Accuracy and Idea Consideration: A Study of Small-Group Interaction in Biology

The study examines the relationship between scientific accuracy of contributions, peer idea consideration, one’s ability to direct the conversation, and learning outcomes of students engaged in small-group work in an introductory undergraduate biology lab course.

Prognostic significance of circulating lymphocyte subsets in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

The full text of this preprint has been withdrawn by the authors while they make corrections to the work. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as a reference. Questions should be directed to the corresponding author.Additionally, the authors have provided this withdrawal declaration: "In this preprint, the criteria for inclusion and exclusion of study designs were not rigorous enough. After data verification, we found that there were some missing or unknown people in the follow-up results of the original data. This part of data may cause information bias. we recognize that the results and conclusions obtained based on these data may be unreliable. After careful discussion, all authors have agreed that, based on the need of scientific accuracy and honesty, it is necessary to withdraw the preprint."

Hitting the target and missing the point? On the risks of measuring women’s empowerment in agricultural development

There is a strong impetus in international agricultural development to close ‘gender gaps’ in agricultural productivity. The goal of empowering women is often framed as the solution to closing these gaps, stimulating the proliferation of new indicators and instruments for the targeting, measurement, and tracking of programmatic goals in research for agricultural development. Despite these advances, current measurements and indices remain too simplified in terms of unit and scope of analysis, as well as being fundamentally flawed in how they aim to capture the relevance of ‘gender’ in diverse local contexts. We propose that the impulse to apply exogenously defined and weakly validated ‘women’s empowerment’ measures to diverse local contexts risks prioritizing practical expedience over scientific accuracy and societal relevance. Furthermore, the application of such measures risks creating the impression that programmatic “gender targets” are being achieved, while simultaneously undermining substantive gender transformative goals. The authors conclude that a different methodological approach grounded in participatory and qualitative methods is needed to create more meaningful metrics for assessing progress towards women’s empowerment.

Is Social Media Spreading Misinformation on Exercise and Health in Brazil?

Instagram (IG) reaches millions of people, sharing personal content and all kinds of information, including those related to exercise and health. However, the scientific quality of the posted information is questionable. Thus, this study aimed to analyze whether exercise and health information posted by popular Brazilian IG influencers has technical-scientific accuracy. A personal IG account was created to identify Brazilian IG profiles. The inclusion criteria of the accounts were: (1) having 50% of all the shared posts related to topics about exercise and health, such as nutrition, health and wellness, medicine, or physical fitness; and (2) having over 100,000 followers. Qualitative analysis revealed a low quality percentage (38.79 ± 25.43%) for all analyzed posts. Out of all the posts, only 13 (~2.7%) cited a reference endorsing the information. Moreover, the higher quality-ratio score of the posts was not directly associated with the higher educational qualification of the influencers (r = 0.313; p = 0.076). Nevertheless, the number of followers was inversely correlated with the educational qualification of the influencers (r = −0.450; p = 0.009), but not with the quality-ratio score of the posts (r = −0.178 p = 0.322). We conclude that prominent Brazilian IG influencers disseminate low-quality information about exercise and health, contributing to the wide-spreading of misinformation to millions of followers.

Scientific Accuracy Matters

The Solubility of Halothane in Blood and Tissue Homogenates. By Larson CP, Eger EI, Severinghaus JW. Anesthesiology 1962; 23:349–55. Measured samples of human and bovine blood, human hemoglobin, and tissue homogenates from human fat and both human and bovine liver, kidney, muscle, whole brain, and separated gray and white cortex were added to stoppered 2,000-ml Erlenmeyer flasks. To each flask, 0.1 ml of liquid halothane was added under negative pressure using a calibrated micropipette. After the flask was agitated for 2 to 4 h to achieve equilibrium between the gas and blood or tissue contents, a calibrated infrared halothane analyzer was used to measure the concentration of halothane vapor. Calculated partition coefficients ranged from 0.7 for water to 2.3 for blood and from 3.5 for human or bovine kidney to 6 for human whole brain or liver and 8 for human muscle. Human peritoneal fat had a value of 138. The human blood–gas partition coefficient of 2.3 as determined by this equilibration method was well below the previously published value of 3.6.

