Being Female: a handicap for researchers in the competion for NCCR.

The Swiss National Science Foundation made a call for National Centers fo Competence in Research (NCCR) for the first time in 1999 and 2004. Together, these announcements concerned all disciplines and led to 126 preproposals, which were put forward by 2134 men and women researchers. It can be assumed that this operation mobilised Swiss researchers who regarded themselves as particularly well qualified to conduct high-level research in their field. The article uses network analysis and regression analysis methods to examine to what extend women had a lower success rate than men in the two selection rounds because of their sex. On the whole, the findings attest the gender neutrality of the National Science Foundation's selection procedures. However, they also confirm the well-known fact that women scientists are less represented in the higher echelons of academia and concentrated in the social sciences and humanities, as well as showing that this concentration reduces women's chances of success in scientific competition. The article shows that unequal gender-specific success rates prior to the NCCR funding contest play a fairly significant role.

The gendering of excellence through quality criteria: the case of the SNSF Professorships in Switzerland

The Swiss National Science Foundation Professorships Programme is presented as a scientific programme that aims to promote outstanding young scholars to professorial positions. Academic excellence is presented as the main selection criterion. The emphasis put on the research portfolio and on the age of the candidates means that the beneficiaries of these professorships put forward an image of excellence that is more embedded in data-based sciences than in the humanities and social sciences, thus strengthening the domination of a sector scientific activity essentially occupied by men over the sector that has opened up more widely to women. This paper aims to deconstruct the criteria of academic excellence as they appear in this programme and to show that what seem quality criteria are in fact inspired by a specific androcentric model. These biases tend to undermine the gender equality aims of the programme.

Subclinical thyroid dysfunction and the risk for fractures: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Data on the association between subclinical thyroid dysfunction and fractures conflict. PURPOSE: To assess the risk for hip and nonspine fractures associated with subclinical thyroid dysfunction among prospective cohorts. DATA SOURCES: Search of MEDLINE and EMBASE (1946 to 16 March 2014) and reference lists of retrieved articles without language restriction. STUDY SELECTION: Two physicians screened and identified prospective cohorts that measured thyroid function and followed participants to assess fracture outcomes. DATA EXTRACTION: One reviewer extracted data using a standardized protocol, and another verified data. Both reviewers independently assessed methodological quality of the studies. DATA SYNTHESIS: The 7 population-based cohorts of heterogeneous quality included 50,245 participants with 1966 hip and 3281 nonspine fractures. In random-effects models that included the 5 higher-quality studies, the pooled adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of participants with subclinical hyperthyroidism versus euthyrodism were 1.38 (95% CI, 0.92 to 2.07) for hip fractures and 1.20 (CI, 0.83 to 1.72) for nonspine fractures without statistical heterogeneity (P = 0.82 and 0.52, respectively; I2= 0%). Pooled estimates for the 7 cohorts were 1.26 (CI, 0.96 to 1.65) for hip fractures and 1.16 (CI, 0.95 to 1.42) for nonspine fractures. When thyroxine recipients were excluded, the HRs for participants with subclinical hyperthyroidism were 2.16 (CI, 0.87 to 5.37) for hip fractures and 1.43 (CI, 0.73 to 2.78) for nonspine fractures. For participants with subclinical hypothyroidism, HRs from higher-quality studies were 1.12 (CI, 0.83 to 1.51) for hip fractures and 1.04 (CI, 0.76 to 1.42) for nonspine fractures (P for heterogeneity = 0.69 and 0.88, respectively; I2 = 0%). LIMITATIONS: Selective reporting cannot be excluded. Adjustment for potential common confounders varied and was not adequately done across all studies. CONCLUSION: Subclinical hyperthyroidism might be associated with an increased risk for hip and nonspine fractures, but additional large, high-quality studies are needed. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: Swiss National Science Foundation.

