170,696 research outputs found
Auxiliary Assumptions, Unification, and Intelligent Design: A Defense of Contrastive Testability
No full textBoudry and Leuridan argue that in a number of cases—and specifically in the case of intelligent design—a theory can be intuitively testable, but not contrastively testable according to Sober’s definition. I argue that their purported counterexamples rely on misunderstandings of the concept of contrastive testability and the version of intelligent design criticized by Sober. I also argue that the liberalization of contrastive testability suggested by Boudry and Leuridan is trivial
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The supplementation of a corn/barley-based diet with bacterial xylanase did not prevent diarrhoea of ETEC susceptible piglets, but favoured the persistence of Lactobacillus reuteri in the gut
No full textExogenous enzymes can favour the release of shorter polymers of the dietary fibre, favouring the development of a beneficial digestive microflora. The addition of bacterial xylanase to a weaner pig diet was tested for its impact on the intestinal microbiota and digestive homeostasis. Thirty-two pigs genetically susceptible to enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC), equally divided into two experimental groups, were used to increase the risk of diarrhoea and test the response of xylanase under conditions representing those severe situations which are frequently present on farms. Pigs, weaned at 25 ± 1 days, were fed a corn/barley standard diet without (Group CO) or with (Group XY) 100 g/t xylanase from BELFEED NV, Belgium. Blood samples (for measuring the reactive oxygen metabolites) and faeces were taken 14 and 28 days from the beginning of the trial. On day 28, the pigs were euthanised and jejunal samples were collected.The faecal bacteria16S rRNA gene was sequenced using a MiSeq Reagent Kit V3-V4 on a MiSeq-Illumina platform. The pigs had diffuse diarrhoea starting from day 4. On the morning of day 8 and for the two following days, all the pigs were treated with Enrofloxacin intramuscularly. The efficacy of the Enrofloxacin was confirmed using the ETEC F18 growth inhibition test. Four animals in each treatment group died or were suppressed to reduce pain. The diet did not change growth, the faecal score or the reactive oxygen metabolites in the blood. The XY treatment trended to increase villus length in the jejunum (p = 0.066). The operational taxonomic unit (OTU) distribution was fairly homogeneous, the microbial diversity indices were not changed by the treatment, and the per phylum abundances were homogenous among the diets and were dominated by Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. The beneficial xylose-fermenting Lactobacillus reuteri persisted after weaning in the XY treatment group (P < 0.05). The Beta Diversity was clusterised for the time of sampling (P = 0.003). The supplementation with xylanase did not improve growth or protection against ETEC, but the effect on some beneficial bacteria species is merits additional study
Mitomycin C in highly myopic eyes - Author reply
No full textOphthalmology. 2005 Feb;112(2):208-18; discussion 219.
Mitomycin C modulation of corneal wound healing after photorefractive keratectomy in highly myopic eyes.
Gambato C, Ghirlando A, Moretto E, Busato F, Midena E.
SourceRefractive Surgery Service and Antimetabolite Therapy Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Abstract
PURPOSE: To evaluate the role of topical mitomycin C in corneal wound healing (CWH) after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) in highly myopic eyes.
DESIGN: Prospective, double-masked, randomized clinical trial.
PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-two eyes of 36 patients affected by high (>7 diopters) myopia.
METHODS: In each patient, one eye was randomly assigned to PRK with intraoperative topical 0.02% mitomycin C application, and the fellow eye was treated with a placebo. Postoperatively, mitomycin C-treated eyes received artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months), whereas the fellow eye was treated with fluorometholone sodium 2% and artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), contrast sensitivity, manifest refraction, and biomicroscopy. Contrast sensitivity was determined using the Pelli-Robson chart. Corneal confocal microscopy documented CWH.
RESULTS: Mean follow-up was 18 months (range, 12-36). No side effects or toxic effects were documented. At 12-month follow-up examination, UCVAs (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) were 0.4+/-0.48 and 0.5+/-0.53 (P = .03) in mitomycin C-treated eyes and corticosteroid-treated eyes, respectively. At 1 year, corneal haze developed in 20% of corticosteroid-treated eyes, versus 0% of mitomycin C-treated eyes. At 12, 24, and 36 months, corneal confocal microscopy showed activated keratocytes and extracellular matrix significantly more evident in untreated eyes (Ps = 0.004, 0.024, and 0.046, respectively).
