The importance of heterogeneity in large-scale replications

In a large-scale replication effort, Klein et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918810225) investigate the variation in replicability and effect size across many different samples and settings. The authors concluded that, for any given effect being studied, heterogeneity across samples and settings does not explain failures to replicate. In the current commentary, we argue that the heterogeneity observed indeed has implications for replication failures, as well as for statistical power and theory development. We argue that psychological scientific research questions should be contextualized—considering how historical, political, or cultural circumstances might affect study results. We discuss how a perspectivist approach to psychological science is a fruitful way for designing research that aims to explain effect size heterogeneity.</p

Neural correlates of enhanced visual short-term memory for angry faces: An fMRI study

Copyright: © 2008 Jackson et al.Background: Fluid and effective social communication requires that both face identity and emotional expression information are encoded and maintained in visual short-term memory (VSTM) to enable a coherent, ongoing picture of the world and its players. This appears to be of particular evolutionary importance when confronted with potentially threatening displays of emotion - previous research has shown better VSTM for angry versus happy or neutral face identities.Methodology/Principal Findings: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we investigated the neural correlates of this angry face benefit in VSTM. Participants were shown between one and four to-be-remembered angry, happy, or neutral faces, and after a short retention delay they stated whether a single probe face had been present or not in the previous display. All faces in any one display expressed the same emotion, and the task required memory for face identity. We find enhanced VSTM for angry face identities and describe the right hemisphere brain network underpinning this effect, which involves the globus pallidus, superior temporal sulcus, and frontal lobe. Increased activity in the globus pallidus was significantly correlated with the angry benefit in VSTM. Areas modulated by emotion were distinct from those modulated by memory load.Conclusions/Significance: Our results provide evidence for a key role of the basal ganglia as an interface between emotion and cognition, supported by a frontal, temporal, and occipital network.The authors were supported by a Wellcome Trust grant (grant number 077185/Z/05/Z) and by BBSRC (UK) grant BBS/B/16178

Perceived Social Consensus Can Reduce Ideological Biases on Climate Change

It is well established that conservatives in the United States are substantially less likely than liberals to accept that climate change is happening and is human caused and are less supportive of policies to limit climate change. However, it is likely that ideological differences in climate change beliefs, attitudes, and policy preferences are smaller when people have close friends and family members who care about climate change. Here, we use nine nationally representative survey samples (total N = 16,168) to evaluate this claim and test if perceived social consensus predicts a smaller difference in climate change beliefs between liberals and conservatives. We find that social consensus plays an important role in climate change beliefs, attitudes, and policy preferences for people across the ideological spectrum, but especially among conservatives. These findings provide important insights on how to bridge ideological divides in large social dilemmas such as climate change. </jats:p

From continuum mechanics to SPH particle systems and back: systematic derivation and convergence

In this paper, we derive from the principle of least action the equation of motion for a continuous medium with regularized density field in the context of measures. The eventual equation of motion depends on the order in which regularization and the principle of least action are applied. We obtain two different equations, whose discrete counterparts coincide with the scheme used traditionally in the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) numerical method [27], and with the equation treated by Di Lisio et al. in [9], respectively. Additionally, we prove the convergence in the Wasserstein distance of the corresponding measure‐valued evolutions, moreover providing the order of convergence of the SPH method. The convergence holds for a general class of force fields, including external and internal conservative forces, friction and non‐local interactions. The proof of convergence is illustrated numerically by means of one and two‐dimensional examples

Prospective study of the primary evaluation of 1016 horses with clinical signs of abdominal pain by veterinary practitioners, and the differentiation of critical and non‑critical cases

Background: The majority of research on the evaluation of horses with colic is focused on referral hospital populations. Early identification of critical cases is important to optimise outcome and welfare. The aim of this prospective study was to survey the primary evaluation of horses with clinical signs of abdominal pain by veterinary practitioners, and compare the initial presentation of critical and non-critical cases. Results: Data from 1016 primary evaluations of horses presenting with clinical signs of colic were submitted by 167 veterinary practitioners across the United Kingdom over a 13 month period. The mean age of the study population was 13.5 years (median 12.0, range 0–42). Mean heart rate on primary presentation was 47 beats/min (median 44, range 18–125), mean respiratory rate was 20 breaths/min (median 16, range 6–100), and median gastrointestinal auscultation score (0–12, minimum–maximum) was 5 (range 0–12). Clinical signs assessed using a behavioural severity score (0–17, minimum–maximum), were between 0 and 6 in 70.4 % of cases, and 7 12 for 29.6 % of cases. Rectal examination was performed in 73.8 % of cases. Cases that responded positively to simple medical treatment were categorised retrospectively as ‘non-critical’; cases that required intensive medical treatment, surgical intervention, died or were euthanased were categorised as ‘critical’. Eight-hundred-and-twenty- two cases met these criteria; 76.4 % were ‘non-critical’ and 23.6 % were ‘critical’. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify features of the clinical presentation associated with critical cases. Five variables were retained in the final multivariable model: combined pain score: (OR 1.19, P 2.5 s (OR 3.21, P = 0.046, 95 % CI 1.023–10.09), weak pulse character (OR 2.90, P = 0.004, 95 % CI 1.39–5.99) and absence of gut sounds in ≥1 quadrant (OR 3.65, P < 0.001, 95 % CI 2.08–6.41). Conclusions: This is the first study comparing the primary presentation of critical and non-critical cases of abdominal pain. Pain, heart rate, gastrointestinal borborygmi and simple indicators of hypovolaemia were significant indicators of critical cases, even at the primary veterinary examination, and should be considered essential components of the initial assessment and triage of horses presenting with colic

