Common Mistakes Research Articles

Common Mistakes Committed and Challenges Faced in Research Proposal Writing by University of Aden Postgraduate Students

The purpose of this study is to investigate the common mistakes committed by the postgraduate students as well as the challenges they faced during writing their proposals. The study obtained a convince sampling in which 15 postgraduate students of English Department, University of Aden were recruited. In this study, the data was collected by using the students' proposals, and their correction forms, as well as using focused group discussion. The researcher analyzed the data and used qualitative analyses i.e., content-based analyses by highlighting the main themes. The findings of the study indicated that the majority of the postgraduate students committed common mistakes such as the choice of an appropriate title, unclear statement of the problem, writing irrelevant literature review, choosing inappropriate methodology, references system was not clear and some plagiarism issues. Moreover, it was investigated that the postgraduate students generally had some challenges in using standard proposal format, writing literature reviews, methodology skills and other supervision issues. These findings are of great importance for instructors at postgraduate program.

Common mistakes in learning language

Common mistakes in learning language

MP40-10 CREATING HIGH QUALITY SYNTHETIC GENITOURINARY TISSUE IMAGES FROM HISTOLOGY REPOSITORIES TO OVERCOME LIMITATIONS WITH THE USE OF CLINICAL TRIAL DATA IN AI MODELS

You have accessJournal of UrologyCME1 Apr 2023MP40-10 CREATING HIGH QUALITY SYNTHETIC GENITOURINARY TISSUE IMAGES FROM HISTOLOGY REPOSITORIES TO OVERCOME LIMITATIONS WITH THE USE OF CLINICAL TRIAL DATA IN AI MODELS Derek Van Booven, Yasamin Mirzabeigi, and Himanshu Arora Derek Van BoovenDerek Van Booven More articles by this author , Yasamin MirzabeigiYasamin Mirzabeigi More articles by this author , and Himanshu AroraHimanshu Arora More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000003278.10AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookLinked InTwitterEmail Abstract INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Timely diagnosis and assessment of prognosis are challenges for prostate cancer (PCa)—this results in many deaths and increases the overall disease risk and cost of treatment. Although clinical testing strategies are effective, recent advancements in machine learning suggest promising strategies that could allow the generation of synthetic data to avoid the need to rely on using data from clinical trials to develop training models. Our study is the first to use the generative adversarial network technology to generate synthetic digital histology data of high quality from 9 genitourinary organs. METHODS: We downloaded digital pathology images for 9 genitourinary tissues from the GTEx Portal, a repository of 25,713 images from 39 unique tissue classes. Downloaded images were subjected to color normalization within each tissue to ensure that all images have the same range of expected colors and that none are too light or dark, which could lead to post-analysis issues. These were then run through HistoQC to determine baseline quality and then through PyHist for single patch creation. This led to a data repository of over 10,000 patches on average per tissue. These patches were then run through our custom deep convolutional GAN implemented in PyTorch and run on a local GPU cluster to create models for which we can generate new synthetic images. RESULTS: 2700 images were obtained from GTEx. Segmentation was done on these images in 96×96 blocks resulting in 32,411 patches, and 256×256 blocks resulting in 163,916 patches. These patches were used as the training database in a standard deep convolutional GAN (dcGAN) to create synthetic images per tissue. Upon creation, a color gradient PCA was done on the images to show a dropout rate of 21.2%. Images were subjected to further quality control of random manual inspection, where file sizes of a certain threshold were discarded. Post-image inspection, pathologists were also asked to assess the quality of the images resulting in 80% of the images being deemed good enough quality. After the entire QC process, inception distance (FID) was calculated, and a simple classification module was created to determine image similarity within a tissue and image distinctness between tissues. The lowest FID was determined at 54.2 at 5,000 synthetic images. The classification module was able to separate the images with an accuracy of 74%, with similar tissues being classified together being the most common mistake. CONCLUSIONS: We have created a deep convolutional GAN that can create new synthetic images with a reliability rate of 80%. This needs to be enhanced, and quality needs to be improved before a final repository can be created. Source of Funding: AUA Research Scholar Award to HA © 2023 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 209Issue Supplement 4April 2023Page: e548 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2023 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Derek Van Booven More articles by this author Yasamin Mirzabeigi More articles by this author Himanshu Arora More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

