Effects of bias on the association between post-traumatic stress disorder and interleukin-6

No abstract available.NoneAccepte

Editors publishing in their own journals : A systematic review of prevalence and a discussion of normative aspects

Journal editors are the main gatekeepers in scientific publishing. Yet there is a concern that they may receive preferential treatment when submitting manuscripts to their own journals. The prevalence of such self-publishing is not known, nor the consequences for reliability and trustworthiness of published research. This study aimed to systematically review the literature on the prevalence of editors publishing in their own journals and to conduct a normative ethical analysis of this practice. A systematic review was performed using the following databases: Medline, PsycInfo, Scopus and Web of Science. Articles that provided primary data about editors publishing in own journals were included. We identified 15 studies meeting inclusion criteria. There was large variability of self-publishing across fields, journals and editors, ranging from those who never published in their own journal to those publishing extensively in their own journal. Many studies suffered from serious methodological limitations. Nevertheless, our results show that there are settings where levels of self-publication are very high. We recommend that editors-in-chief and associate editors who have considerable power in journals refrain from publishing research articles in their own journals. Journals should have clear processes in place about the treatment of articles submitted by editorial board members.Peer reviewe

Learning in a simple biological system: a pilot study of classical conditioning of human macrophages in vitro

Recent advances in cell biology and gene regulation suggest mechanisms whereby associative learning could be performed by single cells. Therefore, we explored a model of classical conditioning in human macrophages in vitro. In macrophage cultures, bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS; unconditioned stimulus) was paired once with streptomycin (conditioned stimulus). Secretion of interleukin-6 (IL-6) was used as response measure. At evocation, conditioning was not observed. Levels of IL-6 were higher only in those cultures that had been exposed to LPS in the learning phase (p's < .05), regardless whether they received the conditioned stimulus or not at evocation

Company employees as experimental participants in traffic safety research : Prevalence and implications

The use of company employees as experimental participants when testing products, technology or paradigms developed by the same company raises questions about bias in results and research ethics. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of studies authored by car company researchers with car company employees as participants, to assess the risk of bias in such studies, to investigate journal editors' opinions in the field of traffic safety regarding these procedures, and to offer a general discussion about ethical and methodological implications. Three types of data were collected. We (i) examined guidelines and recommendations for authors in eleven selected peer-reviewed journals in the area of traffic safety; (ii) surveyed editors of these journals; and (iii) reviewed articles authored by researchers from a selected group of car manufacturers and published in these journals during 2011-2015. Guidelines and recommendations for authors in the included journals did not mention whether and under what circumstances company employees can be research participants, nor did publishers' general guidelines. However, three out of the four editors who responded to our survey believed that this issue of private company researchers using participants from the same company deserves to be explicitly addressed in their journal's guide for authors. The total number of regular articles and conference papers during 2011-2015 in the eleven journals reviewed was 6763; 95 (1.4%) listed at least one car manufacturer in the authors' affiliations; and out of these, nine included company employees as participants. In summary, company employees are seldom (0.13%) used as research participants in traffic safety research. Nevertheless, the use of company employees as research participants raises questions about bias in results as well as about incursions into the participants' autonomy. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Company employees as experimental participants in traffic safety research : prevalence and implications

The use of company employees as experimental participants when testing products, technology or paradigms developed by the same company raises questions about bias in results and research ethics. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of studies authored by car company researchers with car company employees as participants, to assess the risk of bias in such studies, to investigate journal editors’ opinions in the field of traffic safety regarding these procedures, and to offer a general discussion about ethical and methodological implications. Three types of data were collected. We (i) examined guidelines and recommendations for authors in eleven selected peer-reviewed journals in the area of traffic safety; (ii) surveyed editors of these journals; and (iii) reviewed articles authored by researchers from a selected group of car manufacturers and published in these journals during 2011-2015. Guidelines and recommendations for authors in the included journals did not mention whether and under what circumstances company employees can be research participants, nor did publishers’ general guidelines. However, three out of the four editors who responded to our survey believed that this issue of private company researchers using participants from the same company deserves to be explicitly addressed in their journal’s guide for authors. The total number of regular articles and conference papers during 2011-2015 in the eleven journals reviewed was 6763; 95 (1.4%) listed at least one car manufacturer in the authors’ affiliations; and out of these, nine included company employees as participants. In summary, company employees are seldom (0.13%) used as research participants in traffic safety research. Nevertheless, the use of company employees as research participants raises questions about bias in results as well as about incursions into the participants’ autonomy.NoneAccepte