Neural correlates of sexual cue reactivity in individuals with and without compulsive sexual behaviours

Although compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) has been conceptualized as a "behavioural" addiction and common or overlapping neural circuits may govern the processing of natural and drug rewards, little is known regarding the responses to sexually explicit materials in individuals with and without CSB. Here, the processing of cues of varying sexual content was assessed in individuals with and without CSB, focusing on neural regions identified in prior studies of drug-cue reactivity. 19 CSB subjects and 19 healthy volunteers were assessed using functional MRI comparing sexually explicit videos with non-sexual exciting videos. Ratings of sexual desire and liking were obtained. Relative to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater desire but similar liking scores in response to the sexually explicit videos. Exposure to sexually explicit cues in CSB compared to non-CSB subjects was associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate, ventral striatum and amygdala. Functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate-ventral striatum-amygdala network was associated with subjective sexual desire (but not liking) to a greater degree in CSB relative to non-CSB subjects. The dissociation between desire or wanting and liking is consistent with theories of incentive motivation underlying CSB as in drug addictions. Neural differences in the processing of sexual-cue reactivity were identified in CSB subjects in regions previously implicated in drug-cue reactivity studies. The greater engagement of corticostriatal limbic circuitry in CSB following exposure to sexual cues suggests neural mechanisms underlying CSB and potential biological targets for interventions

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Cell geometry across the ring structure of Sitka spruce.

For wood to be used to its full potential as an engineering material, it is necessary to quantify links between its cell geometry and the properties it exhibits at bulk scale. Doing so will make it possible to predict timber properties crucial to engineering, such as mechanical strength and stiffness, and the resistance to fluid flow, and to inform strategies to improve those properties as required, as well as to measure the effects of interventions such as genetic manipulation and chemical modification. Strength, stiffness and permeability of timber all derive from the geometry of its cells, and yet current practice is to predict them based on properties, such as bulk density, that do not directly describe the cell structure. This work explores links between micro-computed tomography data for structural-size pieces of wood, which show the variation of porosity across the wood's ring structure, and high-resolution tomography showing the geometry of the cells, from which we measure cell length, lumen area, porosity, cell wall thickness and the number density of cells. High-resolution scans, while informative, are time-consuming and expensive to run on a large number of samples at the scale of building components. By scanning the same volume of timber at both low and high resolutions (high-resolution scans over a near-continuous volume of timber of approx. 20 mm3 at 15 μm3 per voxel), we are able to demonstrate correlations between the measurements at the two different resolutions, reveal the physical basis for these correlations, and demonstrate that the data from the low-resolution scan can be used to estimate the variation in (small-scale) cell geometry throughout a structural-size piece of wood.This work was funded in major part by a Leverhulme Trust Programme Grant. The X-ray imaging work was supported by the Advanced Imaging of Materials (AIM) facility (EPSRC Grant No. EP/M028267/1), the European Social Fund (ESF) through the European Union’s Convergence programme administered by the Welsh Government

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Metabolic alterations during the growth of tumour spheroids

Solid tumours undergo considerable alterations in their metabolism of nutrients in order to generate sufficient energy and biomass for sustained growth and proliferation. During growth, the tumour microenvironment exerts a number of influences (e.g. hypoxia and acidity) that affect cellular biology and the flux or utilisation of fuels including glucose. The tumour spheroid model was used to characterise the utilisation of glucose and describe alterations to the activity and expression of key glycolytic enzymes during the tissue growth curve. Glucose was avidly consumed and associated with the production of lactate and an acidified medium, confirming the reliance on glycolytic pathways and a diminution of oxidative phosphorylation. The expression levels and activities of hexokinase, phosphofructokinase-1, pyruvate kinase and lactate dehydrogenase in the glycolytic pathway were measured to assess glycolytic capacity. Similar measurements were made for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, the entry point and regulatory step of the pentose-phosphate pathway (PPP) and for cytosolic malate dehydrogenase, a key link to TCA cycle intermediates. The parameters for these key enzymes were shown to undergo considerable variation during the growth curve of tumour spheroids. In addition, they revealed that the dynamic alterations were influenced by both transcriptional and posttranslational mechanisms