Bias In Favour Research Articles

Disconnect between signalling potency and in vivo efficacy of pharmacokinetically optimised biased glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to determine how pharmacokinetically advantageous acylation impacts on glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) signal bias, trafficking, anti-hyperglycaemic efficacy, and appetite suppression. MethodsIn vitro signalling responses were measured using biochemical and biosensor assays. GLP-1R trafficking was determined by confocal microscopy and diffusion-enhanced resonance energy transfer. Pharmacokinetics, glucoregulatory effects, and appetite suppression were measured in acute, sub-chronic, and chronic settings in mice. ResultsA C-terminally acylated ligand, [F1,G40,K41.C16 diacid]exendin-4, was identified that showed undetectable β-arrestin recruitment and GLP-1R internalisation. Depending on the cellular system used, this molecule was up to 1000-fold less potent than the comparator [D3,G40,K41.C16 diacid]exendin-4 for cyclic AMP signalling, yet was considerably more effective in vivo, particularly for glucose regulation. ConclusionsC-terminal acylation of biased GLP-1R agonists increases their degree of signal bias in favour of cAMP production and improves their therapeutic potential.

Death of an outcome – consequences of stigmergy in our examinations

This paper reports on an analysis of questions in physics examination papers at matriculation and first-year university level. The intention is to throw light on an on-going concern, sometimes expressed by university level physics instructors, that there is a general weakness in problem-solving ability among their students. This begs several questions; the first and most obvious one being what we mean by ‘problem-solving’. The second is whether this perceived weakness has an objective reality. Evidence supporting this can be found in both the literature and in examination results. The third question asks what might be causing this state of affairs. To attempt to answer this, examination papers at both matriculation and university level (first-year) were analysed with a view to finding what types of questions are typically asked, and to ascertain whether there may perhaps be a bias in favour of - or against - specific types of question. The evidence shows that there is indeed a favoured question-type that can be explicitly taught, and relatively easily mastered - and which typically makes up a sufficiently large fraction of an examination that a candidate can pass the examination without having to demonstrate any real problem-solving ability. What an examination candidate does need to demonstrate is a well-developed ability to expedite routine operations at various levels of complexity, which - depending on one’s espoused definition - does not amount to problem-solving. The bias away from novel (or heuristic) problem-solving is here seen as a stigmergic sign that indicates to candidates, instructors and examiners alike that the ability to deal with novelty, which is the essence of problem-solving, is not needed in order to pass - or even to do well in - these high-stakes examinations. Hence the need either to teach or to learn problem-solving could come to be seen as unnecessary. This state of affairs is repeated - and hence reinforced - at each successive annual iteration.

Role of higher education in the sustainability of water resources: an assessment of institutions in India

Abstract The motivation behind this paper is to understand the status of water resources management education provided in higher education institutions (HEIs) in India and decipher gaps between what is taught and what is needed in the field. The assessment has been carried out based on the information available on the respective websites of the HEIs using keywords. The authors have also reached out to faculty members and final-year students in universities/HEIs in India. There are a good number of HEIs in India, which offer educational programmes in water-related subjects, though their distribution is skewed and there seems to be a clear bias in favour of the technological aspects of water. Relatively fewer HEIs engage themselves in social, economic and gender-related issues. It is imperative to popularise research in the social, economic and regulatory aspects of water management. Not all HEIs have provided information about the areas of research they engage in, on their websites. Further, a limited number of faculty members and students have responded to the questionnaires. The preparedness of any country in addressing its current challenges can be gauged from the incorporation and subsequent entrenchment of these roles into the fabric of HEIs. This article can be looked upon as reference documents which will go a long way to enabling the identification of synergies, interlinkages and collaboration opportunities to find solutions for a plethora of challenges.

How scientific papers mention grey literature: a scientometric study based on Scopus data

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insight into the use of the term and concept of grey literature in recent scientific papers.Design/methodology/approachThe author conducted a scientometric analysis with Scopus data on 1,606 papers mentioning grey (or gray) literature published in 2018. Additionally, the author analysed the evolution between 1999 and 2018, and performed a content analysis on a random subsample of 70 papers in open access.FindingsThe percentage of papers that mention grey literature is low (0.05%) but steadily rising. They are from over 100 countries and a long tail of institutions, covering, namely, medical and health sciences and related topics. The dominant document type is systematic reviews, defining grey literature generally thought of as “unpublished”, “not peer reviewed” and “not in databases” and meaning, most of the time, all kinds of reports and conference papers. A large variety of sources and options on how to retrieve grey literature is mentioned, including Google and Google Scholar, specialised digital libraries, relevant websites, handsearching in bibliographic references and contact with experts in the field.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to papers indexed in the Scopus database, mainly journals, written in English, with a bias in favour of medical and life sciences.Originality/valueThere is no recent study on the real usage of the term of grey literature in a large sample of academic papers.

