Adherence To Prospective Registration Policy And Implications For Clinical Trial Endpoint Integrity

Since implementation of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) prospective registration policy in 2005, trial registration has increased significantly. Registering clinical trials is critical in promoting transparency and integrity in medical research, however trials must be registered in an appropriate manner to deter unaccounted protocol modifications or selection of alternate endpoints that may enhance favorability of reported results. This thesis provides relevant background on clinical trial registration and appropriate reporting in addition to evaluating adherence with the ICMJE’s prospective trial registration policy and the implications of inappropriate adherence for the integrity of reported results. In a cross-sectional, retrospective analysis of recent trials published in the highest-impact journals associated with US professional medical societies, we identified the frequency of registrations occurring late in addition to those late enough to potentially permit protocol modifications based on premature examination of collected data. We further examined whether trials that are unregistered or registered late enough to permit interim analyses were more likely to report favorable results. We used descriptive statistics to characterize the proportions of trials that were: registered; registered retrospectively; registered retrospectively potentially after initial ascertainment of primary endpoints; and reporting favorable results, overall and stratified by journal and trial characteristics. Among 486 trials published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2015, 47 (10%) were unregistered. Among 439 registered trials, 340 (77%) were registered prospectively and 99 (23%) retrospectively. Sixty-seven (68%) of these 99 retrospectively registered trials, or 15% of all 439 registered trials, were registered late enough to have potentially permitted premature examination of primary endpoint data ascertained among participants enrolled at inception. Unregistered trials were more likely to report favorable results than registered trials (89% vs. 64%; p=0.004), irrespective of registration timing. Adherence to the ICMJE’s prospective registration policy remains sub-standard, even in the highest impact journals associated with US professional medical societies. These journals frequently published unregistered trials and trials registered late enough to have potentially experienced unaccounted protocol modifications after observation of primary endpoints

Tensions Rise Between Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban in Afghanistan

CTC Sentinel, August 2010In March 2010, clashes erupted between two of Afghanistan’s most important insurgent groups in northern Baghlan Province. A days-long battle between Hizb-i-Islami1 and the Taliban left nearly 60 militants and 20 civilians dead. Hostilities between the two sides flared again in Wardak Province in July, where ongoing clashes killed 28 Taliban fighters, including an important local Taliban commander

The rise of the new Sunni elite in Iraq: the case of Fallujah

In August 2019, Iraqi Federal Police showed up at the mayor’s office in Fallujah to expel ‘Aissa al-Sayir, the mayor, who had long been a key player in the city’s politics. Citing voting irregularities, the Anbar Governorate deployed the police after Sayir refused to give up his post. The event attracted little notice in the international press, but within Iraq many observers believed that the ultimate mover in this drama was not the local government at all, but Muhammad al-Halbusi, the Speaker of the Iraqi parliament, and one of the wealthiest businessmen in Anbar. The removal of Fallujah’s mayor represented a changing of the guard in Sunni politics, as a new elite seeks to assert itself in the post-ISIS era

A revision of the genus Dehaasia (Lauraceae) in the Indo-Burmese region

A taxonomic revision of the genus Dehaasia Blume is presented for the Indo-Burmese region. Four species are recognized, keyed out and treated with references, type citations, synonymy, flowering and fruiting periods, local names and use, habitat, distribution and the specimens examined. Dehassia rangamattiensis is synonymized under D. kurzii. The report of D. firma from the Andaman Islands is based on a misidentified specimen of D. kurzii. The names Dictyodaphne candolleana (basionym of D. candolleana), D. kurzii, D. rangamattiensis and Laurus incrassata (basionym of D. incrassata) are lectotypified. In addition, lectotypification of Cryptocarya cuneata (basionym of D. cuneata), native to Malesia, is appended because the species has often been mistaken for D. candolleana

