Imprecise Conclusions Research Articles

Discovering informative biomarkers in psychiatry.

Discovering informative biomarkers in psychiatry.

An Overproliferation of Systematic Review Studies.

An Overproliferation of Systematic Review Studies.

A weekly-diary study of students' schoolwork motivation and parental support.

Parental support plays an important role in children's schoolwork motivation and may have been even more important during the first UK COVID-19 pandemic lockdown because all schoolwork was completed at home. When examining the effect of parental support on children's schoolwork motivation, research has typically focused on comparing families with each other (i.e., difference between families). In reality, however, the effect unfolds as a transactional, bidirectional process between parents and children over time (i.e., a within family process). This research trend can result in imprecise conclusions about the association between parental support and schoolwork motivation. We examined bidirectional effects of parental schoolwork support and children's schoolwork motivation at both the between-family and within-family level. This study reports findings from a weekly-diary study conducted during the first UK COVID-19 school lockdown. Cross-lagged within and between multilevel modelling was used to analyse data from UK secondary school students (N=98) in Years 7-9. Between-family results show no evidence of association between motivation and parental support. Within-family results indicate that higher motivation (assessed as higher expectations of success) predicted more support from parents. However, in contrast with predictions, weekly levels of parental support did not predict children's weekly fluctuations in motivation. Within-family results were not consistent with between-family results. This study is novel in showing that child-driven effects appear to be important in eliciting parental support within families over time.

Benthic Foraminiferal Response to Trace Elements in a Tropical Mesotidal Brazilian Estuary

Living benthic foraminifera have been widely used as ecological indicators in coastal ecosystems. There is, however, a lack of studies on their response to trace element pollution in tropical estuarine systems. Here we analyze the living assemblages of benthic foraminifera, collected in 2016, in the Cachoeira River Estuary (CRE) in northeastern Brazil, to understand their response to natural and anthropogenic stressors, including trace element pollution. Some species were good bioindicators of specific environmental conditions, such as the agglutinant Paratrochammina clossi which preferred mangrove areas and anoxic conditions. In addition, the calcareous Ammonia tepida and Cribroelphidium excavatum, dominant within the whole system disregarding organic or trace element pollution, seem to resist even in the areas most polluted by trace elements. Interestingly, C. excavatum showed a particular positive relationship with trace element pollution (specifically by Cu and Pb), outnumbering the opportunistic A. tepida in the areas with higher pollution of these metals. However, for other species, it is still difficult to constrain to which parameters they respond (i.e., Haynesina germanica and Elphidium gunteri, which in the present study seem to respond to natural conditions, whereas in the literature they are regarded as indicators of trace element and organic pollution, respectively). Therefore, our findings shed light on the response of benthic foraminiferal species in a highly polluted and highly mixed tropical estuarine system and highlight the need to understand the complexity of these environments when applying foraminiferal biological indexes to avoid imprecise conclusions.

Research on Mathematics Classroom Teaching Optimization Model Based on GA Neural Network

The teaching characteristic of colleges and universities is determined by the teaching quality of teachers, but it is difficult to calculate with a linear mathematical explanation how to judge the teaching quality of teachers. In most colleges and universities, expert evaluations, supervision groups, peers listening to lectures in the classroom, and students' after-class evaluations are still used to determine the teaching ability of professors. It is undeniable that these judgment methods have certain practicality. Especially for new teachers, experts and peers can find problems in time and help new teachers quickly correct them, and they can also know how to better practice the “student-centered” teaching concept from the feedback of students after class. However, these judgment standards also have their limitations. For example, the classroom quality judgment standards for experts and peers are mostly set by some administrative departments according to social requirements, leadership requirements, and subjective cognition. Various institutions should have different weights for the same criterion, and if they all employ the same criteria, it will easily lead to imprecise conclusions. In addition, the expert group and students are also subjective and incomplete in the stage of teacher evaluation. Based on different nonquantitative factors, the evaluation standards for teachers in colleges and universities also need the scientific theoretical basis. Therefore, many scientists are considering whether to use a more intelligent and reasonable way to judge the quality of teaching. Nowadays, with the popularization of artificial intelligence (AI), the use of neural networks (NNs) is becoming more and more comprehensive. According to the characteristics of NNs, this paper uses the GA NNs algorithm to signify that this algorithm can be effectively used in the evaluation of teachers' teaching quality. In this paper, a large number of experimental results show that the use of GA NNs can be used to evaluate the quality of teaching, and the evaluation results can be obtained quantitatively in this way. For the assessment of teaching quality, quantitative results are also more powerful in teaching evaluation.

