Pub Date : 2016-09-15DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AYUSLA.V1
Lisa Matthias
Abstract The U.S. Supreme Court is isolated from the public, yet dependent on high levels of public support to maintain its legitimacy. Due to its distance, the media has great control over how the nation’s highest court is presented to the public. Partisan news outlets cater their stories to audiences with distinct ideological beliefs, reinforcing them while opposing opposite beliefs. This can lead to partisan polarization, which has previously been exclusive to the political realm. However, recent polls have revealed an existing party gap in the Supreme Court’s level of public support, which implies a politicization of the judiciary branch. When the Supreme Court appears to be just another political institution or simply an extension of the other two governmental branches, its integrity is greatly impaired, and, as a consequence, the public’s confidence in the Justices is likely to deteriorate. This study analyzes Fox News’ and MSNBC’s news coverage of two pollogical stance aligns with the Court’s decision, the Supreme Court is presented as an apolitical institution, whereas it is politicized when the decision is contrary the channel’s partisan stance. This implies that the partisan divide, once only common to the political realm has now reached the judiciary.
{"title":"Judicial Tyranny or American Justice","authors":"Lisa Matthias","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AYUSLA.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AYUSLA.V1","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\u0000The U.S. Supreme Court is isolated from the public, yet dependent on high levels of public support to maintain its legitimacy. Due to its distance, the media has great control over how the nation’s highest court is presented to the public. Partisan news outlets cater their stories to audiences with distinct ideological beliefs, reinforcing them while opposing opposite beliefs. This can lead to partisan polarization, which has previously been exclusive to the political realm. However, recent polls have revealed an existing party gap in the Supreme Court’s level of public support, which implies a politicization of the judiciary branch. When the Supreme Court appears to be just another political institution or simply an extension of the other two governmental branches, its integrity is greatly impaired, and, as a consequence, the public’s confidence in the Justices is likely to deteriorate. This study analyzes Fox News’ and MSNBC’s news coverage of two pollogical\u0000stance aligns with the Court’s decision, the Supreme Court is presented as an apolitical institution, whereas it is politicized when the decision is contrary the channel’s partisan stance. This implies that the partisan divide, once only common to the political realm has now reached the\u0000judiciary.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"63 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87742890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-08-02DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.ARYSBI.V1
C.H.J. Hartgerink, J. Wicherts
This article discusses the responsible conduct of research, questionable research practices, and research misconduct. Responsible conduct of research is often defined in terms of a set of abstract, normative principles, professional standards, and ethics in doing research. In order to accommodate the normative principles of scientific research, the professional standards, and a researcher’s moral principles, transparent research practices can serve as a framework for responsible conduct of research. We suggest a “prune-and-add” project structure to enhance transparency and, by extension, responsible conduct of research. Questionable research practices are defined as practices that are detrimental to the research process. The prevalence of questionable research practices remains largely unknown, and reproducibility of findings has been shown to be problematic. Questionable practices are discouraged by transparent practices because practices that arise from them will become more apparent to scientific peers. Most effective might be preregistrations of research design, hypotheses, and analyses, which reduce particularism of results by providing an a priori research scheme. Research misconduct has been defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP), which is clearly the worst type of research practice. Despite it being clearly wrong, it can be approached from a scientific and legal perspective. The legal perspective sees research misconduct as a form of white-collar crime. The scientific perspective seeks to answer the following question: “Were results invalidated because of the misconduct?” We review how misconduct is typically detected, how its detection can be improved, and how prevalent it might be. Institutions could facilitate detection of data fabrication and falsification by implementing data auditing. Nonetheless, the effect of misconduct is pervasive: many retracted articles are still cited after the retraction has been issued. Main points Researchers systematically evaluate their own conduct as more responsible than colleagues, but not as responsible as they would like. Transparent practices, facilitated by the Open Science Framework, help embody scientific norms that promote responsible conduct. Questionable research practices harm the research process and work counter to the generally accepted scientific norms, but are hard to detect. Research misconduct requires active scrutiny of the research community because editors and peer-reviewers do not pay adequate attention to detecting this. Tips are given on how to improve your detection of potential problems.
