Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a recently introduced, and now widely used, technique for estimating disease prevalence in hidden populations. RDS data are collected through a snowball mechanism, in which current sample members recruit future sample members. In this paper we present RDS as Markov chain Monte Carlo importance sampling, and we examine the effects of community structure and th...

PURPOSE Humans with retinitis pigmentosa and dogs with progressive rod-cone degeneration (prcd) have lower than normal blood levels of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, including docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the major fatty acid found in retinal rod outer segments (ROS). In addition, prcd-affected dogs have lower levels of DHA in their ROS than control animals. The present study was design...

IMPORTANCE Brief potentially ictal rhythmic discharges, termed B(I)RDs, have been described mainly in neonates, and their significance in adults remains unclear. OBJECTIVE To describe the incidence of B(I)RDs in critically ill patients and investigate their association with seizures and outcome. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS We reviewed the records of prospectively identified patients w...

Prematurity is the most important risk factor predisposing to neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Genetic factors are likely to contribute to the risk of this complex disease. The present study was designed to investigate whether the surfactant protein B (SP-B) gene or interaction between the SP-A and SP-B genes has a role in the genetic susceptibility to RDS. The genotype analyses we...

The present article investigates the effectiveness of methods traditionally used to distinguish between the emotions of regret and disappointment and presents a new method — the Regret and Disappointment Scale (RDS) — for assessing the two emotions in decision making research. The validity of the RDS was tested in three studies. Study 1 used two scenarios, one prototypical of regret and the oth...

BACKGROUND We examined selected polymorphisms in 3 pulmonary surfactant-associated proteins (SP) for their influence on serum SP levels and risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in preterm neonates. MATERIAL AND METHODS Premature infants from a Han population were enrolled, including 100 premature infants with RDS (case group) and 120 premature infants without RDS (control group). SNP gen...

In our study we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of 3D visual stimuli which is used RDS, 8 healthy adults (mean age 25, range 20–31), participated in this study. ERPs were recorded from 64 scalp electrodes while participants viewed the standard stimuli. Besides the results in which the peaks are localized within a time interval of 100-200ms, t...

BACKGROUND Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is a common critical disease in term neonates, but reasons for the occurrence of RDS remains unclear. AIMS This study aimed to investigate the cause of RDS in full-term neonates by a retrospective case-control study. STUDY DESIGN Case-control study. METHODS Among the patients admitted to Bayi Children's Hospital between January 2008 and Decem...

BACKGROUND New, more effective and better-tolerated therapies for hepatitis C (HCV) have made the elimination of HCV a feasible objective. However, for this to be achieved, it is necessary to have a detailed understanding of HCV epidemiology in people who inject drugs (PWID). Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) can provide prevalence estimates in hidden populations such as PWID. The aims of this s...

Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) is a novel variant of link tracing sampling that has primarily been used to estimate the characteristics of hard-to-reach groups, such as the HIV prevalence of drug users. ‘Seeds’ are selected by convenience from a population of interest (target population) and given coupons. Seeds then use these coupons to recruit other people, who themselves become recruiters....