{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,18]],"date-time":"2026-03-18T00:02:14Z","timestamp":1773792134040,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"22-23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,1]],"date-time":"2020-12-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1606780800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/journals\/pages\/open_access\/funder_policies\/chorus\/standard_publication_model"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004733","name":"University of Macau","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["FHS-CRDA-029-002-2017"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FHS-CRDA-029-002-2017"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004733","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004733","name":"University of Macau","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["EF005\/FHS-ZXH\/2018\/GSTIC"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EF005\/FHS-ZXH\/2018\/GSTIC"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004733","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004733","name":"University of Macau","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["MYRG2018-00071-FHS"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MYRG2018-00071-FHS"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004733","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003009","name":"The Science and Technology Development Fund","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["0004\/2019\/AFJ"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["0004\/2019\/AFJ"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003009","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n               <jats:sec>\n                  <jats:title>Motivation<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>High-throughput screening (HTS) is a vital automation technology in biomedical research in both industry and academia. The well-known Z-factor has been widely used as a gatekeeper to assure assay quality in an HTS study. However, many researchers and users may not have realized that Z-factor has major issues.<\/jats:p>\n               <\/jats:sec>\n               <jats:sec>\n                  <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>In this article, the following four major issues are explored and demonstrated so that researchers may use the Z-factor appropriately. First, the Z-factor violates the Pythagorean theorem of statistics. Second, there is no adjustment of sampling error in the application of the Z-factor for quality control (QC) in HTS studies. Third, the expectation of the sample-based Z-factor does not exist. Fourth, the thresholds in the Z-factor-based criterion lack a theoretical basis. Here, an approach to avoid these issues was proposed and new QC criteria under homoscedasticity were constructed so that researchers can choose a statistically grounded criterion for QC in the HTS studies. We implemented this approach in an R package and demonstrated its utility in multiple CRISPR\/CAS9 or siRNA HTS studies.<\/jats:p>\n               <\/jats:sec>\n               <jats:sec>\n                  <jats:title>Availability and implementation<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>The R package qcSSMDhomo is freely available from GitHub: https:\/\/github.com\/Karena6688\/qcSSMDhomo. The file qcSSMDhomo_1.0.0.tar.gz (for Windows) containing qcSSMDhomo is also available at Bioinformatics online. qcSSMDhomo is distributed under the GNU General Public License.<\/jats:p>\n               <\/jats:sec>\n               <jats:sec>\n                  <jats:title>Supplementary information<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.<\/jats:p>\n               <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1093\/bioinformatics\/btaa1049","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,9]],"date-time":"2020-12-09T05:04:36Z","timestamp":1607490276000},"page":"5299-5303","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Issues of Z-factor and an approach to avoid them for quality control in high-throughput screening studies"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"36","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2486-7931","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xiaohua Douglas","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"CRDA, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau , Taipa, Macau 999078, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Dandan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CRDA, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau , Taipa, Macau 999078, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Shixue","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CRDA, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau , Taipa, Macau 999078, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Heping","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Biostatistics, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06511, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,12,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"2023062708405275500_btaa1049-B1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"787","DOI":"10.1038\/nmeth1010-787","article-title":"Academic screening goes high-throughput","volume":"7","author":"Baker","year":"2010","journal-title":"Nat. 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Combinatorial chemistry still needs logic to drive science forward","volume":"321","author":"Beeley","year":"2000","journal-title":"BMJ"},{"key":"2023062708405275500_btaa1049-B5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"569","DOI":"10.1038\/nmeth.1351","article-title":"Statistical methods for analysis of high-throughput RNA interference screens","volume":"6","author":"Birmingham","year":"2009","journal-title":"Nat. Methods"},{"key":"2023062708405275500_btaa1049-B6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37741","DOI":"10.1038\/srep37741","article-title":"mQC: a heuristic quality-control metric for high-throughput drug combination screening","volume":"6","author":"Chen","year":"2016","journal-title":"Sci. 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