PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 7853039

Statistical and theoretical considerations in meta-analysis.

I Olkin
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

An historical perspective of statistical methods for combining the results of independent studies is provided. The information explosion subsequent to 1950 has been a critical factor in the development of the field. An example of a meta-analysis is used to illustrate all alternative analyses that should be considered for conducting a meta-analytic study.

Explore related subjects

Analysis of VarianceData Interpretation, StatisticalDiffusion of InnovationMeta-Analysis as TopicOdds RatioProbabilityRegression AnalysisJournal ArticleReview

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

I Olkin. 1995. Statistical and theoretical considerations in meta-analysis.. https://doi.org/10.1016/0895-4356(94)00136-e

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2014

Molecular heterochrony and the evolution of sociality in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris).

Sibling care is a hallmark of social insects, but its evolution remains challenging to explain at the molecular level. The hypothesis that sibling care evolved from ancestral maternal care in primitively eusocial insects has been elaborated to involve heterochronic changes in gene expression. This elaboration leads to the prediction that workers in these species will show patterns of gene expression more similar to foundress queens, who express maternal care behaviour, than to established queens engaged solely in reproductive behaviour. We tested this idea in bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) using a microarray platform with approximately 4500 genes. Unlike the wasp Polistes metricus, in which support for the above prediction has been obtained, we found that patterns of brain gene expression in foundress and queen bumblebees were more similar to each other than to workers. Comparisons of differentially expressed genes derived from this study and gene lists from microarray studies in Polistes and the honeybee Apis mellifera yielded a shared set of genes involved in the regulation of related social behaviours across independent eusocial lineages. Together, these results suggest that multiple independent evolutions of eusociality in the insects might have involved different evolutionary routes, but nevertheless involved some similarities at the molecular level.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2007

Confidence intervals for the standardized effect arising in the comparison of two normal populations.

Confidence intervals for a standardized effect are derived after stabilizing the variance of the Welch t-statistic. Simulation studies demonstrate the viability of the resulting intervals for a wide range of parameter values and sample sizes as small as five. The methodology is extended to the combination of results from several studies, so as to obtain a confidence interval for a representative standardized effect for all the studies. The methods are illustrated on a recent meta-analytic study of systolic blood pressure reduction during a weight reducing regime, as well as the classical Mumford data on psychological intervention and hospital length of stay.

Analysis of Variance↗