MP66-02 MISINTERPRETATIONS OF SIGNIFICANCE TESTING RESULTS NEAR THE p-VALUE THRESHOLD IN UROLOGIC LITERATURE

You have accessJournal of UrologyCME1 Apr 2023MP66-02 MISINTERPRETATIONS OF SIGNIFICANCE TESTING RESULTS NEAR THE p-VALUE THRESHOLD IN UROLOGIC LITERATURE Pranay Manda, Manish Kuchakulla, Gabrielle Hochu, Pranav Mudiam, Ali Syed, Aayush Shah, Arjun Watane, and Ranjith Ramasamy Pranay MandaPranay Manda More articles by this author , Manish KuchakullaManish Kuchakulla More articles by this author , Gabrielle HochuGabrielle Hochu More articles by this author , Pranav MudiamPranav Mudiam More articles by this author , Ali SyedAli Syed More articles by this author , Aayush ShahAayush Shah More articles by this author , Arjun WataneArjun Watane More articles by this author , and Ranjith RamasamyRanjith Ramasamy More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000003329.02AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookLinked InTwitterEmail Abstract INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The outcome of a statistical test is to accept or reject a null hypothesis. Reporting a metric as “trending toward significance” is a misinterpretation of the p-value. Studies highlighting the prevalence of statistical errors in the urologic literature remain scarce. The objective of this study was to evaluate abstracts from 15 urology journals published between the years 2000-2021 and provide a quantitative measure of a common statistical mistake—misconstruing the function of null hypothesis testing by reporting “a trend toward significance.” METHODS: We performed an audit of 15 Urology journals, looking at articles published from January 1st, 2000 to January 1st, 2022. A word recognition function in Microsoft Excel was utilized to identify the use of the word “trend” in the abstracts. Each use of the word “trend” was manually investigated by two authors to determine whether it was improperly used in describing non-statistically significant data as trending toward significance. Statistics and data analysis were performed using Python libraries: pandas, SciPy. Stats, and seaborn. RESULTS: This study included 101,134 abstracts from 15 urology journals. Within those abstracts, the word “trend” was used 2,509 times, 572 uses of which were describing non-statistically significant data as trending toward significance. There was a statistically significant difference in the rate of errors between the 15 journals (p<0.01) (Figure 1). The highest rate of improper use of the word “trend” was found in Bladder Cancer with a rate of 1.6% (p<0.01) of articles. The lowest rate of improper use was found in European Urology with a rate of 0.3% (p<0.01). Our analysis found a moderate correlation between the number of articles published and the number of misuses of the word trend within each journal and across all journals every year (r=0.61 and 0.70 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The overall rate of p-value misinterpretation never exceeded 2 percent of articles in each journal. There is significance in the difference in misinterpretation rates between the different journals. Authors' utilization of the word “trend” describing non-significant p-values as being near significant should be used with caution. Source of Funding: NA © 2023 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 209Issue Supplement 4April 2023Page: e931 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2023 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Pranay Manda More articles by this author Manish Kuchakulla More articles by this author Gabrielle Hochu More articles by this author Pranav Mudiam More articles by this author Ali Syed More articles by this author Aayush Shah More articles by this author Arjun Watane More articles by this author Ranjith Ramasamy More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

