Next SectionBackground: Publication bias and discrimination are increasingly recognised in medicine. A survey was conducted to determine if medical journals were more likely to publish research reports from members of their own than a rival journal’s editorial board. Methods: A retrospective review was conducted of all research reports published in 2006 in the four competing medical journals within five medical specialties. Only three journals were willing to divulge the authorship of reports that had been rejected. Results: Overall, 4460 research reports (...) were published in 2006 by the 20 journals from five subspecialties (mean 223 (SD = 164) reports per journal; median 176; interquartile range 108–238). On average, 17.2 (7.7%) reports were from a journal’s own editorial board (SD = 10.7; median 15; interquartile range 10–23; n = 20), and 6.3 (2.8%) reports were from a member of the editorial board of one of the three rival journals within the specialty (SD = 7.3; median 3.5; interquartile range 1–8; n = 60). There was a statistically significant excess of publications from the journal’s own editorial board in 14 of the 20 journals (p<0.05). Journals were almost three times more likely to publish reports from their own editorial board than from one of the three rivals within their subspecialty (p<0.0001; median difference 11; Mann–Whitney U test; power for 5% significance >99.99%). Conclusions: There was a significant excess of publications from medical journals’ own editorial boards, although it is not possible to determine whether this is due to bias in the peer review process or selective submission by editors. (shrink)

Rationing healthcare is a difficult task, which includes preventing patients from accessing potentially beneficial treatments. Proponents of implicit rationing argue that politicians cannot resist pressure from strong patient groups for treatments and conclude that physicians should ration without informing patients or the public. The authors subdivide this specific programme of implicit rationing, or “hidden rationing”, into local hidden rationing, unsophisticated global hidden rationing and sophisticated global hidden rationing. They evaluate the appropriateness of these methods of rationing from the perspectives of (...) individual and political autonomy and conclude that local hidden rationing and unsophisticated global hidden rationing clearly violate patients’ individual autonomy, that is, their right to participate in medical decision-making. While sophisticated global hidden rationing avoids this charge, the authors point out that it nonetheless violates the political autonomy of patients, that is, their right to engage in public affairs as citizens. A defence of any of the forms of hidden rationing is therefore considered to be incompatible with a defence of autonomy. (shrink)

Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, the authors provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories.

This paper aims to introduce a robust framework for forecasting demand, including data preprocessing, data transformation and standardization, feature selection, cross-validation, and regression ensemble framework. Bagging ), boosting and extreme gradient boosting regression ), and stacking are employed as ensemble models. Different machine learning approaches, including support vector regression, extreme learning machine, and multilayer perceptron neural network, are adopted as reference models. In order to maximize the determination coefficient value and reduce the root mean square error, hyperparameters are set using (...) the grid search method. Using a steel industry dataset, all tests are carried out under identical experimental conditions. In this context, STACK1 and STACK2 models provided better performance than other models. The highest accuracies of R2 of 0.97 and 0.97 are obtained using STACK1 and STACK2, respectively. Moreover, the rank according to performances is STACK1, STACK2, XGBR, GBR, RFR, MLP, ELM, and SVR. As it improves the performance of models and reduces the risk of decision-making, the ensemble method can be used to forecast the demand in a steel industry one month ahead. (shrink)

Buildings are constructed for accommodating living and industrial needs. Floor cleaning robots have been developed to cater to the demand of these buildings. Area coverage and coverage time are crucial performance factors of a floor cleaning robot. Reconfigurable tiling robots have been introduced over fixed shape robots to improve area coverage in floor cleaning applications compared to robots with fixed morphologies. However, area coverage and coverage time of a tiling robot compromised one another. This study proposes a novel concept that (...) considers the ability of a tiling robot to configure both its morphology and size according to the environment. This concept is inspired by the pleomorphism that could be seen in bacteria. In this regard, P-hTetro, a pleomorphic tiling robot that can reconfigure its morphology and size, is considered. A novel coverage strategy for realizing the size reconfiguration is also proposed. According to this strategy, the robot covers obstacle-free areas with its maximum size, while an obstacle cluster is covered after shrinking to an optimum size. The optimum size for reconfiguration is determined by the genetic algorithm based on the arrangement of the environment. The performance and behavior of the proposed P-hTetro have been compared against that of an existing tiling robot which has a fixed size. According to the statistical outcomes, a tiling robot with the ability to reconfigure its size can significantly improve the performance in the aspects of area coverage and coverage time compared to a tiling robot with no ability to reconfigure its size. (shrink)

This paper presents a unifying framework for the study of artificial life, intelIigence and reality. By providing this framework we can give a clear and concise introduction to the fundamental arguments of all three artificial sciences and facilitate the translation of arguments from any one domain to the other two. The framework is based on a variant of functionalism that does not exclude the role of the observer.

