing methods on borrowing information from historical data with right-censored outcomes did not consider matching between historical data and CT data to reduce the heterogeneity. In addition, they studied the survival outcome only, not competing risk outcomes. Therefore, we propose a clustering-based commensurate prior model with random effects for both survival and competing risk outcomes that effectively borrows information based on the degree of comparability between historical and CT data. Simulation results show that the proposed method controls type I errors better and has a lower bias than some competing methods. We apply our method to a phase III CT which compares the effectiveness of bone marrow donated from family members with only partially matched bone marrow versus two partially matched cord blood units to treat leukemia and lymphoma., (© 2025 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

A plethora of studies has exhibited the effectiveness of using measurement-based care feedback systems within mental health services to improve treatment outcomes; however, patient gender/race and patient-therapist matching on gender and race remain relatively unexplored as predictors/moderators in feedback studies. We conducted predictor/moderator analyses focusing on the relation of gender, race/ethnicity, and patient-therapist gender and race/ethnicity matching on two outcomes: patient self-reported levels of (1) functioning and (2) trust/respect within the therapeutic relationship. We used data from a randomized controlled trial studying the effectiveness of a feedback system comparing patient-reported levels of trust and respect towards their provider (together with symptom feedback) in comparison to symptom only feedback. We found that men improved in functioning more than women when their therapists received trust/respect feedback compared to symptom only feedback (F[1, 902] = 9.79, p = .002, d = 0.21). We also found that dyads matched on race/ethnicity but not gender, and those matched on gender but not race/ethnicity, improved in functioning over time more than dyads mismatched on both gender and race/ethnicity and those matched on both gender and race/ethnicity (F[1, 897] = 8.63, p = .0034, d = 0.20). On trust/respect outcomes, we found a gender difference over time (F[1, 759] = 6.61, p = .01, d = 0.19), a gender matching difference by feedback condition interaction (F[1, 757] = 5.25, p = .02, d = 0.17), and a racial/ethnic matching difference on trust/respect scores over time (F[1, 785] = 3.89, p = .049, d = 0.14). Male patients showed an initial decrease followed by a steady increase in trust/respect over time while female patients showed an initial increase followed by a steady decrease. Gender-matched therapeutic dyads showed higher levels of trust/respect compared to mismatched dyads when therapists received symptom only feedback, but this difference was not apparent when trust/respect feedback was provided. Dyads mismatched on race/ethnicity improved steadily in trust/respect over time, but matched dyads decreased in trust/respect after an initial increase. Future research should focus on the use of feedback systems to enhance outcomes for patients with specific gender and racial/ethnic identities., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing Interests: The authors report no competing interests. Ethics Approval: The original randomized controlled trial was approved by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institutional Review Board committee #8. Informed Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study. Standards of Reporting: The present manuscript used the Journal Article Reporting Standards for quantitative research in psychology as our guideline; however, because this is a secondary analysis on data from another trial, some of the reporting guidelines were not relevant to include., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

An endhered (end-adhered) pattern is a subset of arcs in matchings, such that the corresponding starting points are consecutive, and the same holds for the ending points. Such patterns are in one-to-one correspondence with the permutations. We focus on the occurrence frequency of such patterns in matchings and native (real-world) RNA structures with pseudoknots. We present combinatorial results related to the distribution and asymptotic behavior of the pattern 21, which corresponds to two consecutive base pairs frequently encountered in RNA, and the pattern 12, representing the archetypal minimal pseudoknot. We show that in matchings these two patterns are equidistributed, which is quite different from what we can find in native RNAs. We also examine the distribution of endhered patterns of size 3, showing how the patterns change under the transformation called endhered twist . Finally, we compute the distributions of endhered patterns of size 2 and 3 in native secondary RNA structures with pseudoknots and discuss possible outcomes of our study.

Identity verification from both faces and voices can be error-prone. Previous research has shown that faces and voices signal concordant information and cross-modal unfamiliar face-to-voice matching is possible, albeit often with low accuracy. In the current study, we ask whether performance on a face or voice identity matching task can be improved by using multimodal stimuli which add a second modality (voice or face). We find that overall accuracy is higher for face matching than for voice matching. However, contrary to predictions, presenting one unimodal and one multimodal stimulus within a matching task did not improve face or voice matching compared to presenting two unimodal stimuli. Additionally, we find that presenting two multimodal stimuli does not improve accuracy compared to presenting two unimodal face stimuli. Thus, multimodal information does not improve accuracy. However, intriguingly, we find that cross-modal face-voice matching accuracy predicts voice matching accuracy but not face matching accuracy. This suggests cross-modal information can nonetheless play a role in identity matching, and face and voice information combine to inform matching decisions. We discuss our findings in light of current models of person perception, and consider the implications for identity verification in security and forensic settings., (© 2024 The Author(s). British Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Psychological Society.)