Deal or No Deal? Consumer Expectations and Competition in Daily Deals

Daily deals have emerged as an integral part of the marketing mix for retail merchants and have enjoyed wide acceptance by consumers. However, there is considerable ambiguity about the effects of deals on brand evaluation, and resulting electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). In this paper, we propose that the effects of deals on eWOM are contingent on merchant heterogeneity and whether consumers perceive merchants\u27 marketing efforts as desperate. We empirically model the effects of daily deals on eWOM for restaurants in Washington DC over 13 months. Results show that price segment, age, and competitive deal intensity strongly moderate the effect of deals on resulting eWOM. We also show that deals have significant spillover effects on neighboring merchants who do not offer deals. We confirm these effects using three controlled lab experiments, where similar results are obtained without the possibility of deal redemption

Dancing to the #challenge: The Effect of TikTok on Closing the Artist Gender Gap

This study examines how an interesting technological phenomenon called the “Hashtag Dance Challenge” (HDC), made popular on the short video platform TikTok, may drive artists’ popularity on the digital music streaming platform, and, importantly, help women, artists, to achieve traction that is needed to succeed commercially. Using data from TikTok, Spotify, and music analytics companies, we analyze the impact of HDCs on artists’ popularity growth rate on Spotify. We find that artists with an HDC-related song achieve a significant daily increase in followership on Spotify, representing traction and appeal within the music industry, relative to similar artists who do not have an HDC. Importantly, the daily growth of Spotify followers increases by approximately 3% more for female artists than male artists, given an HDC-associated song. Our findings shed new light on the role of social media with respect to artist self-promotion, especially in making the music more inclusive and attractive to female music artists

Rents, Patronage, and Defection: State-building and Insurgency in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been one of the most protracted conflicts modern era, but theories of civil war onset fail to explain the war’s causes or its patterns of violence. This thesis examines the origins of the post-2001 period of the conflict through the perspective of state formation; although many civil wars today unfold in newly-forming states, the processes of center-periphery relations and elite incorporation have been little studied in the context of political violence. The thesis first describes how Afghanistan’s embeddedness in the international state system and global markets undermined the nascent state’s efforts to centralize and bureaucratize, leading instead to warlordism and neopatrimonialism. Second, it demonstrates that the development of an insurgency after 2001 was due not to ethnic grievance or rebel opportunities for profit, but rather to the degree to which local elites were excluded from state patronage. Third, it examines the role of ideology and social position in the Afghan Taliban movement. The dissertation seeks to offer a theory of political violence in Afghanistan that can, mutatis mutandis, help explain key features of civil war in newly-forming states

Large Miscibility Gap in the Ba(Mn_xFe_{1-x})2As2 System

The compounds BaMn2As2 and BaFe2As2 both crystallize in the body-centered-tetragonal ThCr2Si2-type (122-type) structure at room temperature but exhibit quite different unit cell volumes and very different magnetic and electronic transport properties. Evidently reflecting these disparities, we have discovered a large miscibility gap in the system Ba(Mn_xFe_{1-x})2As2. Rietveld refinements of powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements on samples slow-cooled from 1000 C to room temperature (RT) reveal a two-phase mixture of BaMn2As2 and Ba(Mn_{0.12}Fe_{0.88})2As2 phases together with impurity phases for x = 0.2, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 and 0.8. We infer that there exists a miscibility gap in this system at 300 K with composition limits 0.12 < x < 1. For samples quenched from 1000 C to 77 K, the refinements of RT XRD data indicate that the miscibility gap at RT narrows at 1000 C to 0.2 < x < 0.8. Samples with x=0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 quenched from 1100-1400 C to 77 K contain a single 122-type phase together with significant amounts of Fe_{1-x}Mn_xAs and FeAs2 impurity phases. These results indicate that the system is not a pseudo-binary system over the whole composition range and that the 122-type phase has a significant homogeneity range at these temperatures. Magnetic susceptibility, electrical resistivity and heat capacity measurements versus temperature of the single-phase quenched polycrystalline samples with x = 0.2 and 0.8 and for lightly doped BaMn2As2 crystals are reported.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables; published versio