Case-Crossover Analysis of Air Pollution Health Effects: A Systematic Review of Methodology and Application

Case-crossover is one of the most used designs for analyzing the health-related effects of air pollution. Nevertheless, no one has reviewed its application and methodology in this context. Objective: We conducted a systematic review of case-crossover (CCO) designs used to study the relationship between air pollution and morbidity and mortality, from the standpoint of methodology and application.Data sources and extraction: A search was made of the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases.Reports were classified as methodologic or applied. From the latter, the following information was extracted: author, study location, year, type of population (general or patients), dependent variable(s), independent variable(s), type of CCO design, and whether effect modification was analyzed for variables at the individual level. Data synthesis: The review covered 105 reports that fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Of these, 24 addressed methodological aspects, and the remainder involved the design’s application. In the methodological reports, the designs that yielded the best results in simulation were symmetric bidirectional CCO and time-stratified CCO. Furthermore, we observed an increase across time in the use of certain CCO designs, mainly symmetric bidirectional and time-stratified CCO. The dependent variables most frequently analyzed were those relating to hospital morbidity; the pollutants most often studied were those linked to particulate matter. Among the CCO-application reports, 13.6% studied effect modification for variables at the individual level.Conclusions: The use of CCO designs has undergone considerable growth; the most widely used designs were those that yielded better results in simulation studies: symmetric bidirectional and time-stratified CCO. However, the advantages of CCO as a method of analysis of variables at the individual level are put to little use

Aspectes metodològics i aplicacions de la modelització del temps de supervivència multivariant mitjançant models mixtes

Els estudis de supervivència s'interessen pel temps que passa des de l'inici de l'estudi (diagnòstic de la malaltia, inici del tractament,...) fins que es produeix l'esdeveniment d'interès (mort, curació, millora,...). No obstant això, moltes vegades aquest esdeveniment s'observa més d'una vegada en un mateix individu durant el període de seguiment (dades de supervivència multivariant). En aquest cas, és necessari utilitzar una metodologia diferent a la utilitzada en l'anàlisi de supervivència estàndard. El principal problema que l'estudi d'aquest tipus de dades comporta és que les observacions poden no ser independents. Fins ara, aquest problema s'ha solucionat de dues maneres diferents en funció de la variable dependent. Si aquesta variable segueix una distribució de la família exponencial s'utilitzen els models lineals generalitzats mixtes (GLMM); i si aquesta variable és el temps, variable amb una distribució de probabilitat no pertanyent a aquesta família, s'utilitza l'anàlisi de supervivència multivariant. El que es pretén en aquesta tesis és unificar aquests dos enfocs, és a dir, utilitzar una variable dependent que sigui el temps amb agrupacions d'individus o d'observacions, a partir d'un GLMM, amb la finalitat d'introduir nous mètodes pel tractament d'aquest tipus de dades.

Social networks and performance in knowledge creation. An application and a methodological proposal

