Participants who reported "equivalence" of study prednisone to their usual prednisone dose over the 12 weeks and elected to continue in the study were randomised to either 1 mg prednisone or identical placebo tablets for the "transfer" phase.
While dynamic modulus, diametrical resilient modulus, and loss of ductility are the most common parameters to study aging, this study determines laboratory equivalence of field aging using an Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS) test for its simplicity and wide usages in Asphalt Concrete (AC) performance evaluation.
We use this equivalence to study the sensitivity analysis of the general nonconvex variational inequalities.
If we make the equivalence of countries to studies or centres, the typical study units in traditional meta-analyses, we can run comparisons between countries under the meta-analysis framework.
Most studies tested a hypothesis of non-inferiority (36%%) or equivalence (24%%), while 16%% of studies aimed to demonstrate superiority.
If we assume a coefficient of variation of 80%, we would require a sample size of 2×210=420 evaluable patients to reach a power of 90% for the proof of non-inferiority in case of equivalence of the two study arms (one sided α=0.025).
Table 2 presents summary data illustrating the equivalence of the two study groups at baseline despite the surprisingly large difference in the numbers allocated randomly to each group, which has a 2% probability of occurring by chance in a binomial distribution.
This is in line with our results demonstrating an equivalence in studies with lower doses of antigen content in the ID formulation.
We further recommend that common best practices are established among the vendor community (i.e. via the ePRO consortium) to standardize migration principles (i.e. number of items per screen, scrolling through answer options) as well as to define a standard framework for the conduct and publication of equivalence studies.
Although we did not use an a priori definition of equivalence in this study, the upper limit of the 95% confidence interval is 1.37 (for small depth or 1.33 for small volume), compared with 3.86 in the meta-analysis, and none of the subsequent studies included an untreated comparator.
Thus, in the current study, we aimed to evaluate the measurement equivalence of these versions by studying if differences in item responses and scale scores between these versions exceeded pre-defined values (corresponding to the minimal clinically important difference) in patients with rheumatic diseases.
