How Confidence in Prior Attitudes, Social Tag Popularity, and Source Credibility Shape Confirmation Bias Toward Antidepressants and Psychotherapy in a Representative German Sample: Randomized Controlled Web-Based Study.

Background: In health-related, Web-based information search, people should select information in line with expert (vs nonexpert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate confirmation bias in mental health-related information search, particularly (1) if high confidence worsens confirmation bias, (2) if social tags eliminate the influence of prior attitudes, and (3) if people successfully distinguish high and low source credibility.

Methods: In total, 520 participants of a representative sample of the German Web-based population were recruited via a panel company.

Attitude confidence and source credibility in information foraging with social tags.

There is growing concern that online information searchers are overconfident and therefore largely search for information which reinforces their prior attitudes, blinded by confirmation bias. This study tests if this effect can be reduced in content aggregation platforms, when social tag clouds show popular topics among experts. We manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes, and (2) the credibility of the expert community that tagged the content.

The DNA methylation landscape of glioblastoma disease progression shows extensive heterogeneity in time and space.

Glioblastoma is characterized by widespread genetic and transcriptional heterogeneity, yet little is known about the role of the epigenome in glioblastoma disease progression. Here, we present genome-scale maps of DNA methylation in matched primary and recurring glioblastoma tumors, using data from a highly annotated clinical cohort that was selected through a national patient registry. We demonstrate the feasibility of DNA methylation mapping in a large set of routinely collected FFPE samples, and we validate bisulfite sequencing as a multipurpose assay that allowed us to infer a range of different genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptional characteristics of the profiled tumor samples.

Confirmation bias in web-based search: a randomized online study on the effects of expert information and social tags on information search and evaluation.

Background: The public typically believes psychotherapy to be more effective than pharmacotherapy for depression treatments. This is not consistent with current scientific evidence, which shows that both types of treatment are about equally effective.

Objective: The study investigates whether this bias towards psychotherapy guides online information search and whether the bias can be reduced by explicitly providing expert information (in a blog entry) and by providing tag clouds that implicitly reveal experts' evaluations.

Evaluation of a new arterial pressure-based cardiac output device requiring no external calibration.

Background: Several techniques have been discussed as alternatives to the intermittent bolus thermodilution cardiac output (COPAC) measurement by the pulmonary artery catheter (PAC). However, these techniques usually require a central venous line, an additional catheter, or a special calibration procedure. A new arterial pressure-based cardiac output (COAP) device (FloTractrade mark, Vigileotrade mark; Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, CA, USA) only requires access to the radial or femoral artery using a standard arterial catheter and does not need an external calibration.

Influence of patient-related and surgery-related risk factors on cognitive performance, emotional state, and convalescence after cardiac surgery.

Background: Cardiac surgery may account for complications such as cognitive impairment, depression, and delay of convalescence. This study investigated the influence of different risk factors on cognitive performance, emotional state, and convalescence.

Methods: We included 83 patients undergoing cardiac surgery who had no indication of postoperative delirium.

Double proton transfer reactions with plateau-like transition state regions: pyrazole-trifluoroacetic acid clusters.

The double proton transfer reactions between carboxylic acids and pyrazole were studied by computational methods up to the coupled-cluster level. Introduction of substituents allowed for a systematic modulation of the reaction profile, resulting in imaginary frequencies of the associated transition states between -1180 and -45 cm(-1). In the latter case, a local transition state is replaced by an extremely flat (plateaulike) transition region, which constitutes the transition from a concerted toward a stepwise mechanism.