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19,815 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures · Negative / Null Result Report. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEnvironmental Science

Granulation and stability of microalgal–bacterial granular sludge under single and combined exposure to polycaprolactone microplastics and sulfamethoxazole

Alfonz Kedves, Máté Balogh, Jamsheed Abbas Dar et al. · 2026 · Bioresource Technology

The increasing occurrence of microplastics and antibiotics in wastewater poses emerging challenges for biological treatment processes. Microalgal-bacterial granular sludge (MBGS) has emerged as an efficient algae-based biotechnology for wastewater treatment; however, its response to simultaneous exposure to these contaminants remains largely unexplored. Here, the effects of degradable polycaprolactone microplastics (PCL MPs) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) were evaluated at 1 mg/L during granulation and long-term operation. PCL alone caused only minor changes, whereas SMX impaired granule stability

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Artificial Intelligence in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Endoscopy

Sabrina Gloria Giulia Testoni, Guglielmo Albertini Petroni, Maria Laura Annunziata et al. · 2025 · Diagnostics

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), comprising Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract with still-elusive etiopathogeneses and an increasing prevalence worldwide. Despite the growing availability of more advanced therapies in the last two decades, there are still a number of unmet needs. For example, the achievement of mucosal healing has been widely demonstrated as a prognostic marker for better outcomes and a reduced risk of dysplasia and cancer; however, the accuracy of endoscopy is crucial for bo

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Negative / Null Result ReportMedicine

Adjuvant pembrolizumab plus belzutifan versus pembrolizumab for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC): The randomized phase 3 LITESPARK-022 study.

Toni K. Choueiri, R Motzer, Jose A. Karam et al. · 2026 · Journal of Clinical Oncology

LBA418 Background: Adjuvant pembrolizumab is a standard of care for patients with ccRCC at increased risk of recurrence following nephrectomy based on the phase 3 KEYNOTE-564 study (N Engl J Med 385:683; N Engl J Med 390:1359). Combination…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Confounding factors and biases abound when predicting molecular biomarkers from histological images

Muhammad Dawood, Kim Branson, Sabine Tejpar et al. · 2026 · Nature Biomedical Engineering

Deep learning models that infer clinically relevant biomarker status from tissue images are being explored as rapid and low-cost alternatives to molecular testing. Here we show, through statistical analysis across multiple cancer types, datasets and modelling approaches, that the datasets used to train these models contain strong dependencies between biomarkers and clinicopathological features, which prevent models from isolating the effect of a single biomarker and lead them to learn confounded signals. Consequently, their prediction accuracy varies substantially with the status of codependen

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEconomics, Econometrics and Finance

Determinants of Green Energy Penetration in N-11 Countries: A Machine Learning Analysis

Najabat Ali, Md Reza Sultanuzzaman · 2026 · Energies

This study investigates the determinants of green energy penetration in the Next Eleven (N-11) economies over the period 2000–2022, with a particular focus on the roles of foreign direct investment (FDI), green transition, governance quality, industrial growth, and urbanization. The primary objective of the study is to assess how investment flows, structural transformation, and institutional capacity jointly shape the adoption of renewable energy in fast-growing emerging economies. To achieve this goal, the study employs a second-generation panel econometric and machine-learning framework that

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBusiness, Management and Accounting

The Impact of Liquidity and Leverage on the Financial Performance of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange-Listed Consumer Goods Firms

Floyd Khoza · 2025 · Journal of risk and financial management

Understanding the role of liquidity and leverage is crucial in assessing financial performance, particularly in the consumer goods sector. This study examined the impact of liquidity and leverage on financial performance, using a sample of 13 consumer goods firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2014 to 2024. Despite the present literature on this association, few traceable studies have investigated this phenomenon, and there is a dearth of literature in this sector. The dependent variable for this study was financial performance, and the return on assets (ROA) was employed

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Multi-Agentic LLMs for Personalizing STEM Texts

Michael Vaccaro, Mikayla Friday, Arash E. Zaghi · 2025 · Applied Sciences

Multi-agent large language models promise flexible, modular architectures for delivering personalized educational content. Drawing on a pilot randomized controlled trial with middle school students (n = 23), we introduce a two-agent GPT-4 framework in which a Profiler agent infers learner-specific preferences and a Rewrite agent dynamically adapts science passages via an explicit message-passing protocol. We implement structured system and user prompts as inter-agent communication schemas to enable real-time content adaptation. The results of an ordinal logistic regression analysis hinted that

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBusiness, Management and Accounting

The Impact of Macroeconomic Factors on the Firm’s Performance—Empirical Analysis from Türkiye

