BACKGROUND Meta-regression is becoming increasingly used to model study level covariate effects. However this type of statistical analysis presents many difficulties and challenges. Here two methods for calculating confidence intervals for the magnitude of the residual between-study variance in random effects meta-regression models are developed. A further suggestion for calculating credible in...

OBJECTIVES To introduce guidelines for the conduct, reporting, and critical appraisal of meta-analyses evaluating diagnostic tests and to apply these guidelines to recently published meta-analyses of diagnostic tests. DATA SOURCES Based on current concepts of how to assess diagnostic tests and conduct meta-analyses. They are applied to all meta-analyses evaluating diagnostic tests published i...

Organizational problems that demand decision-making require planning about their own decision-making process: the meta-decisions. We propose that the decisions about the process itself can be organized around three key activities: (1) diagnosis of meta-decision context and evaluation of meta-decision problem, (2) selection / planning of the meta-decision strategies and (3) meta-decision strateg...

In this paper, we formalize the application of multivariate meta-analysis and meta-regression to synthesize estimates of multi-parameter associations obtained from different studies. This modelling approach extends the standard two-stage analysis used to combine results across different sub-groups or populations. The most straightforward application is for the meta-analysis of non-linear relati...

Meta-learning, or "learning to learn", refers techniques that infer an inductive bias from data corresponding multiple related tasks with the goal of improving sample efficiency for new, previously unobserved, tasks. A key performance measure meta-learning is meta-generalization gap, is, difference between average loss measured on meta-training and a randomly selected task. This paper presents ...

background & aim: depression is a chronic and overwhelming disorder. one of the factors that could prevent the occurrence of depression is tea consumption. considering the controversial results of previous studies, the aim of this systematic and meta-analysis review study was to answer this question that whether tea consumption could decrease the risk of depression. methods & materials : by sea...

background: respiratory distress syndrome and persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn are common acquired diseases in preterm infants. in the past several years, randomized controlled trials (rcts) have indicated that inhaled nitric oxide (ino) can potentially lower for both the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (bpd) and mortality in affected infants. other research has, however...

background in recent years, many studies have been conducted to establish the causes of people’s tendency to become addicted and researchers have also tried to determine the amount, importance and role of each individual and environmental factor. objectives with regard to the inconsistencies in previous research results, this study aims to use meta-analysis in order to integrate the results of ...

Numerous meta-analyses in healthcare research combine results from only a small number of studies, for which the variance representing between-study heterogeneity is estimated imprecisely. A Bayesian approach to estimation allows external evidence on the expected magnitude of heterogeneity to be incorporated. The aim of this paper is to provide tools that improve the accessibility of Bayesian m...