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Background: We wished to compare the nuisance parameters of pediatric vs. adult randomized-trials (RCTs) and determine if the latter can be used in sample size computations of the former.Methods: In this meta-epidemiologic empirical evaluation we examined meta-analyses from the Cochrane Database of Systematic-Reviews, with at least one pediatric-RCT and at least one adult-RCT. Within each meta-analysis of binary efficacy-outcomes, we calculated the pooled-control-group event-rate (CER) across separately all pediatric and adult-trials, using random-effect models and subsequently calculated the control-group event-rate risk-ratio (CER-RR) of the pooled-pediatric-CERs vs. adult-CERs. Within each meta-analysis with continuous outcomes we calculated the pooled-control-group effect standard deviation (CE-SD) across separately all pediatric and adult-trials and subsequently calculated the CE-SD-ratio of the pooled-pediatric-CE-SDs vs. adult-CE-SDs. We then calculated across all meta-analyses the pooled-CER-RRs and pooled-CE-SD-ratios (primary endpoints) and the pooled-magnitude of effect-sizes of CER-RRs and CE-SD-ratios using REMs. A ratio < 1 indicates that pediatric trials have smaller nuisance parameters than adult trials.Results: We analyzed 208 meta-analyses (135 for binary-outcomes, 73 for continuous-outcomes). For binary outcomes, pediatric-RCTs had on average 10% smaller CERs than adult-RCTs (summary-CE-RR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.83, 0.98). For mortality outcomes the summary-CE-RR was 0.48 (95% CIs: 0.31, 0.74). For continuous outcomes, pediatric-RCTs had on average 26% smaller CE-SDs than adult-RCTs (summary-CE-SD-ratio: 0.74).Conclusions: Clinically relevant differences in nuisance parameters between pediatric and adult trials were detected. These differences have implications for design of future studies. Extrapolation of nuisance parameters for sample-sizes calculations from adult-trials to pediatric-trials should be cautiously done.

The authors also acknowledge the support and collaboration of many other colleagues in their respective institutes, research communities and IT Infrastructures, together with the funding received by these from many different sources. These include but are not limited to the following: (i) The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project is a global collaboration of more than 170 computing centres in 43 countries, linking up national and international grid infrastructures. Funding is acknowledged from many national funding bodies and we acknowledge the support of several operational infrastructures including EGI, OSG and NDGF/NeIC. (ii) EGI acknowledges the funding and support received from the European Commission and the many National Grid Initiatives and other members. EOSC-hub receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 777536. (iii) The work leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 730941 (AARC2). (iv) Work on the development of ESGF's identity management system has been supported by The UK Natural Environment Research Council and funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration through projects IS-ENES (grant agreement no 228203) and IS-ENES2 (grant agreement no 312979). (v) Ludek Matyska and Michal Prochazka acknowledge funding from the RI ELIXIR CZ project funded by MEYS Czech Republic No. LM2015047. (vi) Scott Koranda acknowledges support provided by the United States National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1700765. (vii) GÉANT Association on behalf of the GN4 Phase 2 project (GN4-2).The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 731122(GN4-2). (viii) ELIXIR acknowledges support from Research Infrastructure programme of Horizon 2020 grant No 676559 EXCELERATE. (ix) CORBEL life science cluster acknowledges support from Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654248. (x) Mirjam van Daalen acknowledges that the research leading to this result has been supported by the project CALIPSOplus under the Grant Agreement 730872 from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020. (xi) EISCAT is an international association supported by research organisations in China (CRIRP), Finland (SA), Japan (NIPR), Norway (NFR), Sweden (VR), and the United Kingdom (NERC). This white-paper expresses common requirements of Research Communities seeking to leverage Identity Federation for Authentication and Authorisation. Recommendations are made to Stakeholders to guide the future evolution of Federated Identity Management in a direction that better satisfies research use cases. The authors represent research communities, Research Services, Infrastructures, Identity Federations and Interfederations, with a joint motivation to ease collaboration for distributed researchers. The content has been edited collaboratively by the Federated Identity Management for Research (FIM4R) Community, with input sought at conferences and meetings in Europe, Asia and North America.