Influence Diagnostics in Log-Normal Regression Model with Censored Data

Dealing with the biological data, the skewed distribution is approximated by the Log-Normal Regression model (LNRM). Traditional estimation techniques for the LNRM are sensitive to unusual observations. These observations greatly affect the model analysis, which makes imprecise conclusions. To overcome this issue, we proposed to develop diagnostics measures based on local influence diagnostics to identify such curious observations in the LNRM under censoring. The proposed measures are derived by perturbing the case weight, response, and explanatory variables. Furthermore, we also consider the One-Step Newton-Raphson method and generalized cook’s distance. We study the Monte Carlo simulation and its application to real data to illustrate the developed approaches.

Sensitivity Analysis of Reliability of Low-Mobility Parallel Mechanisms Based on a Response Surface Method

Kinematic accuracy is a crucial indicator for evaluating the performance of mechanisms. Low-mobility parallel mechanisms are examples of parallel robots that have been successfully employed in many industrial fields. Previous studies analyzing the kinematic accuracy analysis of parallel mechanisms typically ignore the randomness of each component of input error, leading to imprecise conclusions. In this paper, we use homogeneous transforms to develop the inverse kinematics models of an improved Delta parallel mechanism. Based on the inverse kinematics and the first-order Taylor approximation, a model is presented considering errors from the kinematic parameters describing the mechanism’s geometry, clearance errors associated with revolute joints and driving errors associated with actuators. The response surface method is employed to build an explicit limit state function for describing position errors of the end-effector in the combined direction. As a result, a mathematical model of kinematic reliability of the improved Delta mechanism is derived considering the randomness of every input error component. And then, reliability sensitivity of the improved Delta parallel mechanism is analyzed, and the influences of the randomness of each input error component on the kinematic reliability of the mechanism are quantitatively calculated. The kinematic reliability and proposed sensitivity analysis provide a theoretical reference for the synthesis and optimum design of parallel mechanisms for kinematic accuracy.

Characterization and assessment of organic carbon migration and biomass formation potential of polymeric pipes using modified BioMig

To evaluate and approve the materials that can be in contact with drinking water with respect to biological contamination, organic carbon migration and biomass formation potential assays are widely employed. In previous studies, to conduct the assays, the entire material was exposed to the test water by submerging the material into glass jars. However, these are not realistic conditions since the water contact only the inner surface of the pipe in the distribution system, which may be different from the outer surface with respect to the coating layers. Furthermore, the extra components such as the glass jar containers and stainless steel holders might be the sources of organic carbon contamination. These two factors may result in imprecise conclusions. Here, we introduced a minor but essential modification to the BioMig test, which is the most current test on the migration potential and biomass formation potential. In this modified BioMig method, the outer surface and cutting edges, which are not in contact with water in practical water distribution systems, would not be exposed to the test water. Moreover, the assimilable organic carbon formation potential via chlorination in the leachates was observed and recommended as an additional test in the migration potential assay. The modified test results demonstrated that polyethylene (PE) material is the most unfavorable material, notably when used in chlorinated drinking water. This proposed test provided an alternative approach to the decision-makers with respect to evaluating the pipe material characteristics.

Confounding and effect measure modification in reproductive medicine research.