{"title":"Research practices and assessment of research misconduct","authors":"C.H.J. Hartgerink, J. Wicherts","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.ARYSBI.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.ARYSBI.V1","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the responsible conduct of research, questionable research practices, and research misconduct. Responsible conduct of research is often defined in terms of a set of abstract, normative principles, professional standards, and ethics in doing research. In order to accommodate the normative principles of scientific research, the professional standards, and a researcher’s moral principles, transparent research practices can serve as a framework for responsible conduct of research. We suggest a “prune-and-add” project structure to enhance transparency and, by extension, responsible conduct of research. Questionable research practices are defined as practices that are detrimental to the research process. The prevalence of questionable research practices remains largely unknown, and reproducibility of findings has been shown to be problematic. Questionable practices are discouraged by transparent practices because practices that arise from them will become more apparent to scientific peers. Most effective might be preregistrations of research design, hypotheses, and analyses, which reduce particularism of results by providing an a priori research scheme. Research misconduct has been defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP), which is clearly the worst type of research practice. Despite it being clearly wrong, it can be approached from a scientific and legal perspective. The legal perspective sees research misconduct as a form of white-collar crime. The scientific perspective seeks to answer the following question: “Were results invalidated because of the misconduct?” We review how misconduct is typically detected, how its detection can be improved, and how prevalent it might be. Institutions could facilitate detection of data fabrication and falsification by implementing data auditing. Nonetheless, the effect of misconduct is pervasive: many retracted articles are still cited after the retraction has been issued. Main points Researchers systematically evaluate their own conduct as more responsible than colleagues, but not as responsible as they would like. Transparent practices, facilitated by the Open Science Framework, help embody scientific norms that promote responsible conduct. Questionable research practices harm the research process and work counter to the generally accepted scientific norms, but are hard to detect. Research misconduct requires active scrutiny of the research community because editors and peer-reviewers do not pay adequate attention to detecting this. Tips are given on how to improve your detection of potential problems.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87329294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-07-12DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.AH9PUY.V1
Dasapta Erwin Irawan, R. Kapid
The northern part of the East Java Basin has become a focus of research by earth scientists, among others, because of the existence of hominid fossils and remains of other vertebrate taxa within the Quaternary sedimentary sequence. Fossilbearing layers are found in the Kendeng Zone, mostly within the well-known Pucangan and Kabuh Formations, which are distributed from Central to East Java. However, not all formations contain vertebrate fossils as well as hominid elements. It is important to consider what factors may have influenced the concentration of vertebrate fossils in those formations. In this study, we describe sedimentary facies at three key field locations: Sangiran, Ngawi, and Mojokerto. Our study indicates that vertebrate remains and hominid fossils mainly accumulated in continental sediments associated with lacustrine and fluvial systems. In this regard, Sangiran and Ngawi B offer the greatest prospect for yielding hominid remains, owing to their unique paleoenvironmental and paleogeographical settings as a highland during the Early–Middle Pleistocene period. Certain parts of the Kabuh Formation in the Mojokerto region also hold high potential, especially those displaying evidence of continental deposition. INTRODUCTION The northern part of the East Java Basin (the area between 110°30' to 113° E and 6°22' and 7°41' S) has become a focus of considerable interest to earth scientists due to the existence of oil and gas resources, and a continuous sequence of sedimentary layers from Mid-Miocene to Pleistocene in age, some of which have yielded fossils of early hominids as well as a wide range of other vertebrate fossils which occur in certain Quaternary sediments. Based on physiographical expression, the northern part of the East Java Basin can be divided into four zones. From north to south, these are the North Java Sea Platform, Rembang, Randublatung Depression, and Kendeng. The Kendeng Zone is the most famous zone for paleontologists, since a number of hominid and other vertebrate fossil assemblages occur within this zone in the Pucangan and Kabuh Formations [1]. Furthermore, the Kendeng Zone can be divided into three sub-zones: West Kendeng (between Mt. Ungaran and Purwodadi), Middle Kendeng (between Purwodadi and Mt. Pandan), and East Kendeng (between Mt. Pandan and Mojokerto) (Figure 1). The Pleistocene lithological unit exposed at Pucangan hill 20 km north of Jombang (East Java) was named as “Pucangan” and Kabuh is the name of a village located about 7 km north of Ploso, in the Jombang region of East Java [3]. In the Sangiran area, hominid and other vertebrate fossils have mostly been correlated with the Pucangan and Kabuh Formations. In terms of their relative stratigraphical positions, the preceding formation is older than the later formation [4]. Along with Sangiran, Trinil is also well known as the site of hominid fossils and large vertebrate faunal assemblages. At Trinil, which is located about 8.5 km west of Ngawi (East Java)
