Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Results-Free Review Reduce Publication Bias? The Results and Implications of a Pilot Study

In 2015, Comparative Political Studies embarked on a landmark pilot study in research transparency in the social sciences. The editors issued an open call for submissions of manuscripts that contained no mention of their actual results, incentivizing reviewers to evaluate manuscripts based on their theoretical contributions, research designs, and analysis plans. The three papers in this special issue are the result of this process that began with 19 submissions. In this article, we describe the rationale for this pilot, expressly articulating the practices of preregistration and results-free review. We document the process of carrying out the special issue with a discussion of the three accepted papers, and critically evaluate the role of both preregistration and results-free review. Our main conclusions are that results-free review encourages much greater attention to theory and research design, but that it raises thorny problems about how to anticipate and interpret null findings. We also observe that as currently practiced, results-free review has a particular affinity with experimental and cross-case methodologies. Our lack of submissions from scholars using qualitative or interpretivist research suggests limitations to the widespread use of results-free review.
Die Kerndokumentation rheumakranker Kinder und Jugendlicher

Zusammenfassung Die Kerndokumentation für rheumakranke Kinder und Jugendliche wird seit 1997 bundesweit durchgeführt. Seit 1999 ist sie im Rahmen des Kompetenznetzes Rheuma verankert. Mit ihr werden einmal pro Jahr Arzt- und Patientenangaben zu juvenilen entzündlich-rheumatischen Krankheiten erhoben. Inzwischen nehmen über 40 kinderrheumatologische Einrichtungen an der Dokumentation teil. 6 000 Kinder und Jugendliche werden pro Jahr erfasst. Mit der Kerndokumentation werden Standards und Trends in der kinderrheumatologischen Versorgung aufgezeigt, Versorgungsdefizite identifiziert und die subjektive und objektive Krankheitslast rheumatischer Krankheitsbilder im Kindesalter beschrieben. Darüber hinaus werden mit ihr seit 2002 aktuelle praxisrelevante Fragestellungen (z. B. die Inanspruchnahme alternativer Heilverfahren) über Zusatzmodule aufgegriffen. Die Ergebnisse der Kerndokumentation weisen auf mögliche Probleme bei der Behandlung der seltenen entzündlich-rheumatischen Krankheitsbilder im Kindesalter hin und verdeutlichen die Notwendigkeit einer spezialisierten Betreuung der Betroffenen. Ihre Daten helfen, die Versorgung rheumakranker Kinder und Jugendlicher zu optimieren.
Accurate Three‐Dimensional Registration of CT, PET, and/or MR Images of the Brain

A surface matching technique has been developed to register multiple imaging scans of the brain in three dimensions, with accuracy on the order of the image pixel sizes. Anatomic information visualized in X-ray CT and magnetic resonance images may be integrated with each other and with functional information from positron emission tomography. Anatomical structures and other volumes of interest may be mapped from one scan to another, and corresponding sections through multiple scans may be directly compared. This capability provides a novel quantitative method to address the fundamental problem of relating structure to function in the brain. Applications include basic and clinical problems in the neurosciences and delivery and assessment of brain tumor therapy.
From the Cover: Ecosystem Services Special Feature: Ecosystem services: From theory to implementation

Even in the face of intensifying pressures and risks on the global environmental front, there is a growing feeling of Renaissance in the conservation community. This flows from the promise in reaching, together with a much more diverse and powerful set of leaders than in the past, for new approaches that align economic forces with conservation, and that explicitly link human and environmental well-being (1). And this promise is flowering thanks to substantial recent advances in key areas of inquiry, such as ecology, economics, and institutions, and their integration (2–5). Conservation efforts now are expanding into realms well beyond reserves, beyond charity, and beyond biodiversity—and into the mainstream (6). While retaining a core focus on protected areas designed to sustain biodiversity, the new arenas of conservation are much bigger and much more complex than the old. They encompass new places dominated by human activity, new revenue streams from public and private sectors, and new goals of ecosystem service provision. In fact, they encompass important elements of traditional, non-Western approaches (7, 8). Scholars and practitioners are seeking to make conservation economically attractive and commonplace, routine in the decision-making of individuals, communities, corporations, and governments (9). Here, we feature contributions that span the fundamental science of ecosystem services through to the design, implementation, and assessment of finance and policy mechanisms and systems of governance. Each contribution is oriented around decisions, often cast in terms of tradeoffs among alternative future scenarios of change, whether in natural resource management, population, climate, or other key drivers.
[Muscle strength and gait patterns of depressed people].

