Water transparency (represented by Secchi disk depth, SDD), a key physical feature of lake ecosystems, is directly controlled by optically active substances, including organic matter (concentration ...and composition) and phytoplankton biomass which are closely related to eutrophication and climate warming. Here, we examined the trends in SDD variation and the driving mechanisms based on short-term (35 lakes, July‒September 2017) and long-term (3 lakes, 1982‒2016) datasets covering lakes with different trophic states on the Yunnan Plateau. In the short-term dataset, increases in organic matter content, phytoplankton biomass and trophic state reduced the SDD. In the long-term dataset, the annual SDD decreased significantly in all three lakes. Significant increases occurred in phytoplankton biomass in eutrophic Lake Dianchi, both phytoplankton biomass and organic matter content in oligo-mesotrophic Lake Erhai, and organic matter content in oligotrophic Lake Fuxianhu over time, and these increases were related to increased trophic state (or change in nutrient level) and/or possibly to climate warming. Furthermore, phytoplankton biomass and organic matter content were important direct driving factors for reduced SDD in eutrophic Lake Dianchi and oligotrophic Lake Fuxianhu, respectively, while the interaction of these two factors was the most important factor in oligo-mesotrophic Lake Erhai. These results implied that eutrophication and climate warming could regulate SDD by changing organic matter concentration and/or phytoplankton biomass, which may depend on the lacustrine trophic state. However, further studies across larger geographical scales and more lakes are needed to confirm these results.
Clinical study reports (CSRs) are highly detailed documents that play a pivotal role in medicine approval processes. Though not historically publicly available, in recent years, major entities ...including the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Health Canada, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have highlighted the importance of CSR accessibility. The primary objective herein was to determine the proportion of CSRs that support medicine approvals available for public download as well as the proportion eligible for independent researcher request via the study sponsor.
This cross-sectional study examined the accessibility of CSRs from industry-sponsored clinical trials whose results were reported in the FDA-authorized drug labels of the top 30 highest-revenue medicines of 2021. We determined (1) whether the CSRs were available for download from a public repository, and (2) whether the CSRs were eligible for request by independent researchers based on trial sponsors’ data sharing policies.
There were 316 industry-sponsored clinical trials with results presented in the FDA-authorized drug labels of the 30 sampled medicines. Of these trials, CSRs were available for public download from 70 (22%), with 37 available at EMA and 40 at Health Canada repositories. While pharmaceutical company platforms offered no direct downloads of CSRs, sponsors confirmed that CSRs from 183 (58%) of the 316 clinical trials were eligible for independent researcher request via the submission of a research proposal. Overall, 218 (69%) of the sampled clinical trials had CSRs available for public download and/or were eligible for request from the trial sponsor.
CSRs were available from 69% of the clinical trials supporting regulatory approval of the 30 medicines sampled. However, only 22% of the CSRs were directly downloadable from regulatory agencies, the remaining required a formal application process to request access to the CSR from the study sponsor.
Purpose The call for supply chain transparency (SCT), especially the environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspect, is getting increasingly louder. Based on the signaling theory, our study ...investigates the operational benefit of supply chain transparency in terms of ESG (SCT-ESG). To further clarify the signaling process, the moderating roles of digitalization of the firm and signal strength are also examined. Design/methodology/approach Longitudinal secondary data from multiple databases are matched and analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to validate the proposed hypotheses. Findings Results suggest that with SCT-ESG, firms have a weakened disparity between production variance and demand variance, and the supply chain experiences a reduced bullwhip effect. Further, digitalization of the focal company and signal strength reinforce the negative effect of SCT-ESG on the bullwhip effect. Originality/value The study integrates the SCT and ESG literature through SCT-ESG, extending benefits of ESG disclosure to the supply chain context. It extends the application of the signaling theory in OSCM by including contextual factors of digitalization and signal strength.
•A reactive bio-based P/N flame retardant (named VTP) as a multifunctional additive was prepared successfully.•VTP simultaneously improved the flame retardancy, glass-transition temperature and ...dielectric properties of EP.•EP/VTP composites exhibited the excellent smoke suppression and improved mechanical properties.
With the application of epoxy resin (EP) in high-end fields such as electronics and appliances, 5 G communication, rail transit interior decoration and so on, the requirements of flame retardant, lightweight and high performance are also put forward for EP products. Thus, it is of great significance to prepare EP composites with excellent comprehensive properties. For the sake of achieving this target, we synthesized a reactive bio-based P/N flame retardant (named VTP) as a multifunctional additive to develop high-performance EP composites with excellent flame retardance, mechanical properties, transparency and thermal oxidation stability. As expected, VTP possessed excellent flame-retardant efficiency thanks to the synergism of tetrazoles, phosphaphenanthrene and vanillin, only 5 wt% of which made EP/VTP-5% sample achieve UL-94 V-0 rating, increased limiting oxygen index (LOI) value to 30.5%, and reduced the peak of heat release (PHRR) and total smoke production (TSP) by 36.1% and 37.9% respectively. Besides, the tensile strength and glass transmission temperature (Tg) of EP/VTP composites were increased as compared to unmodified EP, as well as high transparency was retained. This work provided a very good idea and experimental basis for the preparation of high-performance EP resin.
