Analysis Of Small Populations Research Articles

Methodological Issues in Analyzing Small Populations Using CCHS Cycles Based on the Official Language Minority Studies

Statistical analyses for small populations or small domains of interest can be challenging. To obtain reliable estimates, only very large surveys such as the Canadian Community Health Survey can be considered. However, despite its good geographical and temporal coverage, the analysis of small populations in smaller regions (e.g., health regions) and in regards to specific health issues remains challenging. We will look at the methodological issues in analysis of small populations in relation to sampling and non-sampling survey errors that affect the precision and accuracy of the estimates. Francophone minorities in Canada will be used to illustrate the issues throughout the paper.

Combined simultaneous analysis of morphology and fluorescence in situ hybridization as a novel sensitive method for detecting small populations of malignant cells in patients with a high risk of cancer, premalignant lesions, and minimal residual disease

Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) is a valuable tool for detection of chromosome aberrations in clinical practice of malignancies. However, the relatively high false positive and false negative rates of this method complicate its application to analysis of small populations of pathological cells. Combined simultaneous analysis of morphology and FISH using a Duet™ multiparametric cell scanning system (Bio-View, Rehovot, Israel) has been developed and introduced into clinical practice. The novel method has been demonstrated to increase the specificity of identification of pathological cells in patients with various hematological malignancies and, hence, estimate the efficiency of treatment. Studies on different premalignant disorders of the oral cavity mucosa have demonstrated that the combined method allows the identification of individual pathological cells and, hence, early detection of malignant and premalignant cells that may be overlooked by traditional histomorphological methods.

Small populations: Demography and paleoanthropological inferences

The demographical analysis of small populations suggests that small populations, because they are subject to random fluctuations, particularly of the sex ratio, can only avoid extinction by means of a high migratory flow. The migratory flow (about 11% for a group of 20 individuals, 7% for 50 individuals) involves interpopulational gene flow and cultural exchanges both possibly occurring over considerable geographical areas. Theoretically, one would expect such exogamous groups to show high biological and cultural interpopulational homogeneity. Some estimations of the biological heterogeneity of Pleistocene Man, using three different samples of data—53 parietal bones (four metric variables), 27 skulls (four metric variables), 20 mandibles (three metric variables) -and the geographical distribution of paleolithic industries—particularly Acheulean and Mousterian tool industries which cover a considerable area—tend not to reject this hypothesis suggested by the demographical analysis.