Aestheticization of Ultrasound Images

<div> <div> <div> <p>Ultrasound imaging is one of the most versatile imaging method in order to observe inner workings of human- body. Due to its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, easy availability and portability, a diverse set of applications are influenced by this very popular imaging modality. Despite its popularity as one of the most widely used imaging techniques, it has some serious limitations including lack of image clarity as well as complete absence of any visual aesthetics. Although, commonplace data filters can potentially make ultrasound images smoother looking, however, there is a significant loss of information introduced by the smoothing filters. In this article, we developed a method to enhance the image clarity as well as a protocol for enhancing image aesthetics for ultrasound modality using modern data-curation tool SOCKS. We performed few case studies using various color schemas applied on a publicly available fetal ultrasound image. The outlined technique can be easily generalized to any other kind of ultrasound images. We hypothesize that, our method would not only provide us with enhanced scientific accuracy, visual clarity of ultrasound images but also add additional layers of visual clarity coupled with artistic and aesthetic values. Our method calls for an complete rethinking of how we present ultrasound images </p> </div> </div> </div>

Aestheticization of Ultrasound Images

<div> <div> <div> <p>Ultrasound imaging is one of the most versatile imaging method in order to observe inner workings of human- body. Due to its simplicity, cost-effectiveness, easy availability and portability, a diverse set of applications are influenced by this very popular imaging modality. Despite its popularity as one of the most widely used imaging techniques, it has some serious limitations including lack of image clarity as well as complete absence of any visual aesthetics. Although, commonplace data filters can potentially make ultrasound images smoother looking, however, there is a significant loss of information introduced by the smoothing filters. In this article, we developed a method to enhance the image clarity as well as a protocol for enhancing image aesthetics for ultrasound modality using modern data-curation tool SOCKS. We performed few case studies using various color schemas applied on a publicly available fetal ultrasound image. The outlined technique can be easily generalized to any other kind of ultrasound images. We hypothesize that, our method would not only provide us with enhanced scientific accuracy, visual clarity of ultrasound images but also add additional layers of visual clarity coupled with artistic and aesthetic values. Our method calls for an complete rethinking of how we present ultrasound images </p> </div> </div> </div>

NATURALISM IN THE WORKS OF IVAN FRANKO OF THE LATE PERIOD AS A MEANS OF ENHANCING ARTISTIC EXPRESSION AND CONVINCIBILITY OF THE IMAGE

The late period of Ivan Franko's artistic work is characterized by the presence of a number of stories that contain a naturalistic reproduction of Jewish themes. In such stories as «Pure Race», «In the Prison Hospital», «In the Carpentry», «In the Forge (From My Memories)» there are memories of the author about different stages of his life, which clearly distinguishes the Jewish theme revealed by naturalistic means.The story «Pure Race» demonstrates the collision in the life of an old Jew who found himself in a compartment of a train with representatives of other nationalities. The description of events in the compartment is presented with elements of naturalism – the use of factualism and a detailed description of events, the objectivity of the image. The story «In the prison hospital» has the following naturalistic features: the story tells about the stay in the hospital of two or three seriously ill people with a detailed description of the circumstances of their lives with factual accuracy. The story «In the Carpentry» contains a fragment from the life of a Jew, written by the author from his youthful memories and under the influence of a certain historical moment. The story describes the terrible murder of calves by a Jewish boy, with the fixation of all the details that convey all the burden of what was seen in the soul of the hero. The story «In the Forge (From my memories)» contains the author's childhood memories from his stay in the father's forge with the recording of all the small moments of his impressions. In the memoirs there is a naturalistic description with a detailed account of events in life of Boryslav.In the above stories, with the help of naturalistic means, the problems of Jewish life in Galicia are reproduced. Among the naturalistic features of the depiction of Jewish figures there are: factography, detailed description with fixation of all the details as a consequence of scientific accuracy, plausibility, objectivity of reproduction and unity in the depiction of natural and social factors, which together makes the reader their witness.

Gender inequality in hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation videos on YouTube

Background: Bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is performed at a significantly lower rate in women than in men. YouTube has a significant role in influencing the public’s perceptions about CPR due to its popularity. The aim of the study was to compare the availability, quality, and scientific accuracy of YouTube videos demonstrating hands-only CPR performed on men and woman recipient.Methods: Using a search term similar to hands-only CPR, YouTube was searched for videos in English. This study included the first 60 videos for each search term. All the videos meeting the inclusion criteria were viewed and classified according to gender of recipient of CPR. Views per day were calculated. Videos were scored for quality and scientific accuracy, using Global Quality Scale (GQS) score and comprehensiveness analysis respectively. Mean, standard deviation was calculated for all the variables. Independent t-tests were done to compare the mean values. A p value<0.05 was considered significant.Results: Only 12 (1.7%) videos demonstrated hands-only CPR performed on women as compared to 43 videos (6%) demonstrated in men. There was a statistically significant difference in GQS score, whereas, there was no statistically significant difference in viewer rate and comprehensiveness analysis score based upon the gender of recipient of CPR.Conclusions: The availability and quality of YouTube videos demonstrating hands-only CPR performed on men and women recipients differ significantly. There are limited numbers of videos available for demonstrations of CPR performed on women, and the majority of them are of poor quality and lack scientific accuracy.