Ample evidence supports the use of Virtual Reality (VR) for anxiety disorders. Nonetheless, currently there is no evidence about moderators or potential negative effects of VR treatment strategies. An Individual Patient Data (IPD) approach was employed with 15 retrieved datasets. The current study sample was composed of 810 patients. Randomized control trials (RCTs) for each primary outcome measure were performed, in addition to moderator analyses of the socio-demographic variables. Deterioration rates were 14 patients (4.0%) in VR, 8 (2.8%) in active control conditions, and 27 (15%) in the WL condition. With regard to receiving treatment, patients in a waiting list control condition had greater odds of deteriorating than in the two active conditions, odds ratios (ORs) 4.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.05, 0.67]. In the case of the socio-demographic variables, none of them were associated with higher or lower odds of deterioration, with the exception of marital status in the WL condition; married people presented a significantly lower probability of deterioration, OR 0.19, 95% CI [0.05, 0.67]. Finally, when comparing pooled effects of VR versus all control conditions, the OR was 0.61 (95% CI 0.31–1.23) in favor of VR, although this result was not statistically significant. This study provides evidence about the deterioration rates of a therapeutic VR approach, showing that the number of deteriorated patients coincides with other therapeutic approaches, and that deterioration is less likely to occur, compared to patients in WL control groups.

Background Rare Disease research has seen tremendous advancements over the last decades, with the development of new technologies, various global collaborative efforts and improved data sharing. To maximize the impact of and to further build on these developments, there is a need for model consent clauses for rare diseases research, in order to improve data interoperability, to meet the informational needs of participants, and to ensure proper ethical and legal use of data sources and participants’ overall protection. Methods A global Task Force was set up to develop model consent clauses specific to rare diseases research, that are comprehensive, harmonized, readily accessible, and internationally applicable, facilitating the recruitment and consent of rare disease research participants around the world. Existing consent forms and notices of consent were analyzed and classified under different consent themes, which were used as background to develop the model consent clauses. Results The IRDiRC-GA4GH MCC Task Force met in September 2018, to discuss and design model consent clauses. Based on analyzed consent forms, they listed generic core elements and designed the following rare disease research specific core elements; Rare Disease Research Introductory Clause, Familial Participation, Audio/Visual Imaging, Collecting, storing, sharing of rare disease data, Recontact for matching, Data Linkage, Return of Results to Family Members, Incapacity/Death, and Benefits. Conclusion The model consent clauses presented in this article have been drafted to highlight consent elements that bear in mind the trends in rare disease research, while providing a tool to help foster harmonization and collaborative efforts. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12910-019-0390-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In this paper, we study a type-2 fuzzy classification method. Granular computing can help us to model the relationships between human-based system and social sciences in this field. The links in a social network often reflect social relationships among users. In this work, we investigate a classification identifying the relationships among social network users based on certain social network property, granular computing approach and Type 2 fuzzy logic. We evaluate our approach on large scale real-world data from Renren network, showing that the accuracy of the prediction of our classification algorithm is higher than the type 1 fuzzy analysis and the crisp approach.

Interactions between phytoplankton species shape their physiological and evolutionary responses. Yet, studies addressing the evolutionary responses of phytoplankton in changing environments often lack an explicit element of biotic interactions. Here, we ask (1) how the presence of a locally adapted phytoplankton species will affect an invading phytoplankton species' evolutionary response to a physiologically challenging environment; (2) whether this response is conserved across environments varying in quality; and (3) which traits are associated with being a successful invader under climate change scenarios. In a conceptual first step to disentangle these broad questions, we experimentally evolved populations of fresh‐ and seawater phytoplankton in a novel salinity (the freshwater green algae Chlamydomonas in salt water, and the marine Ostreococcus in freshwater), either as mono‐cultures (colonizers) or as co‐cultures (invaders: invading a novel salinity occupied by a resident species, for example, Chlamydomonas invading salt water occupied by resident Ostreococcus) for 200 generations. We superimposed a temperature treatment (control (22°C), mild warming (26°C), drastic warming (32°C), and fluctuating (22°C/32°C) warming) as a representative aspect of climate change with the potential to ameliorate or deteriorate existing environmental conditions. Invaders had systematically lower extinction rates and evolved overall higher growth rates, as well as broader salinity and temperature preferences than colonizers. The invading species' evolutionary responses differed from those of colonizers in a replicable way across environments of differing quality. The evolution of small cell size and high reactive oxygen species tolerance may explain the invaders' higher fitness under the scenarios tested here. British Ecological Society http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000409 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6884040

