The paper concerns nonparametric test procedures for detection of a change in the distribution of a sequence independent observations Their limit properties are presented. 2000 Mathematical Subject Class: 62G20, 62E20, 60G10

The Audit Commission in the UK recommends that patient information leaflets (PILs) should be audited by health professionals using a formal readability test. However, no such study on antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) has been identified in a Medline search. The aim of this study was to audit the readability of PILs prepared for marketed proprietary AEDs in the UK. Twelve PILs were compared with six a...

When you are assessing the quality of the evidence, it’s not how the data are analyzed that’s important. Far more important is how the data are collected. Don’t agonize over whether the researchers should have used a non-parametric test or whether a random effects meta-analysis is appropriate (just to cite two obscure examples). These are important issues and they generate a lot of debate. But ...

BACKGROUND There are inconsistent reports about multiple sclerosis (MS) risk among migrants from low to high MS risk geographical regions. This study assessed the overall MS incidence and evaluated seasonality in birth and subsequent MS risk later in the life in second generation of migrants born and lived in Kuwait. METHODS We assessed the overall and gender-specific MS risk in second genera...

Two types of global testing procedures for item fit to the Rasch model were evaluated using simulation studies. The first type incorporates three tests based on first-order statistics: van den Wollenberg's Q(1) test, Glas's R(1) test, and Andersen's LR test. The second type incorporates three tests based on second-order statistics: van den Wollenberg's Q(2) test, Glas's R(2) test, and a non-par...

BACKGROUND To establish whether a previously validated scoring system (Habib) for the prediction of risk or likelihood of posterior capsule rupture during phacoemulsification surgery could be used to: 1. Predict the difficulty of a phacoemulsification case, and 2. Select appropriate phacoemulsification cases for trainees. METHODS The study sample was consecutive phacoemulsification cases unde...

We analyze experimental survey data, with a random split into respondents who get an open-ended question on the amount of total family consumption (with follow-up unfolding brackets of the form "Is consumption $X or more?" for those who answer "don't know" or "refuse") and respondents who are immediately directed to unfolding brackets. In both cases, the entry point of the unfolding bracket seq...

BACKGROUND Although non-normal data are widespread in biomedical research, parametric tests unnecessarily predominate in statistical analyses. METHODS We surveyed five biomedical journals and - for all studies which contain at least the unpaired t-test or the non-parametric Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test - investigated the relationship between the choice of a statistical test and other variables ...