{"title":"A review on paleoenvironment suitability for hominid fossils and other early vertebrate faunas: a case from Pucangan and Kabuh Formations, Central and East Java, Indonesia","authors":"Dasapta Erwin Irawan, R. Kapid","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.AH9PUY.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.AH9PUY.V1","url":null,"abstract":"The northern part of the East Java Basin has become a focus of research by earth scientists, among others, because of the existence of hominid fossils and remains of other vertebrate taxa within the Quaternary sedimentary sequence. Fossilbearing layers are found in the Kendeng Zone, mostly within the well-known Pucangan and Kabuh Formations, which are distributed from Central to East Java. However, not all formations contain vertebrate fossils as well as hominid elements. It is important to consider what factors may have influenced the concentration of vertebrate fossils in those formations. In this study, we describe sedimentary facies at three key field locations: Sangiran, Ngawi, and Mojokerto. Our study indicates that vertebrate remains and hominid fossils mainly accumulated in continental sediments associated with lacustrine and fluvial systems. In this regard, Sangiran and Ngawi B offer the greatest prospect for yielding hominid remains, owing to their unique paleoenvironmental and paleogeographical settings as a highland during the Early–Middle Pleistocene period. Certain parts of the Kabuh Formation in the Mojokerto region also hold high potential, especially those displaying evidence of continental deposition. INTRODUCTION The northern part of the East Java Basin (the area between 110°30' to 113° E and 6°22' and 7°41' S) has become a focus of considerable interest to earth scientists due to the existence of oil and gas resources, and a continuous sequence of sedimentary layers from Mid-Miocene to Pleistocene in age, some of which have yielded fossils of early hominids as well as a wide range of other vertebrate fossils which occur in certain Quaternary sediments. Based on physiographical expression, the northern part of the East Java Basin can be divided into four zones. From north to south, these are the North Java Sea Platform, Rembang, Randublatung Depression, and Kendeng. The Kendeng Zone is the most famous zone for paleontologists, since a number of hominid and other vertebrate fossil assemblages occur within this zone in the Pucangan and Kabuh Formations [1]. Furthermore, the Kendeng Zone can be divided into three sub-zones: West Kendeng (between Mt. Ungaran and Purwodadi), Middle Kendeng (between Purwodadi and Mt. Pandan), and East Kendeng (between Mt. Pandan and Mojokerto) (Figure 1). The Pleistocene lithological unit exposed at Pucangan hill 20 km north of Jombang (East Java) was named as “Pucangan” and Kabuh is the name of a village located about 7 km north of Ploso, in the Jombang region of East Java [3]. In the Sangiran area, hominid and other vertebrate fossils have mostly been correlated with the Pucangan and Kabuh Formations. In terms of their relative stratigraphical positions, the preceding formation is older than the later formation [4]. Along with Sangiran, Trinil is also well known as the site of hominid fossils and large vertebrate faunal assemblages. At Trinil, which is located about 8.5 km west of Ngawi (East Java)","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81823067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-07-07DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.ARGGHM.V1
Hamzavi-Pinon Violaine, Cholley, M. Mendoza-Parra, H. Gronemeyer
The emergence of high throughput technologies with the production of Gigabyte omics datasets has led to revolutionary changes in molecular biology and functional genomics. Despite the incorporation of increasingly quantitative technologies, the field suffers from important reproducibility problems. Some causes have been identified: they include poor quality management, competition for publishing, funding and jobs, problems in experimental and statistical design of assays. The consequences are - among others - delays in the implementation of efficient and specific anti-cancer treatments, the unnecessary duplication/validation of improperly conducted studies, and the waste of public funding. Here we wish to discuss another cause of poor reproducibility, which will become increasingly important with the advent of personalized medicine: the generation of poor quality datasets from Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, specifically those that involve enrichment assays like ChIP-sequencing. Today NGS-derived applications are becoming increasingly popular, which is further supported by decreasing sequencing costs, the rapid development of novel