BACKGROUND Gait characteristic and muscle power are often described in the clinical literature but with little empirical support. We assessed some parameters of gait and muscle power using simple and standardized methods within a framework based principally on classic clinical observations of depression. METHOD 20 depressed inpatients were examined with standard tests of isometric muscle power and gait parameters, which measure step length, average walking speed, maximal walking speed, and three-minute walk distance. The results were compared with those of 20 matched healthy controls. The examination procedure was repeated after a three week period of inpatient treatment and significant symptomatic improvement. RESULTS As predicted by our hypothesis depressed patients' muscle power and gait characteristics differed clearly from normal controls. Significant improvements after 3 weeks of inpatient treatment were found above all in extension of the knee and extension of the elbow tests as well as in all measures of our gait analysis. However, all gait parameters still differed significantly from those of healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS Using simple but reliable tests which were used for the first time in psychiatry we examined certain relationships between depression and motor function in a moderately to severely depressed inpatient sample.
Ultrafast dephasing of surface plasmon excitation in silver nanoparticles: influence of particle size, shape, and chemical surrounding.

By combination of two special methods, i.e., persistent spectral hole burning and laser assisted nanoparticle preparation, the dephasing time T2 of surface plasmon excitation in silver nanoparticles was systematically investigated. A strong dependence of T2 on the plasmon energy is found which reflects the relevance of interband damping and makes necessary a precise control of the particle shape when measuring T2. The influence of the reduced dimension on the dephasing dynamics was observed as a decrease of T2 with shrinking particle size. In addition, for silver nanoparticles on quartz substrates, a considerable amount of chemical interface damping was observed.
Echocardiographic Abnormalities in the Assessment of Cardiac Organ Damage in Never-Treated Hypertensive Patients

Hypertension-related cardiac organ damage, other than left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (LVH), has been described: in particular, concentric remodeling, LV diastolic dysfunction (DD), and left atrial (LA) enlargement are significantly associated with cardiovascular morbility and mortality in different populations. This study evaluated the prevalence of these latter morphofunctional abnormalities, in never-treated essential hypertensive patients and the role of such a serial assessment of hypertensive cardiac damage in improving cardiovascular risk stratification in these patients. A total of 100 never-treated essential hypertensive subjects underwent a complete clinical and echocardiographic evaluation. Left ventricular morphology, systolic and diastolic function, and LA dimension (linear and volume) were evaluated by echocardiography. Left ventricular hypertrophy was present in 14% of the patients, whereas concentric remodeling was present in 25% of the subjects. Among patients free from LV morphology abnormalities, the most frequent abnormality was LA enlargement (global prevalence 57%); the percentage of patients with at least one parameter consistent with DD was 22% in the entire population, but DD was present as the only cardiac abnormality in 1% of our patient. Left atrial volume indexed for body surface area was the most sensitive parameter in identifying hypertension-related cardiac modification. The global prevalence of cardiac alteration reached 73% in never-treated hypertensive patients. Left ventricular remodeling and LA enlargement evaluation may grant a better assessment of cardiac organ damage and cardiovascular risk stratification of hypertensive patients without evidence of LVH after routine examination.
Methods and Tools for Support of Graphs and Visual Processing

