Einschätzungsgenauigkeit von Kindergartenpädagoginnen

Ziel dieser Arbeit war es festzustellen, ob es einen Unterschied in der Exaktheit der Einschätzungen gibt, wenn Kindergartenpädagoginnen verhaltensauffällige oder unauffällige Kinder beurteilen. Aus der Literatur ist bekannt, dass Kinder mit Verhaltensauffälligkeiten häufig Entwicklungsdefizite aufweisen (Tröster&Reinecke, 2007). Ihre Mütter nehmen diese Defizite allerdings nicht wahr und können ihnen dadurch kein Umfeld bieten, das ihren Bedürfnissen gerecht wird (Deimann, Kastner-Koller, Benka, Kainz & Schmidt, 2005). Es sollte daher überprüft werden, ob Kindergartenpädagoginnen die Entwicklung von verhaltensauffälligen Kindern genauer wahrnehmen. Dazu wurde der Entwicklungsstand von 23 unauffälligen und 27 auffälligen Kindern mit dem Wiener Entwicklungstest (WET; Kastner-Koller & Deiman, 2002) erhoben und mit den Einschätzungen der Pädagoginnen im selben Test verglichen. Übereinstimmend mit Ergebnissen aus bisherigen Studien zeigten Kinder mit Verhaltensauffälligkeiten schlechtere Leistungen im Test als Kinder ohne Auffälligkeiten, insbesondere im motorischen, sprachlichen und sprachlich-kognitiven Bereich. Es zeigte sich, dass auch Kindergartenpädagoginnen Kinder mit besseren Leistungen genauer einschätzen konnten als Kinder mit schlechteren Leistungen. Kinder ohne Verhaltensauffälligkeiten wurden daher exakter eingeschätzt als Kinder mit Auffälligkeiten. Außerdem wurde ein möglicher positiver Effekt des Kindergartens für Kinder mit Verhaltensauffälligkeiten sichtbar. Auffällige Kinder, die den Kindergarten bereits vor dem vierten Lebensjahr besuchten sowie ganztags im Kindergarten betreut wurden, unterschieden sich in ihrer Leistung im Entwicklungstest nicht signifikant von unauffälligen Kindern

Managing Climate Risk

At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy in the climate change dilemma lies the assumption that the global community, by applying a set of powerful analytical tools, can predict the future of climate change accurately enough to choose a clear strategic direction for it. We claim that this approach might involve underestimating uncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to be captured in a discounted cost flow analysis in integrated assessment models. However, since the future of climate change is truly uncertain, this approach might at best be marginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty can lead to strategies that do not defend the world against unexpected and sometimes even catastrophic threats. Another danger lies on the other extreme: if the global community can not find a strategy that works under traditional analysis or if uncertainties are too large that clear messages are absent, they may abandon the analytical rigor of their planning process altogether and base their decisions on good instinct and consensus of some future process that is easy to agree upon. In this paper, we try to outline a system to derive strategic decisions under uncertainty for the climate change dilemma. What follows is a framework for determining the level of uncertainty surrounding strategic decisions and for tailoring strategy to that uncertainty. Our core argument is that a robust strategy towards climate change involves the building of a technological portfolio of mitigation and adaptation measures that includes sufficient opposite technological positions to the underlying baseline emission scenarios given the uncertainties of the entire physical and socioeconomic system in place. In the case of mitigation, opposite technological positions with the highest leverage are particular types of sinks. A robust climate risk management portfolio can only work when the opposite technological positions are readily available when needed and therefore have to be prepared in advance. It is precisely the flexibility of these technological options which has to be quantified under the perspective of the uncertain nature of the underlying system and compared to the cost of creating these options, rather than comparing their cost with expected losses in a net present value type analysis. We conclude that climate policy - especially under the consideration of the precautionary principle - would look much different if uncertainties would be taken explicitly into account

The fraternal birth-order effect as a statistical artefact: convergent evidence from probability calculus, simulated data, and multiverse meta-analysis