Clinical features for diagnosis of pneumonia in children younger than 5 years: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Pneumonia is the biggest cause of deaths in young children in developing countries, but early diagnosis and intervention can effectively reduce mortality. We aimed to assess the diagnostic value of clinical signs and symptoms to identify radiological pneumonia in children younger than 5 years and to review the accuracy of WHO criteria for diagnosis of clinical pneumonia. METHODS: We searched Medline (PubMed), Embase (Ovid), the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and reference lists of relevant studies, without date restrictions, to identify articles assessing clinical predictors of radiological pneumonia in children. Selection was based on: design (diagnostic accuracy studies), target disease (pneumonia), participants (children aged <5 years), setting (ambulatory or hospital care), index test (clinical features), and reference standard (chest radiography). Quality assessment was based on the 2011 Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) criteria. For each index test, we calculated sensitivity and specificity and, when the tests were assessed in four or more studies, calculated pooled estimates with use of bivariate model and hierarchical summary receiver operation characteristics plots for meta-analysis. FINDINGS: We included 18 articles in our analysis. WHO-approved signs age-related fast breathing (six studies; pooled sensitivity 0·62, 95% CI 0·26-0·89; specificity 0·59, 0·29-0·84) and lower chest wall indrawing (four studies; 0·48, 0·16-0·82; 0·72, 0·47-0·89) showed poor diagnostic performance in the meta-analysis. Features with the highest pooled positive likelihood ratios were respiratory rate higher than 50 breaths per min (1·90, 1·45-2·48), grunting (1·78, 1·10-2·88), chest indrawing (1·76, 0·86-3·58), and nasal flaring (1·75, 1·20-2·56). Features with the lowest pooled negative likelihood ratio were cough (0·30, 0·09-0·96), history of fever (0·53, 0·41-0·69), and respiratory rate higher than 40 breaths per min (0·43, 0·23-0·83). INTERPRETATION: Not one clinical feature was sufficient to diagnose pneumonia definitively. Combination of clinical features in a decision tree might improve diagnostic performance, but the addition of new point-of-care tests for diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia would help to attain an acceptable level of accuracy. FUNDING: Swiss National Science Foundation.

The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR): An institutional data management service with a virtual research environment, data publication, and archiving

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Thermal Noise Behavior of the Bridge Circuit

This paper considers a connection between the deterministic and noisy behavior of nonlinear networks. Specifically, a particular bridge circuit is examined which has two possibly nonlinear energy storage elements. By proper choice of the constitutive relations for the network elements, the deterministic terminal behavior reduces to that of a single linear resistor. This reduction of the deterministic terminal behavior, in which a natural frequency of a linear circuit does not appear in the driving-point impedance, has been shown in classical circuit theory books (e.g. [1, 2]). The paper shows that, in addition to the reduction of the deterministic behavior, the thermal noise at the terminals of the network, arising from the usual Nyquist-Johnson noise model associated with each resistor in the network, is also exactly that of a single linear resistor. While this result for the linear time-invariant (LTI) case is a direct consequence of a well-known result for RLC circuits, the nonlinear result is novel. We show that the terminal noise current is precisely that predicted by the Nyquist-Johnson model for R if the driving voltage is zero or constant, but not if the driving voltage is time-dependent or the inductor and capacitor are time-varying

Nonlinear Device Noise Models:Thermodynamic Requirements

This paper proposes three tests to determine whether a given nonlinear device noise model is in agreement with accepted thermodynamic principles. These tests are applied to several models. One conclusion is that every Gaussian noise model for any nonlinear device predicts thermodynamically impossible circuit behavior: these models should be abandoned. But the nonlinear shot-noise model predicts thermodynamically acceptable behavior under a constraint derived here. Further, this constraint specifies the current noise amplitude at each operating point from knowledge of the device v - i curve alone. For the Gaussian and shot-noise models, this paper shows how the thermodynamic requirements can be reduced to concise mathematical tests involving no approximatio

El funcionamiento del planeta y la alfabetizaci??n en ciencias de la Tierra

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Informe sobre el viaje a Estados Unidos de la Comisión de Profesores Universitarios encargada de estudiar la organización de los Institutos de Ciencias de la Educación.