The main thesis of this paper is that intricate nature of software systems can, and in our opinion should, be represented by graph models. Graphs are used in computer science almost everywhere, since graph is a very natural way of explaining complex situations on an intuitive level. In the paper, methods and systems for visual processing of graphs and graph models are presented. Our book series intended to be a general guide on graph algorithms is outlined. A dictionary of graph theory in computer science and its electronic version are described. Key-Words: Hierarchical graphs, graph algorithms, graph models, visual processing, dictionary of graph theory.
Features Selection Using Differential Evolution in Motor-Imagery Based Brain Machine Interface

We exploit filter bank common spatial patterns (FBCSP) to extract raw features of EEG signals (using different frequency bands) and differential evolution (DE) algorithm to select optimal features. Since frequency bands vary from one subject to another and yield a large number of features, our mission is twofold: (i) overcome the curse of dimensionality; and (ii) select frequency bands that can lead to a better recognition performance. These two issues are addressed using differential evolution (DE) algorithm for feature selection. The results are compared to the six top results of the BCI competition IV. The proposed method is promising since it has outperformed the methods reported in the BCI competition IV 2b datasets.
Acoustic approaches to gender and accent identification

There has been considerable research on the problems of speaker and language recognition from samples of speech. A less researched problem is that of accent recognition. Although this is a similar problem to language identification, di�erent accents of a language exhibit more fine-grained di�erences between classes than languages. This presents a tougher problem for traditional classification techniques. In this thesis, we propose and evaluate a number of techniques for gender and accent classification. These techniques are novel modifications and extensions to state of the art algorithms, and they result in enhanced performance on gender and accent recognition. The first part of the thesis focuses on the problem of gender identification, and presents a technique that gives improved performance in situations where training and test conditions are mismatched. The bulk of this thesis is concerned with the application of the i-Vector technique to accent identification, which is the most successful approach to acoustic classification to have emerged in recent years. We show that it is possible to achieve high accuracy accent identification without reliance on transcriptions and without utilising phoneme recognition algorithms. The thesis describes various stages in the development of i-Vector based accent classification that improve the standard approaches usually applied for speaker or language identification, which are insu�cient. We demonstrate that very good accent identification performance is possible with acoustic methods by considering di�erent i-Vector projections, frontend parameters, i-Vector configuration parameters, and an optimised fusion of the resulting i-Vector classifiers we can obtain from the same data. We claim to have achieved the best accent identification performance on the test corpus for acoustic methods, with up to 90% identification rate. This performance is even better than previously reported acoustic-phonotactic based systems on the same corpus, and is very close to performance obtained via transcription based accent identification. Finally, we demonstrate that the utilization of our techniques for speech recognition purposes leads to considerably lower word error rates. Keywords: Accent Identification, Gender Identification, Speaker Identification, Gaussian Mixture Model, Support Vector Machine, i-Vector, Factor Analysis, Feature Extraction, British English, Prosody, Speech Recognition.
Comparative Analysis of Detection Systems for Evaluation of PCR Amplified Immunoglobulin Heavy‐Chain Gene Rearrangements

Four different detection systems were compared for evaluation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene rearrangements in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) of B-cell lineage. In 63.0% of the fragments detected by ethidium bromide stained agarose gel electrophoresis (Agarose-EtBr) the sensitivity was insufficient to separate the specific clonal population from the background of normal B cells. Using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), PAGE combined with single-strand conformation polymorphism (PAGE-SSCP) and PhastGel-SSCP (Phast-SSCP) analysis with silver staining, the resolution was imporved and the majority of the inconclusive amplicons were elucidated. However, Phast-SSCP displayed a slightly higher detection level compared to PAGE and PAGE-SSCP. According to our findings PAGE-SSCP and Phast-SSCP were superior to agarose-EtBr and PAGE in detecting new emerging clones and clonal evolution.
Recombinant bovine somatotropin improves growth performance in finishing beef steers.