The fraternal-birth order effect (FBOE) is a research claim which states that each older brother increases the odds of homosexual orientation in men via an immunoreactivity process known as the maternal immune hypothesis. Importantly, older sisters supposedly either do not affect these odds, or affect them to a lesser extent. Consequently, the fraternal birth-order effect predicts that the association between the number of older brothers and homosexual orientation in men is greater in magnitude than any association between the number of older sisters and homosexual orientation. This difference in magnitude represents the main theoretical estimand of the FBOE. In addition, no comparable effects should be observable among homosexual vs heterosexual women. Here, we triangulate the empirical foundations of the FBOE from three distinct, informative perspectives, complementing each other: first, drawing on basic probability calculus, we deduce mathematically that the body of statistical evidence used to make inferences about the main theoretical estimand of the FBOE rests on incorrect statistical reasoning. In particular, we show that throughout the literature researchers ascribe to the false assumptions that effects of family size should be adjusted for and that this could be achieved through the use of ratio variables. Second, using a data-simulation approach, we demonstrate that by using currently recommended statistical practices, researchers are bound to frequently draw incorrect conclusions. And third, we re-examine the empirical evidence of the fraternal birth-order effect in men and women by using a novel specification-curve and multiverse approach to meta-analysis (64 male and 17 female samples, N = 2,778,998). When analyzed correctly, the specific association between the number of older brothers and homosexual orientation is small, heterogenous in magnitude, and apparently not specific to men. In addition, existing research evidence seems to be exaggerated by small-study effects

Analysis of DNM3 and VAMP4 as genetic modifiers of LRRK2 Parkinson's disease.

The LRRK2 gene has rare (p.G2019S) and common risk variants for Parkinson's disease (PD). DNM3 has previously been reported as a genetic modifier of the age at onset in PD patients carrying the LRRK2 p.G2019S mutation. We analyzed this effect in a new cohort of LRRK2 p.G2019S heterozygotes (n = 724) and meta-analyzed our data with previously published data (n = 754). VAMP4 is in close proximity to DNM3, and was associated with PD in a recent study, so it is possible that variants in this gene may be important. We also analyzed the effect of VAMP4 rs11578699 on LRRK2 penetrance. Our analysis of DNM3 in previously unpublished data does not show an effect on age at onset in LRRK2 p.G2019S carriers; however, the inter-study heterogeneity may indicate ethnic or population-specific effects of DNM3. There was no evidence for linkage disequilibrium between DNM3 and VAMP4. Analysis of sporadic patients stratified by the risk variant LRRK2 rs10878226 indicates a possible interaction between common variation in LRRK2 and VAMP4 in disease risk

Assessing the accuracy of sales forecasts

R Code for Kossmeier M., Themanns M., Hatapoglu L., Kogler B., Keuerleber S., Lichtenecker J., Sauermann R., Bucsics A., Freissmuth M., Zebedin-Brandl E. (2021) Assessing the accuracy of sales forecasts submitted by pharmaceutical companies applying for reimbursement in Austri

Charting the landscape of graphical displays for meta-analysis and systematic reviews.

Data and code for Kossmeier, M., Tran, U. S., & Voracek, M. (2020). Charting the landscape of graphical displays for meta-analysis and systematic reviews: a comprehensive review, taxonomy, and feature analysis. BMC medical research methodology, 20, 26

Transplant International / Predicting future citation counts of scientific manuscripts submitted for publication : a cohort study in transplantology

Citations are widely used for measuring scientific impact. The goal of the present study was to predict citation counts of manuscripts submitted to Transplant International (TI) in the two calendar years following publication. We considered a comprehensive set of 21 manuscript, author, and peerreviewrelated predictor variables available early in the peerreview process. We also evaluated how successfully the peerreview process at TI identified and accepted the most promising manuscripts for publication. A developed predictive model with nine selected variables showed acceptable test performance to identify often cited articles (AUROC = 0.685). Particularly important predictors were the number of pages, month of publication, publication type (review versus other), and study on humans (yes versus no). Accepted manuscripts at TI were cited more often than rejected but elsewhere published manuscripts (median 4 vs. 2 citations). The predictive model did not outperform the actual editorial decision. Both findings suggest that the peerreview process at TI, in its current form, was successful in selecting submitted manuscripts with a high scientific impact in the future. Predictive models might have the potential to support the review process when decisions are made under great uncertainty.(VLID)340101

Specification-curve and multiverse-analysis approach to meta-analysis

Data and R code to reproduce all figures and analyses in Voracek, M., Kossmeier, M., & Tran, U. S. (2019). Which data to meta-analyze, and how? A specification-curve and multiverse-analysis approach to meta-analysis. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 227, 64-82