Do Contraceptive Rods Affect the Behaviour of African Lions (Panthera leo) in Captivity?

Surplus animals in zoos and wildlife parks are handled differently across Europe. Some zoos use the “Breed and Cull”-method where animals are allowed to reproduce, and surplus animals culled when the mature. Other zoos sterilize the animals or inject them with contraceptive rods to prevent reproduction. Naturally secreted hormones affect both behaviour and morphology, but the effect of the injected hormones has not been studied in lions. The aim of this observational study was to compare the behaviour in captive groups of female lions, that had either been injected with contraceptive rods or not. The study was made in eight different zoos in Denmark, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands. We found no significant differences in the behaviour of the two groups (with and without rods), indicating that there was no effect of contraceptive rods. However, the small sample size, and unbalanced factors such as pride composition, age and weather could have blurred our results. In order to address the challenge of surplus animals, we suggest, future studies with a more optimal experimental design and larger sample sizes and the inclusion of physiological measurement in addition to quantitative behavioural recordings.

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Variables affecting Corporate Governance in the Profitability of Banks in Pakistan

International Journal of Accounting and Financial Reporting ◽

10.5296/ijafr.v4i2.6080 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 66

Author(s):

Aisha Akram ◽

Muhammad Omair ◽

Huzaifa Ameen ◽

Zohaib Khan Babar ◽

Jawwad Hassan Jaskani

Keyword(s):

Corporate Governance ◽

Major Element ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Profit Maximization ◽

Small Sample ◽

Effective Control ◽

Future Studies ◽

Business System ◽

Good Corporate Governance ◽

Executive Body

Purpose: Understanding the issue of Corporate Governance requires to think beyond the Profit maximization for the firm. Corporate governance is the effective control of the issue regarding top management. Corporate governance is the major element of the present international business system. This research therefore investigates the connection between corporate governance and financial institutions profitability in Pakistan. Methodology: For this purpose a questionnaire is being adapted and responses are gathered from the executive body in banks of all the three divisions of Southern Punjab. Findings: The research found that good corporate governance is necessary for the profitability in banks. Limitation: The limitation of the study is that we had a small sample size due to the time constraint but it provides a research framework for future studies.

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Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine could be an Available Weapons to Treat COVID-19 Associated Pneumonia

Journal of Pharmaceutical Research International ◽

10.9734/jpri/2020/v32i930482 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 52-60

Author(s):

Nehad J. Ahmed

Keyword(s):

Clinical Trials ◽

Angiotensin Converting Enzyme ◽

Sample Size ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Google Scholar ◽

Converting Enzyme ◽

Larger Sample

Aims: This study aims to review the efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) associated pneumonia. Methodology: This review includes searching Google scholar for publications about the use of hydroxychloroquinein the treatment of COVID-19 using the words of (Covid-19) AND hydroxychloroquine. Results: Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have proven effective in treating coronavirus in China in vitro, but till now only few clinical trials are available and these trials were conducted on a small sample size of the patients. The efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine is mainly due to its effect on angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2). Conclusion: The use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine could be very promising but more trials are needed that include larger sample size and more data are required about the comparison between chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine with other antivirals.

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Abstract W P20: A Model to Calculate the Expected Treatment Effect in Acute Endovascular Stroke Trials

Stroke ◽

10.1161/str.45.suppl_1.wp20 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 45 (suppl_1) ◽

Author(s):

Maarten G Lansberg ◽

Robin Lemmens ◽

Soren Christensen ◽

Nishant K Mishra ◽

Gregory W Albers

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Sample Size ◽

Endovascular Therapy ◽

Treatment Effect ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Absolute Difference ◽