The Niphta Theischinger fauna of South America is revised to include 11 species, nine of which are described as new to science (N. acus Pivar, sp. nov., N. bifurcata Pivar &amp; Moulton, sp. nov., N. bispinosa Pivar &amp; Sinclair, sp. nov., N. brunnea Pivar, sp. nov., N. courtneyi Pivar, sp. nov., N. daniellae Pivar, sp. nov., N. downesi Pivar, sp. nov., N. eurydactyla Pivar, sp. nov., N. mapuche Pivar, sp. nov.). The genus Niphta is redefined, both previously described Chilean species are redescribed, N. halteralis (Edwards) and N. nudipennis (Edwards), and females are described or redescribed where possible. The first descriptions of the immature stages of South American Niphta are provided, which represent a new larval morphotype in Thaumaleidae, as larvae and pupae possess ventral adhesive structures. Furthermore, these larvae were collected from vegetation rather than rocky substrates. Illustrations and micrographs are provided for all species, and scanning electron microscopy images are included for select immatures. A key to species, distribution maps, and discussions regarding phylogenetic affinities and habitat are also included.

In this paper, Reduced-Order Observer For Real-Time Implementation Speed Sensorless Control of Induction Using RT-LAB Softwareis presented. Speed estimation is performed through a reduced-order observer. The stability of the proposed observer is proved based on Lyapunov’s theorem. The model is initially built offline using Matlab/Simulink and implemented in real-time environment using RT-LAB package and an OP5600 digital simulator. RT-LAB configuration has two main subsystems master and console subsystems. These two subsystems were coordinated to achieve the real-time simulation. In order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of proposed method, experimental results are presented over a wide speed range, including zero speed.

This is the accepted manuscript of the paper "Identification of Resistance Genes and Response to Arsenic in Rhodococcus aetherivorans BCP1", published as final paper in "Frontiers in Microbiology Volume 10, 07 May 2019, Pages 888 https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00888”. Arsenic (As) ranks among the priority metal(loid)s that are of public health concern. In the environment, arsenic is present in different forms, organic or inorganic, featured by various toxicity levels. Bacteria have developed different strategies to deal with this toxicity involving different resistance genetic determinants. Bacterial strains of Rhodococcus genus, and more in general Actinobacteria phylum, have the ability to cope with high concentrations of toxic metalloids, although little is known on the molecular and genetic bases of these metabolic features. Here we show that Rhodococcus aetherivorans BCP1, an extremophilic actinobacterial strain able to tolerate high concentrations of organic solvents and toxic metalloids, can grow in the presence of high concentrations of As(V) (up to 240 mM) under aerobic growth conditions using glucose as sole carbon and energy source. Notably, BCP1 cells improved their growth performance as well as their capacity of reducing As(V) into As(III) when the concentration of As(V) is within 30–100 mM As(V). Genomic analysis of BCP1 compared to other actinobacterial strains revealed the presence of three gene clusters responsible for organic and inorganic arsenic resistance. In particular, two adjacent and divergently oriented ars gene clusters include three arsenate reductase genes (arsC1/2/3) involved in resistance mechanisms against As(V). A sequence similarity network (SSN) and phylogenetic analysis of these arsenate reductase genes indicated that two of them (ArsC2/3) are functionally related to thioredoxin (Trx)/thioredoxin reductase (TrxR)-dependent class and one of them (ArsC1) to the mycothiol (MSH)/mycoredoxin (Mrx)-dependent class. A targeted transcriptomic analysis performed by RT-qPCR indicated that the arsenate reductase genes as well as other genes included in the ars gene cluster (possible regulator gene, arsR, and arsenite extrusion genes, arsA, acr3, and arsD) are transcriptionally induced when BCP1 cells were exposed to As(V) supplied at two different sub-lethal concentrations. This work provides for the first time insights into the arsenic resistance mechanisms of a Rhodococcus strain, revealing some of the unique metabolic requirements for the environmental persistence of this bacterial genus and its possible use in bioremediation procedures of toxic metal contaminated sites.

The Mecoptera are represented in Canada by 25 extant species in four families, an increase of three species since the prior assessment in 1979. An additional 18 or more species and one family are expected to occur in Canada based on distributional records, recent collections and DNA analyses. The Barcode of Life Data System currently lists 24 Barcode Index Numbers for Canadian Mecoptera. There are nine species of fossil Mecoptera known from Canada.