Showing papers in "ScienceOpen Research in 2016"

Student Evaluations of Teaching (Mostly) Do Not Measure Teaching Effectiveness

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.

Research practices and assessment of research misconduct

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.

Judicial Tyranny or American Justice

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.

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

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, meditation-induced brain changes, etc. The first theory postulates that qualia experiences derive from specific neural patterns, and 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.

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

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. Fossil-bearing 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.

A quantum theory of spacetime in spinor formalism and the physical reality of cross-ratio representation: the equation of density parameters of dark energy, matter, and ordinary matter is derived: ΩM2 = 4 Ωb ΩΛ

Abstract: By theorizing the physical reality through the deformation of an arbitrary cross-ratio, we leverage Galois differential theory to describe the dynamics of isomonodromic integratable system. We found a new description of curvature of spacetime by the equivalency of isomonodromic integratable system and Penrose’s spinor formalism of general relativity. Using such description, we hypothetically quantize the curvature of spacetime (gravity) and apply to the problem of the evolution of the universe. The Friedmann equation is recovered and compared so that the mathematical relationship among dark energy, matter (dark matter + ordinary matter), and ordinary matter, ΩM2≃4ΩbΩΛ, is derived; the actual observed results are compared to this equation (calculated ΩM = 0.33 vs. observed ΩM = 0.31); the model might explain the origin of dark energy and dark matter of the evolution of the universe.

Marrying Medicine and Materials: Artemisinin (Qinghaosu) Particle is Soft Enough for Scratching Hard SiC Wafer in Water

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.

Sodium polyphosphate and polyethylenimine enhance the antimicrobial activities of plant essential oils

Abstract: Plant extracts have been used for millennia for treatment of disease, with much recent interest focusing on the antimicrobial activities of plant essential oils (EOs). Although EOs are active against common microbial pathogens, their effective use as topical, environmental or food antimicrobials will require EO-based formulations with enhanced antimicrobial activities. In the present study, two polyionic compounds, sodium polyphosphate (polyP, a polyanion) and polyethylenimine (PEI, a polycation), were evaluated for their abilities to enhance the antimicrobial activities of six EOs against the human pathogens Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica ser Minnesota, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. EOs tested were cinnamon, clove, regular and redistilled oregano and two types of thyme oil. EOs were examined via disk diffusion and broth microdilution, either alone or in the presence of sub-inhibitory levels of polyP or PEI. Both polyP and PEI were found to be effective enhancers of EO activity against all strains examined, and calculation of fractional inhibitory indices for select EO/organism pairings demonstrated that true synergy was possible with this enhancement approach. Experiments with a deep rough strain of S. Minnesota probed the role of the outer membrane in both intrinsic resistance to EOs and enhancement by polyions. The use of polyP and PEI for boosting the antimicrobial activities of EOs may eventually facilitate the development of more effective EO-based antimicrobial treatments for use in applications such as wound treatment, surface disinfection, or as GRAS antimicrobials for use in foods or on food contact surfaces.

Statistical Analysis of Numerical Preclinical Radiobiological Data

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.

Wide-spectrum biomimetic antimicrobial systems

Abstract: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are effective components of the host immune response and are widely distributed throughout nature Recently, nontoxic antimicrobial polymers that mimic the structures of naturally occurring AMPs have been designed and are under development commercially as novel therapeutics These compounds have several potential advantages over natural AMPs, including greater stability and reduced immunogenicity compared to natural peptides, relatively simple and scalable syntheses and the ability to tailor or “fine tune” their activities through combinatorial approaches In previous work, we demonstrated the utility of certain generally regarded as safe (GRAS) flavorant and aroma compounds as enhancers of uptake and activity of clinically important antibiotics (Brehm-Stecher and Johnson, 2003) Here, we have extended this approach to include enhancement of biomimetic antimicrobial polymers Three low molecular weight (