Fungal Fruiting Bodies and Fanatics

Fungal Fruiting Bodies and Fanatics, a book review

Source: Science

 …”Mushrooms are the sex organs of fungi. They are ballistics experts that emerge when the fungus is ready to reproduce, launch spores by the billion, and vanish. Or rather, they puff up and deflate. The sudden appearance of mushrooms on a lawn or under a log, like many illusions, is achieved with extensive advance setup and hydraulics. After a spore germinates, it sends filaments out underground in all directions in search of food and other fungi. When two fungal colonies—or three or more, as fungi are substantially less constrained than animals—of the same species meet, their cells merge and their DNA combines in the mushroom version of mating. New spores are produced, and the cells of the future mushroom are organized around them. This process occurs at the tips of the filaments, accounting for mushrooms' quirk of appearing in rings. When the conditions are right, water rushes in and pressurizes the assembly, swelling the cells and inflating the mushroom. In many species, that takes only a few hours, the spores are soon released, and the mushroom shrivels by sundown. Others survive a week or more, and some tougher forms may last for months. “…

full text: here

Exercise: 八段锦

Exercise: 八段锦 (Baduanjin)
from Wikipedia


Full Article in Chinese
...
八段锦(Ba Duan Jin)是一种在中国古代发明的健身方法，由八种肢体动作组成，内容包括肢体运动和气息调理。八段锦有人认为是气功的一种。也有演變成中国武术一种。


八段锦和五禽戏、太极拳等，都是中国民间广为流传的健身方法。1982年6月28日，中国卫生部、教育部和当时的国家体育委员会发出通知，把八段锦等中国传统健身法作为在医学类大学中推广的"保健体育课"的内容之一。2003年中国国家体育总局把重新编排后的八段锦等健身法作为"健身气功"的内容向全国推广。


"八段锦"这个名字，一般认为有两层意思：1、表示这是一种集锦多种练习方法的功法；2、源自一种名为"八段锦"的织锦，表示练习时动作连
...
Full Article in English
...
The Baduanjin (simplified Chinese: 八段锦气功; traditional Chinese: 八段錦氣功; pinyin: Baduànjin qìgong) is one of the most common forms of Chinese qigong used as exercise. Variously translated as Eight Pieces of Brocade, Eight Section Brocade, Eight Silken Movements and others, the name of the form generally refers to how the eight individual movements of the form characterize and impart a silken quality (like that of a piece of brocade) to the body and its energy. The Baduanjin is primarily designated as a form of medical qigong, meant to improve health. This is in contrast to religious or martial forms of qigong. However, this categorization does not preclude the form's use by martial artists as a supplementary exercise, and this practice is frequent.
...

BMJ Basic Concepts for Reading Health Articles

Basic Concepts for Reading Health Articles by BMJ

• How to read a paper
• Epidemiology for the uninitiated
• Academic medicine
• Statistics at square one
• Photographs of twentieth century doctors

How to do a trend analysis in Stata

Tips - Stata: How to do a trend analysis in Stata

• -nptrend- performs the nonparametric test for trend across ordered groups.

    .nptrend exposure, by(grp)
    also see How can I test for a trend across a categorical variable?

• -vwls- estimates a linear regression using variance-weighted least squares.

    .vwls prev year,sd(se_prev)

• Does Stata provide a test for trend?

• Usually, after an analysis like regression you can test trend, I use -contrast- and orthogonal polynomial coefficient contrast to examine the linear or higher order trend.
• I also use other software like Joinpoint Regression Program, a handy tool by NCI, for trend analysis.

Where can we find the citation number of our published article?

Where can we find the citation count of our published articles?

Usually I use Web of Knowledge by Thomson Reuters Science:

• Go to the Web of Knowledge.
• Click on the tab of Web of Science.
• Click on the sub-tab of Advance Search.
• Use your name and some restrictions (e.g. AU=(Cheng, YJ) AND OG=(XYZ))
• Double-check and exclude the articles not published by yourself.
• Click the Create Citation Report on the up-right corner of the first article (if you still cannot find it, press Ctrl-F, and type create citation on that webpage).
• Click and you get and play around the report.

There are also free citation count search engines:

• Google Scholar
• Google Scholar Universal Gadget enables users to search for the total number of citations of author(s). It provides a total citation count, total number of cited publications and Jorge E. Hirsch's H-Index.
• Microsoft Academic Search

Related articles: 

• A plot of my citations in Google Scholar vs. Web of Science using R! is a blog compared the citation search capability of Google Scholar and Web of Knowledge.

Sex-Specific Reporting of Scientific Research A Workshop Sum...

Sex-Specific Reporting of Scientific Research: A Workshop Summary

Editors

Institute of Medicine (US) Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice.

Source

Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2012.
The National Academies Collection: Reports funded by National Institutes of Health.

Excerpt

On August 30, 2011, the Institute of Medicine hosted a workshop, Sex-Specific Reporting of Scientific Research, sponsored by the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The workshop explored the need for sex-specific reporting of scientific results; potential barriers and unintended consequences of sex-specific reporting of scientific results; experiences of journals that have implemented sex-specific requirements, including the challenges and benefits of such editorial policies; and steps to facilitate the reporting of sex-specific results. Presenters and participants included current and former editors of scientific journals, researchers, and scientists and policymakers from government, industry, and nonprofit organizations. Presentations and discussions highlighted the importance to both women and men of having sex-specific data, the problems with sample size and financial constraints for conducting the research, the appropriateness of sex-specific analyses, and the limitations of journal policies to change experimental designs. During closing remarks, the planning committee chair summarized some of the individual suggestions discussed for advancing sex-specific reporting as: identifying the sex of populations in journal populations, sharing of sex-identified raw data, giving extra credit in review to manuscripts that include sex-specific information, and requiring sex-stratified analyses where applicable.
Copyright © 2012, National Academy of Sciences.

Sections

• THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
• PLANNING COMMITTEE ON SEX-SPECIFIC REPORTING OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: A WORKSHOP
• Reviewers
• OVERVIEW
• INTRODUCTION
• INCLUSION OF WOMEN IN CLINICAL TRIALS FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
• WHY SEX-SPECIFIC REPORTING IS IMPORTANT
• THE RESEARCHER PERSPECTIVE: COLLECTING, ANALYZING, AND REPORTING SEX-SPECIFIC DATA
• THE EDITOR PERSPECTIVE: IMPLEMENTING JOURNAL EDITORIAL POLICIES
• IMPLICATIONS FOR JOURNALS OF SEX-SPECIFIC REPORTING POLICIES OF JOURNALS
• LOOKING FORWARD
• CLOSING REMARKS
• REFERENCES
• APPENDIXES

PMID:22379657[PubMed]

Books & DocumentsFree full text

Sex-Specific Reporting of Scientific Research: A Workshop SummaryFree full text