sequencing-based technologies, and the power of genome-wide data interpretation by functional genomics and systems biology approaches. However, the complexity and sensitivity of these technologies bear the risk of introducing various types of bias. Thus, it is rather surprising that only very few quality indicators have been developed to date. The public availability of omics data in large repositories, such as GEO, is no doubt an enormously valuable source. However, by working extensively with such datasets, we realized that the lack of universal quality control indicators in publications and data repositories seriously limits the use of existing data and can contribute to irreproducibility issues. Here we provide examples that illustrate the problems generated by the use of poor quality datasets and propose solutions that would ultimately enhance reproducibility, encourage scientists to use existing datasets in the design and interpretation of their own research projects. Our goal is to increase awareness about the need of linking quality assessment to datasets in the scientific community, and to initiate a discussion on the quality control of big data.
{"title":"About the variability, quality and reproducibility of ChIP-seq data","authors":"Hamzavi-Pinon Violaine, Cholley, M. Mendoza-Parra, H. Gronemeyer","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.ARGGHM.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-LIFE.ARGGHM.V1","url":null,"abstract":"The emergence of high throughput technologies with the production of Gigabyte omics datasets has led to revolutionary changes in molecular biology and functional genomics. Despite the incorporation of increasingly quantitative technologies, the field suffers from important reproducibility problems. Some causes have been identified: they include poor quality management, competition for publishing, funding and jobs, problems in experimental and statistical design of assays. The consequences are - among others - delays in the implementation of efficient and specific anti-cancer treatments, the unnecessary duplication/validation of improperly conducted studies, and the waste of public funding. Here we wish to discuss another cause of poor reproducibility, which will become increasingly important with the advent of personalized medicine: the generation of poor quality datasets from Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies, specifically those that involve enrichment assays like ChIP-sequencing. Today NGS-derived applications are becoming increasingly popular, which is further supported by decreasing sequencing costs, the rapid development of novel sequencing-based technologies, and the power of genome-wide data interpretation by functional genomics and systems biology approaches. However, the complexity and sensitivity of these technologies bear the risk of introducing various types of bias. Thus, it is rather surprising that only very few quality indicators have been developed to date. The public availability of omics data in large repositories, such as GEO, is no doubt an enormously valuable source. However, by working extensively with such datasets, we realized that the lack of universal quality control indicators in publications and data repositories seriously limits the use of existing data and can contribute to irreproducibility issues. Here we provide examples that illustrate the problems generated by the use of poor quality datasets and propose solutions that would ultimately enhance reproducibility, encourage scientists to use existing datasets in the design and interpretation of their own research projects. Our goal is to increase awareness about the need of linking quality assessment to datasets in the scientific community, and to initiate a discussion on the quality control of big data.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76637245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-07-07DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MED.ARJTJP.V1
Melissa Garcia, Sarah K. Nelson, Nathaniel Wolf, O. Asojo
We performed statistical analysis of the 2013 Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics report to study factors linked to improved health outcomes. Female secondary education was identified as critical for improving health indices such as a reduction in infant and maternal mortality. Interestingly, other development indices such as female primary school, access to improved water sources, and sanitation services were not statistically associated with improved health outcomes. While national averages suggest recent improvements in health of the Nigerian populace, these averages do not provide a complete picture due to the great diversity in Nigeria. Our analysis reveals a polarized healthcare landscape with a dramatic trend of poor health outcomes for Nigerians living in Northern Nigerian states where women have a highly significantly lower percentage of percent women employed (p<0.001), women in decision-making power (p<0.001), and lower secondary education. Our analysis revealed that usage of available public health services was strongly correlated to female secondary education, which supports that the education of the girl child to at least secondary school is imperative for improved health outcomes in Nigeria. Our recommendation is that intervention policies should consider the diversity and geopolitical divide in Nigeria to be successful.
