Misleading Reports Research Articles

Clinical considerations regarding suspected “BvFTD-by-proxy”: a case series

ABSTRACT A diagnosis of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) often relies on informant reports of significant behavioral changes. “BvFTD-by-proxy” describes situations of neuropsychiatric changes reported solely by an informant under circumstances that may raise questions regarding their objectivity. We present three cases of bvFTD-like symptoms reported by spouses, where progression was unclear, testing showed mild but stable executive dysfunction, and neuroimaging was unremarkable. The subjective nature of bvFTD criteria leaves patients vulnerable to misleading informant reports, especially amid relational discord, and may threaten patient autonomy. Recognizing and managing this situation is critical but time-consuming, often requiring coordinated care across multiple providers.

Minimizing Questionable Research Practices – The Role of Norms, Counter Norms, and Micro-Organizational Ethics Discussion

AbstractBreaches of research integrity have gained considerable attention due to high-profile scandals involving questionable research practices by reputable scientists. These practices include plagiarism, manipulation of authorship, biased presentation of findings and misleading reports of significance. To combat such practices, policymakers tend to rely on top-down measures, mandatory ethics training and stricter regulation, despite limited evidence of their effectiveness. In this study, we investigate the occurrence and underlying factors of questionable research practices (QRPs) through an original survey of 3,005 social and medical researchers at Swedish universities. By comparing the role of the organizational culture, researchers´ norms and counter norms, and individual motivation, the study reveals that the counter norm of Biasedness—the opposite of universalism and skepticism—is the overall most important factor. Thus, Biasedness was related to 40–60% of the prevalence of the questionable practices. The analysis also reveals the contradictory impact of other elements in the organizational environment. Internal competition was positively associated with QRP prevalence, while group-level ethics discussions consistently displayed a negative association with such practices. Furthermore, in the present study items covering ethics training and policies have only a marginal impact on the prevalence of these practices. The organizational climate and normative environment have a far greater influence. Based on these findings, it is suggested that academic leaders should prioritize the creation and maintenance of an open and unbiased research environment, foster a collaborative and collegial climate, and promote bottom-up ethics discussions within and between research groups.

Assessing The Effect of Creative Accounting on Corporate Performance: a Case of Selected Listed Commercial Banks on the Ghana Stock Exchange

The study examined the effect of creative accounting on the performance of commercial banks listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. The research design chosen for this study is an ex-post facto research design, which involves examining facts that have already occurred without any interference. The research approach adopted is quantitative, focusing on objective measurements and statistical analysis of data collected through surveys. The study relies on secondary data, specifically financial reports of deposit money banks listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange. The target population includes all the listed commercial banks on the exchange. The sample size consists of 8 out of the 9 commercial banks selected based on their up-to-date financial reports. The data analysis was done with the aid of SPSS software, employing descriptive and inferential statistical techniques such as multiple regression was used to determine the cause and effect relationship among variables. The study found that there was a strong positive link among a bank's size, creative accounting and sales growth and its return on assets and return on equity. Also, SIZE and SG positively affect the profitability (ROA and ROE) of the listed firms on the GSE. However, Creative Accounting negatively affects profitability (ROA and ROE). Therefore, ccommercial banks should be critical regarding on issues or items that they classified under creative accounting. Also, commercial banks should develop strategies to lure many shareholders to invest in the banks in order to improve upon their performance. Moreover, there is urgent need for monitoring companies’ activities in order to raise the quality of financial reporting in Ghana. This can be achieved in determining which accounting manipulation is kept within the limits of legality. Lastly, commercial banks should strengthen their internal control systems in order to deal with issues of creative accounting and misleading financial reports.

Making Sense of Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Stroke.

Implantable vagus nerve stimulation, paired with high-dose occupational therapy, has been shown to be effective in improving upper limb function among patients with stroke and received regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Combining nonsurgical and surgical approaches of vagus nerve stimulation in recent meta-analyses has resulted in misleading reports on the efficacy of each type of stimulation among patients with stroke. This article aims to clarify the confusion surrounding implantable vagus nerve stimulation as a poststroke treatment option, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and implantable vagus nerve stimulation. Recent meta-analyses on vagus nerve stimulation have inappropriately combined studies of fundamentally different interventions, outcome measures, and participant selection, which do not conform to methodological best practices and, hence, cannot be used to deduce the relative efficacy of the different types of vagus nerve stimulation for stroke rehabilitation. Health care providers, patients, and insurers should rely on appropriately designed research to guide well-informed decisions.

Cost of vet care: challenging misleading media reports.

