Multiple dimensions of comprehensive treatment models (CTMs) for learners with autism were evaluated in this study. The purpose of the study was to provide evaluative information upon which service providers, family members, and researchers could make decisions about model adoption, selection for a family member, or future research. Thirty CTMs ...

The new SeDeM Diagram expert system was used to analyze the suitability of 43 excipients for direct compression with disintegrant properties from eight chemical families. The SeDeM Diagram expert system is a new method for use in tablet preformulation and formulation studies. It provides the profile of a substance in ...

The learning speed of classical Support Vector Regression (SVR) is low, since it is constructed based on the minimization of a convex quadratic function subject to the pair groups of linear inequality constraints for all training samples. In this paper we propose Twin Support Vector Regression (TSVR), a novel regressor ...

Calving records from the Animal Breeding Center of Iran, collected from January 1991 to December 2007 and comprising 1,163,594 Holstein calving events from 2,552 herds, were analyzed using a linear animal model, linear sire model, threshold animal model, and threshold sire model to estimate variance components, heritabilities, genetic correlations, and ...

We present a method for examining the relative influence of familial, genetic, and environmental covariate information in flexible nonparametric risk models. Our goal is investigating the relative importance of these three sources of information as they are associated with a particular outcome. To that end, we developed a method for ...

Recent case studies have demonstrated the potential benefits of Finn's Therapeutic Assessment (TA) model with families (e.g., Handler, 2007; Tharinger, Finn, Wilkinson, & Schaber, 2007). This case study of a 6-year-old girl and her family follows the Therapeutic Assessment (TA) model, focusing on the specified goals of each session and ...

The Tukey family of g-and-h distributions is often used to model univariate real-world data. There is a paucity of research demonstrating appropriate multivariate data generation using the g-and-h family of distributions with specified correlations. Therefore, the methodology and algorithms are presented to extend the g-and-h family from univariate to multivariate ...

Approximately 65 million years ago, dinosaurs were displaced by mammals. In a then highly forested world, the perissodactyls (odd-toed ungulates) became the largest group of large mammals, consisting of an estimated 15 families. We hypothesize that they started to develop a melodic component in their tonal vocalizations in order to ...

Both zygosity and chorionicity provide important information in twin research. The East Flanders Prospective Twin Survey (EFPTS) determines zygosity and chorionicity at birth and therefore provides a gold standard for the testing of diagnostic parameters that can be used to determine chorionicity. The aim of the present study was to ...

During the history of research on multiple maternities, Hellin's law has played a central role as a rule of thumb. It is mathematically simple and approximately correct, but shows discrepancies that are difficult to explain or to eliminate. It has been mathematically proven that Hellin's law does not hold as ...

We developed an information-theoretic metric called the Interaction Index for prioritizing genetic variations and environmental variables for follow-up in detailed sequencing studies. The Interaction Index was found to be effective for prioritizing the genetic and environmental variables involved in GEI for a diverse range of simulated data sets. The metric ...

This paper presents a robust method to conduct inference in finely stratified familial studies under proband-based sampling. We assume that the interest is in both the marginal effects of subject-specific covariates on a binary response and the familial aggregation of the response, as quantified by intrafamilial pairwise odds ratios. We ...

The classical twin design uses data on the variation of and covariation between monozygotic and dizygotic twins to infer underlying genetic and environmental causes of phenotypic variation in the population. By using data from additional relative classes, such as parents, extended twin family designs more comprehensively describe the causes of ...

This study presents a general model of two binary variables and applies it to twin sex pairing data from 21 twin data sources to estimate the frequency of dizygotic twins. The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between maximum likelihood and Weinberg's differential rule zygosity estimation methods. ...

We consider the inference problem of estimating covariate and genetic effects in a family-based case-control study where families are ascertained on the basis of the number of cases within the family. However, our interest lies not only in estimating the fixed covariate effects but also in estimating the random effects ...

Estimated genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in physical performance phenotypes, responsiveness to intermittent, aerobic and strength training, and specific skill training protocols are the focus of this chapter. Data are derived primarily from twin and family studies, although methods of analysis vary considerably. Estimates of heritability span a ...

ABSTRACT : Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have quickly become the norm in dissecting the genetic basis of complex diseases. Family-based association approaches have the advantages of being robust to possible hidden population structure in samples. Most of these methods were developed with limited markers. Their applicability and performance for GWAS ...