This paper theoretically studies pharmaceutical innovation collaborations, where heterogeneous firms compete for heterogeneous academics. At an interim stage, the firm evaluates the project, which allows it to monitor academics and decide whether to terminate the project to avoid the loss from a future failure. This paper explores the contract, project termination strategy, and collaboration matching. The firm's innovation strategy (exploitations or explorations) determines the evaluation structure, which may affect the market equilibrium. By considering different innovation strategies, this paper shows that in each case, the equilibrium matching is unique (either positive or negative assortative). Consequently, the chosen innovation strategy plays a pivotal role in shaping equilibrium matching outcomes. These findings provide theoretical insights into pharma-academic alliances, shed light on the observed positive or negative assortative properties in the market, and advocate for the consideration of innovation strategies and evaluation structures in future research endeavors. Moreover, this paper also provides several empirical and policy implications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: High-resolution typing of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) may revolutionize the field of kidney transplantation by selection of low immunogenic grafts. The new 250-nautical mile circle allocation system offers a unique opportunity to find low HLA immunogenic donors for eligible recipients., Methods: 501 transplant candidates from the University of Toledo Medical Center (UTMC) between 2015 and 2019, registered at the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) were virtually matched to 4812 donors procured within 250-nautical miles using an in-house-developed simulation algorithm. Immunogenicity of HMS (hydrophobic mismatch score) ≤10 was measured based on imputed high-resolution HLAs. Simulated "optimal" matches with a KDPI≤50 % were compared with the transplant cohort between 2000 and 2010 with their kidney allograft survivals., Results: Out of 501 recipients 500 (99.8 %) were matched with donors ≤10 HMS and KDPI ≤50 %. The average HMS value for simulated transplants was 1.4 (range 0-10) versus 6.3 (range 0-75) in the retrospective cohort (p < 0.001). The simulated model had a median mismatch number of 3/6, while the reference cohort 4/6 among HLA-A/B/DR antigens (p < 0.001). The estimated median graft survival was 18.2 years for the simulated cohort vs. 13.4 years in the real-life cohort (p < 0.001), gaining 4.9 years per transplant and 2450 survival years for all patients. For year 2014, out of 98 patients and 659 donors, each recipient had a median number of 141 donors (HMS < 10; range 8-378). Similar values were found for patients between 2015 and 2019., Conclusion: Donors within 250-nautical miles proffers excellent and multiple options for finding well-matched low immunogenic HLA kidney donors for UTMC patients, thus significantly improving their chances for long-term allograft survival., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression, are indeed among the leading health challenges worldwide, affecting individuals across all age groups and geographic locations. The relationship between mental health and socioeconomic factors, including household wealth status, is well-documented. However, there are currently no studies demonstrating a causal relationship between household wealth and common mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effect of household wealth status on anxiety and depression through Propensity Score Matching analysis (PSM) analysis., Methods: This study used the recent 2022 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS). A weighted sample of 7411 reproductive-age (aged 15-49 years) women who were interviewed for mental health conditions were included in this study. Anxiety and depression were the dependent variables of this study. The NDHS utilized the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) to assess levels of anxiety among participants and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) to evaluate depression. PSM analysis was employed to examine the causal connection between household wealth and women's anxiety and depression by controlling for confounding variables., Results: The average treatment effects (ATE) of non-poor household status on anxiety and depression were -0.015 and -0.052 respectively, indicating that non-poor household status reduces women's anxiety and depression. It implies the difference in risks of anxiety and depression that would be observed if everyone in the population were from non-poor households, versus if everyone in the population were from poor households were 1.5 % and 5.2 % respectively. The average treatment effect on treated (ATT) result showed that women from non-poor wealth status households reduced the risk of anxiety and depression by 1.1 % and 9.2 % respectively among treated groups., Conclusion: This study evidenced that causal relationship between household wealth status and common mental health conditions as such anxiety and depression. This suggests, it is better to focus on improving the wealth status of households to enhance the mental health of reproductive-age women. By understanding the multidimensional aspects of poverty and their links to mental health, stakeholders can create more effective strategies to support affected individuals and communities. This can contribute to breaking the cycle of poverty and improving overall well-being., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Background: Methods for matching in longitudinal cohort studies, such as sequential stratification and time-varying propensity scores, facilitate causal inferences in the context of time-dependent treatments that are not randomized where patient eligibility or treatment status changes over time. The tradeoffs in available approaches have not been compared previously, so we compare two methods using simulations based on a retrospective cohort of patients eligible for weight loss surgery, some of whom received it., Methods: This study compares matching completeness, bias, coverage, and precision among three approaches to longitudinal matching: (1) time-varying propensity scores (tvPS), (2) sequential stratification that matches exactly on all covariates used in tvPS (SS-Full) and (3) sequential stratification that exact matches on a subset of covariates (SS-Selected). These comparisons are made in the context of a deep sampling frame (50:1) and a shallow sampling frame (5:1) of eligible comparators. A simulation study was employed to estimate the relative performance of these approaches., Results: In 1,000 simulations each, tvPS retained more than 99.9% of treated patients in both the deep and shallow sampling frames, while a smaller proportion of treated patients were retained for SS-Full (91.6%) and SS-Selected (98.2%) in the deep sampling frame. In the shallow sampling frame, sequential stratification retained many fewer treated patients (73.9% SS-Full, 92.0% SS-Selected) than tvPS yet coverage, precision and bias were comparable for tvPS, SS-Full and SS-Selected in the deep and shallow sampling frames., Conclusion: Time-varying propensity scores have comparable performance to sequential stratification in terms of coverage, bias, and precision, with superior match completeness. While performance was generally comparable across methods, greater match completeness makes tvPS an attractive option for longitudinal matching studies where external validity is highly valued., Competing Interests: Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate This study was approved by the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Institutional Review Board (#12440) with waivers of informed consent and Privacy Rule authorization. Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)

From early in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there was interest in using machine learning methods to predict COVID-19 infection status based on vocal audio signals, for example, cough recordings. However, early studies had limitations in terms of data collection and of how the performances of the proposed predictive models were assessed. This article describes how these limitations have been overcome in a study carried out by the Turing-RSS Health Data Laboratory and the UK Health Security Agency. As part of the study, the UK Health Security Agency collected a dataset of acoustic recordings, SARS-CoV-2 infection status and extensive study participant meta-data. This allowed us to rigorously assess state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to predict SARS-CoV-2 infection status based on vocal audio signals. The lessons learned from this project should inform future studies on statistical evaluation methods to assess the performance of machine learning techniques for public health tasks., (© 2024 The Author(s). Statistics in Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Ride-sharing services have attracted significant interest due to overcrowding, limited energy resources, and environmental concerns. This study proposes a mathematical programming model that integrates user preferences into the ride-sharing problem with transfer. Passenger transfer in ride-sharing problems addresses the limitations of the matching process, especially in less-populated areas. It allows passengers to be dropped off at meeting points and continue with another driver. Moreover, considering user preferences in ride-sharing systems is crucial for enhancing efficiency and user satisfaction. Accordingly, we propose a Preference-Driven Matching Algorithm for the matching process. Our proposed algorithm captures user preferences and provides potential matches. In addition, we introduce an Iterative Enhance-and-Optimize Algorithm capable of producing high-quality solutions within short computational times. We evaluate the efficiency of these approaches across various instances, focusing on real-scale scenarios. Based on the results, the model with preferences demonstrates effective performance compared to other methods. Our findings underscore the importance of user preferences in optimizing ride-sharing problems and highlight the trade-off between efficiency and user satisfaction. By incorporating user preferences, our approach results in higher user satisfaction, a more responsive and efficient system with reduced response times, and increased demand and revenue by servicing more users., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate and highlight the most important factors influencing the candidate's selection for residency matching by program directors of surgical and non-surgical specialties in Saudi Arabia., Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Central, Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern regions of Saudi Arabia from February 1, 2023, to August 31, 2023. A total of sixty-one program directors completed a questionnaire, which was adapted and validated from a previous study with permission and tailored to meet the objectives of this research., Results: The mean age of the study population was 40.2 years, with surgical specialty program directors being older at 41.7 years and nonsurgical specialty program directors being younger at 39.6 years. In both cases, the highest importance was given to 'Applicant's attitude and professionalism', followed in surgical specialties by 'Doing clinical rotations in the PD institution' and 'Performance in clinical rotation during internship' in non-surgical specialties. with a mean score of 4.13 and 4.95, respectively. The importance of 'The impression/opinion of current residents' has had a certain importance in both specialties. While the number of research projects was prioritized more by surgical PDs (38.6%) compared to non-surgical PDs (29.4%)., Conclusion: This study highlights the critical role of professionalism and a positive attitude in clinical rotations and interviews for program acceptance in Saudi Arabia. The significance of letters of recommendation and research focus varies between surgical and non-surgical program directors. Program directors should adopt effective recruitment strategies that incorporate practical implications during internships., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Many population surveys do not provide information on respondents' residential addresses, instead offering coarse geographies like zip code or higher aggregations. However, fine resolution geography can be beneficial for characterizing neighbourhoods, especially for relatively rare populations such as immigrants. One way to obtain such information is to link survey records to records in auxiliary databases that include residential addresses by matching on variables common to both files. We present an approach based on probabilistic record linkage that enables matching survey participants in the Chinese Immigrants in Raleigh-Durham Study to records from InfoUSA, an information provider of residential records. The two files use different Chinese name romanization practices, which we address through a novel and generalizable strategy for constructing records' pairwise comparison vectors for romanized names. Using a fully Bayesian record linkage model, we characterize the geospatial distribution of Chinese immigrants in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: No competing interest is declared., (© The Royal Statistical Society 2024. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