The Structure Again! Common Mistakes in Writing the Discussion

Одно из самых частных замечаний, которые редакция журнала «Образование и саморазвитие» делает авторам на этапе предварительного рассмотрения статей, – это слабо раскрытая дискуссионность результатов исследования. Иногда материал, представленный в разделах «Дискуссия» или «Обсуждение», вообще не является дискуссионным. В этой редакторской статье я покажу, как избежать ошибок такого типа. Если рассматривать общую структуру статьи, для эмпирических работ мы рекомендуем использовать общепринятую рамку IMRaD. Это английская аббревиатура, которая состоит из названий основных разделов рукописи: введение, методология, результаты и дискуссия. В рамках этой структуры возможны варианты в зависимости от специфики журнала. Например, введение может содержать анализ исследованности проблемы, результаты могут быть интегрированы с дискуссией или дискуссия может быть объединена с заключением. Несмотря на то что подобная практика допустима, мы не советуем нашим авторам прибегать к интеграции. Это объясняется тем, что при объединении довольно сложно выдержать баланс и не сместить фокус в ту или иную сторону. Когда авторы соединяют результаты с дискуссией, чаще всего центр описания смещается в сторону результатов, а обсуждение или совсем не представлено, или размыто в большом потоке авторских данных. Дискуссия в виде отдельной рубрики исключает недостатки подобного рода.

The Structure Again! Common Mistakes in Writing the Discussion

One of the most frequent comments that the editors of Education and Self Development make at the stage of preliminary assessment includes the Discussion. This section is either not discursive or written superficially. In this editorial I want to delve deeper into this issue. To begin with the structure of a scholarly paper, we recommend using the IMRaD format. This is an acronym made up of the first letters of the following chapters: introduction, methods, results and discussion. There are variations within this format depending on the scope of a journal. For instance, the introduction can contain the analysis of prior studies, discussion can be integrated into the results chapter or the discursive aspect of a paper can be combined with conclusion. Though this practice is acceptable, we do not recommend authors to use integration. The rationale behind this recommendation is that it is difficult to achieve a balance in case of incorporation. When authors combine the results with the discussion, the focus is often shifted towards the findings, and the discussion usually gets lost in a huge flow of information or is not even presented. Therefore, separate sections eliminate such shortcomings.

Most common mistakes when writing medical original articles

Most common mistakes when writing medical original articles

Comparative Analysis of Phonetic Systems of the Russian, French and Chinese Languages

This choice of this material for comparison - the phonetic systems of three languages: Russian, French and Chinese - is due to the fact that in the process of teaching the Russian language to foreign students, teachers face the need to work with a multilingual audience, which may include speakers of different and often unrelated languages while the formation of phonetic skills is an indispensable condition for adequate verbal communication and successful verbal communication in general. It was these circumstances that led to the choice of three languages for comparative analysis. The main purpose of such a comparison is the possibility of predicting possible interference errors in the speech of foreigners at the phonetic level. Comparative analysis revealed that, despite the colossal structural difference between French and Chinese, there are many points of contact, on the basis of which it is quite realistic to predict common pronunciation errors for French and Chinese audiences. As a result of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that similar features of the phonetic systems of French and Chinese, leading to interference errors, can be due to the belonging of both languages to the vocal type. Problems related to the rules of positional changes associated with the consonantism characteristic of the Russian language are also common to speakers of French and Chinese. When comparing the rhythmic and intonational features of the three languages, it becomes obvious that in this aspect, the speakers of French and Chinese are also characterized by common typical mistakes: the lack of reduction of unstressed vowels, the incorrect allocation of a stressed syllable, and the indistinguishability of intonational structures. The relevance of the study is due to the need to develop nationally-oriented courses in phonetics, which would allow to correctly build work on the localization and prevention of interference errors in the speech of foreign students in a multilingual audience.

