Underpowered samples, false negatives, and unconscious learning

The scientific community has witnessed growing concern about the high rate of false positives and unreliable results within the psychological literature, but the harmful impact of false negatives has been largely ignored. False negatives are particularly concerning in research areas where demonstrating the absence of an effect is crucial, such as studies of unconscious or implicit processing. Research on implicit processes seeks evidence of above-chance performance on some implicit behavioral measure at the same time as chance-level performance (that is, a null result) on an explicit measure of awareness. A systematic review of 73 studies of contextual cuing, a popular implicit learning paradigm, involving 181 statistical analyses of awareness tests, reveals how underpowered studies can lead to failure to reject a false null hypothesis. Among the studies that reported sufficient information, the meta-analytic effect size across awareness tests was d z = 0.31 (95 % CI 0.24–0.37), showing that participants’ learning in these experiments was conscious. The unusually large number of positive results in this literature cannot be explained by selective publication. Instead, our analyses demonstrate that these tests are typically insensitive and underpowered to detect medium to small, but true, effects in awareness tests. These findings challenge a widespread and theoretically important claim about the extent of unconscious human cognition

Factors Affecting the Competitiveness of the Greek Wine Enterprises and Cooperatives

The present paper investigates the effect of certain economic factors on the competitiveness of Greek Wine Enterprises and Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives (UACs). Data on 41 wineries and 10 UACs of Greece was collected for a period of three years (2004-2006). Financial analysis results were used with the help of a fixed effect model-panel data technique- using profitability as dependent variable in order to measure the competitiveness of wineries. The results indicated that the size of the enterprise as well as the square of the capital intensity have a positive influence on the winery’s profit.competitiveness, profitability, wineries, agricultural cooperatives, Agribusiness,

A proposed framework of an interactive semi-virtual environment for enhanced education of children with autism spectrum disorders

Education of people with special needs has recently been considered as a key element in the field of medical education. Recent development in the area of information and communication technologies may enable development of collaborative interactive environments which facilitate early stage education and provide specialists with robust tools indicating the person's autism spectrum disorder level. Towards the goal of establishing an enhanced learning environment for children with autism this paper attempts to provide a framework of a semi-controlled real-world environment used for the daily education of an autistic person according to the scenarios selected by the specialists. The proposed framework employs both real-world objects and virtual environments equipped with humanoids able to provide emotional feedback and to demonstrate empathy. Potential examples and usage scenarios for such environments are also described

Sowing the seeds of massive black holes in small galaxies: Young clusters as the building blocks of Ultra-Compact-Dwarf Galaxies

Interacting galaxies often have complexes of hundreds of young stellar clusters of individual masses $\sim 10^{4-6}~M_\odot$ in regions that are a few hundred parsecs across. These cluster complexes interact dynamically, and their coalescence is a candidate for the origin of some ultracompact dwarf galaxies (UCDs). Individual clusters with short relaxation times are candidates for the production of intermediate-mass black holes of a few hundred solar masses, via runaway stellar collisions prior to the first supernovae in a cluster. It is therefore possible that a cluster complex hosts multiple intermediate-mass black holes that may be ejected from their individual clusters due to mergers or binary processes, but bound to the complex as a whole. Here we explore the dynamical interaction between initially free-flying massive black holes and clusters in an evolving cluster complex. We find that, after hitting some clusters, it is plausible that the massive black hole will be captured in an ultracompact dwarf forming near the center of the complex. In the process, the hole typically triggers electromagnetic flares via stellar disruptions, and is also likely to be a prominent source of gravitational radiation for the advanced ground-based detectors LIGO and VIRGO. We also discuss other implications of this scenario, notably that the central black hole could be considerably larger than expected in other formation scenarios for ultracompact dwarfs.Comment: 15 pages, published in ApJ; for movies, please visit http://members.aei.mpg.de/amaro-seoane/ultra-compact-dwarf-galaxie

An attempt to correct erroneous ideas among teacher education students: The effectiveness of refutation texts