{"title":"Female Secondary education is imperative for improved health outcomes in Nigeria","authors":"Melissa Garcia, Sarah K. Nelson, Nathaniel Wolf, O. Asojo","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MED.ARJTJP.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MED.ARJTJP.V1","url":null,"abstract":"We performed statistical analysis of the 2013 Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics report to study factors linked to improved health outcomes. Female secondary education was identified as critical for improving health indices such as a reduction in infant and maternal mortality. Interestingly, other development indices such as female primary school, access to improved water sources, and sanitation services were not statistically associated with improved health outcomes. While national averages suggest recent improvements in health of the Nigerian populace, these averages do not provide a complete picture due to the great diversity in Nigeria. Our analysis reveals a polarized healthcare landscape with a dramatic trend of poor health outcomes for Nigerians living in Northern Nigerian states where women have a highly significantly lower percentage of percent women employed (p<0.001), women in decision-making power (p<0.001), and lower secondary education. Our analysis revealed that usage of available public health services was strongly correlated to female secondary education, which supports that the education of the girl child to at least secondary school is imperative for improved health outcomes in Nigeria. Our recommendation is that intervention policies should consider the diversity and geopolitical divide in Nigeria to be successful.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87206472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-04-15DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AY054B.V1
Patrizio Emanuele Tressoldi, E. Facco, D. Lucangeli
This contribution to the science of consciousness aims at comparing how two different theories can explain the emergence of different qualia experiences, meta-awareness, meta-cognition, the placebo effect, out-of-body experiences, cognitive therapy and meditation-induced brain changes, etc. The first theory postulated that qualia experiences derive from specific neural patterns, the second one, that qualia experiences derive from the interaction of a proto-consciousness with the brain’s neural activity. From this comparison it will be possible to judge which one seems to better explain the different qualia experiences and to offer a more promising research agenda.
{"title":"Emergence of Qualia from Brain Activity or from an Interaction of Proto-Consciousness with the Brain: Which One Is the Weirder? Available Evidence and a Research Agenda","authors":"Patrizio Emanuele Tressoldi, E. Facco, D. Lucangeli","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AY054B.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-SOCSCI.AY054B.V1","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution to the science of consciousness aims at comparing how two different theories can explain the emergence of different qualia experiences, meta-awareness, meta-cognition, the placebo effect, out-of-body experiences, cognitive therapy and meditation-induced brain changes, etc. The first theory postulated that qualia experiences derive from specific neural patterns, the second one, that qualia experiences derive from the interaction of a proto-consciousness with the brain’s neural activity. From this comparison it will be possible to judge which one seems to better explain the different qualia experiences and to offer a more promising research agenda.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88996479","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-27DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MATSCI.AMNMZS.V1
Yu-rong Zhu, Dan Zhang, Y. Gan, Fei-hu Zhang
Silicon carbide (SiC) single crystals, along with sapphire and silicon, are one of most important substrates for high-brightness LED fabrications. Owing to extremely high hardness (Mohs’ scale of 9.5) and chemical inertness, the polishing rate of SiC with conventional chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) methods is not high, and surface scratches are also inevitable because of using slurry containing hard abrasives such as silica particles. Here artemisinin (Qinghaosu) crystals, very soft molecular solids, were found, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, to effectively polish SiC wafers even in pure water as demonstrated by proof-of-concept scratching experiments using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The underlying mechanism is attributed to activated oxidation of SiC by mechanically released reactive ·OH free radicals from the endoperoxide bridges. The preliminary results reported here have important implications for developing novel alternative green and scratch-free polishing methods for hard-brittle substrates including SiC and others.