With the ever advancing of modern technologies, it has become increasingly common that the number of collected confounders exceeds the number of subjects in a data set. However, matching based methods for estimating causal treatment effect in their original forms are not capable of handling high-dimensional confounders, and their various modified versions lack statistical support and valid inference tools. In this article, we propose a new approach for estimating causal treatment effect, defined as the difference of the restricted mean survival time (RMST) under different treatments in high-dimensional setting for survival data. We combine the factor model and the sufficient dimension reduction techniques to construct propensity score and prognostic score. Based on these scores, we develop a kernel based doubly robust estimator of the RMST difference. We demonstrate its link to matching and establish the consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimator. We illustrate our method by analyzing a dataset from a study aimed at comparing the effects of two alternative treatments on the RMST of patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The International Biometric Society.)

Unwanted loneliness negatively affects people's health and quality of life, increasing morbidity and the risk of premature death; this situation can generate major social costs. The aim of this study is to estimate the social costs of loneliness in Spain for 2021: both tangible costs -monetary value of health costs and production losses- and intangible costs -Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). To estimate costs not derived from mortality, information from a sample of 400 people with unwanted loneliness was compared with that derived from two samples of the general population obtained from the Spanish National Health Surveys. To estimate the costs associated with premature deaths, the population attributable fraction was calculated using the relative risks estimated in previous survival studies. In the baseline scenario, the tangible costs of unwanted loneliness are estimated to be around 14,129 million euros in 2021, representing 1.2% of Spain's GDP. Approximately 56.8% of the tangible costs correspond to production losses due to reduced working time, and 43.2% are due to healthcare costs related with increased consultation frequency in healthcare services and higher consumption of medicines related to loneliness. In addition, loneliness generates a reduction in quality of life equivalent to 1.04 million QALYs, which corresponds to 2.8% of the total stock of QALYs of the Spanish population over 15 years of age., Competing Interests: Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Purpose: The objective was to compare pain and related psychological factors during the preoperative and acute postoperative period between male and female patients, who underwent non mesh primary unilateral inguinal hernia repair., Methods: After ethics approval, informed consent was obtained, and data were collected. Male and female participants were compared by manually matching one-to-one on 10 variables. Descriptive statistics (mean ± standard deviation and frequency) as well as numerical rating scales from 0 to 10 were used. Comparison tests were performed using Chi-square or Fisher's Exact test for categorical data and independent samples t-test or non-parametric equivalent tests for numerical scores. p < 0.05 is reported as statistically significant. To control type I error, Bonferroni correction was used., Results: 72 participants with 36 matched pairs were included. Sex differences were found for operation length (p = .006), side of operation (p = .002), and hernia type (p = .013). Significant differences between the sexes were not found at the preoperative or postoperative time for resilience, pain interference or pain severity related measures, postoperative hernia pain incidence, pain catastrophizing, depression and anxiety symptoms, or return to normal activities., Conclusion: When controlling for known confounders and using a conservative Type I error rate, pain and related factors between the sexes did not differ significantly., (© 2024. Italian Society of Surgery (SIC).)

Previous studies reported mixed findings on autistic individuals' pitch perception relative to neurotypical (NT) individuals. We investigated whether this may be partly due to individual differences in cognitive abilities by comparing their performance on various pitch perception tasks on a large sample (n = 164) of autistic and NT children and adults. Our findings revealed that: (i) autistic individuals either showed similar or worse performance than NT individuals on the pitch tasks; (ii) cognitive abilities were associated with some pitch task performance; and (iii) cognitive abilities modulated the relationship between autism diagnosis and pitch perception on some tasks. Our findings highlight the importance of taking an individual differences approach to understand the strengths and weaknesses of pitch processing in autism., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: - Coal mining areas in the UK continue to suffer worse health outcomes despite the industry disappearing by the early 1990s. Unemployment and deprivation are cited as key explanations. However, as the health effects of hazardous working environments continue after the industry's closure, it is unclear to what extent this ongoing health deficit is due to the legacy health effect of coal mining versus socioeconomic factors, including unemployment and deprivation., Methods: - I isolate the legacy health effect of coal mining using a matching research design. Coal mining areas are paired with non-mining areas using propensity score matching. This creates a sample of socioeconomically similar local authority districts in England and Wales. I estimate the effect of coal mining on male and female age-standardised period mortality rates for 1981-2019, analysing temporal dynamics and testing for convergence., Results: - I find an initial coal mining effect in 1981 on male (female) mortality rates of 122.6 (66.5) deaths per 100,000. This effect decreases by 91% (70%) during this period, indicating convergence in mortality rates. The timing of this convergence is consistent with that of the industry's closure, with higher convergence rates observed during the 1990s., Conclusions: - These results provide evidence for a legacy health effect on mortality from coal mining and convergence in mortality rates between 1981 and 2019. This effect is important when explaining the health deficit experienced by coal mining areas. Furthermore, as coal mining areas tend to be more deprived, these results also shed light on relevant mechanisms driving recent health inequality in the UK., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Author.)

Observational studies are frequently used in clinical research to estimate the effects of treatments or exposures on outcomes. To reduce the effects of confounding when estimating treatment effects, covariate balancing methods are frequently implemented. This study evaluated, using extensive Monte Carlo simulation, several methods of covariate balancing, and two methods for propensity score estimation, for estimating the average treatment effect on the treated using a hazard ratio from a Cox proportional hazards model. With respect to minimizing bias and maximizing accuracy (as measured by the mean square error) of the treatment effect, the average treatment effect on the treated weighting, fine stratification, and optimal full matching with a conventional logistic regression model for the propensity score performed best across all simulated conditions. Other methods performed well in specific circumstances, such as pair matching when sample sizes were large (n = 5000) and the proportion treated was < 0.25. Statistical power was generally higher for weighting methods than matching methods, and Type I error rates were at or below the nominal level for balancing methods with unbiased treatment effect estimates. There was also a decreasing effective sample size with an increasing number of strata, therefore for stratification-based weighting methods, it may be important to consider fewer strata. Generally, we recommend methods that performed well in our simulations, although the identification of methods that performed well is necessarily limited by the specific features of our simulation. The methods are illustrated using a real-world example comparing beta blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors among hypertensive patients at risk for incident stroke., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Guy Cafri and Stephen Fortin are employees of Johnson & Johnson.