There is sound evidence about the high prevalence of misconceptions about education among pre-service teachers. This trend continues after students complete the degree in education and once they are in the exercise of their profession. In fact, several studies show that these misconceptions are widespread among in-service teachers. Erroneous ideas about education may divert material and human resources to poor grounded methods and teaching tools, compromising the quality of education. Strategies to debunk misconceptions among future teachers, who may not have a firm position about many educational issues, might contribute to reversing this trend. The main goal of the present study was to assess the efficacy of refutation texts in the correction of misconceptions among pre-service teachers. As in previous studies with in-service teachers, refutation texts were effective in reducing participants’ endorsement of misconceptions. But this effect was short-lived and did not affect participants’ intention to use educational methods that are based on the misconceptions addressed in the refutation textsMF was supported by grant AYD-000-235 from bizkaia:talent, Diputación Foral de Bizkaia, and by a postdoctoral grant from Programa Posdoctoral de Perfeccionamiento de Personal Investigador Doctor, Gobierno Vasco. MV was supported by grants PSI2017-85159-P (AEI / FEDER, UE) and 2016-T1/SOC- 1395 (Comunidad de Madrid, Programa de Atracción de Talento Investigador)

The Dexela 2923 CMOS X-ray detector: A flat panel detector based on CMOS active pixel sensors for medical imaging applications

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) active pixel sensors (APS) have been introduced recently in many scientific applications. This work reports on the performance (in terms of signal and noise transfer) of an X-ray detector that uses a novel CMOS APS which was developed for medical X-ray imaging applications. For a full evaluation of the detector's performance, electro-optical and X-ray characterizations were carried out. The former included measuring read noise, full well capacity and dynamic range. The latter, which included measuring X-ray sensitivity, presampling modulation transfer function (pMTF), noise power spectrum (NPS) and the resulting detective quantum efficiency (DQE), was assessed under three beam qualities (28 kV, 50 kV (RQA3) and 70 kV (RQA5) using W/Al) all in accordance with the IEC standard. The detector features an in-pixel option for switching the full well capacity between two distinct modes, high full well (HFW) and low full well (LFW). Two structured CsI:Tl scintillators of different thickness (a “thin” one for high resolution and a thicker one for high light efficiency) were optically coupled to the sensor array to optimize the performance of the system for different medical applications. The electro-optical performance evaluation of the sensor results in relatively high read noise (∼360 e−), high full well capacity (∼1.5×106 e−) and wide dynamic range (∼73 dB) under HFW mode operation. When the LFW mode is used, the read noise is lower (∼165) at the expense of a reduced full well capacity (∼0.5×106 e−) and dynamic range (∼69 dB). The maximum DQE values at low frequencies (i.e. 0.5 lp/mm) are high for both HFW (0.69 for 28 kV, 0.71 for 50 kV and 0.75 for 70 kV) and LFW (0.69 for 28 kV and 0.7 for 50 kV) modes. The X-ray performance of the studied detector compares well to that of other mammography and general radiography systems, obtained under similar experimental conditions. This demonstrates the suitability of the detector for both mammography and general radiography, with the use of appropriate scintillators. The high DQE values obtained under low mammographic exposures (up to 0.65 for 22.3 μGy) matches the demand for high detectability in imaging of the dense breast

Stem cell-like populations and immunoregulatory molecules in periodontal granulation tissue

Background and Objectives: Determine the presence of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in healthy periodontal tissue and periodontal granulation tissue (GT) and explore associations between immuno‐regulatory molecules and selected subgingival microorganisms. Material and Methods: Mesenchymal stem cells were isolated, propagated and characterised by flow cytometry from a region of healthy gingival tissue and inflamed GT of 10 systemically healthy non‐smokers with chronic periodontitis. Tissue levels of immunoregulatory molecules were determined by qPCR and Gingival Crevicular Fluid (GCF) levels by ELISA. Subgingival plaque levels of periodontal pathogens were determined by qPCR Results: Cells with MSC‐properties were isolated from both inflamed GT and healthy gingival (G) tissue. A pro‐inflammatory process predominated in GT which was partly reflected in GCF and putative periodontal pathogens were higher at diseased sites. However, there was no significant difference in surface levels of mesenchymal (CD90, CD73, CD146, CD271, STRO‐1), endothelial (CD105, CD106), hematopoietic (CD34, CD45) and embryonic (SSEA‐4) stem cell markers between MSCs isolated from GT and G tissue. Conclusion: Periodontal lesions, albeit inflamed, retain healing potential as inferred by the presence of MSC‐like cells with similar immunophenotypic characteristics to those found in healthy periodontal tissue. Therefore, there might be merits for healing in preserving sufficient GT in‐situ during periodontal surgery