Cost of vet care: challenging misleading media reports.

A Corpus-driven Study of the Ecological Discourse Analysis of Energy Narrative in News: The New York Times as Example

The reductions in economic activities and mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic heavily challenged the global energy sector, due to which an energy crisis began to unfold in 2021. Under this social background, the linguistics community pay more and more attention to energy narrative in discourse. Based on Stibbe's definition and Fairclough's three-dimensional model, this study combined quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the ecological discourses of the New York Times reported during the energy crisis. This study found that the selected news discourses contain ecologically destructive elements and use the "Erasure of causality" strategy more frequently. Ecological discourse analysis of news discourse is conducive to deconstructing ecological destructive discourse and helping the public to further distinguish misleading and deceptive energy reports.

Psychological and emotional communication practices towards schizophrenic patients in the mainstream media under big data

Background With the advent of the era of big data, the financial media space has become an important platform for mainstream media to carry out information dissemination. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, and sufferers often face social discrimination and psychological distress. For mainstream media, how to effectively disseminate information about schizophrenia in the era of big data, and how to guide the public to have a correct understanding and compassion for patients, is an urgent problem to be solved.Subjects and Methods Based on big data, this study selects reports, comments and user comments about schizophrenia from mainstream media, and collates and analyzes these data through SPSS23.0, so as to explore the psychological and emotional communication mode and effect of mainstream media on schizophrenia patients.ResultsIt can be seen from the analysis that there are exaggerations and distortions in some mainstream media reports on patients with schizophrenia, leading to misunderstandings and fears of the public. Moreover, the report on schizophrenic patients lacks in-depth understanding and care, and only focuses on the news value of cases, ignoring the humanistic care and social integration of patients.ConclusionsIn the era of big data, popular science and education on mental diseases should be strengthened to reduce discrimination and exclusion of patients. At the same time, mainstream media should enhance their sense of social responsibility, avoid misleading and discriminatory reports, and provide more support and help for patients with schizophrenia.

Critical Discourse Analysis Based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics: Taking The Economist’s First Commentation on the End of China’s Zero-COVID Policy as an Example

Based on Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, especially the ideational function, this research aims at disclosing the hidden ideologies and values of the seemingly objective news reports on China’s COVID-19 policies in The Economist. Transitivity, voice, and nominalization are the major analytical subjects. After China lifted the zero-COVID policy, western media began criticizing China’s lack of data sharing, with some misinformation and misleading reports. The denouncement of inertness and reluctance to fight against the pandemic disclaim the Chinese government’s efforts and depreciate China’s image. China is portrayed as the villain and destroyer of people’s health worldwide. Meanwhile, they also hold a hesitant attitude toward China’s diplomacy. The re-engaging with foreign countries and travel restrictions have been described as imprudent and rushed actions. They also consider China as the fuse of contradiction in the United Nations. What is overt is their view of breaking up China.

Ketika Fakta Bukanlah Kebenaran: Peran Media Daring dalam Amplifikasi Misinformasi Kesehatan di Era Pandemi Covid-19

During the Covid-19 epidemic, people must not only escape getting infected with the virus, but also avoid being targeted by hoaxes. In cyberspace, there are several topics of misinformation ranging from conspiracy theories to claims of finding anti-corona medications. Various studies have discovered that during a pandemic, social media is the mechanism through which health misinformation begins and spreads. However, there is a lack of data on misinformation disseminated by other media, particularly verified media. This study intends to bridge a research gap by investigating more into how claims of traditional medicine healing Covid-19 are publicized by Indonesian online news outlets. This study did a content analysis of 14 media articles from various online media about anti-corona herbal remedies affiliated to the 'Covid-19 Herbal Research Team for the Nation.' The study's findings suggest that in reporting on anti-corona medications, the majority of the media have abandoned the discipline of verification in the news production process. The media has amplified the lies of the 'Covid-19 Herbal Research Team for the Nation' through misleading headlines and reports that only feature sole claims.

Islamic Revival in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-2010

Although there has been much discussion about the revival of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the last decade, only a handful of serious academic studies have been done on this topic. Apart from this, there have also been a number of rather misleading analyses and reports written by foreign journalists who have clearly missed out on the major driving force behind the greater visibility of Islam in some parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and have disproportionately centered their attention most often on Saudi activities in the country.Although the impact of foreign factors is by no means to be neglected, in order to attain an all-encompassing picture of Islam in post-communist Bosnia and Herzegovina, allof the factors need to be accounted for.

