Patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukaemia and severe acute complications, such as respiratory failure or sepsis, suffer from a high mortality rate when induction chemotherapy is delivered ...in an ICU setting. The report by Liang et al. implies that less intensive therapy with hypomethylating agents/venetoclax results in a lower mortality and morbidity rate whereby preserving efficacy in this patient group.
Commentary on: Liang et al. Venetoclax and hypomethylating agents in critically ill patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia. Br J Haematol 2024;204:1219‐1226.
A Bayesian perspective on Ioannidis’s (2005) memorable statement that “Most Published Research Findings Are False” suggests a seemingly inescapable trade-off: It appears as if research hypotheses are ...based either on safe ground (high prior odds), yielding valid but unsurprising results, or on unexpected and novel ideas (low prior odds), inspiring risky and surprising findings that are inevitably often wrong. Indeed, research of two prominent types, sexy hypothesis testing and model testing, is often characterized by low priors (due to astounding hypotheses and conjunctive models) as well as low-likelihood ratios (due to nondiagnostic predictions of the yin-or-yang type). However, the trade-off is not inescapable: An alternative research approach, theory-driven cumulative science, aims at maximizing both prior odds and diagnostic hypothesis testing. The final discussion emphasizes the value of pluralistic science, within which exploratory phenomenon-driven research can play a similarly strong part as strict theory-testing science.
The endoskeleton of teleosts (bony fish) includes a vertebral spine with articulating rib bones (RBs) similar to humans and further encompasses mineralized tissues that are not found in mammals, ...including intermuscular bones (IBs). RBs form through endochondral ossification and protect the inner organs, and IBs form through intramembranous ossification within the myosepta and play a role in force transmission and propulsion during locomotion. Based on previous findings suggesting that IBs show a much higher ability for fracture strain compared to mammalian bones, this study aims to investigate whether this ability is general to teleost bones or specific to IBs. We analyzed RBs and IBs of 25 North Atlantic Herring fish. RBs were analyzed using micro-mechanical tensile testing and micro-computed tomography, and both RB and IB were additionally analyzed with Raman spectroscopy. Based on our previous results from IB, we found that RBs are more elastically deformable (on average, 50% higher yield strain and 115% higher elastic work) and stronger (55% higher fracture stress) than values reported for IBs. However, these differences were neither associated with a higher Young’s modulus nor a higher degree of mineralization in RBs. Astonishingly, RBs and IBs showed similar fracture strains (12–15% on average, reaching up to 20%), reflecting a much higher ability for tensile deformation than reported for mammalian bone, and further highlighting the biomimetic potential of teleost fish bones for inspiring innovative biomaterials.
There is an increasing interest in understanding teleost bone biomechanics in several scientific communities, for instance as interesting biomaterials with specific structure-function relationships. ...Intermuscular bones of teleost fish have previously been described to play a role in the mechanical force transmission between muscle and bone, but their biomechanical properties are not yet fully described. Here, we have investigated intermuscular bones (IBs) of the North Atlantic Herring with regard to their structure and micro-architecture, mineral-related properties, and micro-mechanical tensile properties. A total of 115 IBs from 18 fish were investigated. One cohort of IBs, containing 20 bones from 2 smaller fish and 23 bones of 3 larger fish, was used for mechanical testing, wide-angle X-ray scattering, and scanning electron microscopy. Another cohort, containing 36 bones from 7 smaller fish and 36 bones from 6 larger fish, was used for microCT. Results show some astonishing properties of the IBs: (i) IBs present higher ductility, lower Young's modulus but similar strength and TMD (Tissue Mineral Density) compared to mammalian bone, and (ii) IBs from small fish were 49% higher in Young’s modulus than fish bones from larger fish while their TMD was not statistically different and crystal length was 8% higher in large fish bones. Our results revealed that teleost IB presents a hybrid nature of soft and hard tissue that differs from other bone types, which might be associated with their evolution from mineralized tendons. This study provides new data regarding teleost fish bone biomechanical and micro-structural properties.
This paper presents a simulation software initially developed by the author for educational purposes. The computational tool supports the design of power systems with large penetration by renewable ...energy sources. In particular, the problematic of power intermittency and its counter strategies are targeted. The main innovation of this simulation is the detailed transient analysis of the essential balance between power generation and consumption. Even so, the focus of the simulation tool is simple usage and interpretation of results, it successfully captures important characteristics of renewable power systems. The user selects the composition of a power system from conventional power plants, photovoltaic, windpower and tidal power. Following system definition, power generation and power demand are calculated based on local weather data. Energy storage can be added to balance mismatches between power demand and supply. Following the completion of a simulation system autonomy, carbon emission and electricity cost are evaluated to assess the performance of energy systems.
•Holistic simulation of a renewable energy system.•Suitable for educational use due to high-level approach.•High adaptability to represent local conditions.•Identification of optimum power system compositions with renewable energy penetration.
