A ASCENSÃO DO OCIDENTE REPRESENTOU A ASCENSÃO DA LIBERDADE E DA OPULÊNCIA

The US exit from Afghanistan in 2021, at the same time as it haunted the world, rekindled the memory of the historically experienced differences between East and West. Out of the commonplace that the COVID-19 Pandemic makes China focus on the sanitary, military, political and economic protagonism of geopolitical ruptures, the rest of Asia, for most Westerners, sounds like a territory prone to exoticism, archaism and , to some extent, to international terrorism. With the exception of India in terms of tensions, it is from much of this Middle, Near and Far East that many of the financial turmoil arise. Therefore, in a context in which the global economic recovery assumes a relevant role in the post-COVID-19 period, reading, understanding and commenting on Mr. Higgs' texts does not only contemplate an editorial objective, but, above all, given the themes of the select corpus, it brings with it sociocultural justification and, without a doubt, results in unmistakable scientific merit (N. do E.).

Theoretical problems of domestic and foreign policy coordination

The article deals with the researches of American scientists who studied the problem of domestic and foreign policy coordination. Their scientific merit is in identifying the specifics of domestic and international factors interaction and proposing concepts for theoretical overcoming the contradictions between domestic and foreign policy.

Human inborn errors of immunity: An expanding universe

Molecular, cellular, and clinical studies of human inborn errors of immunity have revolutionized our understanding of their pathogenesis, considerably broadened their spectrum of immunological and clinical phenotypes, and enabled successful targeted therapeutic interventions. These studies have also been of great scientific merit, challenging a number of immunological notions initially established in inbred mice while revealing previously unrecognized mechanisms of host defense by leukocytes and other cells and of both innate and adaptive tolerance to self.

Evaluating and prioritizing antimicrobial stewardship programs for nursing homes: A modified Delphi panel

Background:Antibiotic use in nursing homes is often inappropriate, in terms of overuse and misuse, and it can be linked to adverse events and antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) can optimize antibiotic use by minimizing unnecessary prescriptions, treatment cost, and the overall spread of antimicrobial resistance. Nursing home providers and residents are candidates for ASP implementation, yet guidelines for implementation are limited.Objective:To support nursing home providers with the selection and adoption of ASP interventions.Design and Setting:A multiphase modified Delphi method to assess 15 ASP interventions across criteria addressing scientific merit, feasibility, impact, accountability, and importance. This study included surveys supplemented with a 1-day consensus meeting.Participants:A 16-member multidisciplinary panel of experts and resident representatives.Results:From highest to lowest, 6 interventions were prioritized by the panel: (1) guidelines for empiric prescribing, (2) audit and feedback, (3) communication tools, (4) short-course antibiotic therapy, (5) scheduled antibiotic reassessment, and (6) clinical decision support systems. Several interventions were not endorsed: antibiograms, educational interventions, formulary review, and automatic substitution. A lack of nursing home resources was noted, which could impede multifaceted interventions.Conclusions:Nursing home providers should consider 6 key interventions for ASPs. Such interventions may be feasible for nursing home settings and impactful for improving antibiotic use; however, scientific merit supporting each is variable. A multifaceted approach may be necessary for long-term improvement but difficult to implement.

Why most pre-published research findings are false.

Caused by the recent surge in preprint volume, particularly in the light of the immense rapidity of Covid-19 research, the question arises, “How reliable are the findings that are reported via preprint?” This question poses serious challenges in estimation and validation of the extent of false or even fraudulent science on preprint servers, and has far-reaching implications for editorial policies. As preprint volume continuously grows, but the interval between preprint and publication does not, the limit of peer-review is fast approaching. The scientific merit or validity of preprints is not assessed by preprint service providers, and hence it is feasible to assume that, comparatively, preprints will be less reproducible than peer-reviewed articles. Publication metadata predict a saturation of the peer-review process in the coming decade, and necessitate an open discussion about editorial policies and publication infrastructure in the biomedical field.

Authorship order and effects of changing bibliometrics practices

Although the authorship order on published research plays a significant role for scientific merit in many research contexts, and therefore should be handled with great care not least for the sake of fairness, the practices of accrediting authorship positions vary greatly between different research areas. This paper makes the point, by help of a current example, that changes in bibliometrics practices may make an already disparate landscape even more confusing.

TYPES OF APPLICATIONS AND PUTTING YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD

The majority of peer review is conducted through the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which works closely with the institutes and centers who ultimately fund projects of high scientific merit and high potential impact. CSR conducts the review of 90% of R01s, 85% of Fellowships, and 95% of SBIR applications as well as many other research and training opportunity activities. The playing field for successful funding from NIH is highly competitive. Understanding about different application types, who to talk to about your application, finding the right review panel, and learning about the policies pertaining to review are important steps in preparing an application. In this presentation, learn about the important aspects of the grant submission process and how CSR conducts the review of application in close coordination with NIH’s 24 institutes and centers.

Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) is one of psychology’s most famous studies. It has been criticized on many grounds, and yet a majority of textbook authors have ignored these criticisms in their discussions of the SPE, thereby misleading both students and the general public about the study’s questionable scientific validity. Data collected from a thorough investigation of the SPE archives and interviews with 15 of the participants in the experiment further question the study’s scientific merit. These data are not only supportive of previous criticisms of the SPE, such as the presence of demand characteristics, but provide new criticisms of the SPE based on heretofore unknown information. These new criticisms include the biased and incomplete collection of data, the extent to which the SPE drew on a prison experiment devised and conducted by students in one of Zimbardo’s classes 3 months earlier, the fact that the guards received precise instructions regarding the treatment of the prisoners, the fact that the guards were not told they were subjects, and the fact that participants were almost never completely immersed by the situation. Possible explanations of the inaccurate textbook portrayal and general misperception of the SPE’s scientific validity over the past 5 decades, in spite of its flaws and shortcomings, are discussed.

How many reviewers are required to obtain reliable evaluations of NIH R01 grant proposals?

The National Institutes of Health uses small groups of scientists to judge the quality of the grant proposals that they receive, and these quality judgments form the basis of its funding decisions. In order for this system to fund the best science, the subject experts must, at a minimum, agree as to what counts as a “quality” proposal. We investigated the degree of agreement by leveraging data from a recent experiment with 412 scientist reviewers, each of whom reviewed 3 proposals, and 48 NIH R01 proposals (half funded and half unfunded), each of which was reviewed by between 21 and 30 reviewers. Across all dimensions of NIH’s official rubric, we find low agreement among reviewers in their judgments of scientific merit. For judgments of Overall Impact, which has the greatest weight in funding decisions, we estimate that three reviewers yield a reliability .2, and 12 reviewers would be required to bring this reliability up to .5. Supplemental analyses found that reviewers are even less reliable in the language they use to describe proposals.