Re: “Commentary” by Rothrock et al. “Meta-Analyses Did Not Establish Improved Mortality With Ivermectin Use in COVID-19”

Re: “Commentary” by Rothrock et al. “Meta-Analyses Did Not Establish Improved Mortality With Ivermectin Use in COVID-19”

COVID-19-Related Rumor Content, Transmission, and Clarification Strategies in China: Descriptive Study.

BackgroundGiven the permeation of social media throughout society, rumors spread faster than ever before, which significantly complicates government responses to public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.ObjectiveWe aimed to examine the characteristics and propagation of rumors during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and evaluated the effectiveness of health authorities’ release of correction announcements.MethodsWe retrieved rumors widely circulating on social media in China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed the effectiveness of official government clarifications and popular science articles refuting those rumors.ResultsWe show that the number of rumors related to the COVID-19 pandemic fluctuated widely in China between December 1, 2019 and April 15, 2020. Rumors mainly occurred in 3 provinces: Hubei, Zhejiang, and Guangxi. Personal social media accounts constituted the major source of media reports of the 4 most widely distributed rumors (the novel coronavirus can be prevented with “Shuanghuanglian”: 7648/10,664, 71.7%; the novel coronavirus is the SARS coronavirus: 14,696/15,902, 92.4%; medical supplies intended for assisting Hubei were detained by the local government: 3911/3943, 99.2%; asymptomatically infected persons were regarded as diagnosed COVID-19 patients with symptoms in official counts: 322/323, 99.7%). The number of rumors circulating was positively associated with the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic (ρ=0.88, 95% CI 0.81-0.93). The release of correction articles was associated with a substantial decrease in the proportion of rumor reports compared to accurate reports. The proportions of negative sentiments appearing among comments by citizens in response to media articles disseminating rumors and disseminating correct information differ insignificantly (both correct reports: χ12=0.315, P=.58; both rumors: χ12=0.025, P=.88; first rumor and last correct report: χ12=1.287, P=.26; first correct report and last rumor: χ12=0.033, P=.86).ConclusionsOur results highlight the importance and urgency of monitoring and correcting false or misleading reports on websites and personal social media accounts. The circulation of rumors can influence public health, and government bodies should establish guidelines to monitor and mitigate the negative impact of such rumors.

Media Reports about Violence against Medical Care Providers in China.

Improper, unprofessional, or misleading media reports about violence against medical care providers (typically doctors and nurses) may provoke copycat incidents. To examine whether media reports about violence against medical care providers in China follow professional journalism recommendations, we identified 10 influential incidents of violence against medical care providers in China through a systematic strategy and used standardized internet-based search techniques to retrieve media reports about these events from 2007–2017. Reports were evaluated independently by trained coders to assess adherence to professional journalism recommendations using a 14-item checklist. In total, 788 eligible media reports were considered. Of those, 50.5% and 47.3%, respectively, failed to mention the real and complete names of the writer and editor. Reports improperly mentioned specific details about the time, place, methods, and perpetrators of violence in 42.1%, 36.4%, 45.4%, and 54.6% of cases, respectively. Over 80% of reports excluded a suggestion to seek help from professional agencies or mediation by a third party and only 3.8% of reports mentioned the perspectives of all three key informants about an event: medical care providers, patients, and hospital administrators. Of those that mentioned medical care providers, patient, and/or hospital administrator perspectives, less than 20% indicated they had obtained the interviewee’s consent to include their perspective. We concluded that most reports about violence against medical care providers in the Chinese media failed to strictly follow reporting recommendations from authoritative media bodies. Efforts are recommended to improve adherence to professional guidelines in media reports about violence against medical care providers in China, as adherence to those guidelines is likely to reduce future violent events against medical care providers like doctors and nurses.

A Kingdom of Water: Adaptation and Survival in the Houma Nation by J. Daniel d'Oney

