4,561 research outputs found
Association between prospective registration and overall reporting and methodological quality of systematic reviews: a meta-epidemiological study
Objective: To investigate the differences in main characteristics, reporting and methodological quality between prospectively registered and non-registered systematic reviews. Methods: PubMed was searched to identify systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials published in 2015 in English. After title and abstract screening, potentially relevant reviews were divided into three groups: registered non-Cochrane reviews, Cochrane reviews, and non-registered reviews. For each group, random number tables were generated in Microsoft Excel, and the first 50 eligible studies from each group were randomly selected. Data of interest from systematic reviews were extracted. Regression analyses were conducted to explore the association between total R-AMSTAR or PRISMA scores and the selected characteristics of systematic reviews. Results: The conducting and reporting of literature search in registered reviews were superior to non-registered reviews. Differences in nine of the 11 R-AMSTAR items were statistically significant between registered and non-registered reviews. The total R-AMSTAR score of registered reviews was higher than non-registered reviews (MD=4.82, 95%CI: 3.70, 5.94). Sensitivity analysis by excluding the registration related item presented similar result (MD=4.34, 95%CI: 3.28, 5.40). Total PRISMA scores of registered reviews were significantly higher than non-registered reviews (all reviews: MD=1.47, 95%CI: 0.64-2.30; non-Cochrane reviews: MD=1.49, 95%CI: 0.56-2.42). However, the difference in the total PRISMA score was no longer statistically significant after excluding the item related to registration (item 5). Regression analyses showed similar results. Conclusions: Prospective registration may at least indirectly improve the overall methodological quality of systematic reviews, although its impact on the overall reporting quality was not significant
Testing and Data Reduction of the Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR) for Dome A, Antarctica
The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (hereinafter CSTAR) is the first Chinese
astronomical instrument on the Antarctic ice cap. The low temperature and low
pressure testing of the data acquisition system was carried out in a laboratory
refrigerator and on the 4500m Pamirs high plateau, respectively. The results
from the final four nights of test observations demonstrated that CSTAR was
ready for operation at Dome A, Antarctica. In this paper we present a
description of CSTAR and the performance derived from the test observations.Comment: Accepted Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA) 1 Latex file
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A regulatory mutant on TRIM26 conferring the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by inducing low immune response.
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is most closely associated with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), but the complexity of its genome structure has proven challenging for the discovery of causal MHC loci or genes. We conducted a targeted MHC sequencing in 40 Cantonese NPC patients followed by a two-stage replication in 1065 NPC cases and 2137 controls of Southern Chinese descendent. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis (qRT-PCR) was used to detect gene expression status in 108 NPC and 43 noncancerous nasopharyngeal (NP) samples. Luciferase reporter assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) were used to assess the transcription factor binding site. We discovered that a novel SNP rs117565607_A at TRIM26 displayed the strongest association (OR = 1.909, Pcombined = 2.750 × 10-19 ). We also observed that TRIM26 was significantly downregulated in NPC tissue samples with genotype AA/AT than TT. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) test also found the TRIM26 protein expression in NPC tissue samples with the genotype AA/AT was lower than TT. According to computational prediction, rs117565607 locus was a binding site for the transcription factor Yin Yang 1 (YY1). We observed that the luciferase activity of YY1 which is binding to the A allele of rs117565607 was suppressed. ChIP data showed that YY1 was binding with T not A allele. Significance analysis of microarray suggested that TRIM26 downregulation was related to low immune response in NPC. We have identified a novel gene TRIM26 and a novel SNP rs117565607_A associated with NPC risk by regulating transcriptional process and established a new functional link between TRIM26 downregulation and low immune response in NPC
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