The majority of research within reproductive and gynecologic health, or investigating ART, is observational in design. One of the most critical challenges for observational studies is confounding, while one of the most important for discovery and inference is effect modification. In this commentary, we explain what confounding and effect modification are and why they matter. We present examples illustrating how failing to adjust for a confounder leads to invalid conclusions, as well as examples where adjusting for a factor that is not a confounder also leads to invalid or imprecise conclusions. Careful consideration of which factors may act as confounders or modifiers of the association of interest is critical to conducting sound research, particularly with complex observational studies in reproductive medicine.

RETRACTED: COVID-19 and potential global mortality - Revisited

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal ( https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal ). This article has been retracted at the request of the author of the author. This article was based on very early data and reports from the World Health Organization and Ferguson et al from which the article drew imprecise conclusions. We now have a far better, albeit still incomplete, understanding of COVID-19. The anticipated mortality will fortunately be far less than estimated in the paper itself. References World Health Organisation. Coronavirus disease 2019. WHO Report 41. 01 March 2020. Ferguson NM, Laydon D, Nedjati-Gilani G, Imai N, Ainslie K, Baguelin M, Bhatia S, Boonyasiri A, Cucunubá Z, Cuomo-Dannenburg G, Dighe A. Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. March 2020, Imperial College.

Retracted: COVID-19 admissions calculators - Revisited

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal ( https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal ). This article has been retracted at the request of the author of the author. This article was based on very early data and reports from the World Health Organization and Ferguson et al. from which the article drew imprecise conclusions. We now have a far better, albeit still incomplete, understanding of COVID-19. The anticipated mortality will fortunately be far less than estimated in the paper itself.

Data anonymization with imprecise rules and its performance evaluations

Privacy protection is absolutely imperative for data releases when the utilization of public data and big data is getting popular. In this paper, data anonymization methods using rough set-based rule induction are investigated. It has been shown that many rules with imprecise conclusions can improve the classification accuracy of the rule-based classifier. Data anonymization methods utilizing rules with imprecise conclusions are proposed. The data tables anonymized by one of the proposed methods can preserve the classification accuracy of the rules induced from them. The proposed methods as well as conventional data anonymization methods are compared from two viewpoints: the classification accuracy of rules induced from the anonymized data table and the preservation of data anonymity. The results show the usefulness of the proposed methods.

Interval-valued fuzzy inference based on aggregation functions

Generalized modus ponens (GMP) and generalized modus tollens (GMT), as two basic patterns of approximate reasoning, aim to acquire some reasonable imprecise conclusions from a collection of imprecise premises using some inference rules. To solve the GMP and GMT problems under interval-valued fuzzy setting, an interval-valued A-compositional rule of inference (ACRI) method and quintuple implication principle (QIP) method with interval-valued implication generated by A under any partial order are presented in this paper, where A is an interval-valued aggregation function. In order to develop these methods, we firstly discuss interval-valued negation generated by an interval-valued aggregation function with any partial order. Some properties of interval-valued implications generated by interval-valued aggregation functions with an arbitrary order are then analyzed. We further investigate the ACRI method and quintuple implication principle (QIP) method with interval-valued implication generated by interval-valued aggregations to solve the interval-valued fuzzy modus ponens (IFMP) and interval-valued fuzzy modus tollens (IFMT). Finally, two examples are implemented to illustrate our proposed approaches using some special interval-valued aggregation functions.

A Proximal Culture Method to Study Paracrine Signaling Between Cells.