Best Practices for Training in Sustainable Greenhouse Horticulture

Consumer demands and current legislation require intensive greenhouse horticulture to be sustainable. This poses the challenge of how to teach the concept of sustainable horticulture to all professionals involved in farming. The province of Almeria, in the south-east of Spain, is one of the major horticulture greenhouse areas in Europe, and an expert panel of relevant stakeholders was invited to look into the best pedagogical practices and methods to transfer technology and knowledge, with the goal of improving the sustainability of greenhouse horticulture. A combination of an online questionnaire, a Delphi method, and desk research was, therefore, used as the strategy to collect the data and implement the research design during 2021. On-farm/business demonstrations, virtual education, and classroom education were common pedagogical methods used. On-farm/business demonstrations, participatory education, and co-learning were identified as the best pedagogical methods to use in sustainable agriculture/horticulture training. The expert panel also concluded that participatory education and co-learning should be further explored whereas virtual and classroom education should play a less dominant role in the training activities. This knowledge can help training organizations and designers to avoid common mistakes, tailor their training activities, and be mindful of common barriers and (mis)conceptions.

Why Healthy Pine Seedlings Die after They Leave the Nursery

Artificial regeneration is successful when high-performing seedlings are transported with care to the planting site, stored for a short period in an environment without desiccation or fungal growth, and planted in a deep hole, so roots are in contact with moist soil. One of the requirements for success is the ability to avoid common planting mistakes. Due, in part, to the use of container stock plus an increase in rainfall, the average first-year survival of pine seedlings (89%) in the southern United States is about 15% greater now than 45 years ago. However, when survival is less than 50% six months after planting, some landowners seek reimbursement for their loss. Some assume poor seedling quality was the cause without realizing that anaerobic soils or sudden freeze events, shallow planting holes, pruning roots, a lack of rain or underground insects can kill pines. With a focus on pines planted in the southern United States, we list non-nursery factors that have killed seedlings in North America, Africa and Europe.

The second important component of food in the diet of slimming

In the process of losing weight or losing weight, not only physical training plays a key role, but also the quality of the food consumed, since the condition of the body as a whole depends on the nature of nutrition. Many athletes especially carefully monitor the amount of such a nutrient as proteins. But a fairly common mistake is that a person who is trying to lose weight does not pay enough attention to the amount of fat consumed, although this nutrient is an important source of energy. This article will provide analysis data on how the correct percentage of fat content in the body can contribute to such a weight loss process that will not harm the state of the body as a whole. The optimal products with the correct dosage of the fat component for losing weight will be given

Al-Akhtā’ al-Imlā’iyah al-Syā’iah ladā Talāmῑż al-Şaf al-Śāmin bi Ma’had Dār al-Ulūm Sipaho

Actually, the expected objective of this research is to describe, classify, and interpret the forms of Imla' errors in Arabic writing in the eighth grade students of Darul Ulum Islamic Boarding School Sipaho. The research method used in this study is a qualitative approach, based on a descriptive study strategy. Then the researcher used error analysis to analyze the data that had been obtained from students' writing. Then proceed with classifying the data and interpreting it. The research results obtained are that there are four kinds of Imla' errors, where these errors often occur in eighth grade students at Darul Ulum Sipaho boarding school, including: errors in writing line marks and long marks or mad, errors in writing ta' ta'nis and ta' marbuthah, errors in connecting letters, and finally errors in writing letters that are makhorij and are similar and close in nature. Among the four errors, the most common mistakes are in writing line marks and long marks or mad, due to errors This is repeated 37 times in the student's writing.

Approach to the orthopaedic patient

Approaching orthopaedic patients represents a common challenge for first opinion practitioners. Knowledge and understanding of the correct steps necessary to narrow down the list of differential diagnoses, and selection of appropriate diagnostic modalities, is crucial to success. The approach to orthopaedic patients should comprise obtaining a history, observing the standing patient, gait analysis, orthopaedic examination and a brief neurological examination. Orthopaedic examination can be separated into palpation and manipulation. This methodical approach allows the clinician to avoid the common mistakes of delayed diagnosis and subsequent owner dissatisfaction. This article will focus on a methodical approach to orthopaedic patients, with particular attention on the common challenges encountered by first opinion practitioners.