Exploring the Trade (Policy) Narratives in Top Economics Journals

In the aftermath of recent populist upheavals in Europe, nationalist economic policies challenge the overly positive view on economic integration and the reduction of trade barriers established by standard economic theory. For quite a long time the great majority of economists supported trade liberalization policies, at least those actively engaged in policy advice or public debates. In this paper, we examine the elite economics discourse on trade policies during the last 20 years regarding specific characteristics of authors, affiliations, citation patterns, the overall attitude towards trade, as well as the methodological approach applied in these papers. Our analysis yields the following results: First, the hierarchical structure of economics also manifests in the debate about trade. Second, while we found some indications of a shift towards more empirically oriented work, quite often empirical data is solely used to calibrate models rather than to challenge potentially biased theoretical assumptions. Third, top economic discourses on trade are predominantly characterised by a normative bias in favour of trade liberalization policies. Forth, we found that other-than-economic impacts and implications of trade policies (political, social and cultural as well as environmental issues) to a great extent either remain unmentioned or are rationalised by means of pure economic criteria.

Emotional memory bias in binge drinking women

BackgroundHeightened emotionality and overrepresentation of memories are typical features of adolescence. Binge drinking (BD) during emerging adulthood has been linked to cognitive difficulties such as deficits in episodic memory. Despite that impairments in emotional functioning have been associated with the development of alcohol use disorders, particularly in females, the emotional sphere has been relatively unexplored in BDs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of BD in emotional episodic memory from a gender perspective. MethodsOne hundred and eighty (96 females) university students were followed during two years (18–20 years old) and their alcohol use was recorded. In the last assessment, participants completed an emotional list-learning task. Generalized linear mixed models were applied separately for males and females, in accordance with sex differences in the development of emotion circuitry. ResultsIn females, BD was associated with an emotional memory bias in favour of negative information and lower recall of positive and neutral words. In addition, females BDs showed more false alarms for negative distractors. Whereas in males, no alcohol-related effects were found. ConclusionsFemale BDs present a negative memory bias, poor learning and delayed episodic recall linked to the interference of negative content, which suggests difficulties in disengaging attention to salient negative stimuli and a reduction of inhibitory capacities. This might result in greater vulnerability to alcohol-related emotional disturbances among women. Further research is needed to understand the role of emotional regulation in the escalation of alcohol abuse from a gender perspective.

Attentional and perceptual asymmetries in an immersive decision-making task.

Pseudoneglect represents the tendency in healthy people to show a slight bias in favour of stimuli appearing in the left visual field. Some studies have shown that this leftward bias can be annulled or reserved towards a rightward bisection bias when lateral attentional biases are assessed in far space. Using an immersive simulated, ecologically valid football task, we investigated whether possible attentional and perceptual asymmetries affect sport-specific decision making. Twenty-seven sport athletes were required to judge different game situations, which involved both perceptual and attentional skills to perceive player configurations in the visual periphery. We did not find any performance differences in accuracy rate between the left and right visual field side for stimuli presented close to the screen centre in an object-detection (perception-based) and feature-recognition (attention-based) task. This result is in line with previous findings showing an absence of a left- or rightward bisection bias in far space. However, accuracy was higher for stimuli being presented at visual angles wide away from the screen centre at the left side compared to the right side of visual field. This finding cannot be explained by literature focusing on pseudoneglect in far space, but rather by previous findings on landmark judgments often showing left bias both in near and in far space. Overall, the current findings provide new perspectives on attentional and perceptual asymmetries in real-world scenarios, and different interpretations of results are discussed.

