Search results for "Meta-"
showing 10 items of 1069 documents
2017
We analyze historical and longitudinal research focusing on industry decline. Our analysis suggests that the literature’s general reliance on a few meta-theoretical arguments has important conseque...
Post-9/11 Literature and the Question of Ethics
2013
Cryopreservation of Italian cultivars of hazelnut
2021
The present study was performed to optimise the cryopreservation protocol in Italian cultivars of Corylus avellana L. Lateral buds excised from in vitro grown plantlets of ‘Tonda Gentile Romana’ (TGR) and ‘Montebello’ (MB) were cryopreserved by the encapsulation-dehydration technique. The effect of dehydration of beads with sucrose (0.5, 0.75 or 1 M) for 1 or 3 days, of desiccation with silica gel for 6 or 8 h and of application of two cytokinins (N6-benzyladenine or meta-Topolin) in the regrowth phase was evaluated. The highest regrowth was obtained dehydrating alginate beads with 0.75 M sucrose applied for 1 day and with desiccation for 8 h with silica gel in both cultivars. On the other …
Avian brood parasitism in Italy: Another perspective
2020
We present a quantitative analysis of the data reported in the only published review of parasitism frequency on hosts of Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus in a Mediterranean area. We first eliminated a bias potentially introduced by the method by which data were recorded. Of the initial potential 70 species parasitized in Italy, only 44 were confirmed as host species, of which only 10 species had more than 10% of their total nests parasitized. We highlighted differential parasitism on host species according to geographic area, but the analysis suggested results were strongly biased because nest location was generally not reported and the number of records steeply decreased from North to South.
The effectiveness of hypnosis for pain relief: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 85 controlled experimental trials.
2019
The current meta-analysis aimed to quantify the effectiveness of hypnosis for reducing pain and identify factors that influence efficacy. Six major databases were systematically searched for trials comparing hypnotic inductions with no-intervention control conditions on pain ratings, threshold and tolerance using experimentally-evoked pain models in healthy participants. Eighty-five eligible studies (primarily crossover trials) were identified, consisting of 3632 participants (hypnosis n = 2892, control n = 2646). Random effects meta-analysis found analgesic effects of hypnosis for all pain outcomes (g = 0.54-0.76, p’s<.001). Efficacy was strongly influenced by hypnotic suggestibility and u…
Narrative and discursive perspectives on athletic identity : Past, present, and future
2016
Abstract Objectives The dominant role-based conceptualisations of athletic identity have recently been challenged in favour of theoretical perspectives that view identity as a complex cultural construction. In the present study, we analysed empirical studies on athletic identity positioned in narrative and discursive approaches to gain an insight into the use and subsequent contribution of these approaches to knowledge production in this research topic. Design and method A total of 23 articles, of which 18 narrative studies and five discursive studies, were identified in a systematic literature search. We used the meta-study method to analyse these studies in terms of basic assumptions, met…
An Overview of Systematic Reviews of the Role of Vitamin D on Inflammation in Patients with Diabetes and the Potentiality of Its Application on Diabe…
2022
Almost two years have passed since the outbreak reported for the first time in Wuhan of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), due to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 coronavirus, rapidly evolved into a pandemic. This infectious disease has stressed global health care systems. The mortality rate is higher, particularly in elderly population and in patients with comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, chronic renal disease, and malignancy. Among them, subjects with diabetes have a high risk of developing severe form of COVID-19 and show increased mortality. How diabetes contributes to COVID-19 severity remains unclear. …
An ant colony optimization-based fuzzy predictive control approach for nonlinear processes
2015
In this paper, a new approach for designing an adaptive fuzzy model predictive control (AFMPC) based on the ant colony optimization (ACO) is proposed. On-line adaptive fuzzy identification is introduced to identify the system parameters. These parameters are used to calculate the objective function based on a predictive approach and structure of RST control. Then the optimization problem is solved based on an ACO algorithm, used at the optimization process in AFMPC to determine optimal controller parameters of RST control. The utility of the proposed controller is demonstrated by applying it to two nonlinear processes, where the proposed approach provides better performances compared with p…
Information management and complementary alternative medicine: the anatomy of information about CAMs through PubMed
2013
In recent years, there has been a growing interest about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and the use of CAM interventions has become more common among people. For these reasons, health professionals must be able to effectively manage information in this field of knowledge according to an evidence-based point of view. This study assessed the anatomy of the available information about CAMs using PubMed, to give practical instructions to manage information in this field. We also analyzed the anatomy of information according to each alternative medicine branch, narrow and broad search methods, subset filters for indexed-for-Medline and non-indexed citations, and different publicat…
Ensuring content validity of psychological and educational tests – the role of experts
2020
Many test developers try to ensure the content validity of their tests by having external experts review the items in terms of relevance, difficulty, clarity, and so on. Although this approach is widely accepted, a closer look reveals there are several pitfalls that need to be avoided if experts’ advice is to be truly helpful. First, I offer a classification of tasks experts are given by test developers as reported on in the literature dealing with procedures of drawing on experts’ advice. Second, I review a sample of reports on test development (N = 72) to identify the common current procedures for selecting and consulting experts. Results indicate that often the choice of experts seems to…