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Submission + - Where's the Yelp for open-source tools? (functionize.com)

Esther Schindler writes: Plenty of people have created systems to collect, judge, and evaluate open-source projects, including information about a project’s popularity, reliability, and activity. But each of those review sites – and their methodologies – have flaws. And sjvn gives an overview of the attempts — and perhaps, where the "wisdom of the crowd" might lead.

In 1997, well-known developer Patrick Lenz founded the first listing and announcement site for free and open-source software, freshmeat.net. It was meant to be the guide to open-source programs. But freshmeat never lived up to its promise.


Submission + - America is facing a monkey shortage (usatoday.com)

Thud457 writes:

The race for a coronavirus vaccine to help end the pandemic has consumed the scientific community and created an escalating demand for an essential resource: monkeys. Before drug companies call on human volunteers, monkeys are used in preclinical trials to test a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. But with more than 100 vaccines in development around the world, there aren’t enough monkeys to go around. “There is a shortage,” said Dr. Skip Bohm, associate director and chief veterinary medical officer of the Tulane National Primate Research Center.


Comment The real skinny (Score 4, Informative) 51

Actual scientific article is at DOI:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-18-4022.

Phase 1 prospective cohort trial with 15 enrolled patients undergoing primary resective surgery for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. Primary endpoint is patient safety; they report no "significant toxicities" from therapy.

Secondary endpoint: evidence of tumor inflammation and viral changes. They show inflammation-related changes in treated patients and resolution of tumor in 1 out of 15 patients.

There's no comparison arm; clinically important measures of efficacy like progression-free survival and overall survival were not assessed. The major aim of the study is to justify phase II/III trials down the road.

COI: one of the authors has received funding from Viralytics and several other authors work for Viralytics. Viralytics funded the study.

There is no way a study like this should receive anything like the headline or coverage it's gotten. It is a phase 1 study only without clinically relevant efficacies reported and without a comparison arm. The power to detect uncommon but not even rare adverse effects is low.

Comment More than just effectiveness (Score 5, Informative) 230

I am an epileptologist, and I would certainly love to see more effective anti-seizure drugs on the market. But although the newer anticonvulsants aren't necessarily better at stopping seizures than older ones (like the classic four: phenytoin, carbamazepine, phenobarbital, and valproic acid), they are better tolerated, have fewer severe adverse effects, have much more predictable serum concentrations, fewer drug-drug interactions, and require little to no routine bloodwork monitoring. For the 1% of the population suffering from epilepsy who have to take these drugs on a regular basis, this has been a significant change.

Comment Re:maybe used trenchant insights a wee bit earlier (Score 1) 196

Yeah, sure, okay.

It was brave. It took guts. I wish he had just a little more bravery and a little more guts and as much oomph as it took when he held his only-a-little-powerful position. Because now he holds a no-powerful position, vis-a-vis the question at hand. People seeing the light only after they've led horrible organizations do not interest me all that much. Unless it's a prelude to leading a bigger, badder organization to undo the damage.

Comment Changing clinical practice for copyright? (Score 1) 116

I am a neurologist. During training, an MMSE was basically a required component of a history and physical exam of any patient with cognitive complaints. It has its limits, but within them it is very useful.

It's pretty hard to believe that a collection of cognitive tests, almost all of which can be and are used separately in a more customized examination of the patient's sensorium, can be so creative as to be copyrighted.

The idea that the Sweet 16 could infringe because it contains "orienation" and "memory recall" items similar to the MMSE is absurd; questions about orientation and immediate/delayed recall are standard with or without the MMSE.

This is absolutely infuriating from a clinical perspective.

Comment Shut up and take my money (Score 4, Insightful) 240

All I want--far, far more than Netflix or Rhapsody--is to be able to give somebody money on a monthly basis to have access to nearly every book in every library in the world. Just somebody make this easy. I don't want to have to think, "Is reading a chapter of this obscure work on Russian formalism worth $0.50?" I just want to fucking click on a link, and read it.

Comment Thank God for variety (Score 1) 729

Been an Ubuntu fan for an awfully long time, and evangelized it onto the hard drive of several relatives and work colleagues. I fucking hate Unity. I'm running Natty right now on "Ubuntu Classic" mode to avoid it; and despite all the wonderful things Canonical has brought to desktop Linux, the silliness of this decision has me thinking of moving my main PC to another distro; I've got Fedora 15, Arch, Gentoo, and a few others waiting in the pipeline.

Science

Submission + - What Does IQ Really Measure? (sciencemag.org) 2

sciencehabit writes: Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity. Is that because they are more intelligent? Not necessarily. New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test. And harnessing that motivation might be as important to later success as so-called native intelligence.
Businesses

Submission + - ERP Vendors Get Into Medical Marijuana Business (itworld.com)

jfruhlinger writes: "As medical marijuana is legalized in more and more states, a new market is emerging for ERP applications that can handle this unique business. Many people running medical marijuana dispenseries aren't used to running legitimate businesses and need technical help doing so. In addition, the drug itself is tricky to keep track of; as one vendor puts it, "there's no other product that is sold by weight that evaporates, dehydrates and [turns into] shake,""

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