CONCLUSION: Topical intraoperative application of 0.02% mitomycin C can reduce haze formation in highly myopic eyes undergoing PRK.
Comment in
Ophthalmology. 2006 Feb;113(2):357; author reply 357-8
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Attribution Analysis Tool
No full text****************************************************************************
Scroll down to Additional Files to access the calculator.
****************************************************************************
The attribution analysis spreadsheet is developed based on the model discussed in the Center for Real Estate and Finance at Cornell report called Measuring the Value Added of Hotel REIT Managers Using MSA Benchmarks: A Return-Based Attribution Analysis Approach by Walter I. Boudry, Crocker H. Liu, and Andrey D. Ukhov.
Attribution analysis also known as style analysis allows investors and managers to assess the extent to which managers add value to their firm’s common stock returns. Given a set of passive indices, the excel worksheet constructs a benchmark portfolio that most closely replicates the actual performance of a manager’s portfolio over a specified time period. Management performance is then measured relative to this benchmark portfolio. For more detailed information on how attribution analysis is used with respect to the performance of real estate commingled real estate funds to ascertain if a manager possesses skill or is simply lucky in his or her acquisitions, please see the NCREIF. For a useful publication on how it is used in practice, please click here.
Laying foundations for effective machine learning in law enforcement. Majura – A labelling schema for child exploitation materials
No full textThe health impacts of repeated exposure to distressing concepts such as child exploitation materials (CEM, aka ‘child pornography’) have become a major concern to law enforcement agencies and associated entities. Existing methods for ‘flagging’ materials largely rely upon prior knowledge, whilst predictive methods are unreliable, particularly when compared with equivalent tools used for detecting ‘lawful’ pornography. In this paper we detail the design and implementation of a deep-learning based CEM classifier, leveraging existing pornography detection methods to overcome infrastructure and corpora limitations in this field. Specifically, we further existing research through direct access to numerous contemporary, real-world, annotated cases taken from Australian Federal Police holdings, demonstrating the dangers of overfitting due to the influence of individual users’ proclivities. We quantify the performance of skin tone analysis in CEM cases, showing it to be of limited use. We assess the performance of our classifier and show it to be sufficient for use in forensic triage and ‘early warning’ of CEM, but of limited efficacy for categorising against existing scales for measuring child abuse severity. We identify limitations currently faced by researchers and practitioners in this field, whose restricted access to training material is exacerbated by inconsistent and unsuitable annotation schemas. Whilst adequate for their intended use, we show existing schemas to be unsuitable for training machine learning (ML) models, and introduce a new, flexible, objective, and tested annotation schema specifically designed for cross-jurisdictional collaborative use. This work, combined with a world-first ‘illicit data airlock’ project currently under construction, has the potential to bring a ‘ground truth’ dataset and processing facilities to researchers worldwide without compromising quality, safety, ethics and legality
A Multi-Language Comparison of Influences on Author Verification using Character N-Grams
No full textWe create a new multi-language corpus for author verification based on Wikipedia talkpages, and evaluate the influence that differences in topic and time have on character n-gram author profiles. Topic alignment between two texts is found to increase author verification precision, and an authors writing style is found to change over time, but not more significantly after 3 years than after 1 year.Information ArchitectureWISElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Measuring the Value Added of REIT Managers Using MSA Benchmarks: A Return-Based Attribution Analysis Approach
No full textAn interesting, important, and challenging financial question both in academic research and in practice is how to determine asset managers’ investment performance. That is, how much can be attributed to luck or serendipitous timing and how much is skill? In this paper we demonstrate how return-based style analysis, known as attribution analysis, can be used to ascertain the extent to which managers of REITs add value to their firm’s stock returns. Developed by William F. Sharpe, a Nobel Laureate, the attribution analysis technique was originally used to analyze a manager’s investment style based on the individual’s equity portfolio (e.g., large cap growth versus large cap value) by comparing returns on various indices.1 The manager’s style would be inferred according to the extent to which a weighted combination of indices most closely replicated the actual performance of the manager’s portfolio over a specified time period. In this way, a fund manager’s style is determined by finding the mix of indices that provides returns that are the most similar to the manager’s portfolio’s returns. The manager’s performance can then be assessed from the resulting benchmark portfolio, which is constructed using the various indices. The unmanaged benchmark reflects how an investor would do if he or she owned a portfolio comprising the same indices but didn’t have the manager
- …