Intercellular interactions play an important role in many biological processes, including tumor progression, immune responses, angiogenesis, and development. Paracrine or juxtacrine signaling mediates such interactions. The use of a conditioned medium and coculture studies are the most common methods to discriminate between these two types of interactions. However, the effect of localized high concentrations of secreted factors in the microenvironment during the paracrine interactions is not accurately recapitulated by conditioned medium and, thus, may lead to imprecise conclusions. To overcome this problem, we have devised a proximal culture method to study paracrine signaling. The two cell types are grown on either surface of a 10 µm-thick polycarbonate membrane with 0.4 µm pores. The pores allow the exchange of secreted factors and, at the same time, inhibit juxtacrine signaling. The cells can be collected and lysed at the endpoint to determine the effects of the paracrine signaling. In addition to allowing for localized concentration gradients of secreted factors, this method is amenable to experiments involving prolonged periods of culture, as well as the use of inhibitors. While we use this method to study the interactions between ovarian cancer cells and the mesothelial cells they encounter at the site of metastasis, it can be adapted to any two adherent cell types for researchers to study paracrine signaling in various fields, including tumor microenvironment, immunology, and development.

Check dams and sediment control: final results of a case study in the upper Corneja River (Central Spain)

The sediment yield and erosion rate in an area can be estimated by calculating the volume of sediment retained by check dams. However, results can show unrealistic and imprecise conclusions if the sediment volume is not measured accurately, as tolerable erosion rates are usually below 10 t ha−1 year−1. Our previous research developed a topographic method (the Sections Method) for measuring the sediment wedges created by check dams and the sediment yield with a high degree of precision to avoid the aforementioned problem. Until now, however, it had only been tested for a few check dams. Here, we present a final and complete analysis applying this method to 113 check dams in a granitic restored area in the upper basin of the Corneja River (Central Spain), under a continental Mediterranean climate, to estimate an accurate mean erosion rate over 50 years, as well as the downstream influence of the check dams. Our results show that the check dams trapped 5365.93 m3 sediment, which represents a sediment export of 0.096 t ha−1 year−1 and a total sediment yield of 5.6 t ha−1 year−1. These values are significantly higher (> 18%) than those obtained with other, simpler geometric methods currently in use, such as the Prism and Pyramid Methods, as we have already argued in previous papers. It is therefore important to take this issue into account. Moreover, we confirmed a number of morphological changes. As a result of the check dam effect, the slopes of the streambed are 11% lower than the original streambed slope, with a maximum reduction of up to 39%, leading to higher infiltration rates in the streambeds, lower energy waterflows, and flood lamination. Furthermore, the sediment wedges created a new land surface of over 5000 m2 permitting the development of agroforestry uses such as riparian woods, orchards, cropland, or pastureland. These final results show that check dams were highly effective and played a positive role in retaining and controlling sediment.

Human trafficking for labour exploitation: the results of a two-phase systematic review mapping the European evidence base and synthesising key scientific research evidence

ObjectivesOur objectives were (1) to systematically map the contours of the European evidence base on labour trafficking, identifying its key characteristics, coverage, gaps, strengths and weaknesses and (2) to synthesise key scientific research.MethodsWe took a two-phase approach: a systematic map followed by a detailed synthesis of key scientific research evidence. Our search strategy included 15 databases, hand searches of additional journals, backwards searches, snowball searches and expert recommendations. We identified and screened 6106 records, mapped 152 and synthesised eight.ResultsOverall, the literature was limited and fragmented. Reports produced by official agencies dominated; academic authorship and peer-reviewed outputs were comparatively rare. Few publications met minimum scientific standards. Qualitative designs outweighed quantitative ones. Publications typically described trafficking’s problem profile and/or discussed interventions; they rarely assessed trafficking’s impacts or evaluated interventions. Even among the key scientific research, the quality of evidence was variable and often low. Particular weaknesses included poor methods reporting, unclear or imprecise results and conclusions not properly grounded in the data. The synthesised studies were all exploratory, also sharing other design features. Common themes identified included: poor treatment of victims; diversity of sectors affected and commonalities among victims; inadequacies of current responses; and barriers to interventions.ConclusionsThere is a lack of high-quality studies into European labour trafficking. Methodological opacity, insufficient rigour and publication in non-indexed locations impede the identification, assessment and synthesis of evidence. Adherence to higher reporting standards would further the field’s development and particular research gaps should be addressed.