El objetivo de esta tesis es predecir el rendimiento de los estudiantes de doctorado en la Universidad de Girona según características personales (background), actitudinales y de redes sociales de los estudiantes. La población estudiada son estudiantes de tercer y cuarto curso de doctorado y sus directores de tesis doctoral. Para obtener los datos se ha diseño un cuestionario web especificando sus ventajas y teniendo en cuenta algunos problemas tradicionales de no cobertura o no respuesta. El cuestionario web se hizo debido a la complejidad que comportan de las preguntas de red social. El cuestionario electrónico permite, mediante una serie de instrucciones, reducir el tiempo para responder y hacerlo menos cargado. Este cuestionario web, además es auto administrado, lo cual nos permite, según la literatura, unas respuestas mas honestas que cuestionario con encuestador. Se analiza la calidad de las preguntas de red social en cuestionario web para datos egocéntricos. Para eso se calcula la fiabilidad y la validez de este tipo de preguntas, por primera vez a través del modelo Multirasgo Multimétodo (Multitrait Multimethod). Al ser datos egocéntricos, se pueden considerar jerárquicos, y por primera vez se una un modelo Multirasgo Multimétodo Multinivel (multilevel Multitrait Multimethod). Las la fiabilidad y validez se pueden obtener a nivel individual (within group component) o a nivel de grupo (between group component) y se usan para llevar a cabo un meta-análisis con otras universidades europeas para analizar ciertas características de diseño del cuestionario. Estas características analizan si para preguntas de red social hechas en cuestionarios web son más fiables y validas hechas "by questions" o "by alters", si son presentes todas las etiquetas de frecuencia para los ítems o solo la del inicio y final, o si es mejor que el diseño del cuestionario esté en con color o blanco y negro. También se analiza la calidad de la red social en conjunto, en este caso específico son los grupos de investigación de la universidad. Se tratan los problemas de los datos ausentes en las redes completas. Se propone una nueva alternativa a la solución típica de la red egocéntrica o los respondientes proxies. Esta nueva alternativa la hemos nombrado "Nosduocentered Network" (red Nosduocentrada), se basa en dos actores centrales en una red. Estimando modelos de regresión, esta "Nosduocentered network" tiene mas poder predictivo para el rendimiento de los estudiantes de doctorado que la red egocéntrica. Además se corrigen las correlaciones de las variables actitudinales por atenuación debido al pequeño tamaño muestral. Finalmente, se hacen regresiones de los tres tipos de variables (background, actitudinales y de red social) y luego se combinan para analizar cual para predice mejor el rendimiento (según publicaciones académicas) de los estudiantes de doctorado. Los resultados nos llevan a predecir el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de doctorado depende de variables personales (background) i actitudinales. Asimismo, se comparan los resultados obtenidos con otros estudios publicados.

Basis set and electron correlation effects on initial convergence for vibrational nonlinear optical properties of conjugated organic molecules

The level of ab initio theory which is necessary to compute reliable values for the static and dynamic (hyper)polarizabilities of three medium size π-conjugated organic nonlinear optical (NLO) molecules is investigated. With the employment of field-induced coordinates in combination with a finite field procedure, the calculations were made possible. It is stated that to obtain reasonable values for the various individual contributions to the (hyper)polarizability, it is necessary to include electron correlation. Based on the results, the convergence of the usual perturbation treatment for vibrational anharmonicity was examined

Combined Analysis of the Short-Term Effects of Photochemical Air Pollutants on Mortality within the EMECAM Project

In recent years, some epidemiologic studies have attributed adverse effects of air pollutants on health not only to particles and sulfur dioxide but also to photochemical air pollutants (nitrogen dioxide and ozone). The effects are usually small, leading to some inconsistencies in the results of the studies. Furthermore, the different methodologic approaches of the studies used has made it difficult to derive generic conclusions. We provide here a quantitative summary of the short-term effects of photochemical air pollutants on mortality in seven Spanish cities involved in the EMECAM project, using generalized additive models from analyses of single and multiple pollutants. Nitrogen dioxide and ozone data were provided by seven EMECAM cities (Barcelona, Gijón, Huelva, Madrid, Oviedo, Seville, and Valencia). Mortality indicators included daily total mortality from all causes excluding external causes, daily cardiovascular mortality, and daily respiratory mortality. Individual estimates, obtained from city-specific generalized additive Poisson autoregressive models, were combined by means of fixed effects models and, if significant heterogeneity among local estimates was found, also by random effects models. Significant positive associations were found between daily mortality (all causes and cardiovascular) and NO2, once the rest of air pollutants were taken into account. A 10 μg/m3 increase in the 24-hr average 1-day NO2 level was associated with an increase in the daily number of deaths of 0.43% [95% confidence interval(CI), –0.003–0.86%] for all causes excluding external. In the case of significant relationships, relative risks for cause-specific mortality were nearly twice as much as that for total mortality for all the photochemical pollutants. Ozone was independently related only to cardiovascular daily mortality. No independent statistically significant relationship between photochemical air pollutants and respiratory mortality was found. The results in this study suggest that, given the present levels of photochemical pollutants, people living in Spanish cities are exposed to health risks derived from air pollution