•Multi-agent systems are suitable for supply chain finance.•A new negotiation protocol enables automated supply chain finance decisions.•The implemented model considers information asymmetry and ...trust.•Experiments show that the best financing option is always found.
Supply chain finance (SCF) makes it possible to discover and utilize optimization potentials concerning the financial flows of a supply chain. A key feature of SCF is the provision of financial support based on a core business that extends good credit to upstream and downstream businesses and facilitates lending without taking unacceptable risks. To this end, a multi-agent system (MAS) approach is proposed to automate and facilitate the process of selecting the best possible financing options in the supply chain. It must be decided whether internal or external financing is to be used and which internal player offers the most favourable financing option. This second decision-making problem is realized in the MAS by an automated negotiation process in the form of an auction. The model considers the information asymmetry between external and internal supply chain actors and additional external effects for internal supply chain actors while taking over financing. Numerical experiments show the functionality and advantages of the specially designed negotiation protocol.
Self-enhancement conceived as a positive relation between happiness (H) and the difference S-O (self-rating S minus objective measure O) is inherently confounded with a positive self-view account: S ...alone may explain the positive relation to H. Condition-based regression analysis (CRA; Humberg et al., 2018a, 2018b) promises a solution. CRA assumes that opposite predictor weights (βS > 0; βO < 0) in regression of H on S and O rule out that H depends on S alone. However, despite the truism that two significant regression weights imply that both S and O contribute to the prediction model, they cannot rule out a positive self-view account. If only S shares variance with H, O may improve the prediction indirectly, by suppressing unpredictive S-variance in the prediction model. Granting S-O-redundancy, a classical suppressor effect (Conger & Jackson, 1972) results in a negative regression weight for O (binding S-variance that is unpredictive of H). Thus, the regression pattern that CRA presumes to rule out a positive self-view account indeed follows necessarily from a suppressor effect entailed in a positive self-view account. Computer simulations illustrate and corroborate this critique.
The Affordable Care Act required most people to obtain health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Legislation enacted in December 2017 effectively repealed that requirement, starting in 2019. This ...article reviews recent research on the mandate's effects, concluding that the mandate meaningfully increased insurance coverage, but likely by less than was projected before implementation. These coverage gains are likely to erode as mandate repeal takes hold. Looking ahead, policy makers have many options for expanding insurance coverage without restoring an individual mandate. However, achieving universal coverage without some form of mandatory individual contribution to health insurance would have a very large fiscal cost.
A recent set of articles in Perspectives on Psychological Science discussed inflated correlations between brain measures and behavioral criteria when measurement points (voxels) are deliberately ...selected to maximize criterion correlations (the target article was Vul, Harris, Winkielman, & Pashler, 2009). However, closer inspection reveals that this problem is only a special symptom of a broader methodological problem that characterizes all paradigmatic research, not just neuroscience. Researchers not only select voxels to inflate effect size, they also select stimuli, task settings, favorable boundary conditions, dependent variables and independent variables, treatment levels, moderators, mediators, and multiple parameter settings in such a way that empirical phenomena become maximally visible and stable. In general, paradigms can be understood as conventional setups for producing idealized, inflated effects. Although the feasibility of representative designs is restricted, a viable remedy lies in a reorientation of paradigmatic research from the visibility of strong effect sizes to genuine validity and scientific scrutiny.
Abstract In mutualistic associations, lycaenid butterfly caterpillars trade nectar secretions against protective services by ants. Eversions of paired abdominal tentacle organs (TO) have been ...suggested to honestly signal nectar secretion capacity of caterpillars to their ant visitors. Using data from 1561 staged encounters between larvae of nine West Palaearctic Polyommatinae species and worker ants of three species, I show that within experimental series, significantly positive correlations between TO eversion and nectar secretion rate emerged only sporadically (12 of 50 series). In a meta-analysis integrating over all tested species combinations and experimental conditions, the relationship between nectar secretion and TO eversion rate was weak ( r 2 = 6.6%), though significantly positive. This association between myrmecophilous behaviours was not stronger in experiments with feeding mature larvae than in prepupal non-feeding larvae; however, the latter delivered distinctly more nectar. Relationships between nectar secretions and TO eversions were independent of the density of ant partners available and did not vary consistently between lycaenid species showing different levels of myrmecophily. When mean values of nectar secretions per experimental series were related to the respective mean TO eversion rates, a clear positive relationship only emerged among intimately ant-associated species. In moderate myrmecophiles average tentacle activity was unrelated to mean nectar delivery. Overall, these experiments yielded only weak support for the reliable-signalling hypothesis. I propose that TO eversions rather serve as complementary dimension of multimodal communication between partners. ‘Apparent honesty’ may then emerge if caterpillars achieve optimal ant attendance by concomitantly increasing nectar secretion and TO eversion rates.
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