187 research outputs found
Meta-Research: Large-scale language analysis of peer review reports
Peer review is often criticized for being flawed, subjective and biased, but research into peer review has been hindered by a lack of access to peer review reports. Here we report the results of a study in which text-analysis software was used to determine the linguistic characteristics of 472,449 peer review reports. A range of characteristics (including analytical tone, authenticity, clout, three measures of sentiment, and morality) were studied as a function of reviewer recommendation, area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender. We found that reviewer recommendation had the biggest impact on the linguistic characteristics of reports, and that area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender had little or no impact. The lack of influence of research area, type of review or reviewer gender on the linguistic characteristics is a sign of the robustness of peer review
The power of peers: An effectiveness evaluation of a cluster-controlled trial of group antenatal care in rural Nepal
Background: Reducing the maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births globally is one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Approximately 830 women die from pregnancy-or childbirth-related complications every day. Almost 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries. Increasing antenatal care quality and completion, and institutional delivery are key strategies to reduce maternal mortality, however there are many implementation challenges in rural and resource-limited settings. In Nepal, 43% of deliveries do not take place in an institution and 31% of women have insufficient antenatal care. Context-specific and evidence-based strategies are needed to improve antenatal care completion and institutional birth. We present an assessment of effectiveness outcomes for an adaptation of a group antenatal care model delivered by community health workers and midwives in close collaboration with government staff in rural Nepal. Methods: The study was conducted in Achham, Nepal, via a public private partnership between the Nepali non-profit, Nyaya Health Nepal, and the Ministry of Health and Population, with financial and technical assistance from the American non-profit, Possible. We implemented group antenatal care as a prospective non-randomized, cluster-controlled, type I hybrid effectiveness-implementation study in six village clusters. The implementation approach allowed for iterative improvement in design by making changes to improve the quality of the intervention. We evaluated effectiveness through a difference in difference analysis of institutional birth rates between groups prior to implementation of the intervention and 1 year after implementation. Additionally, we assessed the change in knowledge of key danger signs and the acceptability of the group model compared with individual visits in a nested cohort of women receiving home visit care and home visit care plus group antenatal care. Using a directed content and thematic approach, we analyzed qualitative interviews to identify major themes related to implementation. Results: At baseline, there were 457 recently-delivered women in the six village clusters receiving home visit care and 214 in the seven village clusters receiving home visit care plus group antenatal care. At endline, there were 336 and 201, respectively. The difference in difference analysis did not show a significant change in institutional birth rates nor antenatal care visit completion rates between the groups. There was, however, a significant increase in both institutional birth and antenatal care completion in each group from baseline to endline. We enrolled a nested cohort of 52 participants receiving home visit care and 62 participants receiving home visit care plus group antenatal care. There was high acceptability of the group antenatal care intervention and home visit care, with no significant differences between groups. A significantly higher percentage of women who participated in group antenatal care found their visits to be 'very enjoyable' (83.9% vs 59.6%, p = 0.0056). In the nested cohort, knowledge of key danger signs during pregnancy significantly improved from baseline to endline in the intervention clusters only (2 to 31%, p < 0.001), while knowledge of key danger signs related to labor and childbirth, the postpartum period, and the newborn did not in either intervention or control groups. Qualitative analysis revealed that women found that the groups provided an opportunity for learning and discussion, and the groups were a source of social support and empowerment. They also reported an improvement in services available at their village clinic. Providers noted the importance of the community health workers in identifying pregnant women in the community and linking them to the village clinics. Challenges in birth planning were brought up by both participants and providers. Conclusion: While there was no significant change in institutional birth and antenatal care completion at the population level between groups, there was an increase of these outcomes in both groups. This may be secondary to the primary importance of community health worker involvement in both of these groups. Knowledge of key pregnancy danger signs was significantly improved in the home visit plus group antenatal care cohort compared with the home visit care only group. This initial study of Nyaya Health Nepal's adapted group care model demonstrates the potential for impacting women's antenatal care experience and should be studied over a longer period as an intervention embedded within a community health worker program. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02330887, registered 01/05/2015, retroactively registered
Winding number and non-BPS bound states of walls in nonlinear sigma models
Non-supersymmetric multi-wall configurations are generically unstable. It is
proposed that the stabilization in compact space can be achieved by introducing
a winding number into the model. A BPS-like bound is studied for the energy of
configuration with nonvanishing winding number. Winding number is implemented
in an supersymmetric nonlinear sigma model with two chiral scalar
fields and a bound states of BPS and anti-BPS walls is found to exist in
noncompact spaces. Even in compactified space , this nontrivial bound
