The whole-year dataset was pooled per taxon and lake.
The module genes identified by each input dataset were pooled as one gene set, and 3 module gene sets were generated, corresponding to the input dataset of VEGAS-all, VEGAS-top, and minP.
Patient groups were then predicted separately for each cohort: patients predicted as having good prognosis (independent of the dataset they originated from) were pooled into one group and those predicted as having poor prognosis (again, independent of dataset) were pooled into another group.
To cope with these differences, two approaches are possible: centralized analyses, which include harmonization of the datasets to create one large dataset in which the analyses are done, or coordinated independent analyses, in which the analyses are done in each dataset and the results per dataset are pooled afterwards [ 13].
First of all, we start pooling pairs of artificial datasets, and thereafter increase the number of pooled datasets pooled until all six artificial datasets are pooled.
The datasets were pooled and thus comprised 7620 respondents from the 2003 NDHS, 33,385 respondents from the 2008 NDHS, and 38,948 respondents for the 2013 NDHS.
The datasets were pooled and checked for normality of distribution by Shapiro Wilk test and compared by nonparametric statistics methods (Friedman ANOVA and Kendall coefficient of concordance; Kruskal Wallis ANOVA).