Protected areas conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions but might impede local economic growth. Understanding the global patterns and predictors of different relationships between protected area effectiveness and neighboring community economic growth can inform better implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We assessed 10,143 protected areas globally with matched samples to address the non-random location of protected areas. Our results show that protected areas resist human-induced land cover changes and do not limit nightlight increases in neighboring settlements. This result is robust, using different matching techniques, parameter settings, and selection of covariates. We identify four types of relationships between land cover changes and nightlight changes for each protected area: "synergy," "retreat," and two tradeoff relationships. About half of the protected areas (47.5%) retain their natural land cover and do so despite an increase of nightlights in the neighboring communities. This synergy relationship is the most common globally but varies between biomes and continents. Synergy is less frequent in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and some developing areas, where most biodiversity resides and which suffer more from poverty. Smaller protected areas and those with better access to cities, moderate road density, and better baseline economic conditions have a higher probability of reaching synergy. Our results are promising, as the expansion of protected areas and increased species protection will rely more on conserving the human-modified landscape with smaller protected areas. Future interventions should address local development and biodiversity conservation together to achieve more co-benefits., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Recently, there has been considerable progress in developing new technologies and equipment for the medical field, including minimally invasive surgeries. Evaluating the effectiveness of these treatments requires study designs like randomized controlled trials. However, due to the nature of certain treatments, randomization is not always feasible, leading to the use of observational studies. The effect size estimated from observational studies is subject to selection bias caused by confounders. One method to reduce this bias is propensity scoring. This study aimed to introduce a propensity score matching process between two groups using a practical example with R. Additionally, Rex, an Excel add-in graphical user interface statistical program, is provided for researchers unfamiliar with R programming. Further techniques, such as matching with three or more groups, propensity score weighting and stratification, and imputation of missing values, are summarized to offer approaches for more complex studies not covered in this tutorial.

This study assesses the impact of a voucher project that targeted vulnerable and poor pregnant women in Uganda. Highly subsidised vouchers gave access to a package of safe delivery services consisting of four antenatal visits, safe delivery, one postnatal visit, the treatment and management of selected pregnancy-related medical conditions and complications, and emergency transport. Vouchers were sold during the project's operational period from 2016 to 2019. This study covers 8 out of 25 project-benefiting districts in Uganda and a total of 1,881 pregnancies, including both beneficiary and non-beneficiary mothers. Using a matching design, the results show a positive effect on the survival of new-born babies. The difference in the survival rate between the control group and the treatment group is 5.4% points, indicating that the voucher project reduced infant mortality by more than 65 per cent., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Patients with initial stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) are at high risk for further strokes, death or cardiovascular events. Even the first-ever stroke is associated with a high chance of disability and need for assistance. The risk of long-term health care demands increases with each subsequent event. Although the inpatient sector already provides a high standard of care in Germany, it can be difficult to obtain cross-sectoral aftercare. Thus, the study investigated whether a structured case management program can avoid stroke recurrences., Methods: The study was conducted with a quasi-experimental study design in three regions in North Rhine-Westphalia. Patients with first-ever stroke or TIA were eligible to participate. The intervention group was prospectively recruited and supported by a case manager during a one-year follow-up. Optimal Full Matching was used to generate a control group based on statutory claims data. The primary outcome was the stroke recurrence. Recurrence and mortality were analysed by using Cox regression; other secondary outcomes were examined with test-based procedures and with logistic regressions. Additionally, subgroup analyses were performed., Results: From June 2018 to March 2020, 1,512 patients were enrolled in the intervention group. Claims data from 19,104 patients have been transmitted for establishing the control group. After the matching process, 1,167 patients of each group were included in the analysis. 70 recurrences (6.0%) occurred in the intervention group and 67 recurrences (5.7%) in the control group. With a hazard ratio of 1.06 (95% CI: [1.42-0.69]; p=0.69), no significant effect was found for the primary outcome. With regard to the secondary outcome mortality, 36 patients in the intervention group and 46 in the control group died (3.1% vs. 3.9%). Again, there was no significant effect (HR: 0.86; 95% CI: [0.58-1.28], p=0.46)., Discussion: Based on the present findings, the case management approach for stroke patients evaluated here was unable to demonstrate an improvement in health care. Potential effects of case management might not be adequately depicted in short observation periods. Thus, future studies should consider longer observation periods., Conclusion: A panel of experts should discuss whether the core approach of case management to support cost-intensive individual cases is contrary to a broad implementation with a one-size-fits-all intervention for stroke patients. In this case, further research should focus on more specific study populations., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

The matching problem formulated as Maximum Cardinality Matching in General Graphs (MCMGG) finds the largest matching on graphs without restrictions. The Micali-Vazirani algorithm has the best asymptotic complexity for solving MCMGG when the graphs are sparse. Parallelizing matching in general graphs on the GPU is difficult for multiple reasons. First, the augmenting path procedure is highly recursive, and NVIDIA GPUs use registers to store kernel arguments, which eventually spill into cached device memory, with a performance penalty. Second, extracting parallelism from the matching process requires partitioning the graph to avoid any overlapping augmenting paths. We propose an implementation of the Micali-Vazirani algorithm which identifies bridge edges using thread-parallel breadth-first search, followed by block-parallel path augmentation and blossom contraction. Augmenting path and Union-find methods were implemented as stack-based iterative methods, with a stack allocated in shared memory. Our experimentation shows that compared to the serial implementation, our approach results in up to 15-fold speed-up for very sparse regular graphs, up to 5-fold slowdown for denser regular graphs, and finally a 50-fold slowdown for power-law distributed Kronecker graphs. This implementation has been open-sourced for further research on developing combinatorial graph algorithms on GPUs.

The Edmonds Blossom algorithm is implemented here using depth-first search, which is intrinsically serial. By streamlining the code, our serial implementation is consistently three to five times faster than the previously fastest general graph matching code. By extracting parallelism across iterations of the algorithm, with coarse-grain locking, we are able to further reduce the run time on random regular graphs four-fold and obtain a two-fold reduction of run time on real-world graphs with similar topology. Solving very sparse graphs (average degree less than four) exhibiting community structure with eight threads led to a slow down of three-fold, but this slow down is replaced by marginal speed up once the average degree is greater than four. We conclude that our parallel coarse-grain locking implementation performs well when extracting parallelism from this augmenting-path-based algorithm and may work well for similar algorithms.

