Cauane Blumenberg

Data scientist . PhD Epidemiology . MSc Computer Science

Cauane to defend its PhD thesis in 29 November

In the 29th of November 2018, at 2PM, Cauane Blumenberg is going to defend its PhD thesis at the Center for Epidemiological Research of the Federal University of Pelotas. The thesis is entitled “Web-based epidemiologic research: strategies and individual characteristics associated to the adherence and participation of young adults”, and was supervised by Prof. Aluísio JD Barros, PhD. 

The examination board will be composed by:

  • Prof. Fernando Wehrmeister, PhD (Center for Epidemiological Research, Federal University of Pelotas);
  • Prof. Adenauer Yamim, PhD (Center for Technological Development, Federal University of Pelotas)
  • Prof. Rafael Claro, PhD (Department of Maternal and Child Nursing and Public Health, Federal University of Minas Gerais)

The PhD defense is open to the public and will take place at the Center for Epidemiological Research of the Federal University of Pelotas, located at 1160 Marechal Deodoro St, in Pelotas-RS, Brazil.

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coortesnaweb will represent the Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology in the Three Minute Thesis contest

After going through an internal selection process, Cauane Blumenberg was chosen to represent the Postgraduate Program in Epidemiology in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) contest held by the Federal University of Pelotas.

The PhD candidate will present part of his thesis, with a presentation entitled: “coortesnaweb: a gamified platform to conduct epidemiological surveys over the internet”. The contest will occur in the 25th of October in Auditorium 2 of the Center for Arts of the Federal University of Pelotas. The 3MT contest will start at 2:00 PM.

The 3MT contest

In the 3MT contest, PhD students have three minutes to present a compelling oration on their thesis and its significance. It is an exercise for students to consolidate their ideas, and present it to a non-specialized audience.

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Talk about electronic data collection at the Nursing School of the Federal University of Pelotas

Last week Cauane Blumenberg was invited by professor Ana Claudia Vieira to give a talk at the Nursing School of the Federal University of Pelotas. The subject of the talk was about his experience using electronic data collection methods for epidemiological research.

The talk was scheduled to introduce the electronic data collection methods for a team that will conduct a multicenter study among the Basic Health Units of the Brazilian Unified Health System in south Brazil.

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Training of interviewers for the impact evaluation study of the Happy Child Program

From the 11th to the 15th of June it was held at the Ministry of Social and Agrarian Development, in Brasília-DF, Brazil, the training of 60 interviewers that will work collecting data for the impact evaluation study of the Happy Child Program. The interviewers were presented to the questionnaire and also to the electronic data collection instrument that will be used during the fieldwork.

The fieldwork will be conducted in the second semester of 2018, in six Brazilian federation units. The electronic data collection instruments were built by the data scientist Cauane Blumenberg, from the Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil.

More information about the project and the training can be obtained here (website in portuguese).

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Merging three numeric variables into one date format variable

There are many advantages of using datetime variables in Stata, including the possibility to perform simple calculations between dates. However, working with dates in Stata is not a simple task.

Trying to skip the difficulties of using datatime variables in Stata, some research groups collect dates into three separate variables containing the day, the month and the year. But, by doing this, it becomes very difficult to perform calculations.

For this reason, I developed a Stata command called mergedate. This command merges three numeric variables (day, month, and year), and creates on single variable using the datetime format. Instructions to use the command can be obtained typing help mergedate into Stata.

Download mergedate from my git repository: https://github.com/cauanebs/mergedate

Installing ado files in Stata

Perform the following steps to install ado files in Stata:

  1. Open Stata
  2. Type personal and hit enter to discover the location of your personal ado folder
  3. Navigate to the personal ado folder (if after navigating there is no folder called personal, create one)
  4. Unzip the downloaded file into the personal ado folder
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Finding nonnumeric characters within string variables

The destring is one of the main commands used to clean databases in Stata, as it can be used to convert string variables to numeric variables. This is a very important feature, especially if a database from another source (e.g. Excel) is imported into Stata.

The destring command will only work if the string variable that we are trying to convert to numeric contains no nonnumeric characters. For example, if we have a variable coded as “0” or “1”, but in a given observation it was coded by mistake as “1b”, the destring command will not work. If we are dealing with small databases, it might be easy to visually identify which observation was wrongly coded. However, if we have a large database, containing lots of observations, this process might be difficult.

For this reason, I developed a Stata command called findnonnumeric. This command searches form nonnumeric characters within a string variable and lists the observations that have this issue. Instructions to use the command can be obtained by typing help findnonnumeric

Download findnonnumeric from my git repository: https://github.com/cauanebs/findnonnumeric

Installing ado files in Stata

Perform the following steps to install ado files in Stata:

  1. Open Stata
  2. Type personal and hit enter to discover the location of your personal ado folder
  3. Navigate to the personal ado folder (if after navigating there is no folder called personal, create one)
  4. Unzip the downloaded file into the personal ado folder
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coortesnaweb project receives best paper award @ REDCapCon

 

The 1st Latin-American REDCap Congress (REDCapCon) was held in São Paulo,  at the Sírio Libanês hospital, on the 26th and 27th-April. The main focus of the congress was on the REDCap software – a web application for building and managing online surveys and databases.

Almost 300 participants registered to the event, and over 50 studies were presented. The study entitled “Integrating REDCap to a gamified web-based platform used in a birth cohort follow-up: the coortesnaweb project”,  by Cauane Blumenberg and Aluísio JD Barros, received the best paper award!

The coortesnaweb project

The coortesnaweb is a web-based platform that contains a complete environment to conduct web-based epidemiologic research. More information about the project can obtained here.

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