Conflating Relevance with Practical Significance and Other Issues: Commentary on Sen, Smith, and Van Note’s “Statistical Significance Versus Practical Importance in Information Systems Research”

Expanding on the current debate on the issues of statistical and practical significance in information systems research, where the article by Sen, Smith, and Van Note is a recent contribution, this commentary cautions against conflating relevance with practical significance. We emphasize that relevance is 1) about the real-world usefulness of research findings rather than their impressiveness for the researcher audience, 2) an essential quality of research spanning beyond its findings and not merely limited to statistical studies, and 3) determined by nonacademics rather than academics. We also comment on other aspects of the article by Sen et al., such as the term “practical importance,” the treatment of effect size measures, and the presentation of “marginal effects.

Investigation of the effects of constant darkness and light on blood serum cholesterol, insulin and glucose levels in healthy male rats

This study was designed to investigate the effects of constant darkness and light on changes of serum cholesterol, insulin and glucose levels in healthy male rats. In this study, healthy male rats (n = 30) were divided into 3 groups of tens and kept at various light/dark conditions: Control 12:12 light/dark (LD); constant darkness (DD), and constant light (LL) groups for 2 weeks. Blood samples were obtained from retro-orbital sinus before start of experiment and on the 7th and 14th days of the experimental period. The serum cholesterol and glucose levels were measured by the enzymatic method and insulin levels were measured using insulin kit by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. The results of the study showed that the levels of serum cholesterol and glucose on the 7th and 14th days of the experimental period in DD group significantly decreased compared to the LD and LL groups (p < 0.05). On the 14th day of experiment, we observed significant decrease of serum insulin level in the constant darkness group compared with the two other groups (p < 0.05). The study showed that on the 7th and 14th days of experiment, constant light significantly increased serum glucose level without having any significant effects on serum cholesterol and insulin levels. Also, the long period of time (14 days) was found to be more effective in the serum of these metabolic parameters changes than the short period (7 days).Key words: Constant darkness, light, cholesterol, glucose, insulin, healthy male rats

High temperature optical properties of nanoparticle suspensions for direct solar absorption

Novel approaches for solar energy conversion are increasingly garnering research and commercial interest, particularly as hybrid thermal and electrical energy sources. Additionally, the need for systems capable of producing thermal energy at temperatures up to 300°C is growing as a means to provide process heat to industry and distributed generation for small communities. One such concept under rapid development since 2008 is the use of nanoparticles suspended in a heat transfer fluid that is directly exposed to incoming solar irradiance. Such collectors, often referred to as direct absorption solar collectors or volumetric solar collectors, have primarily been investigated (experimentally and numerically) at low temperatures due to the challenge of creating long-term stable suspensions at temperatures above 100°C. Working fluids with boiling points well above 100°C are not well investigated for nanoparticle dispersion. The likely reason for this gap is that many high temperature fluids are non-polar, which makes the stability problem even more challenging. Additionally, most surfactants work best in water and break down above 100oC. Thus, even though many solar collectors operate above 100oC and many applications require >100oC heat, only a limited number of investigations have measured the optical properties of direct absorber liquids after exposure to these temperatures. To our knowledge no study has investigated nanofluid optical properties above 200°C. This represents critical missing data in the field, since high temperatures can affect particle stability, particle morphology, and plasmon resonance all which can lead to spectral changes in transmittance while changes in the fluid optical properties can occur at temperature. Additionally, the large coefficient of thermal expansion associated with common heat transfer fluids can result in significant changes to the working volume fraction leading to reduction in overall absorption magnitude. In this study, the optical properties of selected fluids in the solar spectrum were measured from room temperature up to 300°C. Glycol, silicon, hydrocarbon, diphenyl-oxide/biphenyl based fluids with nanotubes and indium tin oxide nanoparticles suspended with various surface treatments. As such, this paper provides a vital set of optical property data to enable further development of promising candidates for broadband spectrally selective nanofluid solar absorbers.Papers presented to the 12th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Costa de Sol, Spain on 11-13 July 2016

Impact of loganin on pro-inflammatory cytokines and depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in male diabetic rats

Behavioral disturbances are observed in most patients suffering from diabetes. According to some evidence, pro-inflammatory cytokines have a key role both in diabetes and behavioral disorders, such as anxiety and depression. In this study, the effect of chronic administration of loganin, as a bioflavonoid, was investigated on pro-inflammatory cytokines and depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in streptozotocin-induced diabetes in male Wistar rats. Blood levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Depression- and anxiety-like behaviors were evaluated by forced swimming test (FST), elevated plus maze (EPM), and open field test (OFT), respectively. Body weight was also measured before the interventions and after the experiments in all groups. Our findings show that loganin-treated animals had significantly lower serum concentrations of IL-6 and TNF-α compared with the diabetic group. In the EPM test, loganin treatment significantly increased the percentage of the open arm time and open arm entries. Moreover, loganin treatment significantly decreased the grooming time and restored distance traveled and center crossing in the OFT. However, it decreased immobility time in the FST. Loganin treatment also significantly restored body weight gain and attenuated blood glucose changes in the diabetic rats. These results indicate that loganin possibly alleviates depression- and anxiety-like behaviors associated with diabetes through lowering the blood glucose and pro-inflammatory cytokine levels. More research is required to show the exact mechanism of antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of loganin in diabetes

Accommodating practices during episodes of disillusionment with mobile IT

This study investigates how tablet users react when technology falls short of their expectations. We deploy a data/frame model to study this process and investigate resistance-related reactions and the deployment of accommodating practices at the individual level. Analyzing user blogs that provide narratives on user interaction with tablets, we identify triggers of episodes of disillusionment and illustrate five sensemaking paths that users follow, eventually leading to one of three practices: 1) users choose to defer tasks until the situation changes, or they abandon the platform altogether; 2) they develop workarounds at different levels of proficiency; or 3) they proceed by reframing their expectations of the platform. By revealing user decision-making process during episodes of disillusionment, the findings contribute to information systems post-adoption research. At a practical level, the findings inform IT artifact and application design by offering insights on how users process discrepancies between their expectations and actual use experience