Valor de la Resonancia Nuclear Magnética en Ortopedia Oncológica

Presentamos nuestra experiencia preliminar sobre la utilidad diagnóstica de la Resonancia Nuclear Magnética (RM) en la evaluación pre- y postoperatoria de pacientes con tumores musculoesqueléticos. Se han revisado 21 pacientes con tumores caracterizados histológicamente. Del total, 10 casos eran sarcomas de partes blandas, 7 correspondían a tumores óseos y 4 eran metástasis óseas o recidivas locales. Las imágenes se obtuvieron mediante un sistema de RM de campo medio provisto de un imán superconductor operando a 0.5 Teslas. En todos los casos se obtuvieron imágenes T1 y T2, en los planos axial y coronal. Como norma se objetivó un excelente contraste entre la señal de la lesión y la de las estructuras normales adyacentes. Sólo en un caso, un osteosarcoma del extremo proximal del peroné, las imágenes de extensión a partes blandas vecinas resultaron ser negativas en la exploración quirúrgica. El análisis de los cambios de intensidad de la señal no permitieron distinguir la especificidad tisular del tumor, ni diferenciar lesiones benignas y malignas. En nuestra experiencia, la RM nos ha permitido un mejor diagnóstico anatómico de la extensión tumoral, facilitándonos la planificación quirúrgica que requieren las modernas técnicas reconstructivas en ortopedia oncológica.The preliminary experience using Magnetic Resonance imaging for pre- and post-operative assessment of orthopaedic oncologic patients is hereby reported. Twenty-one patients with histologically characterized bone and soft tissue tumors have been reviewed. Seventeen patients had primary musculoskeletal neoplasia: 10 had soft tissue sarcomas and 7 bone tumors. The remained 4 patients consisted of bone metastasis or local racidive. Magnetic resonance images were acquired using a superconductive magnet operating at 0.5 Tesla. T1- and T2-weighted transaxial and coronal images were obtained in all cases. An excellent contrast between the signal of the lesion and the normal adjacent structures was usually obtained. Only in one osteosarcoma of the proximal fibula, an extraosseous extension was presumed but not found during surgical resection. Changes in image intensity did not permit to identify tumor tissue specificity neither distinguish between benign and malignat lesions. In our experience, Magnetic Resonance shows a great advantage in order to determine tumor anatomical extension, providing a useful information for the surgical planning required by current reconstructive techniques in orthopaedic oncology

Selenite induces apoptosis in sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma cells through oxidative stress

Malignant mesothelioma cells differentiate into sarcomatoid or epithelioid phenotypes. The sarcomatoid cell type is more resistant to chemotherapy and yields a worse prognosis. We have investigated whether selenite alone and in combination with doxorubicin induced apoptosis in variously differentiated mesothelioma cells. Selenite in concentrations that could potentially be administered to patients strongly inhibited the growth of the sarcomatoid mesothelioma cells (IC 50 = 7.5 µM), whereas epithelioid cells were more sensitive to doxorubicin. Benign mesothelial cells remained largely unaffected. Selenite potentiates doxorubicin treatment.. Apoptosis was the dominating mode of cell death. The toxicity of selenite was mediated by oxidative stress. Furthermore the activity of the thioredoxin system was directly dependent on the concentration of selenite. This offers a possible mechanism of action of selenite treatment. Our findings suggest that selenite is a promising new drug for the treatment of malignant mesothelioma.Cancer- och allergifondenSvenska läkaresällskapetHjärt-lungfondenAccepte

Evolution of associative learning in chemical networks

Organisms that can learn about their environment and modify their behaviour appropriately during their lifetime are more likely to survive and reproduce than organisms that do not. While associative learning – the ability to detect correlated features of the environment – has been studied extensively in nervous systems, where the underlying mechanisms are reasonably well understood, mechanisms within single cells that could allow associative learning have received little attention. Here, using in silico evolution of chemical networks, we show that there exists a diversity of remarkably simple and plausible chemical solutions to the associative learning problem, the simplest of which uses only one core chemical reaction. We then asked to what extent a linear combination of chemical concentrations in the network could approximate the ideal Bayesian posterior of an environment given the stimulus history so far? This Bayesian analysis revealed the ’memory traces’ of the chemical network. The implication of this paper is that there is little reason to believe that a lack of suitable phenotypic variation would prevent associative learning from evolving in cell signalling, metabolic, gene regulatory, or a mixture of these networks in cells

Microscopy-BIDS: An extension to the brain imaging data structure for microscopy data

The Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) is a specification for organizing, sharing, and archiving neuroimaging data and metadata in a reusable way. First developed for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) datasets, the community-led specification evolved rapidly to include other modalities such as magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography, and quantitative MRI (qMRI). In this work, we present an extension to BIDS for microscopy imaging data, along with example datasets. Microscopy-BIDS supports common imaging methods, including 2D/3D, ex/in vivo, micro-CT, and optical and electron microscopy. Microscopy-BIDS also includes comprehensible metadata definitions for hardware, image acquisition, and sample properties. This extension will facilitate future harmonization efforts in the context of multi-modal, multi-scale imaging such as the characterization of tissue microstructure with qMRI

Exploring the Consistency and Value of Humour Style Profiles

Sian Jones - ORCID 0000-0002-2399-1017 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2399-1017Establishing generalisable humour style profiles promises to have significant value for educational, clinical, and occupational application. However, previous research investigating such profiles has thus far presented inconsistent results. To determine the generalisability and value of humour style profiles, a large and geographically diverse examination of humour styles was conducted through a cross-sectional questionnaire methodology involving 863 participants from across three world regions. Findings identify inconsistencies in the humour style profiles across countries tested and the extant literature, possibly indicative of cultural differences in the behavioural expression of trait humour. Furthermore, when directly compared, humour types, rather than humour styles, consistently provide the greatest predictive value for friendship and well-being outcomes. As such, with respect to both consistency and value, capturing humour style profiles appears to represent a relatively reductionist approach to appreciating the nuances in the use and consequences of humour.https://doi.org/10.1080/23743603.2020.17562394pubpub