Irish, ‘Celtic’, and the Future

Irish, ‘Celtic’, and the Future Alan Titley (bio) When I was asked to imagine Ireland, and the place that the Irish language, literature, and culture might have in it in 2030, I had to swallow hard. It is difficult enough to examine a past that is always changing, almost impossible to assess a present that is in constant flux: so what chance is there to imagine a future that will never be what we think? I have a long list of books and articles foretelling the future, and they are all wrong. I considered crystal balls and tealeaves and gastromancy or consulting tarot cards, or Nostradamus, or even Colm Cille, but I lack the interpretative gadgets to unlock any of them. The initial proposal asked me to wrestle with the need for a new ‘Celtic Revival’, which casts us back more than a hundred years, but I tried to derail this idea and push it into a siding. Hence my need to stick jabs into Celticism before looking at the place of the Irish language and its literature in the new Ireland that is always beckoning beyond the immediate horizon. I The rusty link of today with a ‘Celtic revival’ rubs badly. As scholars are hardly agreed as to what the word ‘Celtic’ means, we are in a bit of a bind. The beginnings of what we generally call ‘the Celtic revival’ is now one hundred and fifty years old. We could put a stake in the ground somewhere to inform us when it began and another stake in its heart telling us finally when it croaked, but a good beginning might be Matthew Arnold’s On the Study of Celtic Literature in 1867. It at least marks the beginning of when that unfortunate phrase began to be used with any scope. Matthew Arnold didn’t know that much, really, about Celtic literature, and particularly not about Irish literature. His main source seems to have been O’Curry’s Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History – not exactly trustworthy when it comes to the range of the subject. His other sources were books of grammar not generally known for manifestations of the creative imagination. Arnold [End Page 29] also made the mistake of attributing certain character traits to Celtic literature: love, beauty, charm, spirituality, lightness, and brightness. It is a common mistake to attach fixed values, forms or natures to a literature or people. Even the great Kuno Meyer, who knew a lot about Irish literature, made the well-known observation that ‘the Celts were always quick to take an artistic hint; they avoid the obvious and the commonplace; the half-said thing to them is dearest.’1 He cannot have been unaware of Eoghan Ruadh Ó Súilleabháin, from whom words poured in spouts and cascades like the Torc waterfall, or indeed the great Táin Bó Cuailnge, where the warp spasms of Cuchulainn surpass anything in the Books of the Apocalypse for horror and grotesquerie. The point, as well shall see, is that Irish literature is not any one thing. It is a coat of many colours in ‘the drunkenness of being various’. It is a blooming buzzing confusion of genres and directions and new beginnings and dead ends and going off on a skite and returning seeking somewhere to land. Just two things before I take off. The first is that this is not a historical review or examination, although precedent will always raise its relevant head. The second is that, for the purposes of this paper, what I understand by Irish literature is literature written in the Irish language. Of course, I would not normally exclude Irish writers in English from that description, but I am using it here in the same sense in which Salman Rushdie or Wole Soyinka or Alice Munro or Lewis Grassic Gibbon are classed under English literature – because they write in English. I’m using it as a linguistic label. I also refuse to use the word ‘Gaelic’ when attached to writers in Irish for two simple reasons. The first is that the language has historically, as far back as the earliest English dictionaries and even in English government...

Response to Gattino’s review of the book ‘The AQR tool – Assessment of the quality of relationship’