Sample Size Calculations ◽

And Control ◽

Larger Sample

Background: Recent trials have shown no benefit of endovascular therapy. This may, in part, be explained by inaccurate estimates of the treatment effect used in the sample size calculations of these trials. A predictive model which includes variables that modify the expected treatment effect might yield more accurate estimates, and could be valuable in the design of future acute stroke trials. Methods: We conducted a literature review to obtain estimates of parameters that are associated with good functional outcome (GFO) following recanalization. We developed a model to estimate the treatment effect in endovascular stroke trials and applied this model to two recently published endovascular stroke trials. Results: We estimated a 40% absolute difference in the proportion of GFO (mRS 0-2 at 90 days) associated with reperfusion in patients with ICA or M1 occlusions who have a substantial ischemic penumbra at baseline. To estimate the effect size in trials, this value was multiplied by: 1) the proportion of patients undergoing endovascular therapy in the active treatment arm; 2) the proportion of patients with occlusions of the ICA or MCA-M1; 3) the proportion of patients with a substantial penumbra and a DWI lesion <50mL; and 4) the absolute difference in the proportion of patients with reperfusion, defined as TICI 2B-3, between the endovascular treatment and control arms. Based on literature review we assumed a reperfusion rate of 20% in the control arms of IMS III and MR Rescue, a 50% prevalence of patients with substantial penumbra and DWI lesions<50 mL in IMS III, and a 75% prevalence in the penumbral arms of MR Rescue. Based on these model inputs, a 2.2% increase in GFO with endovascular therapy was expected in IMS III, which closely matches the observed 2.1% increase. For MR Rescue, the model predicted a 1.5% increase in GFO with endovascular therapy. Considering the small sample size, this equates to 0.5 additional patients with GFO which closely matches the observed result of 3 fewer patients with GFO. Conclusion: A simple model shows promise for estimating the treatment effect of endovascular stroke trials. It may be useful for the design of future trials and could lead to different inclusion criteria or larger sample sizes compared to the recently conducted studies.

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Dream Activity in Narcoleptic Patients During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.681569 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Serena Scarpelli ◽

Valentina Alfonsi ◽

Anita D'Anselmo ◽

Maurizio Gorgoni ◽

Alessandro Musetti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sleep Disturbances ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Female Gender ◽

Small Sample ◽

Dream Recall ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Future Studies ◽

Medication Effect ◽

Cross Sectional Design

Some studies highlighted that patients with narcolepsy type-1 (NT1) experience high lucid dream frequency, and this phenomenon has been associated with a creative personality. Starting from the well-known “pandemic effect” on sleep and dreaming, we presented a picture of dream activity in pharmacologically treated NT1 patients during the Italian lockdown. Forty-three NT1 patients completed a web-survey during Spring 2021 and were compared with 86 matched-controls. Statistical comparisons revealed that: (a) NT1 patients showed greater sleepiness than controls; (b) controls showed higher sleep disturbances than NT1 patients, and this result disappeared when the medication effect in NT1 was controlled; (c) NT1 patients reported higher lucid dream frequency than controls. Focusing on dreaming in NT1 patients, we found that (a) nightmare frequency was correlated with female gender, longer sleep duration, higher intrasleep wakefulness; (b) dream recall, nightmare and lucid dream frequency were positively correlated with sleepiness. Comparisons between low and high NT1 lucid dreamers showed that patients more frequently experiencing lucid dreams reported a greater influence of dreaming during wakefulness, especially concerning problem-solving and creativity. Overall, our results are consistent with previous studies on pandemic dreaming carried out on healthy subjects. Moreover, we confirmed a link between lucidity and creativity in NT1 patients. Considering the small sample size and the cross-sectional design, our findings cannot provide a causal relationship between lucid dreams and the COVID-19 lockdown. Nevertheless, they represent a first contribution to address future studies on this issue, suggesting that some stable characteristics could interact with changes provoked by the pandemic.

