AWFisher

AWFisher is an R package that implements an improved version of the adaptively weighted Fisher's method (AW-Fisher) for meta-analysis of multiple clinical or genomic studies. The package offers the following key features and improvements:

1. Importance sampling scheme with spline interpolation: This enhancement increases the accuracy and speed of P-value calculation, especially when the number of studies (K) is large and the possible differential expression pattern categories (3K - 1) become intractable.

2. Bootstrapping: The package applies bootstrapping to construct a variability index for the AW-Fisher weight estimator and a co-membership matrix. This matrix categorizes (clusters) differentially expressed genes based on their meta-patterns, facilitating intuitive biological investigations.

3. Improved biological interpretability: AWFisher characterizes which studies contribute to the meta-analysis, providing better biological interpretability than the original AW-Fisher method.