Observational data (e.g. electronic health records) has become increasingly important in evidence-based research on dynamic treatment regimes, which tailor treatments over time to patients based on their characteristics and evolving clinical history. It is of great interest for clinicians and statisticians to identify an optimal dynamic treatment regime that can produce the best expected clinical outcome for each individual and thus maximize the treatment benefit over the population. Observational data impose various challenges for using statistical tools to estimate optimal dynamic treatment regimes. Notably, the task becomes more sophisticated when the clinical outcome of primary interest is time-to-event. Here, we propose a matching-based machine learning method to identify the optimal dynamic treatment regime with time-to-event outcomes subject to right-censoring using electronic health record data. In contrast to the established inverse probability weighting-based dynamic treatment regime methods, our proposed approach provides better protection against model misspecification and extreme weights in the context of treatment sequences, effectively addressing a prevalent challenge in the longitudinal analysis of electronic health record data. In simulations, the proposed method demonstrates robust performance across a range of scenarios. In addition, we illustrate the method with an application to estimate optimal dynamic treatment regimes for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer using a real-world, nationwide electronic health record database from Flatiron Health., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: Ophthalmology residency programs are highly competitive and each year there are many unmatched reapplicants who must make time-sensitive decisions on how to prepare for their reapplication. Our analysis of reapplication factors will be the first evidence-based guide to reapplying ophthalmology., Objective: To determine the components of a reapplicants application that contribute and that do not contribute to ophthalmology residency match success., Methods: Eighty-eight total reapplicants to Dell Medical School's Department of Ophthalmology residency program for the year of 2022 and 2023 were analyzed in a retrospective review in 2023 based on their San Francisco match applications. We assessed match success in the context of demographics, academic performance, cognitive measures, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and extracurricular activities., Results: Of 84 reapplicants who completed the San Francisco Match, 41 matched successfully (48.8%). Factors that significantly affected match success include quantity of LORs written by ophthalmologists ( P  = .0143), choice of interim year activity ( p  = .0019), and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge score ( P  = .0017). Our findings demonstrate that noncontributory factors to reapplicant match rate include number of publications during research years, demographics, clinical grades, Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) membership, LOR qualities, and Step 1 score., Conclusions: Ophthalmology residency reapplicants should focus their efforts on finding a research year or established pre-ophthalmology residency program for their interim year and bolstering their letters of recommendations within the field. The quality of in-specialty relationships and letters of recommendation are more impactful than the number of publications during a research gap year. Step 2 CK score is a significant factor but would have already been determined by the time of reapplication. Metrics such as Step 1 scores, AOA status, number of volunteering experiences, and LOR and personal statement qualities had no effect on a reapplicant's chance of matching.

Purpose: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) appeared active in single-arm trials for patients with chemoresistant metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) harboring microsatellite instability (MSI). Given the paucity of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in this setting, we evaluated the effect size of ICIs using intra-patients comparison and ARCAD database as historical controls., Patients and Methods: Individual-patient data from NIPICOL and CheckMate 142 phase II trials that evaluated a combination of ICIs for MSI mCRC patients (N = 176) and from five non-ICI mCRC historical RCTs in second-line or latter (N = 4026) were analyzed. Firstly, promising of ICIs was identified using intra-patient comparison based on growth modulation index (GMI) defined the ratio of progression-free survivals (PFS) on ICIs and previous line of therapy. Survival outcomes of ICIs-treated patients were then compared with those matched non-ICIs treated from ARCAD database historical RCTs., Results: Among ICIs-treated patients, median PFS on ICIs was 32.66 (range 0.10-74.25) versus 4.07 months (range 0.7-49.87) on prior therapy, resulting on median GMI of 4.97 (range 0.07-59.51; hazard-ratio (HR)= 0.16 (95 %CI=0.11-0.22, P < 0.001)). Compared to matched non-ICI patients, in third-line, median overall survival (OS) was not reached with ICIs versus 3.52 months with placebo (HR=0.20, 95 %CI=0.10-0.41, P < 0.001), and 6.51 months with active drugs (HR=0.30, 95 %CI=0.15-0.60, P = 0.001). In second-line, median OS was not reached with ICIs versus 11.7 months with chemotherapy+placebo (HR=0.12, 95 %CI=0.07-0.22, P < 0.001), and 16.3 months with chemotherapy+targeted therapy (HR=0.10, 95 %CI=0.05-0.19, P < 0.001)., Conclusion: ICIs demonstrates high effect size for MSI mCRC patients in second-line and later. This work might be useful as an example of methodology to avoid RCTs when benefit from experimental therapy is likely to be high., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Romain Cohen reports honoraria from Astra-Zeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Exeliom Biosciences, Enterome Bioscience, MSD Oncology, Mylan Medical, Pierre Fabre, Servier and non-financial support from Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mylan Medical and Servier. Benoist Chibaudel reports consulting and advisory role from Amgen, Bayer, Beigine, Biocartis, Lilly, Merck, MSD, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Revolution Medicines, Roche, SeqOne, Sanofi, Servier, Takeda. Josep Tabernero reports personal financial interest in form of scientific consultancy role for Array Biopharma, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cardiff Oncology, Chugai, Daiichi Sankyo, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Genentech Inc, HalioDX SAS, Hutchison MediPharma International, Ikena Oncology, Inspirna Inc, IQVIA, Lilly, Menarini, Merck Serono, Merus, MSD, Mirati, Neophore, Novartis, Ona Therapeutics, Orion Biotechnology, Peptomyc, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Samsung Bioepis, Sanofi, Scandion Oncology, Scorpion Therapeutics, Seattle Genetics, Servier, Sotio Biotech, Taiho, Tessa Therapeutics, TheraMyc and Tolremo Therapeutics. Stocks: Oniria Therapeutics and also educational collaboration with Imedex/HMP, Medscape Education, MJH Life Sciences, PeerView Institute for Medical Education and Physicians Education Resource (PER). Qian Shi reports consulting/advisory role from Yiviva Inc, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Hoosier Cancer Research Network, Kronos Bio, and Mirati Therapeutics Inc; Honorarium/speaker role from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd (to myself), research funds from Celgene/BMS, Roche/Genentech, Janssen, Novartis (to institution). Thierry Andre reports attending advisory board meetings and receiving consulting fees from Abbvie, Astellas, Aptitude Health, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gritstone Oncology, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co. Inc., Nordic Oncology, Seagen, Servier, Takeda and Transgène and honoraria from Bristol Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co. Inc., Merck Serono, Pierre Fabre, Roche, Sanofi, Seagen and Servier; and support for meetings from Merck & Co. Inc. and Servier. Hideaki Bando reports research fund from Ono pharmaceutical, and honoraria from Ono pharmaceutical, Taiho pharmaceutical, Eli Lilly Japan. Michael J. Overman reports Consulting: Merck, Pfizer, Array, Gritstone, 3DMed, Nouscom, Atreca, Bayer, Simcere and Research Funding: Takeda, Roche, Lilly, Merck, Medimmune, BMS, Nouscom, Phanes. John Zalcberg reports leadership from ICON Group, Lipotek, PRAXIS; Stock from Biomarin, Ophthea, Amarin, Concert Pharmaceuticals, Frequency Therapeutics, Gilead, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, UniQure, Zogenix, Orphazyme, Moderna Therapeutics, TWST, Novavax, Teladoc; Honoraria from Gilead Sciences, MSD Oncology, Viatris; Consulting & Advisory Role from Merck Sharp & Dohme, Specialized Therapeutics, CEND, Deciphera, REVOLUTION MEDICINE, FivePHusion, Genorbio, 1Global, Novatech, Alloplex Biotherapeutics Inc, Oncology Republic; Research Funding from BMS, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, IQvia, Mylan, Ipsen, Eisai, Medtronic, MSD Oncology, Servier; Travel from MSD Oncology, ICON Group, PRAXIS. Eric Van Cutsem repors participation to advisory boards for Abbvie, ALX, Amgen, Array, Astellas, Astrazeneca, Bayer, Beigene, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Daiichi, GSK, Incyte, Ipsen, Lilly, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Merck KGaA, Mirati, Novartis, Nordic, Pierre Fabre, Pfizer, Roche, Seattle Genetics, Servier, Takeda, Terumo, Taiho, Zymeworks; research grants from Amgen, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ipsen, Lilly, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Merck KGaA, Novartis, Roche, Servier paid to his institution. Takayuki Yoshino reports honoraria from Chugai Pharma, Takeda Pharma, Merck, Bayer Yakuhin, Ono Pharmaceutical and MSD K.K; consulting fee from Sumitomo Corp.; research grant from Amgen, Chugai, Daiichi Sankyo, Eisai, FALCO Biosystems, Genomedia Inc., Molecular Health, MSD, Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim, Ono, Pfizer, Roche Diagnostics, Sanofi, Sysmex and Taiho. Richard Adams reports Speaker fees/travel from Servier, Takeda, Amgen; Consultancy from Takeda, Seagen, Bayer; Institutional research funding from AZ, Jazz Pharma, MSD. Toshihiro Misumi reports Honoraria from Chugai, AstraZeneca, and Miyarisan. All remaining authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Computer vision in the structural health monitoring (SHM) field has become popular, especially for processing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data, but still has limitations both in experimental testing and in practical applications. Prior works have focused on UAV challenges and opportunities for the vibration-based SHM of buildings or bridges, but practical and methodological gaps exist specifically for linear infrastructure systems such as pipelines. Since they are critical for the transportation of products and the transmission of energy, a feasibility study of UAV-based SHM for linear infrastructures is essential to ensuring their service continuity through an advanced SHM system. Thus, this study proposes a single UAV for the seismic monitoring and safety assessment of linear infrastructures along with their computer vision-aided procedures. The proposed procedures were implemented in a full-scale shake-table test of a natural gas pipeline assembly. The objectives were to explore the UAV potential for the seismic vibration monitoring of linear infrastructures with the aid of several computer vision algorithms and to investigate the impact of parameter selection for each algorithm on the matching accuracy. The procedure starts by adopting the Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) method to extract covariant regions that remain similar through a certain threshold of image series. The feature of interest is then detected, extracted, and matched using the Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF) and K-nearest Neighbor (KNN) algorithms. The Maximum Sample Consensus (MSAC) algorithm is applied for model fitting by maximizing the likelihood of the solution. The output of each algorithm is examined for correctness in matching pairs and accuracy, which is a highlight of this procedure, as no studies have ever investigated these properties. The raw data are corrected and scaled to generate displacement data. Finally, a structural safety assessment was performed using several system identification models. These procedures were first validated using an aluminum bar placed on an actuator and tested in three harmonic tests, and then an implementation case study on the pipeline shake-table tests was analyzed. The validation tests show good agreement between the UAV data and reference data. The shake-table test results also generate reasonable seismic performance and assess the pipeline seismic safety, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed procedure and the prospect of UAV-based SHM for linear infrastructure monitoring.

