'Making it count': incentives, student effort and performance

This paper examines how incentives to participate in online assessments (quizzes) affect students’ effort and performance. Our identification strategy exploits within-student weekly variation in incentives to attempt online quizzes. We find tournament incentives and participation incentives to be ineffective in increasing quiz participation. In contrast, making the quiz counts towards the final grade substantially increases participation. We find no evidence of displacement of effort between weeks. Using a natural experiment which provides variation in assessment weighting of the quizzes between two cohorts, we find that affected students obtain better exam grades. We estimate the return to 10% assessment weighting to be around 0.27 of a standard deviation in the in-term exam grade. We find no evidence that assessment weighting has unintended consequences, i.e., that increased quiz effort: displaces effort over the year; reduces other forms of effort; or reduces (effort and thus) performance in other courses. Finally, assessment weighting induced effort increases most for students at and below median ability, resulting in a reduction of the grade gap by 17%

Surface modification of flax yarns by enzymatic treatment and their interfacial adhesion with thermoset matrices

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of commercially available and relatively inexpensive enzyme preparations based on endo 1,4-β-xylanase, pectinase and xyloglucanase on the thermal (TGA), morphological (SEM), chemical (FT-IR) and mechanical (single yarn tensile tests) properties of flax yarns. The preparation based on pectinase and xyloglucanase provided the best results, resulting in the effective removal of hydrophilic components such as hemicellulose and pectin, the individualization of yarns and increased thermal stability at the expense of a reduction in mechanical properties, depending on the treatment parameters. Single yarn fragmentation tests pointed out an improved interfacial adhesion after enzymatic treatment, with reduced debonding length values of 18% for an epoxy matrix and up to 36% for a vinylester resin compared to untreated flax yarns

Total Synthesis of Paracaseolide A

The total synthesis of paracaseolide A, a valuable cell-cycle progression inhibitor, was accomplished in 8 steps from known compounds, with 6.6% overall yield. The synthetic strategy creates strong potential for diversification

An Efficient Private Evaluation of a Decision Graph

A decision graph is a well-studied classifier and has been used to solve many real-world problems. We assumed a typical scenario between two parties in this study, in which one holds a decision graph and the other wants to know the class label of his/her query without disclosing the graph and query to the other. We propose a novel protocol for this scenario that can obliviously evaluate a graph that is designed by an efficient data structure called the graph level order unary degree sequence (GLOUDS). The time and communication complexities of this protocol are linear to the number of nodes in the graph and do not include any exponential factors. The experiment results revealed that the actual runtime and communication size were well concordant with theoretical complexities. Our method can process a graph with approximately 500 nodes in only 11 s on a standard laptop computer. We also compared the runtime of our method with that of previous methods and confirmed that it was one order of magnitude faster than the previous methods

An integrated drug repurposing strategy for the rapid identification of potential SARS-CoV-2 viral inhibitors

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus has rapidly spread in humans, causing the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Recent studies have shown that, similarly to SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 utilises the Spike glycoprotein on the envelope to recognise and bind the human receptor ACE2. This event initiates the fusion of viral and host cell membranes and then the viral entry into the host cell. Despite several ongoing clinical studies, there are currently no approved vaccines or drugs that specifically target SARS-CoV-2. Until an effective vaccine is available, repurposing FDA approved drugs could significantly shorten the time and reduce the cost compared to de novo drug discovery. In this study we attempted to overcome the limitation of in silico virtual screening by applying a robust in silico drug repurposing strategy. We combined and integrated docking simulations, with molecular dynamics (MD), Supervised MD (SuMD) and Steered MD (SMD) simulations to identify a Spike protein – ACE2 interaction inhibitor. Our data showed that Simeprevir and Lumacaftor bind the receptor-binding domain of the Spike protein with high affinity and prevent ACE2 interaction

A database of the coseismic effects following the 30 October 2016 Norcia earthquake in Central Italy

We provide a database of the coseismic geological surface effects following the Mw 6.5 Norcia earthquake that hit central Italy on 30 October 2016. This was one of the strongest seismic events to occur in Europe in the past thirty years, causing complex surface ruptures over an area of >400 km 2. The database originated from the collaboration of several European teams (Open EMERGEO Working Group; about 130 researchers) coordinated by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. The observations were collected by performing detailed field surveys in the epicentral region in order to describe the geometry and kinematics of surface faulting, and subsequently of landslides and other secondary coseismic effects. The resulting database consists of homogeneous georeferenced records identifying 7323 observation points, each of which contains 18 numeric and string fields of relevant information. This database will impact future earthquake studies focused on modelling of the seismic processes in active extensional settings, updating probabilistic estimates of slip distribution, and assessing the hazard of surface faulting

