Objectives

The Application and Implementation of Methodologies in Statistics (AIMS) Special Interest Group (SIG) objective is to support PSI Committees and PSI/EFSPI Special Interest Groups (SIGs) with the technological application and implementation of statistics.  To develop understanding of new analytical tools and approaches to share with PSI & EFSPI members via appropriate forums.  To ensure PSI & EFSPI members are supported with understanding the requirements for the implementation of industry data standards. 

For 2020, our main objectives are:

1. Key objective: Automation of reporting: Most companies are working towards a time from DB lock to High Level results of 24 hours with just 5 days for the Stats analysis to be complete.  Therefore we’d look to ways to assist with this through the use of technology.   
2. Key objective: Data visualization:  Looks at technology to enhance visualization of data throughout the study
3. Work with statisticians and statistical programmers to educate them on Data Science Tools (such as R, GitHub etc)
4. Bridging the gap between SAS and other software (for example, SAS processes / global macros and do it in Git / GitHub)
5. Assist other SIGS implement their needs in software/training/support. – Reach out to SIGS (including data science SIG) and ask if we can help with any of their projects & the implementation of them.
6. R Validation Hub – Continue the work on the Hub project improving the website, and production of R metrics/ tests/ validation documentation

Who we are

The AIMS SIG was formed in May 2016 and currently consists of the following team members:

We are also closely linked to the R Validation Hub who are working on the collection of metrics for R packages and the production of guidance information on the use of R in the pharmaceutical industry.  See the following for more information:  https://www.pharmar.org

How to get in touch

If you are interested in joining the AIMS SIG, then please contact Lyn Taylor: lyn.taylor@phastar.com
If you are interested in R, and joining the R validation Hub contact: psi.aims.r.validation@gmail.com

Latest News

AIMS was awarded funding from the R-Consortium in June 2018 to create of an online repository for R package validation in accordance with regulatory standards.  The desire to use R in the pharmaceutical industry is evident due to it being a very powerful object-orientated language, able to produce analyses and high quality graphics and being open source hence readily enabling bespoke extensions.  It can be used for high performance computing and allows easy integration with other software.  It can also be used for complex analyses which is especially important when these analyses are not available in SAS.  The AIMS SIG acted as a springboard for the R Validation Hub initiative which has now grown into it's own committee with involvement of over 100 people representing 60 companies.   For more information see: https://www.pharmar.org/  If you are interested in contributing to this project please contact: psi.aims.r.validation@gmail.com.  

The team are now looking at the use of gt for production of TFLs to see if using R can make study reporting and CSR creation more efficient.  SPIN article to follow!

R Training and Help

Substantial free training is available for R. Some of our favourite sources are listed below.

• Useful Links
  • https://www.datacamp.com/ (https://www.rstudio.com/online-learning/#r-programming)
  • https://www.rstudio.com/resources/webinars/
  • https://www.mooc-list.com/tags/r-programming

  • http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/ 

• R Studio Cheat sheets: https://rstudio.com/resources/cheatsheets/
• eBooks:
  • Advanced R. - Hadley Wickham. https://bookdown.org/
  • R Packages. - Hadley Wickham. http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/
  • R for Data Science - Garrett Grolemund, Hadley Wickham. https://adv-r.hadley.nz/
  • bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown - Yihui Xie. https://r4ds.had.co.nz/

  • Efficicient R Programming. - Colin Gillespie, Robin Lovelace https://bookdown.org/csgillespie/efficientR/

• Guided Learning (range of free and paying courses)
  • https://www.edx.org/learn/r-programming
  • https://www.datacamp.com/

  • https://www.coursera.org/learn/r-programming 

• Blogs/ Videos
  • https://www.r-bloggers.com/
  • https://blog.rstudio.com/
  • https://rviews.rstudio.com/
  • https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=R+language 

Useful References

The SIG Charter and our Articles to date are shown below.

The R Shiny Apps created by Chris Toffis and demonstrated at the PSI Conference in 2018 are able to download below.   Note that these are intended to demonstrate what R Shiny can do and are not validated apps.  The datasets used are dummy and contain no real patient data.  PSI and the AIMS SIG accept no responsibility for their use.  The ae_app.R is an application for interactive Adverse Event tabulation and  labs_app.R creates an app for the graphical presentation and exploration of Laboratory data.   SAS datasets are also provided to accompany each app.