ABSTRACT : Longitudinal studies that collect repeated measurements on the same subjects over time have long been considered as being more powerful and providing much better information on individual changes than cross-sectional data. We propose a three-level linear mixed-effects model for testing genetic main effects and gene-age interactions with longitudinal ...

BACKGROUND: The high diversity of ornamentation type in pollen grains of angiosperms has often been suggested to be linked to diversity in pollination systems. It is commonly stated that smooth pollen grains are associated with wind or water pollination while sculptured pollen grains are associated with biotic pollination. We tested ...

In this paper I consider a problem of identifying all effective and superior drug combinations. I formulate this problem in terms of a family of hypotheses and propose a two-stage method to solve it. The first stage uses individual p-values obtained via the Min tests, whereas Holm's approach is employed ...

ABSTRACT : The phrase "mendelian randomization" has become associated with the use of genetic polymorphisms to uncover causal relationships between phenotypic variables. The statistical methods useful in mendelian randomization are known as instrumental variable techniques. We present an approach to instrumental variable estimation that is useful in family data and ...

Anticipation, i.e. a decreasing age-at-onset in subsequent generations has been observed in a number of genetically triggered diseases. The impact of anticipation is generally studied in affected parent-child pairs. These analyses are restricted to pairs in which both individuals have been affected and are sensitive to right truncation of the ...

BACKGROUND: Three-dimensional measurement of dental morphology is providing new variables and shape information not available previously, and the reliability of these data has proved to be substantial. Accurate superimposition of 2D and 3D data-sets has several applications in dental research when making comparisons of similar structures. For example, two data-sets ...

Thermophilic and hyperthermophilic carboxylesterases (EC 3.1.1.1) are excellent model systems for studying structure function relationships as well as in vitro and in vivo evolution and possible biotechnological applications. In this paper we review the main aspect of one of most studied microbial representative of the hormone sensitive lipase family (HSL), ...

Despite substantial progress in understanding the anatomical and functional development of the human brain, little is known on the spatial-temporal patterns and genetic influences on white matter maturation in twins. Neuroimaging data acquired from longitudinal twin studies provide a unique platform for scientists to investigate such issues. However, the interpretation ...

In genetic studies of rare complex diseases it is common to ascertain familial data from population based registries through all incident cases diagnosed during a pre-defined enrollment period. Such an ascertainment procedure is typically taken into account in the statistical analysis of the familial data by constructing either a retrospective ...

As genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are becoming more popular, two approaches, among others, could be considered in order to improve statistical power for identifying genes contributing subtle to moderate effects to human diseases. The first approach is to increase sample size, which could be achieved by combining both unrelated and ...

Longitudinal data analysis is frequently complicated by drop-out. In this paper we consider several methods for dealing with drop-out afflicted data. Along with a general comparison, particular attention is paid to the consequences of model misspecification. The purpose of our approach is two-fold. We first deliberate the form of the ...

In a previous paper (Harden et al. in Behav Gen 37:273-283, 2007) models of genotype-environment interaction were fitted to data from the National Merit Twin Study, resulting in evidence for an interaction: the heritability of National Merit Qualifying Test scores increased at higher levels of family income. The present paper ...

We discuss properties that association coefficients may have in general, e.g., zero value under statistical independence, and we examine coefficients for 2x2 tables with respect to these properties. Furthermore, we study a family of coefficients that are linear transformations of the observed proportion of agreement given the marginal probabilities. This ...

This study evaluated the genetic and environmental structure of personality variables from the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory (JTCI), in 605 pairs of 9- and 10-year old twins. There is a paucity of information on the biometric structure of temperament and character traits in preadolescent children. Latent factor models were ...

Modeling both genetic and cultural transmission in parent-offspring data in the presence of phenotypic assortment requires the imposition of nonlinear constraints. This article reports a simulation study that determined how well the structural equation modeling software package Mx and the Bayesian-oriented BUGS software package can handle such nonlinear constraints under ...

OBJECTIVE: We investigated heritability of plasma levels (mass) and activity of lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A(2) (Lp-PLA(2)). MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 54 healthy twins pairs we estimated genetic variance and heritability of Lp-PLA(2) mass and activity using maximum likelihood and least squares methods. We estimated intra-class correlation (ICC) and proportion of additive ...

