"Improving the reliability and efficiency of scientific research will increase the credibility of the published scientific literature and accelerate discovery. Here we argue for the adoption of measures to optimize key elements of the scientific process: methods, reporting and dissemination, reproducibility, evaluation and incentives. There is some evidence from both simulations and empirical studies supporting the likely effectiveness of these measures, but their broad adoption by researchers, institutions, funders and journals will require iterative evaluation and improvement. We discuss the goals of these measures, and how they can be implemented, in the hope that this will facilitate action toward improving the transparency, reproducibility and efficiency of scientific research."

Smoking culture maintains prices. If fewer people smoke EC will try to recover losses by increasing the price of cigarettes.

Meta-analysis of proportions is observational and non-comparative in nature. Rarely have we seen a study or tutorial demonstrate how a meta-analysis of proportions should be performed using the R programming language.

Older adults do not sleep as well as younger adults. Why?

‘Rat Park’ is the name given to a series of studies undertaken in the late 1970s by Bruce K. Alexander and colleagues. They found that rats housed in enriched environments consumed less morphine solution than those in isolated cages, when rats were pre‐exposed to morphine, naive to morphine, and whether they had spent their early life in isolation or in enriched housing. The measured conclusions from the authors at the time have become somewhat lost in translation.

"The meta-analysis suggested that an increase in ambient PM2.5 concentration was strongly associated with increased depression risk in the general population, and the association appeared stronger at long-term lag and cumulative lag patterns, suggesting a potential cumulative exposure effect over time."

This by @HRW still stands alone as the most forensic account of what happened that day:

RobotAnalyst was developed as part of the Supporting Evidence-based Public Health Interventions using Text Mining project to support the literature screening phase of systematic reviews. RobotAnalyst is designed for searching and screening reference collections obtained from literature database queries. It combines search engine functionality with machine learning and text mining technology, including topic modelling and relevancy feedback-based text classification models, to minimise the human workload involved in identifying relevant references

"Rayyan is a 100% FREE web application to help systematic review authors perform their job in a quick, easy and enjoyable fashion. Authors create systematic reviews, collaborate on them, maintain them over time and get suggestions for article inclusion."

"We propose replacing the gender binary in elite sport with a more nuanced approach – an algorithm to be applied to all elite athletes (cisgender and transgender) that accounts for a range of physiological factors (including, but not limited to, testosterone levels), and gender identity.  In addition to providing fairness to elite ciswomen athletes, an algorithm could also provide fairness to elite transmen athletes. Although not discussed in the paper, elite transmen athletes are highly likely to be physiologically disadvantaged in comparison to elite cismen athletes. Even if (via hormone therapy) a transman’s testosterone level reached that of an elite cismen athlete, some of his previous female physiology is unlikely to change (e.g. bone structure and lung size) meaning that, in this respect, they are disadvantaged in …

"abstrackR is a web-application that makes citation-screening process of systematic reviews easier (or, we hope it does, anyway). It is a collaborative tool that facilitates screening of citations by multiple reviewers in tandem. Citations are imported and then screened by participants. The screening decisions (or, 'labels') can subsequently be exported."

Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic reviews, including Cochrane Reviews.

Offline deduplicator based on the one at Bond University Systematic Review Accelerator.

A swipeable cards interface. The swipe-left/swipe-right for yes/no input. As seen in apps like Jelly and Tinder.

This article provides a historical and contemporary overview of e-cigarettes and vaping. The reader will gain an understanding of e-cigarette usage, risks and benefits, the current position on use of e-cigarettes in mental health settings, and tips on how to take an e-cigarette/vaping history and how to offer advice about use.

"وزارة الداخلية أكدت أن السيارة المتسببة في حادث #معهد_الأورام كان بداخلها متفجرات"

مشروع «الصوت للعموم» هو مبادرة من شركة موزيلا تهدف إلى تعليم الآلة الكيفية التي ينطق بها بني البشر.

Resources for Learning (and Teaching) How to Conduct Meta-Analyses

Very good Reuters report on the dramatic increase in death sentences and executions in Egypt.

"Use Publons to track your publications, citation metrics, peer reviews, and journal editing work in a single, easy-to-maintain profile."

التعبئة والإحصاء: زيادة نسبة المصريين تحت خط الفقر إلى 32.5%

عن عبد الناصر وضرورة الجدال حوله

Computational peeling art anyone?

Good article on mindfulness - raises & address questions I have. Managing mental health cannot be 'one size fits al…

Weakly regulated painkillers (tramadol) are causing untold damage in West Africa, but stricter controls could have dire consequences for patients. Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt unpicks an opioid crisis even more complex than America’s.