Given the relatively modest size of our sample and the fact that we were examining a complex trait, we had anticipated that traditional GWAS would uncover only a small number of biologically relevant loci, even with the aid of eSNP analysis, as such an approach would rely upon detection of single variant associations with trait and expression.
One limitation of this study was the modest size of both the discovery and replication samples.
Since this time can be too long for very large graphs, we use a sampling approach when the component contains more than 1,500 nodes: a connected subgraph of a more modest size is randomly sampled (as described in [ 49]) and then used for seed finding.
There were few significant associations between individual risk alleles and diabetes in the Framingham Offspring Study cohort, but this finding was expected, given that alleles of small effect were tested in a community-based sample of modest size, and the aggregate set of 18 SNPs was predictive of new cases of diabetes.
The sample used for this study was of a modest size, so generalizability of the findings may be limited.
These variance measurements have been made with samples of quite modest size, which should be a source of concern because higher-order statistics, such as variance, are poorly estimated from small sample sizes.
18 Because our kappa statistics were calculated from samples of modest size and were either approximately or exactly equal to unity, we calculated 95% confidence intervals (CI) around the point estimates by characterizing the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of distributions of estimated kappas from 1000 bootstrapped samples of the original data.
Also, we were able to demonstrate the applicability of a targeted, mass spectrometry based platform to a clinical sample of modest size.
Several limitations to the study should be noted: firstly, the response rate of 40% was only modest however the size of the sample was adequate for the analysis.
First, although our sample was of modest size (32 older subjects, 16 younger subjects), it was comparable in number to or greater than previous studies.
