Consent bias in research: how to avoid it

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Recruiting patients to medical research: double blind randomised trial of "opt-in" versus "opt-out" strategies

Objective To evaluate the effect of opt-in compared with opt-out recruitment strategies on response rate and selection bias. Design Double blind randomised controlled trial. Setting Two general practices in England. Participants 510 patients with angina. Intervention Patients were randomly allocated to an opt-in (asked to actively signal willingness to participate in research) or opt-out (contacted repeatedly unless they signalled unwillingness to participate) approach for recruitment to an observational prognostic study of patients with angina. Main outcome measures Recruitment rate and clinical characteristics of patients. Results The recruitment rate, defined by clinic attendance, was 38% (96/252) in the opt-in arm and 50% (128/258) in the opt-out arm (P = 0.014). Once an appointment had been made, non-attendance at the clinic was similar (20% opt-in arm v 17% opt-out arm; P = 0.86). Patients in the opt-in arm had fewer risk factors (44% v 60%; P = 0.053), less treatment for angina (69% v 82%; P = 0.010), and less functional impairment (9% v 20%; P = 0.023) than patients in the opt-out arm. Conclusions The opt-in approach to participant recruitment, increasingly required by ethics committees, resulted in lower response rates and a biased sample. We propose that the opt-out approach should be the default recruitment strategy for studies with low risk to participants

Localised anti-branes in non-compact throats at zero and finite T

We investigate the 3-form singularities that are typical to anti-brane solutions in supergravity and check whether they can be cloaked by a finite temperature horizon. For anti-D3-branes in the Klebanov-Strassler background, this was already shown numerically to be impossible when the branes are partially smeared. In this paper, we present analytic arguments that also localised branes remain with singular 3-form fluxes at both zero and finite temperature. These results may have important, possibly fatal, consequences for constructions of meta-stable de Sitter vacua through uplifting.Comment: 18 + 9 page

Comment on "Electromagnetic dissociation of ^8B and the astrophysical S-factor for ^7Be(p,gamma)^8B"

Recently, Davids and Typel recommended a "low" value of S_{17}(0) based on fits to published direct and Coulomb dissociation data, in which they excluded the precise result of Junghans et al. We show that their statistical analysis is incorrect, due to a substantial underestimate of the experimental uncertainties, and leads to conclusions that are not supported by a proper analysis.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.

Classical-path integral adaptive resolution in molecular simulation: towards a smooth quantum-classical coupling

Simulations that couple different classical molecular models in an adaptive way by changing the number of degrees of freedom on the fly, are available within reasonably consistent theoretical frameworks. The same does not occur when it comes to classical-quantum adaptivity. The main reason for this is the difficulty in describing a continuous transition between the two different kind of physical principles: probabilistic for the quantum and deterministic for the classical. Here we report the basic principles of an algorithm that allows for a continuous and smooth transition by employing the path integral description of atoms.Comment: 8 pages 4 figure

Desenvolvimento da folha D do Abacaxizeiro Imperial em função da adubação com Nitrogênio e Potássio.

A variedade de abacaxizeiro Imperial tem grande potencial de se estabelecer comercialmente, não só pela sua resistência à fusariose e folhas sem espinhos, mas também pela excelente aceitação de seus frutos devido às suas características organolépticas e boa aparência. Porém, é necessário o estabelecimento de bases tecnológicas para a viabilização dos sistemas de produção para essa nova variedade

Avaliação agronômica de genótipos selecionados de abacaxizeiro no ciclo sexual em 2012.

O programa de melhoramento genético do abacaxizeiro na Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura iniciou em 1978 com o estabelecimento do Banco Ativo de Germoplasma, seguido da caracterização de seus acessos. A partir de 1984 foram iniciadas as hibridizações, com o objetivo de gerar e selecionar genótipos com características de planta e fruto iguais ou superiores a de variedades comerciais, acrescidas da resistência à fusariose e ausência de espinhos nas folhas

Parâmetros de qualidade de frutos de novos híbridos de abacaxizeiros desenvolvidos pela Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura.

O fruto do abacaxizeiro é bastante apreciado e apresenta grande aceitação no mercado mundial em decorrência de suas características sensoriais e nutricionais. O programa de melhoramento genético do abacaxizeiro da Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura desenvolve novos híbridos para atender às expectativas deste mercado