The study aimed to identify the knowledge management processes and their role in achieving competitive advantage at Al-Quds Open University. The study was based on the descriptive analytical method, and the study population consists of academic and administrative staff in each of the branches of Al-Quds Open University in (Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin). The researchers selected a sample of the study population by the intentional non-probability method, the size of (70) employees. A questionnaire was prepared and supervised by a number (...) of specialists in order to obtain the results of the study. The study concluded that there is a positive direct relationship, that is, the higher the degree of application of knowledge management processes, the greater the degree of competitive advantage. Knowledge Technology came first with a score of 80.02% on all items. Competitive advantage came second with 81.74%. In the third place came "knowledge generation" where the total score on all paragraphs in this area (78.24%). In the fourth place, "knowledge transfer" (77.21%). "Developing and storing knowledge" came in fifth place (77.13%). "Acquisition of knowledge" came in sixth place (76.45%). Knowledge Organization ranked seventh (74.26%). The study recommended that the university should enable the employees to benefit from the experiences and expertise available to help generate knowledge. The University encourages the creation of knowledge through the system of incentives and open the way for creators to apply their creations and spread and invest in excellence and creativity. The university should design work performance levels based on the integration of knowledge and organize it according to policies that support freedom of research. The need for Palestinian universities to adopt a knowledge management approach. The need to adopt a system of incentives that rewards cognitive efforts, and give workers enough freedom to enable them to apply their knowledge. (shrink)

Background: Increasing resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to ciprofloxacin in ICU/burn units has created a problem in the treatment of infections caused by this microorganism. -/- Methods: Fifty P. aeruginosa strains were isolated from burn patients hospitalized in the Kerman Hospital during May 1999-April 2000 and were tested for in-vitro sensitivity to different antibiotics by disc diffusion breakpoint assay. The isolates were subjected to minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) test by agar dilution method. Existence of the plasmids was also investigated in the (...) isolates. -/- Results: Thirty-four patients infected with ciprofloxacin strains showed MIC of 8 mg/ml [p<0.001]. Sixteen patients were infected with sensitive strains exhibiting MIC range of 0.0125-0.125 ± 0.033 mg/ml. The isolates were also also resistant to other antibiotics [p<0.001]. Plasmid isolation and agarose gel electrophoresis (0.7%) revealed three plasmid bands in strains 8 and 16, and one band in strain 35. -/- Conclusion: The emergence of ciprofloxacin resistance of P. aeruginosa in burn patients is alarming since this antibiotic has only recently been introduced onto the market in Iran. One important observation was that some isolates exhibited cross resistance to other antibiotics. Furthermore, some strains were carriers of plasmids which might have acted as the potential source of acquired resistance in the hospital setting. -/- . (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally (...) vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are often portrayed as unwarranted beliefs, typically supported by suspicious kinds of evidence. Yet contemporary work in Philosophy argues provisional belief in conspiracy theories is—at the very—least understandable (because conspiracies occur) and if we take an evidential approach—judging individual conspiracy theories on their particular merits—belief in such theories turns out to be warranted in a range of cases. Drawing on this work, I examine the kinds of evidence typically associated with conspiracy theories, showing that the evidential problems typically (...) associated with conspiracy theories are not unique to such theories. As such, if there is a problem with the conspiracy theorist’s use of evidence, it is one of principle: is the principle which guides their use of evidence somehow in error? I argue that whatever we might think about conspiracy theories generally, there is no prima facie case for a scepticism of conspiracy theories based purely on their use of evidence. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

Summary A study of the metallurgy and manufacturing techniques of a group of eight astrolabes using non-destructive methods has produced the earliest evidence for systematic use of high-zinc brass. To produce this alloy, the brass industry supplying the Lahore instrument makers must have co-melted metallic copper and zinc. This brass-making technology was previously believed to have been developed on an industrial scale in the nineteenth century in Europe. This work hypothesizes that this technology was used in Lahore on an industrial (...) scale as early as ad 1601. In addition, this work hypothesizes that the α + β brass alloy was used specifically for its ease in manufacturing the thin sheet brass required for astrolabe-component manufacture. (shrink)