{"title":"Marrying Medicine and Materials: Artemisinin (Qinghaosu) Particle is Soft Enough for Scratching Hard SiC Wafer in Water","authors":"Yu-rong Zhu, Dan Zhang, Y. Gan, Fei-hu Zhang","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MATSCI.AMNMZS.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-MATSCI.AMNMZS.V1","url":null,"abstract":"Silicon carbide (SiC) single crystals, along with sapphire and silicon, are one of most important substrates for high-brightness LED fabrications. Owing to extremely high hardness (Mohs’ scale of 9.5) and chemical inertness, the polishing rate of SiC with conventional chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) methods is not high, and surface scratches are also inevitable because of using slurry containing hard abrasives such as silica particles. Here artemisinin (Qinghaosu) crystals, very soft molecular solids, were found, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, to effectively polish SiC wafers even in pure water as demonstrated by proof-of-concept scratching experiments using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The underlying mechanism is attributed to activated oxidation of SiC by mechanically released reactive ·OH free radicals from the endoperoxide bridges. The preliminary results reported here have important implications for developing novel alternative green and scratch-free polishing methods for hard-brittle substrates including SiC and others.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73188942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-22DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-STAT.AFHTWC.V1
Helene Z. Hill, J. Pitt
Background: Scientific fraud is an increasingly vexing problem. Many current programs for fraud detection focus on image manipulation, while techniques for detection based on anomalous patterns that may be discoverable in the underlying numerical data get much less attention, even though these techniques are often easy to apply. Methods: We applied statistical techniques in considering and comparing data sets from ten researchers in one laboratory and three outside investigators to determine whether anomalous patterns in data from a research teaching assistant (RTS) were likely to have occurred by chance. Rightmost digits of values in RTS data sets were not, as expected, uniform; equal pairs of terminal digits occurred at higher than expected frequency (> 10%); and, an unexpectedly large number of data triples commonly produced in such research included values near their means as an element. We applied standard statistical tests (chi-squared goodness of fit, binomial probabilities) to determine the likelihood of the first two anomalous patterns, and developed a new statistical model to test the third. Results: Application of the three tests to various data sets reported by RTS resulted in repeated rejection of the hypotheses (often at p-levels well below 0.001) that anomalous patterns in those data may have occurred by chance. Similar application to data sets from other investigators were entirely consistent with chance occurrence. Conclusions: This analysis emphasizes the importance of access to raw data that form the bases of publications, reports and grant applications in order to evaluate the correctness of the conclusions, and the importance of applying statistical methods to detect anomalous, especially potentially fabricated, numerical results.
{"title":"Statistical Analysis of Numerical Preclinical Radiobiological Data","authors":"Helene Z. Hill, J. Pitt","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-STAT.AFHTWC.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-STAT.AFHTWC.V1","url":null,"abstract":"Background: Scientific fraud is an increasingly vexing problem. Many current programs for fraud detection focus on image manipulation, while techniques for detection based on anomalous patterns that may be discoverable in the underlying numerical data get much less attention, even though these techniques are often easy to apply. Methods: We applied statistical techniques in considering and comparing data sets from ten researchers in one laboratory and three outside investigators to determine whether anomalous patterns in data from a research teaching assistant (RTS) were likely to have occurred by chance. Rightmost digits of values in RTS data sets were not, as expected, uniform; equal pairs of terminal digits occurred at higher than expected frequency (> 10%); and, an unexpectedly large number of data triples commonly produced in such research included values near their means as an element. We applied standard statistical tests (chi-squared goodness of fit, binomial probabilities) to determine the likelihood of the first two anomalous patterns, and developed a new statistical model to test the third. Results: Application of the three tests to various data sets reported by RTS resulted in repeated rejection of the hypotheses (often at p-levels well below 0.001) that anomalous patterns in those data may have occurred by chance. Similar application to data sets from other investigators were entirely consistent with chance occurrence. Conclusions: This analysis emphasizes the importance of access to raw data that form the bases of publications, reports and grant applications in order to evaluate the correctness of the conclusions, and the importance of applying statistical methods to detect anomalous, especially potentially fabricated, numerical results.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78469613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-07DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-EDU.AETBZC.V1
Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni, P. Stark
Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are widely used in academic personnel decisions as a measure of teaching effectiveness. We show: SET are biased against female instructors by an amount that is large and statistically significant the bias affects how students rate even putatively objective aspects of teaching, such as how promptly assignments are graded the bias varies by discipline and by student gender, among other things it is not possible to adjust for the bias, because it depends on so many factors SET are more sensitive to students' gender bias and grade expectations than they are to teaching effectiveness gender biases can be large enough to cause more effective instructors to get lower SET than less effective instructors. These findings are based on nonparametric statistical tests applied to two datasets: 23,001 SET of 379 instructors by 4,423 students in six mandatory first-year courses in a five-year natural experiment at a French university, and 43 SET for four sections of an online course in a randomized, controlled, blind experiment at a US university.
