Many Labs 5:Testing pre-data collection peer review as an intervention to increase replicability

Replication studies in psychological science sometimes fail to reproduce prior findings. If these studies use methods that are unfaithful to the original study or ineffective in eliciting the phenomenon of interest, then a failure to replicate may be a failure of the protocol rather than a challenge to the original finding. Formal pre-data-collection peer review by experts may address shortcomings and increase replicability rates. We selected 10 replication studies from the Reproducibility Project: Psychology (RP:P; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) for which the original authors had expressed concerns about the replication designs before data collection; only one of these studies had yielded a statistically significant effect (p < .05). Commenters suggested that lack of adherence to expert review and low-powered tests were the reasons that most of these RP:P studies failed to replicate the original effects. We revised the replication protocols and received formal peer review prior to conducting new replication studies. We administered the RP:P and revised protocols in multiple laboratories (median number of laboratories per original study = 6.5, range = 3?9; median total sample = 1,279.5, range = 276?3,512) for high-powered tests of each original finding with both protocols. Overall, following the preregistered analysis plan, we found that the revised protocols produced effect sizes similar to those of the RP:P protocols (?r = .002 or .014, depending on analytic approach). The median effect size for the revised protocols (r = .05) was similar to that of the RP:P protocols (r = .04) and the original RP:P replications (r = .11), and smaller than that of the original studies (r = .37). Analysis of the cumulative evidence across the original studies and the corresponding three replication attempts provided very precise estimates of the 10 tested effects and indicated that their effect sizes (median r = .07, range = .00?.15) were 78% smaller, on average, than the original effect sizes (median r = .37, range = .19?.50)

Neutron emission from electromagnetic dissociation of Pb nuclei at √ s NN = 2.76 TeV measured with the ALICE ZDC

The ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeter system (ZDC) is composed of two identical sets of calorimeters, placed at opposite sides with respect to the interaction point, 114 meters away from it, complemented by two small forward electromagnetic calorimeters (ZEM). Each set of detectors consists of a neutron (ZN) and a proton (ZP) ZDC. They are placed at zero degrees with respect to the LHC axis and allow to detect particles emitted close to beam direction, in particular neutrons and protons emerging from hadronic heavy-ion collisions (spectator nucleons) and those emitted from electromagnetic processes. For neutrons emitted by these two processes, the ZN calorimeters have nearly 100% acceptance. During the √ sNN = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb data-taking, the ALICE Collaboration studied forward neutron emission with a dedicated trigger, requiring a minimum energy deposition in at least one of the two ZN. By exploiting also the information of the two ZEM calorimeters it has been possible to separate the contributions of electromagnetic and hadronic processes and to study single neutron vs. multiple neutron emission. The measured cross sections of single and mutual electromagnetic dissociation of Pb nuclei at √ s NN = 2.76 TeV, with neutron emission, are σ single EMD = 187:4 ± 0.2 (stat.)-11.2 +13.2 (syst.) b and σmutual EMD = 5.7 ± 0.1 (stat.) ±0.4 (syst.) b, respectively [1]. This is the first measurement of electromagnetic dissociation of 208Pb nuclei at the LHC energies, allowing a test of electromagnetic dissociation theory in a new energy regime. The experimental results are compared to the predictions from a relativistic electromagnetic dissociation model'701st International Conference on New Frontiers in Physics, ICFP 20122012-06-10Kolymbari, Crete; Greecesem informaçã

Burnout in Belgrade orthopaedic surgeons and general practitioners, a preliminary report

Background: Burnout syndrome (BOS) is caused both by psychological-emotional and physical stress. It is associated with decreased job performance and low career satisfaction. BOS has a significance influence both to physicians’ performance in health care system, and in their private life. Until now, there was no data about this aspect of orthopaedic surgeon condition and health in our community. Aim: To assess the level of the burnout syndrome in orthopaedic surgeons and general practitioners (GPs), and the relations of their demographic features, job characteristics to the burnout syndrome Design: Questionnaire-based survey Methods: The sample consisted of 30 orthopaedi

Investigation of the SO2 stress response in Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis using RNA-seq

Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is the most common additive worldwide used to prevent and/or control the microbial contamination in wine. Its use should be limited due to the detrimental effect to human health and the intolerance shown by a number of wine consumers. Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis, the main spoilage yeast of wine, is able to growth and produce volatile phenols even when SO2 is present. The SO2 resistance is a strain-dependent characteristic that needs to be further investigated. The two completely sequenced strains of B./D. bruxellensis, AWRI1499 (Curtin et al., 2012) and CBS2499 (Pi\u161kur et al., 2012), were used for batch fermentations carried out in synthetic wine medium. When cells reached the exponential phase of growth, SO2 was added (0.35 mg/L as molecular SO2). Samples for transcriptomic analysis were collected before SO2 pulse (T0), 5 hours after the addition (T5h) and at cell growth recovery (Tr). The results showed that more genes were significantly differentially expressed within the comparison Tr-vs-T0 than in the T5h-vs-T0 in both strains, thus indicating that mainly an adaptive response is activated. Among genes affected by SO2 addition and shared by the two strains, upregulated genes participating to carbohydrate, acyl-CoA and monocarboxylic acid metabolism were found. Interestingly, AWRI1499-0080, the gene homolog to SSU1, encoding the enzyme involved in the main mechanism of sulphite detoxification in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, increased its expression in the long term response up to 4 and 47 folds in CBS2499 and AWRI1499, respectively, thus highlighting the importance of this detoxification mechanism in B./D. bruxellensis as well. This study confirms the great ability of B./D. bruxellensis yeasts to survive and growth in extreme environmental conditions. In conclusion, due to the capacity of this yeast to counteract the stress induced by the addition of SO2, a proper management of the winemaking, including a deep cleaning of the winery equipment, is advisable for preventing, or at least minimizing the Brett contamination in wine

Unravelling SO2 stress response in Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis using RNA-seq

Wine spoilage by Brettanomyces/Dekkera bruxellensis has increased in frequency because of the use of less-severe processing conditions, the great variety of diverse vinification tecniques and the tendency to reduce the use of preservatives, such as sulphur dioxide. Due to its antioxidant and antimicrobial effect, SO2 is a very common additive in many foods; however, it is also known for increased allergic reactions in humans and therefore consumer pressure to reduce the levels. The capability of B./D. bruxellensis to survive and to grow in wine can be partially ascribed to its high resistance to SO2, but no data are available on mechanisms involved in this metabolic trait.Triplicate batch fermentations were conducted in a wine-like medium using D. bruxellensis AWRI1499. Cells in exponential phase of growth were exposed to a molecular SO2 concentration of 0.35 mg/L and samples were collected for RNA-Seq analysis: i) before the SO2 pulse; ii) 5h thereafter; and iii) at cell growth recovery. Of the 4861 genes submitted to the gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), 720 gene sets resulted upregulated. In particular, two distinct groups of gene sets resulted significantly enriched (p&lt;0.01) in conditions ii) and iii), respectively. This result indicates that an early- and late response can be actuated by the yeast as a sequential strategy occurring under SO2 stress. Interestingly, SSU1, the main mechanism of sulphite detoxification in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, increased its expression during the late response up to 50 times. On the other hand, the data show that a long-term response, involving the carbohydrate biosynthesis and the sulphur compound metabolism, is activated and maintained by the yeast to counteract SO2 exposure