The online training course, entitled “Seminars in Statistics Applied to Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry”, was organised by ENEA for all the staff members of ENEA and IRSE involved in the BioPhyMeTRE project and conducted from June 2022 onwards.

The course, held by the IAEA expert Volodymyr Vinnikov from the Grigoriev Institute for Medical Radiology and Oncology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, includes pre-recorded seminars in two languages (English, Russian), followed by online meetings on MS Teams platform with all the participants for the discussion of each issue and Q&A session.

Seminar I. Typical tasks for statistical data treatment in Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry. Overview of relevant statistical methods (including a slide with Table “Tasks – Methods”). Role and place of the statistician in Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry. Content of subsequent seminars.

Seminar II. Descriptive statistics for the presentation of research data in Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry. Types of data. Variation statistics: distributions, mean, mode, median, standard deviation, dispersion, standard error, quartiles, confidence intervals. “Normalization” of data. Qualitative data: frequencies. Cytogenetic damage yield: individual data versus group data.

Seminar III. Comparison of datasets. Parametric and non-parametric methods. Assessment of the effect of acting factor: Detection versus measurement. Student’s t-test. Chi-squared test. Relative risk and odds ratio. Most widespread non-parametric methods. ANOVA.

Seminar IV. Correlation analysis. Regression analysis: Least squares method. Goodness of fit. Dose response and other applications of regression analysis in Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry. Radiation dose estimation in biodosimetry. Software packages: CABAS versus Dose Estimate.

Seminar V. Simple biophysical models used in Radiation Cytogenetics and Biodosimetry. Special statistical methods for experiments or intercomparisons. Testing and validation of new biomarkers: sensitivity, specificity, overall efficacy (informativity).

Seminar VI. “Odds and sods”: Non-conventional methods and approaches. Multiply regressions. Cluster analysis. Bayesian analysis. Non-Poisson distributions and mixed distributions. Novelties and prospective statistical techniques.