Hudes Mark L, McCann Joyce C, Ames Bruce N
Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, 5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Oakland, CA 94609, USA.
FASEB J. 2009 Mar;23(3):689-703. doi: 10.1096/fj.08-108910. Epub 2008 Oct 21.
A simple statistical method is described to test whether data are consistent with minimum statistical variability expected in a biological experiment. The method is applied to data presented in data tables in a subset of 84 articles among more than 200 published by 3 investigators in a small medical biochemistry department at a major university in India and to 29 "control" articles selected by key word PubMed searches. Major conclusions include: 1) unusual clustering of coefficients of variation (CVs) was observed for data from the majority of articles analyzed that were published by the 3 investigators from 2000-2007; unusual clustering was not observed for data from any of their articles examined that were published between 1992 and 1999; and 2) among a group of 29 control articles retrieved by PubMed key word, title, or title/abstract searches, unusually clustered CVs were observed in 3 articles. Two of these articles were coauthored by 1 of the 3 investigators, and 1 was from the same university but a different department. We are unable to offer a statistical or biological explanation for the unusual clustering observed.
本文描述了一种简单的统计方法，用于检验数据是否与生物实验中预期的最小统计变异性一致。该方法应用于印度一所主要大学的一个小型医学生物化学系的3名研究人员发表的200多篇文章中的84篇文章的数据表中呈现的数据，以及通过PubMed关键词搜索选择的29篇“对照”文章的数据。主要结论包括：1）在分析的大多数文章的数据中，观察到2000 - 2007年由这3名研究人员发表的文章中变异系数（CV）出现异常聚类；在1992年至1999年发表的他们所研究的任何文章的数据中均未观察到异常聚类；2）在通过PubMed关键词、标题或标题/摘要搜索检索到的一组29篇对照文章中，有3篇文章观察到变异系数异常聚类。其中两篇文章是由这3名研究人员中的1人共同撰写的，1篇来自同一所大学但不同的系。我们无法对观察到的异常聚类提供统计或生物学解释。
