ClinicalExperiment-class: Class "ClinicalExperiment"

In randPack: Randomization routines for Clinical Trials

Description

A class that defines the parameters for a clinical trial.

Objects from the Class

Objects can be created by calls of the form new("ClinicalExperiment", ...).

Slots

name:

A string naming the experiment.

factors:

A named list, the names are the names of the factors that will be used for randomization. The elements of the list are the names of the factor levels.

treatments:

A named integer vector indicating the relative frequency of treatment assignments that are desired. The names are the treatment names.

strataFun:

A function that can be applied to instances of PatientData to obtain the strata that the patient is to be entered on.

randomization:

A list of the randomizers to be used. There is one for each strata.

patientIDs:

An instance of the PatientID class that is used to assign patient IDs to the individuals as they are randomized into the trial.

Methods

show

signature(object = "ClinicalExperiment"): a print method.

randomization<-

signature(object = "ClinicalExperiment", value="list"): binds a list of lists of randomizer descriptions to a clinical experiment instance

Description

Basically the ClinicalExperiment class should contain the static information that describes a clinical trial and in particular how patients will be randomized to treatments in that trial.

There is a name for the trial, then a list of the factors that can be used for randomization. We have yet to decide on how to handle continuous variables (these can be used in some randomization schemes). We also have not yet included strata.

Most of the accessors are simple functions, not methods.

Note

Similar to the classes defined by N. Balasubraminian.

Author(s)

R. Gentleman

See Also

treatmentNames, numberOfTreatments, factorNames

Examples

showClass("ClinicalExperiment")
data(CT1)
CT1@Experiment

randPack documentation built on Nov. 8, 2020, 5:32 p.m.