Aim: Comparative effectiveness research using real-world data often involves pairwise propensity score matching to adjust for confounding bias. We show that corresponding treatment effect estimates may have limited external validity, and propose two visualization tools to clarify the target estimand. Materials & methods: We conduct a simulation study to demonstrate, with bivariate ellipses and joy plots, that differences in covariate distributions across treatment groups may affect the external validity of treatment effect estimates. We showcase how these visualization tools can facilitate the interpretation of target estimands in a case study comparing the effectiveness of teriflunomide (TERI), dimethyl fumarate (DMF) and natalizumab (NAT) on manual dexterity in patients with multiple sclerosis. Results: In the simulation study, estimates of the treatment effect greatly differed depending on the target population. For example, when comparing treatment B with C, the estimated treatment effect (and respective standard error) varied from -0.27 (0.03) to -0.37 (0.04) in the type of patients initially receiving treatment B and C, respectively. Visualization of the matched samples revealed that covariate distributions vary for each comparison and cannot be used to target one common treatment effect for the three treatment comparisons. In the case study, the bivariate distribution of age and disease duration varied across the population of patients receiving TERI, DMF or NAT. Although results suggest that DMF and NAT improve manual dexterity at 1 year compared with TERI, the effectiveness of DMF versus NAT differs depending on which target estimand is used. Conclusion: Visualization tools may help to clarify the target population in comparative effectiveness studies and resolve ambiguity about the interpretation of estimated treatment effects.

Background: There are scarce data on best practices to control for confounding in observational studies assessing vaccine effectiveness to prevent COVID-19. We compared the performance of three well-established methods [overlap weighting, inverse probability treatment weighting and propensity score (PS) matching] to minimize confounding when comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Subsequently, we conducted a target trial emulation to study the ability of these methods to replicate COVID-19 vaccine trials., Methods: We included all individuals aged ≥75 from primary care records from the UK [Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) AURUM], who were not infected with or vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 as of 4 January 2021. Vaccination status was then defined based on first COVID-19 vaccine dose exposure between 4 January 2021 and 28 January 2021. Lasso regression was used to calculate PS. Location, age, prior observation time, regional vaccination rates, testing effort and COVID-19 incidence rates at index date were forced into the PS. Following PS weighting and matching, the three methods were compared for remaining covariate imbalance and residual confounding. Last, a target trial emulation comparing COVID-19 at 3 and 12 weeks after first vaccine dose vs unvaccinated was conducted., Results: Vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts comprised 583 813 and 332 315 individuals for weighting, respectively, and 459 000 individuals in the matched cohorts. Overlap weighting performed best in terms of minimizing confounding and systematic error. Overlap weighting successfully replicated estimates from clinical trials for vaccine effectiveness for ChAdOx1 (57%) and BNT162b2 (75%) at 12 weeks., Conclusion: Overlap weighting performed best in our setting. Our results based on overlap weighting replicate previous pivotal trials for the two first COVID-19 vaccines approved in Europe., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association.)

Objective: To investigate the effect on major postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) of mode of conception, differentiating between naturally conceived pregnancies, fresh embryo in vitro fertilisation (fresh-IVF) and frozen embryo transfer (frozen-IVF)., Design: Retrospective cohort study., Setting: The French Burgundy Perinatal Network database, including all deliveries from 2006 to 2020, was linked to the regional blood centre database., Population or Sample: In all, 244 336 women were included, of whom 240 259 (98.3%) were singleton pregnancies., Methods: The main analyses were conducted in singleton pregnancies, including 237 608 naturally conceived, 1773 fresh-IVF and 878 frozen-IVF pregnancies. Multivariate logistic regression models adjusted on maternal age, body mass index, smoking, parity, induction of labour, hypertensive disorders, diabetes, placenta praevia and/or accreta, history of caesarean section, mode of delivery, birthweight, birth place and year of delivery, were used., Main Outcome Measures: Major PPH was defined as PPH requiring blood transfusion and/or emergency surgery and/or interventional radiology., Results: The prevalence of major PPH was 0.74% (n = 1749) in naturally conceived pregnancies, 1.92% (n = 34) in fresh-IVF pregnancies, and 3.30% (n = 29) in frozen-IVF pregnancies. The risk of major PPH was higher in frozen-IVF pregnancies than in both naturally conceived pregnancies (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.63, 95% CI 1.68-4.10) and fresh-IVF pregnancies (aOR 2.78, 95% CI 1.44-5.35)., Conclusions: We found that frozen-IVF pregnancies have a higher risk of major PPH and they should be subject to increased vigilance in the delivery room., (© 2023 The Authors. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