Reviewed by: A Kingdom of Water: Adaptation and Survival in the Houma Nation by J. Daniel d'Oney Elizabeth Ellis A Kingdom of Water: Adaptation and Survival in the Houma Nation. By J. Daniel d'Oney. Indians of the Southeast. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Pp. xxiv, 199. $60.00, ISBN 978-1-4962-1879-7.) A Kingdom of Water: Adaptation and Survival in the Houma Nation is an accessible and engaging account of more than three centuries of Houma adaptation and resilience. This work also explicitly engages with the United Houma Nation's ongoing fight for federal recognition and is informed by the author's conversations with Houma community members. J. Daniel d'Oney's blending of contemporary political context and expansive historical research is sure to be of interest to scholars of Louisiana history and contemporary Indian policy. In the late seventeenth century, the Lower Mississippi Valley was home to many small Indigenous polities. The Houmas, who were one of these small Native nations, shaped the development of the region during the colonial era, and their ingenuity and innovation have enabled them to retain lands and [End Page 322] communities in the Gulf South through the present day. A Kingdom of Water helps explain how Houmas achieved this monumental feat. D'Oney's early chapters trace the development of Houma and French partnerships during the eighteenth century. The author's work builds on Daniel Usner's arguments about the importance of small Native nations for the Louisiana colony, and d'Oney emphasizes the power that Houmas exercised during this era. The second chapter critically appraises the consequences of the relationships between the Houmas and the French settlers. The Houmas' entanglement with them brought violence and epidemics to the nation, even as their alliances could be politically and economically advantageous. Throughout these first chapters, d'Oney also opens a conversation about the challenges of telling Houma history with sparse documentary records and through accounts written by colonists who did not understand Houma politics or society. This thread carries through the whole of the monograph, and the author's focus on how outsiders' erroneous and misleading reports have caused problems for generations of Houmas is one of the strongest interventions of the book and a critical part of d'Oney's ultimate argument about how misinformation has stymied the nation's fight for federal recognition. If Houmas were able to achieve influence and economic advantage through their partnerships with the French during the first half of the eighteenth century, after 1750 the onslaught of settlers into their homelands led to a steady decline in Houma power. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the wave of land losses around the turn of the nineteenth century as Louisiana and the U.S. federal government refused to recognize the Houmas as a sovereign Indian nation with territorial rights to their homelands. D'Oney highlights the way Houmas continued to integrate outsiders into their community as a means of survival during this era, but sometimes his language and analysis falter as he describes the collision of Indigenous modes of kinship with settler racial ideologies. The fifth chapter expands on the consequences of this erasure of the Houmas' ethnic and racial identities as Indians, and their political rights as a nation, in the mid-twentieth century. The final chapter, which focuses on the nation's fight for recognition, provides a powerful demonstration of how a combination of local business interests, federal policies, and misrepresented Houma history was mobilized to prevent Houmas from securing federal acknowledgment. D'Oney's analysis of the harm that Jim Crow–era racial ideologies caused Houmas resonates with Malinda Maynor Lowery's work on North Carolina and Brian Klopotek's work on Louisiana, and this book contributes to the growing body of scholarship on unremoved southern Native nations. Readers may wish that rather than highlighting conflicts between the United Houma Nation and other unrecognized Louisiana tribal nations, d'Oney had expanded his critique of recognition to examine how the federal process hurts all of these nations, but this critique is perhaps beyond the scope of the work. Regardless, d'Oney has provided a fresh and urgently needed narrative of Houma survivance...

Media Reports About Violence Against Doctors in China

Background: Improper, unprofessional, or misleading media reports about violence against doctors may provoke copycat incidents. Little is known about the adherence of media reports about violence against doctors to professional journalism recommendations. Methods: We identified ten influential incidents of violence against doctors in China through a systematic strategy and used standardized internet-based search techniques to retrieve media reports about these events. Reports were evaluated independently by trained coders to assess adherence to professional journalism recommendations using a 14-item checklist. Findings: In total, 788 eligible media reports were considered. Of those, 50·5% and 47·3% respectively failed to mention the real and complete names of the writer and editor. Reports improperly mentioned specific details about the time, place, methods, and perpetrators of violence in 42·1%, 36·4%, 45·4% and 54·6% of cases, respectively. Over 80% of reports excluded a suggestion to seek help from professional agencies or mediation by a third party and only 3·8% of reports mentioned the perspectives of all three key informants about an event: doctors, patients, and hospital administrators. Of those that mentioned doctor, patient, and/or hospital administrator perspectives, less than 20% indicated they had obtained the interviewee’s consent to include their perspective. Interpretation: Most reports about violence against doctors in the Chinese media failed to strictly follow reporting recommendations from authoritative media bodies. Efforts are recommended to improve adherence to professional guidelines in media reports about violence against doctors in China, as adherence to those guidelines is likely to reduce future violent events against doctors. Funding Statement: None declared. Declaration of Interests: We have no conflicts of interest to declare. Ethics Approval Statement: This analysis was approved by the ethics committee of Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University (NO. XYGW-2018-24).