Se presenta el informe resultado del viaje realizado por parte de profesores españoles a los Estados Unidos, durante el cual visitaron universidades y centros de enseñanza superior e investigación, entre otros: la Universidad de Berkeley, California; Stanford University; la National Academy of Science en Washington D.C. y la National Science Foundation, en Washington D.C. El viaje de estudios formaba parte del proyecto del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia para la organización y puesta en marcha de los Institutos de Ciencias de la Educación en las Universidades Españolas, patrocinado y financiado por la Fundación 'Ford' de Nueva York. Se transcriben las conclusiones obtenidas del viaje de estudios, entre las que destacan: el que los Institutos de Ciencias de la Educación ayuden a sus respectivas universidades a plantearse el problema de su estructura y funcionalidad; conseguir en España una Universidad y educación en general, dinámica y dispuesta a la experimentación de nuevas fórmulas para su adaptación a situaciones sociales en permanente cambio; fomentar los programas de intercambio entre las universidades y sus alumnos en todo el mundo. Finalmente y en un punto anexo, se transcriben las conclusiones obtenidos particularmente en cada una de las Universidades y centros educativos visitados: Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Michigan y Washington.

Transcriptome analysis for discovering candidate genes involve in embryogenesis in coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) through 454 pyrosequencing

Coconut, Cocos nucifera L. is a major plantation crop, which ensures income for millions of people in the tropical region. Detailed molecular studies on zygotic embryo development would provide valuable clues for the identification of molecular markers to improve somatic embryogenesis. Since there is no ongoing genome project for this species, coconut expressed sequence tags (EST) would be an interesting technique to identify important coconut embryo specific genes as well as other functional genes in different biochemical pathways. The goal of this study was to analyse the ESTs by examining the transcriptome data of the different embryo tissue types together with one somatic tissue. Here, four cDNA libraries from immature embryo, mature embryo, microspore derived embryo and mature leaves were constructed. cDNA was sequenced by the Roche-454 GS-FLX system and assembled into 32621 putative unigenes and 155017 singletons. Of these unigenes, 18651 had significant sequence similarities to non-redundant protein database, from which 16153 were assigned to one or more gene ontology categories. Homologue genes, which are responsible for embryo development such as chitinase, beta-1,3-glucanase, ATP synthase CF0 subunit, thaumatin-like protein and metallothionein-like protein were identified among the embryo EST collection. Of the unigenes, 6694 were mapped into 139 KEGG pathways including carbohydrate metabolism, energy metabolism, lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism and nucleotide metabolism. This collection of 454-derived EST data generated from different tissue types provides a significant resource for genome wide studies and gene discovery of coconut, a non-model species.

Fracture and fatigue of natural fiber-reinforced cementitious composites

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of resistance-curve behavior and fatigue crack growth in cementitious matrices reinforced with eco-friendly natural fibers obtained from agricultural by-products. The composites include: blast furnace slag cement reinforced with pulped fibers of sisal, banana and bleached eucalyptus pulp, and ordinary Portland cement composites reinforced with bleached eucalyptus pulp. Fracture resistance (R-curve) and fatigue crack growth behavior were studied using single-edge notched bend specimens. The observed stable crack growth behavior was then related to crack/microstructure interactions that were elucidated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Fracture mechanics models were used to quantify the observed crack-tip shielding due to crack-bridging. The implications of the results are also discussed for the design of natural fiber-reinforced composite materials for affordable housing. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modeling study of the aspect ratio influence on urban canopy energy fluxes with a modified wall-canyon energy budget scheme

The influence of the aspect ratio (building height/street canyon width) and the mean building height of cities on local energy fluxes and temperatures is studied by means of an Urban Canopy Model (UCM) coupled with a one-dimensional second-order turbulence closure model. The UCM presented is similar to the Town Energy Balance (TEB) model in most of its features but differs in a few important aspects. In particular, the street canyon walls are treated separately which leads to a different budget of radiation within the street canyon walls. The UCM has been calibrated using observations of incoming global and diffuse solar radiation, incoming long-wave radiation and air temperature at a site in So Paulo, Brazil. Sensitivity studies with various aspect ratios have been performed to assess their impact on urban temperatures and energy fluxes at the top of the canopy layer. In these simulations, it is assumed that the anthropogenic heat flux and latent heat fluxes are negligible. Results show that the simulated net radiation and sensible heat fluxes at the top of the canopy decrease and the stored heat increases as the aspect ratio increases. The simulated air temperature follows the behavior of the sensible heat flux. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.