Change from Above and Resistance to Change in the Early Prescriptive Pronouncing Dictionaries of English

Abstract To what extent is it possible to interpret the data of pronouncing dictionaries of the 18th century in sociolinguistic terms? Several answers are provided by resorting to Labov’s concepts of change from above and change from below the level of awareness. A systematic investigation of John Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791, 1809), the most complete and cumulative of all such dictionaries of the time, makes it possible to show that an orthoepist like Walker often reflects the pressure in favour of change from above for vowel quality and resistance to such a change in matters of stress placement. By preferring analogy to conservative pronunciations due to his bias in favour of a rational pattern, Walker also links analogy to the “vernacular instinct”, promoting variant forms witnessing a change from below. And many other changes under way in his time, which pass unnoticed in the orthoepist’s discourse and transcriptions, properly deserve to be treated as changes from below, thus making his dictionary the common ground for pressures from above and pressures from below. Walker’s prescription is a complex combination of both promotion of, and resistance to pressures from above according to criteria that reflect the ideals of the upper middle class.

Selective autophagy, lipophagy and mitophagy, in the Harderian gland along the oestrous cycle: a potential retrieval effect of melatonin

Sexual dimorphism has been reported in many processes. However, sexual bias in favour of the use of males is very present in science. One of the main reasons is that the impact of hormones in diverse pathways and processes such as autophagy have not been properly addressed in vivo. The Harderian gland is a perfect model to study autophagic modulation as it exhibits important changes during the oestrous cycle. The aim of this study is to identify the main processes behind Harderian gland differences under oestrous cycle and their modulator. In the present study we show that redox-sensitive transcription factors have an essential role: NF-κB may activate SQSTM1/p62 in oestrus, promoting selective types of autophagy: mitophagy and lipophagy. Nrf2 activation in dioestrus, leads the retrieval phase and restoration of mitochondrial homeostasis. Melatonin’s receptors show higher expression in dioestrus, leading to decreases in pro-inflammatory mediators and enhanced Nrf2 expression. Consequently, autophagy is blocked, and porphyrin release is reduced. All these results point to melatonin as one of the main modulators of the changes in autophagy during the oestrous cycle.

Rules of engagement: Reactions to internal and external criticism in public debate.

Since 2014, the refugee crisis has launched a political shockwave across Europe, with consequences for the European Union, the Schengen Zone, and national politics. Within this context, we investigated how public statements about the refugee crisis are received. While debate and criticism are hallmarks of a democratic society, research demonstrates that people respond more negatively to criticism about their group from an outsider compared with an insider. But does this reflect a protective bias in favour of one’s own group, or a more principled position against criticism from outsiders independently of one’s own group membership? In three experimental studies, people apply the principle of preferring internal over external criticism, even to the point of penalizing in‐group members who criticized outgroups. This preference for internal over external criticism is guided by perceptions that internal critics are more constructive and more expert than external critics.

Types of marketing: fad or a necessity?

PurposeThis study aims to analyse the spread of terms describing “marketing types” (e.g. services marketing) in the marketing and non-marketing literature and to determine whether the research into specific terms represents a fashion trend.Design/methodology/approachA total of 113 marketing terms were identified by content-analysing all the articles indexed in the web of science. These data were used to estimate a panel model, which predicted the number of articles that refer to a specific marketing type over a 20 years’ period.FindingsThe model estimation indicates that the “age” of a marketing term has a significant effect on the number of articles published using that term, after controlling for previous research. This effect is not significant for top-tier journals.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research might undertake more comprehensive analyses by including other scientific outlets (e.g. white papers) and databases.Practical implicationsThe results offer new insights for researchers interested in bibliometrics and knowledge diffusion. It warns practitioners and academia about a bias in favour of novel terms.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates a “fad effect” that may undermine research into traditional marketing fields. It helps to identify past and current research priorities.

Which doctors do we trust? A vignette experiment of how gender and ethnicity influence trust

Is people’s trust in doctors affected by their ethnicity or gender? It is often assumed that highly skilled migrants are protected from the worst effects of discrimination. Yet, they also report high degrees of discrimination. This study examines whether ethnic and gendered stereotypes influence trust in general practitioners in Norway. The question is investigated using a survey experiment. Respondents receive a brief resume of a general practitioner where the ethnicity and gender of the physician are randomly varied. Thereafter, the study focuses on investigating the interaction between the respondents' and fictive GPs' ethnicity and gender. The results show that while the majority population is indifferent to the ethnicity of the physicians, they prefer females. Non-Western minorities have a bias in favour of Pakistani-named GPs but are indifferent to the GP's gender.