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Replication and contradiction of highly cited research papers in psychiatry: 10-year follow-up

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.bp.113.143701 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 207 (4) ◽

pp. 357-362 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Aran Tajika ◽

Yusuke Ogawa ◽

Nozomi Takeshima ◽

Yu Hayasaka ◽

Toshi A. Furukawa

Keyword(s):

Sample Size ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Total Sample ◽

Small Sample ◽

Research Papers ◽

Effective Interventions ◽

Mean Differences ◽

Larger Sample ◽

Highly Cited

BackgroundContradictions and initial overestimates are not unusual among highly cited studies. However, this issue has not been researched in psychiatry.AimsTo assess how highly cited studies in psychiatry are replicated by subsequent studies.MethodWe selected highly cited studies claiming effective psychiatric treatments in the years 2000 through 2002. For each of these studies we searched for subsequent studies with a better-controlled design, or with a similar design but a larger sample.ResultsAmong 83 articles recommending effective interventions, 40 had not been subject to any attempt at replication, 16 were contradicted, 11 were found to have substantially smaller effects and only 16 were replicated. The standardised mean differences of the initial studies were overestimated by 132%. Studies with a total sample size of 100 or more tended to produce replicable results.ConclusionsCaution is needed when a study with a small sample size reports a large effect.

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The Power of Massage in Children with Cancer—How Can We Do Effective Research?

Children ◽

10.3390/children6010013 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 13

Author(s):

Shana Jacobs ◽

Catriona Mowbray

Keyword(s):

Sample Size ◽

Outcome Measures ◽

Patient Selection ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Control Groups ◽

Children With Cancer ◽

Future Studies ◽

Cancer Experience

Children with cancer experience multiple troubling symptoms. Massage offers a safe, non-pharmacological approach to address these symptoms. Numerous studies of massage in children and adults with cancer have been performed, yet most are unable to demonstrate significant benefit. This review aims to summarize what we know about the role of massage and sets goals and challenges for future massage research. This paper descriptively reviews the existing literature available in PubMed (both prior reviews and select papers) and the holes in prior research studies. Prior research on massage has been limited by small sample size/insufficient power, inappropriate outcome measures or timing, heterogeneous patient populations, inconsistent intervention techniques, and other design flaws. Based on the findings and limitations of previous work, numerous suggestions are made for future studies to increase the potency of findings, including thoughts about appropriate dosing, control groups, type of intervention, outcome measures, patient selection, feasibility, and statistics.

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Use of the CatWalk Gait Device to Assess Differences in Locomotion between Genders in Rats Inherently and following Spinal Cord Injury

Dataset Papers in Science ◽

10.1155/2016/6276348 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2016 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jeffrey P. Datto ◽

Anna K. Shah ◽

Johana C. Bastidas ◽

Kristopher L. Arheart ◽

Alexander E. Marcillo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spinal Cord ◽

Spinal Cord Injury ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Foot Placement ◽

Locomotor Recovery ◽

Cord Injury ◽

Before And After ◽

Possible Cause ◽

Larger Sample

A possible cause of differences in recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI) is gender. The effect of gender on locomotor recovery following SCI, however, remains controversial and has produced conflicting results regarding gender’s impact on outcome. A significant shortcoming of previous studies was small sample size. The current work tested what, if any, significant differences existed between genders after SCI with CatWalk Gait Analysis that uses an automated device to measure the foot placement and gait of animals as they voluntarily cross an illuminated glass runway. We hypothesized that, by employing larger sample sizes in a reproducible and clinically relevant contusive SCI paradigm, subtle distinctions in locomotor recovery between sexes, if they exist, would be elucidated. During 13 weeks of functional assessment after SCI, a number of CatWalk parameters, including swing, single stance, and stride length, were significantly affected by gender only as identified by use of ANCOVA analysis, considering age, weight, and baseline performance as covariates. We report here our findings for 197 parameters that were assessed before and after SCI. Evaluating differences in locomotor recovery between sexes after SCI could point to a gender-related advantage and provide novel directions for the development of future therapeutics.