Differences in land cover – biodiversity relationships complicate the assignment of conservation values in human-used landscapes

The anthropogenic conversion of natural landscapes continues to be a severe threat to biodiversity. As humans depend on these natural landscapes for sustainable resource provisioning as well, the conversion likewise affects biodiversity and people’s livelihoods. To identify options for reconciling human needs and biodiversity conservation we studied the relationship of land use and reptile diversity.In a dryland in southwestern Madagascar, we compared reptile diversity between five land-cover classes and identified trait-dependent effects of land use on reptiles with regard to substrate preference and activity phase. Thresholds of diversity declines were detected at the transition from intact forest towards land-cover types with reduced forest cover, and at the transition to habitats with a woody plant cover below 10–30%. Community equitability increased towards lower vegetation cover. With increasing habitat openness, rare species were lost and a small subset of similarly successful degradation-tolerant species remained. Land cover – biodiversity relationships varied considerably between reptile assemblages that differed in activity phases. Nocturnal reptiles were more strongly affected by habitat conversion than diurnal reptiles. Substrate preference did not determine degradation tolerance.These findings provide important implications for conservation planning in drylands. For many species converted habitats can still be suitable. However, ignoring the fine-scale habitat requirements of animals will likely lead to imprecise conclusions on the conservation value of converted drylands.

IS THE PANTANAL A PRISTINE PLACE? CONFLICTS RELATED TO THE CONSERVATION OF THE PANTANAL

Abstract The book "Biodiversidade e ocupação humana do Pantanal mato-grossense: conflitos e oportunidades" brings to discussion a hardly citied issue in academic debates: the conservation of the Pantanal. A place pointed out by some authors as pristine. The book is divided into three main chapters. The first one is about the physical / biological feature of the region and the second covers the local historical occupation. Important publications about the Pantanal are sumerized well in both chapters. The last chapter describes current conflict between local people and Protected Areas over land use. However the authors misuse several findings about local settlements in the region, leading to imprecise conclusions. The lack of scientific accuracy in the main part of the book undermines its potential academic impact. Nonetheless this book triggers important debates about the conservation of the Pantanal, showing that it is not pristine and free of threats as is widely claimed.

Statistical analysis of a questionnaire: voluntary health insurance implementation among patients suffering from allergy and asthma

We consider statistical analysis of multiple answers in a questionnaire. We propose a new method of calculating simultaneous confidence regions. In a communication presented at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology the authors (Borowicz et al. (2009)) reported the proportions of respondents which gave one of three possible exclusive answers in a questionnaire concerning the role of voluntary health insurance. There were three possible answers. Apart from percentages of answers confidence intervals of every single answer have been reported. Unfortunately inference about the population based on such intervals may lead to imprecise conclusions. The inference about the respective population suffering from allergy and asthma proportions requires the construction of two-dimensional confidence region. We propose the use of a simultaneous confidence intervals to inference about true population proportions. Most of our attention is given to the case of three possible answers but the results may be generalized to any questionnaire with more than two excluding answers.

Simulation Based Multi-Criteria Assessment of Lean Material Flow Design Alternatives

In this article a procedure is introduced to improve transparency and reliability of results for the selection of material flow design alternatives including machine tools and other capital-intensive goods. In the design phase of material flow planning projects, key performance indicators (KPIs) for design alternatives including processing as well as intralogistics elements can be derived using simulation. Using the state of the art method in value stream design and simulation often volatile input data is taken into account only in the simulation itself, but not in the downstream comparison of alternative designs, which could lead to imprecise conclusions and therefore to wrong investment decisions. To overcome this issue and to consider variability in the whole simulation phase and a subsequent decision making process, a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) with two fuzzy representations is proposed and discussed here with the aim of helping practitioners to get more competitive value streams. A further goal of the article is the comparison between both forms used for fuzzy representation. Using the design example of machine tool-intralogistics systems obtained results are discussed.