Real-time social reasoning: the effect of disfluency on the meaning of some

The scalar quantifier some is locally ambiguous between pragmatic (some-but-not-all) and literal (some-and-possibly-all) meanings. Although comprehenders typically favour an eventual pragmatic interpretation, debate persists regarding what factors influence interpretation, the time course of comprehension, and whether literal meaning takes precedence. We investigate how the interpretation of some depends on social reasoning derived from a speaker’s manner of delivery. Specifically, we test the effect of disfluency on the derivation of meaning in a context where hesitation may signal speaker embarrassment due to potential face-loss associated with the literal meaning of “some”. Participants (n=24) viewed displays comprising two different snack quantities while hearing a recorded utterance describing how much a speaker had eaten. Critical utterances (n=16) contained the quantifier some, half with a filled pause disfluency (“I ate <uh>, some oreos”). Participants’ eye and mouse movements showed (via empirical logit regressions) that fluent utterances yielded a bias toward a pragmatic interpretation, while disfluency attenuated this bias in favour of the literal meaning (where the speaker ate all the oreos). Crucially, this difference emerged rapidly post-onset of some. Taken together, our findings do not support a literal-first account of scalar comprehension, but rather, suggest that some is interpreted rapidly in a context-dependent manner.

Reduced bias nonparametric lifetime density and hazard estimation.

Kernel-based nonparametric hazard rate estimation is considered with a special class of infinite-order kernels that achieves favorable bias and mean square error properties. A fully automatic and adaptive implementation of a density and hazard rate estimator is proposed for randomly right censored data. Careful selection of the bandwidth in the proposed estimators yields estimates that are more efficient in terms of overall mean squared error performance, and in some cases achieves a nearly parametric convergence rate. Additionally, rapidly converging bandwidth estimates are presented for use in second-order kernels to supplement such kernel-based methods in hazard rate estimation. Simulations illustrate the improved accuracy of the proposed estimator against other nonparametric estimators of the density and hazard function. A real data application is also presented on survival data from 13,166 breast carcinoma patients.

A reappraisal of the phylogeny of Mylodontidae (Mammalia, Xenarthra) and the divergence of mylodontine and lestodontine sloths

AbstractThe phylogeny of mylodontid sloths has recently been the subject of multiple studies. Contrasting hypotheses have been proposed, especially for the relationships among late Miocene–Pleistocene mylodontines and lestodontines. In this paper, a new and detailed phylogenetic analysis is conducted, after adding new characters and taxa previously unexplored from a phylogenetic point of view. New features derived from postcranial skeletal anatomy are added to previous studies based on craniodental evidence. In this way, the current reappraisal represents the first exhaustive phylogenetic study on the Mylodontidae that incorporates features coded for the entire skeleton. When available, multiple specimens of each bony element are observed for each operational taxonomic unit, in order to take into account intraspecific variation. The taxonomic sample of this study considers Mylodontinae at the specific level. However, many other Mylodontidae are considered, and their phylogenetic relationships tested. The taxonomic sample of this study is enriched with new taxa from central and northern South America, with the aim of compensating for the knowledge bias in favour of austral mylodontids, which have historically been more extensively studied than those from tropical latitudes. Special emphasis is given to the phylogenetic relationships of Mylodontinae, and particularly to the mylodontine and lestodontine sloths, that are recovered in the present study as monophyletic clades, and together form a larger monophyletic group. According to the present results, the Mylodontini–Lestodontini split occurred at the middle–late Miocene transition, giving rise to independent adaptive radiations across South and North America.

International reconciliation on the Internet? Ontological security, attribution and the construction of war memory narratives in Wikipedia

This article explores the Internet’s often touted potential for facilitating reconciliation. It conceptualises Wikipedia as a site for collective memory construction and analyses the Chinese- and Japanese-language entries on the bilaterally contentious Second Sino-Japanese War. It addresses the question of how to make sense of the construction of these online collective memory narratives theoretically. Both historical determinism and instrumentalism – two influential theoretical approaches to collective memory and reconciliation – have great difficulties in fully accounting for this case. Instead, it is argued that ontological security theory is better equipped for understanding collective memory construction in Wikipedia. It is suggested that ontological security seeking can impede efforts for reconciliation even when, as in Wikipedia, there exist norms seeking to promote more neutral narratives. It is argued that a subtle bias in favour of the in-group and against the out-group functions as a mechanism for ontological security management that protects a positive self-identity.