Theoretical prediction of 13C NMR spectrum of mixed triglycerides by mean of GIAO calculations to improve vegetable oils analysis

This pioneering study based on GIAO-DFT methods is aimed to the best prediction of 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonances (NMR) arising from triglycerides (and also glycerols), known to be the main component of vegetable oils. Provided that fatty esters bound to the glycerol moiety are not affected by the other esterification chains, and slightly affected by their own esterification position (2- internal, or 1/3- external), eight natural molecules are first optimized despite the challenging presence of many non-hydrogen atoms and the large conformational freedom. This preliminary study sheds light on the total chemical shift prediction concerning five fatty esters (Oleic, Palmitic, Linoleic, Stearic and Linolenic) either present in internal or external positions (ten fragments in total); these results display a very good matching to the experimental profile recorded for several vegetable oils chosen as natural mixtures of glycerides. In order to further improve the theoretical to experimental matching, ten simplified triglycerides with the mentioned fatty esters in the two different esterification positions, and flanked by acetyl esters, were studied and optimized. Beyond the best matching reached so far, we notice that the theoretical rationalisation of the overcrowding in the 28.7-29 ppm spectral region in unable to decode the necessary resolution, nonetheless the same theoretical prediction can still drive the appropriate assignments (as for the fifth and sixth carbon attribution of every chain) even against actual misleading reports.

Social Desirability in Multivariate Context for Inmate Survey Research

ABSTRACT In efforts to reduce recidivism, methods to develop predictors of post-release success for the incarcerated are important for assessing whom to target and deliver effective education and other support. Psychological surveys of work-release transitional center participants in Georgia obtained their reports about attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC) to predict positive financial management intentions. Consistent with the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), multivariate analysis revealed that those predictors were positively related to intentions, as was long-term incarceration status. The study also examined the extent to which participants may have provided misleading reports via socially desirable response patterns (SD). SD scores were measured with the Crowne–Marlowe short-form scale. SD had different relationships to each of the TPB predictors, which included a puzzling negative relationship to PBC. Alternative theories about SD reporting were used to interpret these relationship patterns as well as to consider how the level of SD scores affected associations between the TPB predictors and intentions. A main conclusion is that transitional center participants’ SD tendencies did not confound inferences that PBC promoted positive financial management intentions nor other findings regarding attitudes, norms, and incarceration status. Implications for future psychological survey research are discussed.

The Flip Tilt Illusion: Visible in Peripheral Vision as Predicted by the Central-Peripheral Dichotomy.

Consider a gray field comprising pairs of vertically aligned dots; in each pair, one dot is white the other black. When viewed in a peripheral visual field, these pairs appear horizontally aligned. By the Central-Peripheral Dichotomy, this flip tilt illusion arises because top-down feedback from higher to lower visual cortical areas is too weak or absent in the periphery to veto confounded feedforward signals from the primary visual cortex (V1). The white and black dots in each pair activate, respectively, on and off subfields of V1 neural receptive fields. However, the sub-fields’ orientations, and the preferred orientations, of the most activated neurons are orthogonal to the dot alignment. Hence, V1 reports the flip tilt to higher visual areas. Top-down feedback vetoes such misleading reports, but only in the central visual field.

MDB: Monitoring Dysfunctional Behaviors for Patients with Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar Disorder is a common mental illness affecting millions of people worldwide. It is most commonly presented as periods of depressive lows and manic highs, both of which can be extremely uncomfortable and distressing for the individual affected. Existing bipolar patient monitoring relies on subjective self-reports, which are inaccurate and biased. Moreover, many symptoms are not easily recognized or are ignored by the patient, resulting in a loss of information and misleading reports. To achieve reliable daily monitoring of dysfunctional behaviors, we propose a system mDB that uses a mobile phone to monitor a variety of symptomatic activities, in the hopes of improving care and quality of life for these individuals.

Avian Influenza-Factors Affecting Consumers' Purchase Intentions toward Poultry Products.

Recently, continuing outbreaks of avian influenza in China have not only caused great loss to the agricultural sector but also brought fear and distrust to consumers, seriously undermining consumer confidence in chicken products. We investigated consumers’ purchase intentions during avian influenza outbreaks by examining a regionally representative sample of 330 consumers in Guangzhou. With respect to 7 kinds of attributes, the ordered logit analysis indicated that possible health threat and uncertainty of the origin of poultry products may cause concern among consumers and cause them to avoid purchasing chicken products. Media reports have a great influence on consumers’ intentions to purchase chicken products during avian influenza outbreaks. Overall, this study suggests establishing an effective mechanism of public knowledge (of chicken products’ safety and quality) enhancement, in order to curb misleading media reports during avian influenza outbreaks.