I am writing this letter to add some facts and answers to questions asked in Gattino’s review of ‘The AQR Tool – Assessment of the Quality of Relationship’ which was published in Approaches (Gattino, 2022). The book, ’The AQR Tool – Assessment of the Quality of Relationship. Based on Developmental Psychology’, was authored by three authors. Two of us, Claudine Calvet and I, developed the tool, and Silke Reimer’s role as the third author was very relevant for the revised publication. Reimer added some important ideas, especially for the accompanying DVD. The following themes made in Gattino’s review needed to be commented on: reliability, case study, certification courses, research, and references.&#x0D; Reliability: The reliability of the AQR tool was mentioned in the book (see page 10). This reliability could therefore be proven by 84 raters from four different cities (Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Sjövig) who were first trained and then did this work. The result of this examination of reliability, carried out by an independent statistician, showed an Intraclass-Correlation (ICC) higher than 0.74, which meant that the reliability was very good (Stallmann, 2006). The validity has not been done because we could not find a comparative tool for assessing the quality of relationship for the first three years of life. This is perhaps an area that could be addressed in the future.&#x0D; Case study: There were two publications (one with DVD) where you could find a case study analysed with the help of the AQR Tool. In German, readers could find a book (Schumacher, 2017). This book was about the three years of work with an autistic boy called Max, which was published in 1994 before the AQR Tool was developed. In 2016, I re-examined the film material from this work with Max and analysed it with the help of the AQR. This book is published again in German, now with a DVD and is entitled Musiktherapie bei Kindern mit Autismus, Musik-Bewegungs- und Sprachspiele zur Behandlung gestörter Sinnes- und Körperwahrnehmung (2017). In English, readers could find another case study in an article (Schumacher, 2014). This article described the application of the AQR Tool in music therapy work with Steven.&#x0D; Certification courses: Our training course lasts ninety (90) hours over five weekends and is only for experienced music therapists. Over the past 16 years of running this course, we found that it was necessary to teach practitioners how to use the AQR Tool. Developmental psychology forms the basis of this tool, and it is often not taught in the curriculum of different music therapy training programmes. This knowledge is not only valuable for work with children with social-emotional difficulties, including children with autism, but also for other areas of music therapy clinical practice. In these courses, all participants have to demonstrate how they work and how well they understood the book. To read is one thing, but to show how one practices and explains their interventions indicates if one has understood this tool. The danger of applying this tool without a deep understanding of developmental psychology and supervision is that one might obtain superficial and imprecise results regarding the quality of relationship. Over the last years, I have offered introductions in English and other languages, with the help of translators from many countries including France, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, and Hungary. Colleagues in Japan and Korea were particularly interested, and we have now introduced certification courses in their countries. My impression was and is that we need more time for this complex and important question: Does the therapeutic relationship have a good quality? In other words, does the therapist reach his or her client with their music therapeutic intervention through an appropriate assessment of the state of development? The most common mistake, in my experience, was to expect the capacity for joint attention and the attempt to enter into dialogue with a client who does not have the ability to do so.&#x0D; Research: The research work with Karin Mössler showed whether the music therapeutic intervention has reached the patient, that means whether a “shared moment” can be observed. Through the Covid-19 pandemic we stopped our plan to give a course in English, but we will see what is possible in the future. At the moment, we offer courses in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Zürich. The newest are in Korea and Japan, where colleagues were very interested to profit from our knowledge and to teach the AQR Tool in their countries.&#x0D;

The effect of exhalation before the inhalation of dry powder aerosol drugs on the breathing parameters, emitted doses and aerosol size distributions

Airway deposition of aerosol drugs is highly dependent on the breathing manoeuvre of the patients. Though incorrect exhalation before the inhalation of the drug is one of the most common mistakes, its effect on the rest of the manoeuvre and on the airway deposition distribution of aerosol drugs is not explored in the open literature. The aim of the present work was to conduct inhalation experiments using six dry powder inhalers in order to quantify the effect of the degree of lung emptying on the inhalation time, inhaled volume and peak inhalation flow. Another goal of the research was to determine the effect of the exhalation on the aerodynamic properties of the drugs emitted by the same inhalers. According to the measurements, deep exhalation before drug inhalation increased the volume of the inhaled air and the average and maximum values of the inhalation flow rate, but the extent of the increase was patient and inhaler specific. For different inhalers, the mean value of the relative increase in peak inhalation flow due to forceful exhalation was between 15.3 and 38.4% (min: Easyhaler®, max: Breezhaler®), compared to the case of normal (tidal) exhalation before the drug inhalation. The relative increase in the inhaled volume was between 36.4 and 57.1% (min: NEXThaler®, max: Turbuhaler®). By the same token, forceful exhalation resulted in higher emitted doses and smaller emitted particles, depending on the individual breathing ability of the patient, the inhalation device and the drug metered in it. The relative increase in the emitted dose varied between 0.2 and 8.0% (min: Foster® NEXThaler®, max: Bufomix® Easyhaler®), while the relative enhancement of fine particle dose ranged between 1.9 and 30.8% (min: Foster® NEXThaler®, max: Symbicort® Turbuhaler®), depending on the inhaler. All these effects and parameter values point toward higher airway doses due to forceful exhalation before the inhalation of the drug. At the same time, the present findings highlight the necessity of proper patient education on the importance of lung emptying, but also the importance of patient-specific inhaler-drug pair choice in the future.