A genetic factor model is introduced for decomposition of group differences of the means of phenotypic behavior as well as individual differences when the research variables under consideration are ordered categorical. The model employs the general Genetic Factor Model proposed by Neale and Cardon (Methodology for genetic studies of twins ...

Fluctuating asymmetry is thought to reflect developmental instability, which may in turn indicate genetically influenced fitness. Controversy surrounding these claims has centered on the extent to which fluctuating asymmetry is heritable. Most studies have estimated its heritability to be very low using single-trait measures. This study uses data from a ...

Genetic testing often results in the finding of a variant whose clinical significance is unknown. A number of different approaches have been employed in the attempt to classify such variants. For some variants, case-control, segregation, family history, or other statistical studies can provide strong evidence of direct association with cancer ...

This study presents an extended children-of-twins model, which allowed the authors to test the direction of the association between parenting and child adjustment. Three mechanisms were examined: direct phenotypic influence of parenting on child behavior (controlling for both parental and child genotype), passive genotype-environment correlation, and evocative genotype-environment correlation. This ...

Severe alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency is a proven genetic risk factor for COPD, but there is marked variation in the development of COPD among AAT deficient subjects. To investigate familial aggregation of lung function in subjects with AAT deficiency, we estimated heritability for forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) ...

BACKGROUND: Greater use of single embryo transfer (SET) to reduce twin rates associated with IVF requires good information on prognostic factors and appropriate models of treatment outcomes. METHODS: Using data from a cohort of 1198 IVF cycles, we have developed a statistical model of live birth and twin outcomes in ...

Apart from road and air traffic noise, and some noise from neighbors, the most important noise in single family residences usually is the noise generated within the residence itself, such as music, general activities, operating machinery for the house and people comfort, and the sound isolation characteristics of the different ...

Control of nanocrystal (NC) crystallinity currently raises great interest because of its potential benefits in both physics modeling and technological applications. Advances in methods for synthesizing perfect single-crystalline NCs are recent, so that the effect of crystallinity on NC properties has received only limited study and still needs to be ...

An investigation of genetic structures underlying autistic traits was performed with samples from twins for which at least one proband had been ascertained as having autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in our catchment area. In order to adjust for recent concepts of autism, we employed criteria for the broad spectrum of ...

PURPOSE: Twin studies have demonstrated a high heritability for refractive error of up to 90%, but some family studies have suggested up to one-third of population variance is attributable to the effects of shared family environment. This large twin study aimed to explore the role of shared environment in refractive ...

The classical model of independent random single deformation faults and twin faulting in face-centered-cubic and hexagonal close packing is revisited. The model is extended to account for the whole range of faulting probabilities. The faulting process resulting in the final stacking sequences is described by several equivalent computational models. The ...

In 1898, E.A. Fay published an analysis of nearly 5000 marriages among deaf individuals in America collected during the 19(th) century. Each pedigree included three-generation data on marriage partners that included at least one deaf proband, who were ascertained by complete selection. We recently proposed that the intense phenotypic assortative ...

Twin studies are essential for assessing disease inheritance. Data generated from twin studies are traditionally analyzed using specialized computational programs. For many researchers, especially those who are new to twin studies, understanding and using those specialized computational programs can be a daunting task. Given that SAS (Statistical Analysis Software) is ...

BACKGROUND: the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences in specific cognitive abilities in the elderly are poorly understood. One reason is the lack of studies performed in cohorts with normal cognitive functions. OBJECTIVE: to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors in determining inter-individual variation in neurocognitive ...

The field of marriage and family therapy is currently at a crossroads. The challenge for contemporary therapists is how to incorporate the wisdom of previous models with the accountability that comes from evidence-based practice. The Integrative Module-Based Family Therapy treatment model provides a formalized series of steps that clinicians can ...

Australian legislation at both state and federal levels has been passed in the last two years enabling the creation and use of cloned embryos up until their fourteenth day of development. Yet for this fourteen-day threshold to carry moral weight it must be shown that an embryo may be plausibly ...

Decision-making on animal welfare issues requires a synthesis of information. For the assessment of farm animal welfare based on scientific information collected in a database, a methodology called 'semantic modelling' has been developed. To date, however, this methodology has not been generally applied. Recently, a qualitative Risk Assessment approach has ...