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Lineage analysis of human papillomavirus type 39 in cervical samples of Iranian women

Virology Journal ◽

10.1186/s12985-021-01619-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Neda Hosseini ◽

Zabihollah Shoja ◽

Arash Arashkia ◽

Amir-Hossein Khodadadi ◽

Somayeh Jalilvand

Keyword(s):

Sample Size ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Long Control Region ◽

E6 Gene ◽

Sequence Variations ◽

Geographical Regions ◽

Hpv Types ◽

Almost All ◽

Larger Sample

Abstract Background The data with regards to the regional variants of distinct HPV types is of great value. Accordance with this, this study aimed to investigate the sequence variations of E6 gene and long control region of HPV 39 among normal, premalignant and malignant cervical samples in order to characterize the frequent HPV 39 variants circulating in Tehran, Iran. Methods In total, 70 cervical samples (45 normal, 16 premalignant, and 9 malignant samples) infected with HPV 39 were analyzed by nested-PCR and sequencing. Results Our results revealed that all samples belonged to A lineage. Almost all sequences (98.6%) were classified in A1 sublineage and only one sample (1.4%) was A2 sub lineage. Conclusions Our findings showed that lineages A, sublineage A1, is dominant in Tehran, Iran. However, the small sample size was the most important limitations of this study. Further studies with larger sample size from different geographical regions of Iran are necessary to estimate the pathogenicity risk of HPV 39 variants in this population.

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Tools for Ergonomic Intervention: The Development and Analysis of a Cost Calculator

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1071181320641105 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 64 (1) ◽

pp. 465-469

Author(s):

Derek Stephens ◽

Diana J. Schwerha

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Sample Size ◽

Small Sample Size ◽

Small Sample ◽

Quality Data ◽

Sample Sizes ◽

System Usability ◽

The Mean ◽

Larger Sample ◽

Ergonomic Intervention

The purpose of this study was to determine if safety professionals can use an ergonomic intervention costing calculator, which integrates performance and quality data into the costing matrix, to increase communication and better of decision making for the company. The sample size included 9 participants, which included four safety managers, four EHS managers, and one HR generalist. Results showed that all participants found the calculator very useful, well integrated, and it increased communication across the company. The mean System Usability Score (SUS) score was 82, which is rated as a perfectly acceptable software for use. Recommendations from this study include adding some additional features to the calculator, increasing awareness and availability of the calculator, and conducting further analysis using larger sample sizes. Limitations in this study include small sample size and limited interventions that were tested.

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Reconstruction of phylogenetic history to resolve the subspecies anomaly of Pantherine cats

10.1101/082891 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Ranajit Das ◽

Priyanka Upadhyai

Keyword(s):

Small Sample Size ◽

Divergence Time ◽

Central Africa ◽

Small Sample ◽

Panthera Leo ◽

Panthera Tigris ◽

Panthera Pardus ◽

Panthera Onca ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Snow Leopards

AbstractAll charismatic big cats including tiger (Panthera tigris), lion (Panthera leo), leopard (Panthera pardus), snow leopard (Panthera uncial), and jaguar (Panthera onca) are grouped into the subfamily Pantherinae. Several mitogenomic approaches have been employed to reconstruct the phylogenetic history of the Pantherine cats but the phylogeny has remained largely unresolved till date. One of the major reasons for the difficulty in resolving the phylogenetic tree of Pantherine cats is the small sample size. While previous studies included only 5‐10 samples, we have used 43 publically available taxa to reconstruct Pantherine phylogenetic history. Complete mtDNA sequences were used from all individuals excluding the control region (15,489bp). A Bayesian MCMC approach was employed to investigate the divergence times among different Pantherine clades. Both maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogeny generated a dendrogram: Neofelis nebulosa (Panthera tigris (Panthera onca (Panthera uncia (Panthera leo, Panthera pardus)))), grouping lions with leopards and placing snow leopards as an outgroup to this clade. The phylogeny revealed that lions split from their sister species leopard ~3 Mya and the divergence time between snow leopards and the clade including lions and leopards was estimated to be ~5 Mya. Our study revealed that the morphology-based subspecies designation for both lions and tigers is largely not valid. The estimated tMRCA of 2.9 Mya between Barbary lions and Sub-Saharan African lions depicts the restriction of female-mediated gene flow between the lion populations in the backdrop of the habitat fragmentation taking place from late Pliocene to early to mid-Pleistocene creating islands of forest refugia in central Africa.

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