The objectives of this study were to determine the efficacy of various doses of rbST on ADG and feed efficiency (FE) and to describe carcass composition changes in finishing beef steers. In Exp. 1, 96 crossbred beef steers (393 kg) received daily i.m. injections of buffer or 33, 100, or 300 micrograms/kg of BW of rbST (0ST, 33ST, 100ST, 300ST). In Exp. 2, 200 crossbred beef steers (417 kg) received daily i.m. injections of buffer or 8.25, 16.5, 33, or 66 micrograms/kg of BW or rbST (0ST, 8.25ST, 16.5ST, 33ST, 66ST). Treatments were administered until steer BW per pen averaged 540 kg in Exp. 1 and 560 kg in Exp. 2. An 86% concentrate: 14% roughage diet was fed once daily (CP: 16.5% in Exp. 1, 20.2% in Exp. 2). In Exp. 1, growth performance of steers receiving rbST was dose-dependent; ADG changed linearly (P = .01), DMI decreased linearly (P = .03), and FE changed quadratically (P less than .03). The 33ST steers responded with improved ADG and FE, 100ST with improved FE, and 300ST with lower ADG and poorer FE, compared with 0ST. In Exp. 2, the ADG response was quadratic (P = .01), DMI decreased linearly (P = .003), and FE improved quadratically (P = .004) with increasing dose of rbST. Steers receiving 16.5ST and 33ST responded with improved ADG and FE, whereas steers receiving 8.25ST and 66ST responded with improved FE but not ADG relative to 0ST steers. In Exp. 1 and 2, rbST administration altered carcass composition by increasing carcass protein and decreasing carcass fat. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Efficacy of sildenafil in a patient with restless legs syndrome/Willis-Ekbom disease.

To the Editor R estless legs syndrome (RLS)/WillisEkbom disease (WED) is a chronic neurosensory disorder that is characterized by a strong urge to move, accompanied by an uncomfortable paresthesia in the legs. Symptom severity follows a circadian rhythm, meaning that the symptoms are usually absent in the morning and typically stronger in the evening. There are no biomarkers for RLS/WED, so the diagnosis is clinical and is based on mostly subjective symptoms. The etiology of “primary RLS/WED” is not clear, but it is known that “secondary RLS/WED” is caused by other underlying pathologies and is treated by remedying those conditions. The first line of treatment for primary RLS/WED consists of dopaminergic medications. However, there has been a recent surge of studies researching the historical pathophysiology model. It asserts that hypoxia, due to decreased peripheral blood flow, is at least partially responsible for the characteristic unpleasant sensations and the urge to move. We describe the serendipitous findings of decreased RLS symptoms after taking sildenafil, a drug approved to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Informed consent was obtained from the patient. The subject was a married 47-year-old white man with average height and weight. He is a nonsmoker. He was first diagnosed with RLS/WED 2004 but has been suffering from it since childhood. He has a family history of RLS/WED. For the last 7 years, his symptoms have been managed with pramipexole 35 mg, a dopamine agonist, taken every evening at about 10 PM. Some nights he had to take an additional 50 to 100 mg tramadol, an analgesic and opioid, to reduce his symptoms and fall asleep. The patient did not take any other medication. The start of the RLS/WED symptoms was always in the evening. He never noticed daytime symptoms. The systems review excluded the differential diagnosis of neuropathy and other pathologies (eg, hypertension, arthritis, depression, and diabetes) as well as lifestyle factors (eg, increased bodymass index, being
A laser-based mobile robot navigation in structured environment

This paper describes the navigation system of the mobile robot ROMANE. A navigation architecture is presented to integrate the tasks which together allow the robot to move in a known or unknown environment with dynamic obstacles. The tasks are distributed to several CPU, under a real time operating system, linked in networks. In order to reach a final goal the robot passes several different sub-goals. A sub-goal is a passage point which must be seen by an external sensor. A laser scanner is used for environment perception. The local map is generated by segment and corner primitives. The subgoal is updated by interpretation of the local map. A path generator then plans a path from robot to sub-goal. To find the goal and to execute the path the robot needs to know its position, therefore two localization tasks (relative and absolute) are developed. The fundamental problem of integration is the computation time of each task. The algorithms are optimized in time to overcome the problem of their integration in the navigation system. The present system can update the sub-goal 4 times per second. This system is developed in order to be transferred and integrated onto an autonomous power wheelchair.
L-TRYPTOPHAN APPLICATION ENHANCES THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RHIZOBIUM INOCULATION FOR IMPROVING GROWTH AND YIELD OF MUNGBEAN (VIGNA RADIATA (L.) WILCZEK)