Lancet

BACKGROUND: In 2015, the second cycle of the CONCORD programme established global surveillance of cancer survival as a metric of the effectiveness of health systems and to inform global policy on cancer control. CONCORD-3 updates the worldwide surveillance of cancer survival to 2014. METHODS: CONCORD-3 includes individual records for 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer during the 15-year period 2000-14. Data were provided by 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries and territories, 47 of which provided data with 100% population coverage. The study includes 18 cancers or groups of cancers: oesophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, lung, breast (women), cervix, ovary, prostate, and melanoma of the skin in adults, and brain tumours, leukaemias, and lymphomas in both adults and children. Standardised quality control procedures were applied; errors were rectified by the registry concerned. We estimated 5-year net survival. Estimates were age-standardised with the International Cancer Survival Standard weights. FINDINGS: For most cancers, 5-year net survival remains among the highest in the world in the USA and Canada, in Australia and New Zealand, and in Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. For many cancers, Denmark is closing the survival gap with the other Nordic countries. Survival trends are generally increasing, even for some of the more lethal cancers: in some countries, survival has increased by up to 5% for cancers of the liver, pancreas, and lung. For women diagnosed during 2010-14, 5-year survival for breast cancer is now 89.5% in Australia and 90.2% in the USA, but international differences remain very wide, with levels as low as 66.1% in India. For gastrointestinal cancers, the highest levels of 5-year survival are seen in southeast Asia: in South Korea for cancers of the stomach (68.9%), colon (71.8%), and rectum (71.1%); in Japan for oesophageal cancer (36.0%); and in Taiwan for liver cancer (27.9%). By contrast, in the same world region, survival is generally lower than elsewhere for melanoma of the skin (59.9% in South Korea, 52.1% in Taiwan, and 49.6% in China), and for both lymphoid malignancies (52.5%, 50.5%, and 38.3%) and myeloid malignancies (45.9%, 33.4%, and 24.8%). For children diagnosed during 2010-14, 5-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia ranged from 49.8% in Ecuador to 95.2% in Finland. 5-year survival from brain tumours in children is higher than for adults but the global range is very wide (from 28.9% in Brazil to nearly 80% in Sweden and Denmark). INTERPRETATION: The CONCORD programme enables timely comparisons of the overall effectiveness of health systems in providing care for 18 cancers that collectively represent 75% of all cancers diagnosed worldwide every year. It contributes to the evidence base for global policy on cancer control. Since 2017, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has used findings from the CONCORD programme as the official benchmark of cancer survival, among their indicators of the quality of health care in 48 countries worldwide. Governments must recognise population-based cancer registries as key policy tools that can be used to evaluate both the impact of cancer prevention strategies and the effectiveness of health systems for all patients diagnosed with cancer. FUNDING: American Cancer Society; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Swiss Re; Swiss Cancer Research foundation; Swiss Cancer League; Institut National du Cancer; La Ligue Contre le Cancer; Rossy Family Foundation; US National Cancer Institute; and the Susan G Komen Foundation

QUIN 2.0 - new release of the QUaternary fault strain INdicators database from the Southern Apennines of Italy

QUIN database integrates and organizes structural-geological information from published and unpublished sources to constrain deformation in seismotectonic studies. The initial release, QUIN1.0, comprised 3,339 Fault Striation Pairs, mapped on 445 sites exposed along the Quaternary faults of central Italy. The present Data Descriptor introduces the QUIN 2.0 release, which includes 4,297 Fault Striation Pairs on 738 Structural Sites from southern Italy. The newly investigated faults span ~500 km along the Apennines chain, with strikes transitioning from ~SE to ~SW and comprehensively details Fault Striation Pairs’ location, attitude, kinematics, and deformation axes. Additionally, it offers a shapefile of the fault traces hosting the data. The QUIN 2.0 release offers a significant geographic extension to the QUIN 1.0, with comprehensive description of local geometric-kinematic complexities of the regional pattern. The QUIN data may be especially relevant for constraining intra-Apennine potential seismogenic deformation patterns, where earthquake data only offer scattered or incomplete information. QUIN’s data will support studies aimed at enhancing geological understanding, hazard assessment and comprehension of fault rupture propagation and barriers