Tag: data
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Fraudulent medical research and “zombie articles”
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden A misleadingly scaled pictogram, in which there seem to be more bananas collected than the other fruits. “Pictograph not aligned and different size” by Smallman12q on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. A correctly scaled pictogram, in which the fruit icons are of nearly equal size. “Pictograph aligned and similar size” by…
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Mortality data, risk probability, and the psychology of assent in the enlightenment smallpox debate
David Spadafora Pinehurst, North Carolina Nicolas de Largillière, Portrait of Voltaire, ca. 1724. Source. The present health crisis is hardly the first to provoke significant controversy about preventing and treating widespread disease. Debate over epidemic-related data, its reliability, and its uses has a long history. So does concern about the psychological elements involved in…
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Atrocities in Asia: Japan’s infamous Unit 731
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Bayonet practice, wherein Japanese soldiers used dead Chinese for targets. photographed by an Associated Press photographer near Tientsin. Date, 5 September 1937. Source, LIFE, Oct 11, 1937. page 30. Via Wikimedia In 1931 the Japanese army occupied the province of Manchuria in north-east China and continued to invade and occupy…
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Terminal digit preference
Marshall Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Figure 1. There are three types of sphygmomanometer; mercury, aneroid, and digital. This figure is of a manual aneroid sphygmomanometer. The rubber pump is used to raise the cuff pressure above the patient’s systolic pressure and then the pressure is released by unscrewing slowly the small valve…
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Ebola on this side
Elisabeth Preston-Hsu Atlanta, Georgia, United States “Ebola in the Dark.” Drawing by Elisabeth Preston-Hsu, 2019, private collection In September 2014, my husband Chris boarded a plane from Atlanta, Georgia for the Democratic Republic of Congo, his first trip to Africa for work. We had just moved back to Atlanta two months before when he…
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The impact of technology on healthcare
Singh Yadav Tamil Nadu, India Double doors swing open as paramedics rush a burn victim into the hospital’s Emergency Department. A nurse checks the patient’s pulse and vitals, while another takes a blood sample and deposits it to a nearby machine. A scanning device determines the wound size and depth and guides an attached…