A complete science of human behavior requires a comprehensive account of the verbal behavior those humans exhibit. Existing behavioral theories of such verbal behavior have produced compelling insight into language's underlying function, but the expansive program of research those theories deserve has unfortunately been slow to develop. We argue that the status quo's manually implemented and study-specific coding systems are too resource intensive to be worthwhile for most behavior analysts. These high input costs in turn discourage research on verbal behavior overall. We propose lexicon-based sentiment analysis as a more modern and efficient approach to the study of human verbal products, especially naturally occurring ones (e.g., psychotherapy transcripts, social media posts). In the present discussion, we introduce the reader to principles of sentiment analysis, highlighting its usefulness as a behavior analytic tool for the study of verbal behavior. We conclude with an outline of approaches for handling some of the more complex forms of speech, like negation, sarcasm, and speculation. The appendix also provides a worked example of how sentiment analysis could be applied to existing questions in behavior analysis, complete with code that readers can incorporate into their own work., Competing Interests: Conflicts of InterestThe authors declare that they have no financial or nonfinancial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication., (© Association for Behavior Analysis International 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Background: The booster vaccine is essential for maintaining the antibody against the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. This study sought to evaluate the antibody response after booster coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines and compare the immunogenic by different vaccine combination strategies., Methods: A cross-sectional study in Hanoi, Vietnam was conducted on 679 adult participants who received two doses of vaccines with any combination of AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in 2021. The SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody concentrations were measured by the LIAISON SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 IgG and presented as arbitrary units., Results: We found that the median (interquartile range (IQR)) of IgG level among those who completed two doses of Moderna and Pfizer was 484.55 (284.80) AU/mL and 349.00 (362.50) AU/mL, respectively. Meanwhile, the counterpart of AstraZeneca was 110.00 (128.10) AU/mL. Mixing two doses of AstraZeneca-Pfizer has higher odds of having high IgG level than two doses of Pfizer (Odds Ratios (OR) = 2.94, 95% Confidence Intervals (CI): 1.57-5.51), AstraZeneca (OR = 28.50, 95% CI: 15.00-54.14)., Conclusions: We found that the matching two doses of mRNA vaccines are more immunogenic as compared to the DNA vector vaccines. Furthermore, mixing AstraZeneca-Pfizer has higher antibody quantities as compared to matching vaccines, while lower the rate of advert events.

Phase Ib/II oncology trials, despite their small sample sizes, aim to provide information for optimal internal company decision-making concerning novel drug development. Hybrid controls (a combination of the current control arm and controls from one or more sources of historical trial data [HTD]) can be used to increase statistical precision. Here we assess combining two sources of Roche HTD to construct a hybrid control in targeted therapy for decision-making via an extensive simulation study. Our simulations are based on the real data of one of the experimental arms and the control arm of the MORPHEUS-UC Phase Ib/II study and two Roche HTD for atezolizumab monotherapy. We consider potential complications such as model misspecification, unmeasured confounding, different sample sizes of current treatment groups, and heterogeneity among the three trials. We evaluate two frequentist methods (with both Cox and Weibull accelerated failure time [AFT] models) and three different commensurate priors in Bayesian dynamic borrowing (with a Weibull AFT model), and modifications within each of those, when estimating the effect of treatment on survival outcomes and measures of effect such as marginal hazard ratios. We assess the performance of these methods in different settings and the potential of generalizations to supplement decisions in early-phase oncology trials. The results show that the proposed joint frequentist methods and noninformative priors within Bayesian dynamic borrowing with no adjustment on covariates are preferred, especially when treatment effects across the three trials are heterogeneous. For generalization of hybrid control methods in such settings, we recommend more simulation studies., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The data enabling the estimation of the possibility of finding a matched unrelated donor (MUD) within a relatively short time is important for the success of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In the present study, 738 unrelated Croatian patients in the program of unrelated HSCT were retrospectively analyzed for gender matching, donor origin (national or international), the distribution of HLA alleles and haplotypes, as well as for the probability of finding a 9-10/10 MUD. Almost 70% of the patients in our study group had a 10/10 MUD, while among the patients with a 9/10 MUD, a 1st field resolution level mismatched donor was selected for 55.0% of patients. The majority of pairs were HLA-A mismatched (33.8%). A comparison of HLA allele frequencies between two subgroups of patients revealed significant differences for 13 alleles. However, after p value correction, the difference in frequency remained significant only for four alleles; three HLA alleles (B*08:01, C*07:01, and DRB1*03:01) demonstrated a significantly higher frequency among patients with a 10/10 MUD (Pcorr < 0.0001, Pcorr = 0.0096, and Pcorr < 0.0001, respectively), while the B*35:08 allele was significantly more present among patients with a 9/10 MUD (Pcorr = 0.0328). The comparison of the distribution of HLA haplotypes between patients with a 10/10 MUD and patients with a 9/10 MUD showed significant differences for a number of two-locus and three-locus haplotypes, as well as for one five-locus haplotype (HLA-A*01:01~B*08:01~C*07:01~DRB1*03:01~DQB1*02:01), which was significantly more present in the group of patients with a 10/10 MUD. At least one HLA haplotype from the group of non-frequent HLA haplotypes (positions >1000) was carried by patients with a 9/10 MUD. The data obtained by the present study will contribute to a better estimation of the probability of finding a suitable 9-10/10 MUD for Croatian patients in need of HSCT., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This study characterizes the subcortical auditory brainstem response (speech-ABR) and cortical auditory processing (P1 and Mismatch Negativity; MMN) to speech sounds and their relationship to autistic traits and sensory features within the same group of autistic children (n = 10) matched on age and non-verbal IQ to their typically developing (TD) peers (n = 21). No speech-ABR differences were noted, but autistic individuals had larger P1 and faster MMN responses. Correlations revealed that larger P1 amplitudes and MMN responses were associated with greater autistic traits and more sensory features. These findings highlight the complexity of the auditory system and its relationships to behaviours in autism, while also emphasizing the importance of measurement and developmental matching., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The current study investigated variables that are being considered when assigning psychotherapists to individuals convicted of sexual and violent offences. Its main aim is to inform practitioners and researchers alike of potentially beneficial combinations between therapist and client and infer hypotheses for future studies. A mixed-methods approach, combining interviews and a follow-up questionnaire, was employed. Nineteen interviews with forensic practitioners working in socio-therapeutic facilities in Germany were conducted. Relevant matching criteria were extracted from all interviews. 1.) Capacities of therapist, 2.) therapist's professional background, 3.) (severity of) clinical disorder, 4.) personal fit, and 5.) fit of client into existing groups emerged as top five matching criteria. Directive therapists were viewed as a good match for antisocial or psychopathic offenders. Opinions diverged regarding personality similarity or complementarity in client-therapist dyads. A flexible matching approach may offer unique strengths to enhance treatment outcome. Implications and ideas for future research are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Although Randomized clinical trials (RCT) represent the gold standard to compare two or more treatments, the impact of observational studies cannot be ignored. Obviously, these latter are performed on unbalanced sample, and differences among the compared groups could be detected. These differences could have an impact on the estimated association between our allocation and our outcome. To avoid it, some methods should be applied in the analysis of observational cohort. Propensity score (PS) can be considered as a value which sums up and balances the known variables. It aims to adjust or balance the probability of receiving a specific allocation group, and could be used to match, stratify, weight, and perform a covariate adjustment. PS is calculated with a logistic regression, using allocation groups as the outcome. Thanks to PS, we compute the probability of being allocated to one group and we can match patients obtaining two balanced groups. It avoids computing analysis in unbalanced groups. We compared low protein diet (LPD) and the Mediterranean diet in CKD patients and analysed them using the PS methods. Nutritional therapy is fundamental for the prevention, progression and treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and its complications. An individualized, stepwise approach is essential to guarantee high adherence to nutritional patterns and to reach therapeutic goals. The best dietary regimen is still a matter of discussion. In our example, unbalanced analysis showed a significant renal function preservation in LPD, but this correlation was denied after the PS analysis. In conclusion, although unmatched analysis showed differences between the two diets, after propensity analysis no differences were detected. If RCT cannot be performed, balancing the PS score allows to balance the sample and avoids biased results., (Copyright by Società Italiana di Nefrologia SIN, Rome,Italy.)

