@classmethod
def parseKwargs(cls, config_stats, logger=None):
    """Parse the stats field of a configuration dict and return the kwargs to use for
        initializing an instance of the class.

        The base class implementation just returns the kwargs as they are, but derived classes
        might want to override this if they need to do something more sophisticated with them.

        :param config_stats:    The stats field of the configuration dict, config['stats']
        :param logger:          A logger object for logging debug info. [default: None]

        :returns: a kwargs dict to pass to the initializer
        """
    kwargs = {}
    kwargs.update(config_stats)
    kwargs.pop('type', None)
    return kwargs
