The lack of supporting evidence from cohort studies, therefore, reduces the plausibility of an association between RCC risk and exposure to both glass and mineral wool fibres.
38 In our patient cohort, however, time from the index ischemic symptom to MRI was relatively long (mean = 57 ± 47 days), which reduced the plausibility that the MRI hyperintense signal reflected fresh luminal thrombus.
In all of the analyses presented here, we made comparisons across time to reduce the plausibility of confounding by individual-level risk factors, which are unlikely to be associated with short-term fluctuations in air pollution (Strickland et al. 2009).
It is determined by reducing the interval between plausibility and belief.
A metaphysician who chooses to dismiss areas of experience or ways of thinking that are commonly accepted as being in order does so at his peril; he reduces the initial plausibility of his own theories the oftener he finds himself in this position.
Most previous studies had a substantial proportion of workers with <20 years latency and/or few diesels in the workplace, which reduced the biological plausibility of a causal association.
This risk can be reduced by the plausibility check during the development of the initial MRT, triangulation of findings, analysis by multiple researchers and discussion with stakeholders and peers.
One could object that the effects of the smoking bans were apparent only on the rate of preterm births, and we acknowledge that the absence of an effect on birth weight and small for gestational age reduces the strength and diminishes the plausibility of our observation.
Possible reasons for the decreased number of calculating hospitals in 2008 are the introduction of more severe plausibility checks or the high number of excluded hospitals in the previous year, which lowered the motivation to participate and reduced the percentage of cases surviving plausibility checks (see Table 1).
However, the dose-response effect for many of the lifestyle variables, and the biological plausibility of the associations, reduce the likelihood of reverse causality playing a major role in these findings.