state persists above a critical radius of the compact dimension.Comment: 20pages, 14 figures, minor misprint corrections, figures added,
explanation of winding number adde
Superfield description of 5D supergravity on general warped geometry
We provide a systematic and practical method of deriving 5D supergravity
action described by 4D superfields on a general warped geometry, including a
non-BPS background. Our method is based on the superconformal formulation of 5D
supergravity, but is easy to handle thanks to the superfield formalism. We
identify the radion superfield in the language of 5D superconformal gravity,
and clarify its appearance in the action. We also discuss SUSY breaking effects
induced by a deformed geometry due to the backreaction of the radius
stabilizer.Comment: 25 pages, no figures, LaTeX, final version to appear in JHE
Non-Abelian Walls in Supersymmetric Gauge Theories
The Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) multi-wall solutions are constructed
in supersymmetric U(N_C) gauge theories in five dimensions with N_F(>N_C)
hypermultiplets in the fundamental representation. Exact solutions are obtained
with full generic moduli for infinite gauge coupling and with partial moduli
for finite gauge coupling. The generic wall solutions require nontrivial
configurations for either gauge fields or off-diagonal components of adjoint
scalars depending on the gauge. Effective theories of moduli fields are
constructed as world-volume gauge theories. Nambu-Goldstone and
quasi-Nambu-Goldstone scalars are distinguished and worked out. Total moduli
space of the BPS non-Abelian walls including all topological sectors is found
to be the complex Grassmann manifold SU(N_F) / [SU(N_C) x SU(N_F-N_C) x U(1)]
endowed with a deformed metric.Comment: 62 pages, 17 figures, the final version in PR
Dynamical completions of generalized O'Raifeartaigh models
We present gauge theory completions of Wess-Zumino models admitting
supersymmetry breaking vacua with spontaneously broken R-symmetry. Our models
are simple deformations of generalized ITIY models, a supersymmetric theory
with gauge group Sp(N), N+1 flavors plus singlets, with a modified tree level
superpotential which explicitly breaks (part of) the global symmetry. Depending
on the nature of the deformation, we obtain effective O'Raifeartaigh-like
models whose pseudomoduli space is locally stable in a neighborhood of the
origin of field space, or in a region not including it. Hence, once embedded in
direct gauge mediation scenarios, our models can give low energy spectra with
either suppressed or unsuppressed gaugino mass.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure; v3: reference adde
On the Z_2 Monopole of Spin(10) Gauge Theories
An "expanded" description is introduced to examine the spinor-monopole
identification proposed by Strassler for four-dimensional = 1
supersymmetric Spin(10) gauge theories with matter in F vector and N spinor
representations. It is shown that a Z_2 monopole in the "expanded" theory is
associated with massive spinors of the Spin(10) theory. For N=2, two spinor
case, we confirm this identification by matching the transformation properties
of the two theories under SU(2) flavor symmetry. However, for N 3, the
transformation properties are not matched between the spinors and the monopole.
This disagreement might be due to the fact that the SU(N) flavor symmetry of
the Spin(10) theory is partially realized as an SU(2) symmetry in the
"expanded" theory.Comment: 16 pages, LaTex, no figur
Composite quarks and leptons in higher space-time dimensions
A new approach towards the composite structure of quarks and leptons in the
context of the higher dimensional unified theories is proposed. Owing to the
certain strong dynamics, much like an ordinary QCD, every possible vectorlike
multiplets of composites appear in higher dimensional bulk space-time, however,
through a proper Sherk-Schwarz compactification only chiral set of composite
quarks and leptons survive as the massless states in four dimensions. In this
scenario restrictions related with the 't Hooft's anomaly matching condition
are turned out to be avoided and, as a result, the composite models look rather
simple and economic. We demonstrate our approach by an explicit construction of
model of preons and their composites unified in the supersymmetric SU(5) GUT in
five space-time dimensions. The model predicts exactly three families of the
composite quarks and leptons being the triplets of the chiral horizontal
symmetry SU(3)_h which automatically appears in the composite spectrum when
going to ordinary four dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, tcilatex, no figures, v2 - misprints correcte
Composite Higgs Search at the LHC
The Higgs boson production cross-sections and decay rates depend, within the
Standard Model (SM), on a single unknown parameter, the Higgs mass. In
composite Higgs models where the Higgs boson emerges as a pseudo-Goldstone
boson from a strongly-interacting sector, additional parameters control the
Higgs properties which then deviate from the SM ones. These deviations modify
the LEP and Tevatron exclusion bounds and significantly affect the searches for
the Higgs boson at the LHC. In some cases, all the Higgs couplings are reduced,
which results in deterioration of the Higgs searches but the deviations of the
Higgs couplings can also allow for an enhancement of the gluon-fusion
production channel, leading to higher statistical significances. The search in
the H to gamma gamma channel can also be substantially improved due to an
enhancement of the branching fraction for the decay of the Higgs boson into a
pair of photons.Comment: 32 pages, 16 figure
Domain Wall Junction in N=2 Supersymmetric QED in four dimensions
An exact solution of domain wall junction is obtained in N=2 supersymmetric
(SUSY) QED with three massive hypermultiplets. The junction preserves two out
of eight SUSY. Both a (magnetic) Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term and complex masses
for hypermultiplets are needed to obtain the junction solution. There are zero
modes corresponding to spontaneously broken translation, SUSY, and U(1). All
broken and unbroken SUSY charges are explicitly worked out in the Wess-Zumino
gauge in N=1 superfields as well as in components. The relation to models in
five dimensions is also clarified.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, comments on zero modes added, a few references
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