Background: Face-to-face group-based diabetes prevention programmes have been shown to be effective in many settings. Digital delivery may suit some patients, but research comparing the effectiveness of digital with face-to-face delivery is scarce. The aim was to assess if digital delivery of the English National Health Service Diabetes Prevention Programme (NHS DPP) is non-inferior to group-based face-to-face delivery in terms of weight change, and evaluate factors associated with differential change., Methods: The study included those recruited to the NHS DPP in 2017-2018. Individual-level data from a face-to-face cohort was compared to two cohorts on a digital pilot who (i) were offered no choice of delivery mode, or (ii) chose digital over face-to-face. Changes in weight at 6 and 12 months were analysed using mixed effects linear regression, having matched participants from the digital pilot to similar participants from face-to-face., Results: Weight change on the digital pilot was non-inferior to face-to-face at both time points: it was similar in the comparison of those with no choice (difference in weight change: -0.284 kg [95% CI: -0.712, 0.144] at 6 months) and greater in digital when participants were offered a choice (-1.165 kg [95% CI: -1.841, -0.489]). Interactions between delivery mode and sex, ethnicity, age and deprivation were observed., Conclusions: Digital delivery of the NHS DPP achieved weight loss at least as good as face-to-face. Patients who were offered a choice and opted for digital experienced better weight loss, compared to patients offered face-to-face only., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Bipolar intuitionistic fuzzy graphs (BIFG) are an extension of fuzzy graphs that can effectively capture uncertain or imprecise information in various applications. In graph theory, the covering, matching, and domination problems are benchmark concepts applied to various domains. These concepts may not be defined precisely using a crisp graph when the vertices and edges are more uncertain. Therefore, this study defines the covering, matching and domination concepts in bipolar intuitionistic fuzzy graphs (BIFG) using effective edges with certain important results. To define these concepts when the effective edges are absent, some novel approaches are discussed. To illustrate the domination concepts, the applications in disaster management and location selection problems are discussed. Further, a BIFG-based decision-making model is designed to identify the flood-vulnerable zones in Chennai, where the city's most and least vulnerable zones are identified. From the proposed model, Kodambakkam ([Formula: see text]) is the most susceptible zone in Chennai. Finally, a comparative analysis is done with the existing techniques to show the efficiency of the model., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Intertemporal preference has been investigated mainly with a choice paradigm. However, a matching paradigm might be more informative for a proper inference about intertemporal preference and a deep understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanisms. This research involved two empirical studies using the matching paradigm and compared various corresponding dynamic models. These models were developed under either the framework of decision field theory, an exemplar theory assuming evidence accumulation, or a non-evidence-accumulation framework built upon the well-established notions of random utility and discrimination threshold (i.e., the RUDT framework). Most of these models were alternative-based whereas the others were attribute-based ones. Participants in Study 1 were required to fill in the amount of an immediate stimulus to make it as attractive as a delayed stimulus, whereas those in Study 2 needed to accomplish a more general matching task in which either the payoff amount or delay length of one stimulus was missing. Consistent behavioral regularities regarding both matching values and response times were revealed in these studies. The results of model comparison favored in general the RUDT framework as well as an attribute-based perspective on intertemporal preference. In addition, the predicted matching values and response times of the best RUDT model were also highly correlated with the observed data and replicated most observed behavioral regularities. Together, this research and previous modeling work on intertemporal choice suggest that evidence accumulation is not essential for generating intertemporal preference. Future research should examine the validity of the new framework in other preferential decisions for a more stringent test of the framework., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Same/different learning by pigeons has long been of interest to experimental psychologists. In one of these procedures, matching-to-sample, responses to a sample stimulus result in the presentation of two comparison stimuli, one of which matches the sample, the other of which does not, and choice of the matching stimulus is reinforced. Evidence of a matching concept has been found when transfer has been found to new stimuli. Given the transfer results, it is surprising that acquisition of two matching tasks (or two mismatching tasks), has not been found to be any faster than one matching and one mismatching task (i.e., two compatible tasks do not appear to facilitate each other). In the present experiment, we asked if matching acquisition involving three colors would be retarded if the correct response to a fourth color was not matching but was spatial (e.g., if the sample is red choose the red comparison, if the sample is green choose the green comparison, if the sample is yellow choose the yellow comparison, but if the sample is blue choose the left comparison). We found that acquisition of this task was slower than acquisition of a four color matching task (i.e., when the sample was blue, the blue comparison was correct). The results suggest that there is an interaction among matching associations, such that common rules facilitate learning compared with having to learn an inconsistent (spatial) rule. This result provides further evidence of the development of a matching concept by pigeons., Competing Interests: Competing interests The authors declare that thy have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To characterize the association between number, timing, and type of Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) and likelihood of postgraduate year one (PGY1) residency match outcomes., Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed among PGY1 residency-seeking pharmacy students from graduating years 2018-2021 as identified from the National Matching Services Inc. enrollee list. The number of APPEs of interest (AOI) most likely to align with general PGY1 residencies (acute care, ambulatory care, and elective rotations with significant direct patient care interactions) completed before January of the respective graduation year (GY) was compared between matched and unmatched students to a PGY1 program in any phase. Classification and regression tree (CART) analyses were performed to identify the AOI threshold associated with an increased likelihood of matching., Results: Among 155 students meeting inclusion criteria, 115 students (74%) matched during the study period. The probability of matching was 36%, 74%, and 83% for students completing two, three or four AOI, respectively. CART analyses identified three or more AOI completed prior to January of the GY as the threshold significantly associated with PGY1 residency matching., Conclusion: Completing at least three AOI before January of the GY was associated with a significantly increased probability of PGY1 residency matching. These findings may influence students' preferences for sequencing of APPEs to improve match results, but may be limited by institutional capacity., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)