Evaluating association between linguistic characteristics of abstracts and risk of bias: Case of Japanese randomized controlled trials

<div><p>Despite the ongoing growth in the number of published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and increased quality assessment of RCTs, the association between the quality and characteristics in the text has not been sufficiently studied. We are interested in a specific question: what kind of sentences is a good indicator of high quality RCTs? To help researchers to efficiently screen articles worth reading, this study aims 1) to quantify the linguistic features of articles and 2) to build a document assessment model to evaluate quality of RCTs using only the abstract. All RCTs that were conducted in Japan in 2010 as original articles were included in the analysis. Data were independently assessed by two reviewers using a risk-of-bias tool. Three aspects of linguistic style were quantitatively measured, and a document model was constructed to evaluate the RCTs. A total of 302 RCTs were selected for quality assessment. Of these, 255 articles were assessed as high quality and 47 as low quality. High-quality articles tended to use longer words than low-quality articles (p = 0.048), however sentences were generally shorter (p = 0.004). Further, high-quality articles included a larger proportion of noun phrases (p = 0.026) but a smaller proportion of verb phrases (p = 0.041). The optimal number of topics to assess the quality of articles was four, while two topics had a significant association with quality. Despite a number of articles published about RCTs in Japan, significant differences exist in several textual features between high- and low-quality RCTs. Instead of the risk-of-bias tool, these results can be used as the new criteria to rapidly screen valuable articles and it also revealed quality control of RCT articles is urgently needed in Japan.</p></div

Estimated coefficients of four topics from sLDA model.

<p>Estimated coefficients of four topics from sLDA model.</p

Top 10 frequently reported words in detected topics of sLDA model.

<p>Top 10 frequently reported words in detected topics of sLDA model.</p

Top 20 results of unigram by article quality.

<p>Top 20 results of unigram by article quality.</p

Summaries of baseline measures.

<p>Summaries of baseline measures.</p

Top 20 results of bigram by article quality.

<p>Top 20 results of bigram by article quality.</p

Summaries of syntactic features and readability score.

<p>Summaries of syntactic features and readability score.</p

Utilization of mouse polyomavirus derived virus-like particles for cargo delivery into cells

and key words Mouse polyomavirus-derived virus-like particles composed from major capsid protein VP1 (MPyV VP1-VLPs) are interesting structures for use as a delivery system of various cargos into cells. VP1 protein self-assembles into icosahedral particles of 45 nm in diameter that are hollow highly regular nanoparticles. In this work, model small molecule cargo, Cyclodextrin-Based Bimodal Fluorescence/MRI Contrast Agent, was encapsidated into MPyV VP1-VLPs. The cargo was stably associated with VLPs and was delivered into mammalian cells using these VLPs. To prevent VLPs entrapment in endolysosomal compartments and increase the potential of VLPs applications, MPyV VP1 protein was modified by insertion of histidine-tag (6 histidine long sequence surrounded by glycine and serine) sequences into VP1 surface loop DE, because histidine modification of synthetic systems had enhancing effect on endosome escape and cargo delivery. With the use of in Bac-to-Bac® baculovirus expression system His-VP1 protein was expressed in insect cells and a variety of VP1-assemblies was obtained: long tubules and small 20nm VLPs formed from VP1 with 4 histidine-tags in DE loop, and novel VP1 nanostructure, which we named nano-jumpers, formed from VP1 with 2 histidine-tags. Nonetheless the endosome escape properties of..

Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes of pre-eclampsia.

<p>Adjusted for facility capacity index score at facility level, GNI per capita and maternal mortality ratio at the country level, marital status, maternal education, maternal age, maternal BMI, parity, clinical conditions (hypertension, diabetes, cardiac/renal disease, pyelonephritis or urinary infection, severe anemia) and number of antenatal care visits at the individual level.</p>a<p>Also adjusted for infant sex.</p>b<p>Also adjusted for gestational age.</p

Pre-eclampsia prevalence per facility by country and region.

<p>Plot showing prevalence of pre-eclampsia per facility by country and region (Africa, Asia and Latin America).</p