The really magnificent thing was not the nice feeling that Don had attained, after quite a treacherous path, career zenith, but that expectation was so totally confounded.
I am, I confess, totally confounded by it.
Followers of Jesus are totally confounded about how to vote their values.
If batches and study groups are totally confounded, i.e., one group of samples allocated on one batch and another group of samples on another, it would be impossible to separate batch from biological effects.
As the method of consent used was almost totally confounded with year it is possible that the differences are due to differences between the two academic years: 2007 2008 and 2009 2010; however, one school continued to use the same method of consent in both 2007 2008 and 2009 2010 with a slight fall in participation, highlighting the effect of the method of consent.
In particular there has been a persistent and fairly constant long term trend of increasing LE (two to three years per decade), comparable to what has been observed in other developed countries and large enough to totally confound the intervention effect.
More importantly, one biological factor was almost completely confounded with the batch, because one group was totally represented by male samples and the other has a majority of females.
It is possible that the differences are due to differences between the two academic years: 2007 2008 and 2009 2010 as the method of consent used was almost totally confounded with year.
Third, although we measured and adjusted for several potential confounders in the statistical model as far as possible, the effects of confounding by unmeasured variables and residual confounding cannot be totally discarded.
Therefore, although the possibility of confounding by an unknown factor can never be totally excluded, a major bias in our study is unlikely.