Do people who feel connected to nature do more to protect it? A meta-analysis

Using meta-analysis, we examined whether there is evidence consistent with the idea that a subjective sense of “connection to nature” promotes pro-environmental behaviour (PEB; Mayer & Frantz, 2004; Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2009). Analysis of correlational data (k = 75) provided compelling evidence for a strong and robust association between nature connection and PEB (r = 0.37). Nature connection was positively associated with PEB across different operationalizations of nature connection, across different PEB measures (i.e., behavioural intentions, self-reports of behaviour, and observed behaviour), and across various sample and demographic characteristics. We found no evidence of publication bias in correlational studies. For experimental manipulations of nature connection (k = 17), however, there was clear evidence of publication bias in favour of studies reporting positive effects. We addressed this bias by including unpublished studies in the meta-analysis, and found a small, significant causal effect of nature connection on PEB (d = 0.21, r = 0.10). We conclude that more experimental data with better quality manipulations of nature connection are needed. Nonetheless, the strong and robust association between nature connection and PEB, as well as evidence that nature connection causes PEB, suggest that nature connection is a promising avenue for promoting PEB.

Estimating Candidate Support in Voting Rights Act Cases: Comparing Iterative EI and EI-R×C Methods

Scholars and legal practitioners of voting rights are concerned with estimating individual-level voting behavior from aggregate-level data. The most commonly used technique, King’s ecological inference (EI), has been questioned for inflexibility in multiethnic settings or with multiple candidates. One method for estimating vote support for multiple candidates in the same election is called ecological inference: row by columns (R×C). While some simulations suggest that R×C may produce more precise estimates than the iterative EI technique, there has not been a comprehensive side-by-side comparison of the two methods using real election data that analysts and legal practitioners often rely upon in courts. We fill this void by comparing iterative EI and R×C models with a new statistical package—eiCompare—in a variety of R×C combinations including 2 candidates and 2 groups, 3 candidates and 3 groups, and up to 12 candidates and three groups and multiple candidates and four groups. Additionally, we examine the two methods with 500 simulated data sets that differ in combinations of heterogeneity, polarization, and correlation. Finally, we introduce a new model congruence score to aid scholars and voting rights analysts in the substantive interpretation of the estimates. Across all of our analyses, we find that both methods produce substantively similar results. This suggests that iterative EI and R×C can be used interchangeably when assessing precinct-level voting patterns in Voting Rights Act cases and that neither method produces bias in favor or against finding racially polarized voting patterns.

Predator-Prey Interactions and Eavesdropping in Vibrational Communication Networks

Due to human perceptional bias in favour of air-borne sounds, substrate-borne vibrational signalling has been traditionally regarded as a highly specialized, inherently short-range and, consequently, a private communication channel, free from eavesdropping by sexual competitors and predators. In this review, we synthesise current knowledge pertinent to the view that most animals live in a rich vibratory world, where vibrational information is available to unintended receivers. In recent years, we realized that vibrational signalling is one of the oldest and taxonomically most widespread forms of communication by mechanical waves and that receptors detecting substrate vibrations are ubiquitous. In nature, substrate vibrations are reliable source of information readily available to all members of the animal community able to detect them. Viewing vibrational communication in more relevant ecological context reveals that animals relying on substrate vibrations live in complex communication networks. Long evolutionary history of this communication channel is reflected in varied and sophisticated predator-prey interactions guided by substrate-borne vibrations. Eavesdropping and exploitation of vibrational signals used in sexual communication have been so far largely neglected; however, existing studies show that generalist arthropod predators can intercept such signals emitted by insects to obtain information about prey availability and use that information when making foraging decisions. Moreover, males which advertise themselves for longer periods than females and with vibrational signals of higher amplitude face higher predation risk. It is likely that eavesdropping and exploitation of vibrational signals are major drivers in the evolution taking place in the vibratory world and we believe that studies of interspecific interactions guided by substrate vibrations will, in the future, offer numerous opportunities to unravel mechanisms that are central to understanding behaviour in general.

Summaries

Susan Vertoont Representations of disability on primetime television in Flanders This paper examines primetime television representations of disability in Flanders. The aim of the study was to analyse in which identities (RQ 1) and in which roles (RQ 2) characters with disabilities are represented on television. By means of a quantitative content analysis in a constructed week (January-February 2016), 115 primetime television programs and 2.414 television characters were studied. The results show a bias in favour of adult, male characters with physical disabilities. Women, youngsters and seniors with disabilities are less frequently represented, as are people with health or learning disabilities. Moreover, we noticed little diversity among the genres and roles in which disabled characters are represented. Only roles that can grant disability a central story line, seem to include disabled characters. Roles in which disability would become a coincidental feature (e.g. candidates in game shows, supporting roles in fictional programs) do not seem to allow characters with disabilities. Keywords: disability, gender, television, representation, content analysis