{"title":"Student Evaluations of Teaching (Mostly) Do Not Measure Teaching Effectiveness","authors":"Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni, P. Stark","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-EDU.AETBZC.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-EDU.AETBZC.V1","url":null,"abstract":"Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are widely used in academic personnel decisions as a measure of teaching effectiveness. We show: SET are biased against female instructors by an amount that is large and statistically significant the bias affects how students rate even putatively objective aspects of teaching, such as how promptly assignments are graded the bias varies by discipline and by student gender, among other things it is not possible to adjust for the bias, because it depends on so many factors SET are more sensitive to students' gender bias and grade expectations than they are to teaching effectiveness gender biases can be large enough to cause more effective instructors to get lower SET than less effective instructors. These findings are based on nonparametric statistical tests applied to two datasets: 23,001 SET of 379 instructors by 4,423 students in six mandatory first-year courses in a five-year natural experiment at a French university, and 43 SET for four sections of an online course in a randomized, controlled, blind experiment at a US university.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84552801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-01-04DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-CHEM.AZ1MJU.V1
R. Lévy, M. Held, D. Mason, Joan Comenge, G. Carolan
From the 1950s onwards, our understanding of the formation and intracellular trafficking of membrane vesicles was informed by experiments in which cells were exposed to gold nanoparticles and their uptake and localisation, studied by electron microscopy. In the last decade, building on progress in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles and their controlled functionalisation with a large variety of biomolecules (DNA, peptides, polysaccharides), new applications have been proposed, including the imaging and sensing of intracellular events. Yet, as already demonstrated in the 1950s, uptake of nanoparticles results in confinement within an intracellular vesicle which in principle should preclude sensing of cytosolic events. To study this apparent paradox, we focus on a commercially available nanoparticle probe that detects mRNA through the release of a fluorescently-labelled oligonucleotide (unquenching the fluorescence) in the presence of the target mRNA. Using electron, fluorescence and photothermal microscopy, we show that the probes remain in endocytic compartments and that they do not report on mRNA level. We suggest that the validation of any nanoparticle-based probes for intracellular sensing should include a quantitative and thorough demonstration that the probes can reach the cytosolic compartment.
{"title":"The Spherical Nucleic Acids mRNA Detection Paradox","authors":"R. Lévy, M. Held, D. Mason, Joan Comenge, G. Carolan","doi":"10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-CHEM.AZ1MJU.V1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-CHEM.AZ1MJU.V1","url":null,"abstract":"From the 1950s onwards, our understanding of the formation and intracellular trafficking of membrane vesicles was informed by experiments in which cells were exposed to gold nanoparticles and their uptake and localisation, studied by electron microscopy. In the last decade, building on progress in the synthesis of gold nanoparticles and their controlled functionalisation with a large variety of biomolecules (DNA, peptides, polysaccharides), new applications have been proposed, including the imaging and sensing of intracellular events. Yet, as already demonstrated in the 1950s, uptake of nanoparticles results in confinement within an intracellular vesicle which in principle should preclude sensing of cytosolic events. To study this apparent paradox, we focus on a commercially available nanoparticle probe that detects mRNA through the release of a fluorescently-labelled oligonucleotide (unquenching the fluorescence) in the presence of the target mRNA. Using electron, fluorescence and photothermal microscopy, we show that the probes remain in endocytic compartments and that they do not report on mRNA level. We suggest that the validation of any nanoparticle-based probes for intracellular sensing should include a quantitative and thorough demonstration that the probes can reach the cytosolic compartment.","PeriodicalId":91169,"journal":{"name":"ScienceOpen research","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89362660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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