To what extent are research results influenced by subjective decisions that scientists make as they design studies? Fifteen research teams independently designed studies to answer five original ...research questions related to moral judgments, negotiations, and implicit cognition. Participants from 2 separate large samples (total N > 15,000) were then randomly assigned to complete 1 version of each study. Effect sizes varied dramatically across different sets of materials designed to test the same hypothesis: Materials from different teams rendered statistically significant effects in opposite directions for 4 of 5 hypotheses, with the narrowest range in estimates being d = −0.37 to + 0.26. Meta-analysis and a Bayesian perspective on the results revealed overall support for 2 hypotheses and a lack of support for 3 hypotheses. Overall, practically none of the variability in effect sizes was attributable to the skill of the research team in designing materials, whereas considerable variability was attributable to the hypothesis being tested. In a forecasting survey, predictions of other scientists were significantly correlated with study results, both across and within hypotheses. Crowdsourced testing of research hypotheses helps reveal the true consistency of empirical support for a scientific claim.
Public Significance Statement
Research in the social sciences often has implications for public policies as well as individual decisions-for good reason, the robustness of research findings is therefore of widespread interest both inside and outside academia. Yet, even findings that directly replicate-emerging again when the same methodology is repeated-may not always prove conceptually robust to different methodological approaches. The present initiative suggests that crowdsourcing study designs using many research teams can help reveal the conceptual robustness of the effects, better informing the public about the state of the empirical evidence.
Big and Open Linked Data (BOLD) results in new opportunities and have the potential to transform government and its interactions with the public. BOLD provides the opportunity to analyze the behavior ...of individuals, increase control, and reduce privacy. At the same time BOLD can be used to create an open and transparent government. Transparency and privacy are considered as important societal and democratic values that are needed to inform citizens and let them participate in democratic processes. Practices in these areas are changing with the rise of BOLD. Although intuitively appealing, the concepts of transparency and privacy have many interpretations and are difficult to conceptualize, which makes it often hard to implement them. Transparency and privacy should be conceptualized as complex, non-dichotomous constructs interrelated with other factors. Only by conceptualizing these values in this way, the nature and impact of BOLD on privacy and transparency can be understood, and their levels can be balanced with security, safety, openness and other socially-desirable values.
•Transparency and privacy should be conceptualized as complex constructs.•Transparency and information silos are essential for protecting privacy.•Need for privacy-by-design and transparency-by-design•Acceptable levels of privacy and transparency need to be balanced taking many factors into account.
The high expenditure on public procurement by governments makes it imperative to enhance transparency across the procurement cycle with technology-driven initiatives, such as e-procurement systems. ...This paper develops the Public Procurement Transparency Index and evaluates the impact of institutional reforms and membership of the World Trade Organisation Government Procurement Agreement on transparency. We use the Technology-Organisation-Environment and Balanced e-Participation Index frameworks to analyse transparency in procurement. The Public Procurement Transparency Index uses generalised least squares technique to develop the country-level transparency score. Findings indicate that e-government procurement systems promote transparency, especially in countries with robust institutional frameworks. Further, with fractional probit regression techniques we find institutional quality and infrastructure are key determinants of transparency in public procurement. The results also highlight the importance of information technology and institutional reforms as a means to enhance transparency and accountability in public procurement and offers valuable implications for policymakers.
•High government expenditure on public procurement necessitates enhanced transparency.•This paper presents the Public Procurement Transparency Index.•Findings indicate that e-GP systems significantly improve transparency for countries with high-quality infrastructure.•Transparency is higher in developed nations and WTO-GPA members.•The findings highlight the importance of e-GP reforms for effective and accountable public procurement.
Systematic review and meta-analysis are possible as viable research techniques only through transparent reporting of primary research; thus, one might expect meta-analysts to demonstrate best ...practice in their reporting of results and have a high degree of transparency leading to reproducibility of their work. This assumption has yet to be fully tested in the psychological sciences. We therefore aimed to assess the transparency and reproducibility of psychological meta-analyses. We conducted a meta-review by sampling 150 studies from Psychological Bulletin to extract information about each review’s transparent and reproducible reporting practices. The results revealed that authors reported on average 55% of criteria and that transparent reporting practices increased over the three decades studied (b = 1.09, SE = 0.24, t = 4.519, p < .001). Review authors consistently reported eligibility criteria, effect-size information, and synthesis techniques. Review authors, however, on average, did not report specific search results, screening and extraction procedures, and most importantly, effect-size and moderator information from each individual study. Far fewer studies provided statistical code required for complete analytical replication. We argue that the field of psychology and research synthesis in general should require review authors to report these elements in a transparent and reproducible manner.
This study examines how the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI), a non-governmental evaluation of local environmental information transparency, has improved the performance of Chinese ...city governments. Through monitoring, ranking, and publicizing city performance measured by the PITI, NGOs can complement the central government in policy implementation and create a competition among local jurisdictions. Case studies and statistical analyses find that cities respond to such public oversight, with those in more politically competitive provinces experience faster improvement in environmental information transparency. These findings suggest that political incentives and inter-jurisdictional competition may be leveraged by the civil society to improve local governance in China.
•Public oversight can complement the central government in policy implementation.•Cities in more politically competitive provinces experience faster improvement.•Inter-jurisdictional political competition may be leveraged by the civil society to improve local governance.
The interaction between Rydberg states of neutral atoms is strong and long-range, making it appealing to put it to use in the context of quantum technologies. Recently, first applications of this ...idea have been reported in the fields of quantum computation1 and quantum simulation2–4. Furthermore, electromagnetically induced transparency allows one to map these Rydberg interactions to light5–15. Here we exploit this mapping and the resulting interaction between photons to realize a photon–photon quantum gate16,17, demonstrating the potential of Rydberg systems as a platform also for quantum communication and quantum networking18. We measure a controlled-NOT truth table with a fidelity of 70(8)% and an entangling-gate fidelity of 63.7(4.5)%, both post-selected upon detection of a control and a target photon. The level of control reached here is an encouraging step towards exploring novel many-body states of photons or for future applications in quantum communication and quantum networking18.
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