Rhizobium inoculation has successfully been used for improving growth and yield of legume crops in different parts of the world. L-Tryptophan (L-TRP) application may further improve its effectiveness due to substrate-dependent inoculum-derived auxins in the rhizosphere. Rhizobium phaseoli strains were isolated using dilution plate technique from the mung bean nodules. Auxin biosynthesis by these rhizobial isolates was determined in the absence and presence of L-TRP, a physiological precursor of auxins. Rhizobial isolates varied widely in auxins biosynthesis capabilities and N42 being the highest auxin producer strain was further evaluated in the presence of different levels of L-TRP (10 -3 , 10 -4 and 10 -5 M) for improving the growth and yield of mung bean. Mung bean seeds were inoculated with peat-based inoculum and sown following randomized complete block design with four replications. Fertilizers, NP were applied at 30-60 kg ha -1 as urea and single super phosphate (SSP) in all plots. Results revealed that L-TRP (10 -4 and 10 -5 M) and rhizobial inoculation when applied alone significantly increased the growth and yield of mung bean compared to untreated control. However, Rhizobium inoculation supplemented with L-TRP (10 -4 M) gave the most promising results and significantly increased the plant height, number of nodules plant -1 , nodular mass plant -1 , number of grains pod -1 , number of pods plant -1 , total plant biomass, grain yield and 1000-grain weight up to 28, 80, 77, 46, 54, 58, 57 and 17%, respectively compared to uninoculated control. Similarly, N concentration in grains also increased significantly at this LTRP level by the rhizobial inoculation. The results imply that supplementing rhizobial inoculation with L-TRP could be a useful approach for improving growth, nodulation and yield of mung bean.
Effects of hyperthyroidism and radioactive iodine given to ablate the thyroid on the composition of whole stimulated saliva

OBJECTIVE For many years there has been speculation about possible damage to the salivary glands following administration of ablative doses of radioactive iodine for treatment of hyperthyroidism. We have investigated the changes that occur in the composition of saliva in hyperthyroidism and after the administration of an ablative dose of radioactive iodine to hyperthyroid subjects.
GPU-Meta-Storms: Computing the similarities among massive microbial communities using GPU

With the development of next-generation sequencing and metagenomic technologies, the number of metagenomic samples of microbial communities is increasing with exponential speed. The comparison among metagenomic samples could facilitate the data mining of the valuable yet hidden biological information held in the massive metagenomic data. However, current methods for metagenomic comparison are limited by their ability to process very large number of samples each with large data size. In this work, we have developed an optimized GPU-based metagenomic comparison algorithm, GPU-Meta-Storms, to evaluate the quantitative phylogenetic similarity among massive metagenomic samples, and implemented it using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) and C++ programming. The GPU-Meta-Storms program is optimized for CUDA with non-recursive transform, register recycle, memory alignment and so on. Our results have shown that with the optimization of the phylogenetic comparison algorithm, memory accessing strategy and parallelization mechanism on many-core hardware architecture, GPU-Meta-Storms could compute the pair-wise similarity matrix for 1920 metagenomic samples in 4 minutes, which gained a speed-up of more than 1000 times compared to CPU version Meta-Storms on single-core CPU, and more than 100 times on 16-core CPU. Therefore, the high-performance of GPU-Meta-Storms in comparison with massive metagenomic samples could thus enable in-depth data mining from massive metagenomic data, and make the real-time analysis and monitoring of constantly-changing metagenomic samples possible.