Common methodological mistakes

For scientific discoveries to be valid—whether in theory or empirically—a phenomenon must be accurately described: The scientist must use appropriate counterfactuals and eliminate competing explanations. Empirical work must also use an appropriate design and method, and empirical claims made about the phenomenon must be correctly characterized. Moreover, valid empirical discoveries must be reliable in the sense that scientists who reexamine the data must be able to reproduce the finding or to replicate the effect from data gathered in a similar context. Only discoveries adhering to the above criteria can be scientifically informative, serve as building blocks for theory, or have policy implications. Unfortunately, as several recent surveys of the literature show, much of the published works in the management and applied psychology fields are uninformative; contributing reasons include several intractable problems in the study design and analysis as well as the failure of the field to adopt open science practices. Against this backdrop, we identify common methodological mistakes made in applied work. We group these mistakes into three major categories: (a) study design and data collection (e.g., fit between hypotheses and methods, design, measurement, open science, literature reviews), (b) data analysis (e.g., data preprocessing, choice of estimators, analysis of data, issues concerning endogeneity, and use of instrumental variables), and (c) diagnostics, inferences, and reporting. We also explain how to avoid these issues, so that published work makes for a useful contribution to the scientific record.

Using data-driven techniques to provide feedback during material characterisation

The aim of the work is to study the feasibility of using machine learning techniques to design a decision helper to assist the characterisation of acoustic materials (porous media for instance). The tool is intended to alert the human operator about specific physical phenomena occurring during the measurements or common mistakes in handling the characterization rig or its parameters. Examples of classical issues include leakage around the samples, unintentional compression during the sample mounting, errors in input parameters such as the static pressure or temperature, etc. The proposed helper relies on a physical analysis and a k-nearest neighbours classifier using the Fréchet distance to score the measurements. This approach allows to measure the similarity between curves, independently from sampling. The training phase is performed on a labelled dataset created from actual impedance tube measurements and possibly some computer generated results to bridge gaps. The inputs are frequency-dependent quantities including normal sound absorption curves, surface impedance, dynamic mass density and dynamic bulk modulus.

Instrumental variables estimation: Assumptions, pitfalls, and guidelines

Researchers striving to ensure rigor in their scientific findings face a common pitfall: Endogeneity. To tackle this problem, scholars have increasingly adopted instrumental variables estimation (IVE). Although there are many published works showing how IVE should be used, many applied researchers still have trouble understanding how to use the method correctly. In this article, we provide a methodological overview of IVE by discussing the underlying conditions valid instruments must satisfy as well as common mistakes made in using IVE. Using simulated data, we further demonstrate the sensitivity of IVE to violations of its conditions. We then take stock of the literature in a social science discipline (i.e., leadership research) and provide insights regarding trends and shortcomings in the application of IVE. Based on our review, we categorize the different types of instruments used and discuss the potential appropriateness of each type. We conclude by providing non–technical guidelines targeted at the study design, analysis, and reporting phases, which will help applied social science researchers to ensure they use IVE correctly.

Advice for Early Career Clinical Stroke Researchers Applying for National Institutes of Health Funding.

Advice for Early Career Clinical Stroke Researchers Applying for National Institutes of Health Funding.