UdallR

R functions to analyze data from the Udall Project 2 REDCap database.

Requesting REDCap token

You must generate a token through the REDCap website (https://redcap.iths.org/) in order to export the Udall data from REDCap.

After logging in to REDCap, select "MyProjects" > "UDALL_P2" and then "API" under the "Applications" menu on the left-hand side.

If the "API" option is missing from the "Applications" menu, then someone in the project must give you privileges to see this page. If you are able to access the "API" page, there will be an option to request a new Application Programming Interface (API) token from the REDCap administrator. When your token request has successfully processed, your token should be printed out in green text on this page. A new token can be regenerated at any point by selecting "Regenerate token."

For more information, see REDCap's documentation of API tokens: https://redcap.iths.org/redcap_v7.1.2/API/help.php?content=default

Loading the library functions

From the parent working directory that contains the UdallR folder, you should do the following (you can also provide an absolute path):

install.packages("UdallR", repos=NULL, type="source")
library(UdallR)

Note that if you try to use the install function from the devtools package you will get an error. Install as above.

Using the library functions

You would use them using code that looks something like this, where you substitute your REDCap token where it says INSERTTOKENHERE. Don't commit this token to github.

require(REDCapR)
library(REDCapR)
library(UdallR)

dat <- as.data.frame(redcap_read(redcap_uri="https://redcap.iths.org/api/", token="INSERTTOKENHERE"))

cdat <- udallCleanREDCapDataWide(dat)

A guide to variables

Calculated variables

The program udallCleanREDCapDataWide calculates or converts a number of measures from the REDCap data automatically. H1re is a summary:

• sex Converts on_health_demo_sex to a named factor ("male" or "female").
• ethnicity Converts on_health_demo_ethnic to a named factor ("hispanic" or "not_hispanic").
• group Converts on_health_demo_group to a named factor ("pd", "control").
• scage Age at scan. Calculated on_mri_date - on_mri_dob divided by 365.
• educ Identical to on_health_demo_years_educ, just with an abbreviated column name for easier reference.
• dx_dominant_side Names dx_dominant_side "left" and "right."
• on_fog_total Sums freezing of gait questions.
• UPDRS calculations:
  • {on,off}_updrs_{3,4}_total Sums the values for the UPDRS III or IV connected to the ON and OFF states.
  • {on,off}_{left,right}_symptoms Sums the following UPDRS III side-specific measures to create a lateralized symptom score: 3.4-3.8, 3.15-3.16, 3.17 (UE and LE).
  • {on,off}_RminusL_symptoms Subtracts the left-sided UPDRS III scores from the right-sided scores to create a laterality measure. PD symptoms tend to be left-biased (hence, negative).
• on_sai_sai Calculates the unconditioned amplitude for the subject's SAI run (only conducted on-medication).
• Dual task cost:
  • The dual task cost measurements are calculated in the function udallCalculateCost and calculate the difference between the dual-task trial and the single-task trial (always DT - ST). Hence, the values for each of these can be speeds, distances, angles, etc.
  • The single-task trials match the regex {on,off}_st_*, the dual task {on_off}_dt_* and the cost columns {on,off}_dtcost_*.
  • As there are 203 numeric measurements (plus the completeness value, discussed below) in that range, it wouldn't do to summarize them all here.
  • Note that {on,off}_{st,dt}_{gait,sway}_complete are originally numeric (0 = incomplete, 1 = unverified, 2 = complete), and so the variables {on,off}_dtcost_{gait,sway}_complete are automatically calculated. Any non-zero value here means either original completeness measure is incomplete or unverified.

Genetic variables

The genetic variables are a bit of a mess for a few reasons, including the fact that data overlaps with the "closest visits data." The goal with these variables is that the variables beginning redcap_ don't need to be accessed by the end user - rather, apoe and gbastatus should be the only variables you need to do analyses.

• redcap_apoe This is the redcap entry as a factor [1-7]. Don't use it.
• redcap_apoe4 Are they an APOE4 carrier? 0 = no; 1 = yes.
• apoe This is redcap_apoe turned from an inscrutable factor to a string representing genotype (e.g. "2/3").
• redcap_gba Factor representing screening scatus (Carrier, Non-Carrier, Not Screened)
• redcap_gbacarrier Are they a GBA carrier (0 = no; 1 = yes)
• gbastatus Screening status as a string (e.g. "Non-Carrier")

Important notes

A few important notes regarding UdallR and its presence on GitHub.

• In order for a subject to be identified as ready to process with UdallR, they need to have the on_mri_dob date-of-birth variable entered. This is the variable in the scan log form, not the demographic form.
• Make sure not to commit your REDCap API key to GitHub, your key is for you and you only. See example.R for an example of how to save your key locally and avoid uploading it to GitHub.
• Do not distribute this repo. The data/ directory has data files (.rda extensions) that contain sensitive and protected information.

How to upload new 'closest visits'

For some analyses, we use values gathered from the clinical core rather than at IBIC. We use the current closest visit, before or after. This means they can be supplanted when a participant comes to the clinical core say two months after their MRI visit, when previously they had visited four months prior. Additionally, people may come to their MRI visit without a clinical core visit, so we have to keep the "Arm 3: AnalyticalCore" instrument "MS Access Database" up-to-date. When Brian supplies a new dataset from the clincal core, we upload it to REDCap to keep values up-to-date.

1. Download data, and if necessary, combine them into a single CSV, using 1_merge-multivis.R.
2. Copy/move to panuc_multivis_20YY_MM_DD.csv in UdallR/data/
3. Use 2_csv2rda to convert the CSV to an .rda (R Data) file in the same directory. Pass the date as an argument: YY_MM_DD.
4. Now run 3_update-mulitivis with the same argument (YY_MM_DD). This changes the reference in the appropriate scripts to the latest RDA file.
5. Now that scripts have been updated, run Rscript 4_getClosestVisits.R. If it exits without error, there weill be a new CSV file in closest-visits/, named with today's date (rather than the date of the data file).
   • If there are errors, they will have to be fixed, usually a consequence of mismatched column names (see below.)
6. Finally, upload to REDCap. Open the UDALL_P2 project and navigate to the Data Import Tool (Applications column on the left), and upload the CSV. * This may be unavailable to you based on your user permissions. If you need to upload this, ask a project administrator to upgrade you. * If there are "variable don't exist in the project" errors, then that means the clinical core has added fields to their export, which either need to be removed from the upload (modify getClosestVisits.R) or added to REDCap (out-of-scope for this README).
7. Once the data have been successfully uploaded to REDCap, remove the old RDA file from the GitHub repo (git rm --cached data/panuc_mulitivis_[A].rda) and add the new one (git add data/panuc_mulitivis_[B].rda). Commit the change (git commit -m "new multivis") and push the changes (git push origin master).

Important: REDCap silently ignores fields that are missing in the input data compared to "MS Access Database." This means if a field is removed, it's impossible to tell. I recommend periodically comparing the headers of the resulting CSV file to the headers of the "MS Access Database" (download the current version) to see if anything needs to be renamed/removed.