Orkhan Ibrahimov, László Vancsura, Anett Parádi-Dolgos · 2025 · Economies

Measuring financial performance is pivotal not only for assessing a firm’s current health but also for informing strategic decisions that shape its long-term trajectory. This study investigates how macroeconomic volatility affects the firm profitability across five major sectors in Türkiye—industrial manufacturing, food, beverage and tobacco, chemicals and plastics, technology, and energy—during the turbulent period from 2016 to 2023. Using return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as performance indicators, we apply panel data regression to test the impact of inflation, interest rates

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics and Astronomy

REBELS-IFU: evidence for metal-rich massive galaxies at z ∼ 6−8

Lucie E. Rowland, Mauro Stefanon, R. J. Bouwens et al. · 2026 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ABSTRACT Metallicity is a crucial tracer of galaxy evolution, providing insights into gas accretion, star formation, and feedback. At high redshift, these processes reveal how early galaxies assembled and enriched their interstellar medium. In this work, we present rest-frame optical spectroscopy of 12 massive ($\log (M_*/\mathrm{{\rm M}_{\odot }})>9$) galaxies at $z\sim 6$–8 from the Reionization Era Bright Emission Line Survey (REBELS) Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) large program, observed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NIRSpec integral field unit spec

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEngineering

Towards enhancing security for upcoming 6G-ready smart grids through federated learning and cloud solutions

J. Jithish, Nagarajan Mahalingam, Bo Wang et al. · 2025 · Cybersecurity

Abstract The forthcoming 6G technology offers significant potential for the advancement of the smart grid domain. 6G promises ultra-low latency, higher data transfer rates, native Artificial Intelligence (AI) support, enhanced connectivity, and improved security for smart grids. Smart grids are vulnerable to cyberattacks, such as Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, posing a significant threat to grid functionality. To address security concerns, smart grids implement intrusion detection systems (IDS), but detecting novel attacks such as subtle multi-domain DDoS attacks through traditi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics and Astronomy

GRB 250702B: discovery of a gamma-ray burst from a black hole falling into a star

Eliza Neights, Eric Burns, Chris L. Fryer et al. · 2025 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

ABSTRACT Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous electromagnetic events in the Universe. Their prompt gamma-ray emission has typical durations between a fraction of a second and several minutes. A rare subset of these events have durations in excess of a thousand seconds, referred to as ultra-long gamma-ray bursts. Here, we report the discovery of the longest gamma-ray burst ever seen with a $\sim$25 000 s gamma-ray duration, GRB 250702B, and characterize this event using data from four instruments in the InterPlanetary Network and the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image. We find a hard spectrum, su

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEngineering

Bridging the missing middle in osseointegration: meso-scale topography between macro design and microroughness

Takahiro Ogawa, Rune Shibata, Keiji Komatsu et al. · 2025 · International Journal of Implant Dentistry

PURPOSE: Despite decades of clinical success with microrough implant surfaces, persistent challenges-particularly the biological trade-off between osteoblast proliferation and differentiation-highlight the need for novel surface design strategies. This review investigates the potential of meso-scale topography (10-500 μm) as a promising and underexplored dimension in implant surface engineering, situated between macro-level implant geometry and conventional microroughness. METHODS: A systematic review, supplemented by a targeted literature search, was conducted to evaluate the biological and m

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAgricultural and Biological Sciences

Ecology and spread of the North American H5N1 epizootic

Lambodhar Damodaran, Anna S. Jaeger, Louise H. Moncla · 2025 · Nature

Abstract Since late 2021, a panzootic of highly pathogenic H5N1 has devastated wild birds, agriculture and mammals. Here an analysis of 1,818 haemagglutinin sequences from wild birds, domestic birds and mammals reveals that the North American panzootic was driven by around nine introductions into the Atlantic and Pacific flyways, followed by rapid dissemination through wild, migratory birds. Transmission was primarily driven by Anseriformes, while non-canonical species acted as dead-end hosts. In contrast to the epizootic of 2015 (refs. 1,2 ), outbreaks in domestic birds were driven by around

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

The Functional Role of Polyphenols Across the Human Lifespan

Bekir Enes Koca, Sümeyye Sarıtaş, Mikhaël Bechelany et al. · 2025 · International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Polyphenols are bioactive molecules that occur naturally in plants and exhibit a diverse array of properties, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-obesity effects, all of which have been supported by numerous studies. They are categorized into four main groups: flavonoids, phenolic acids, stilbenes, and lignans. Polyphenols demonstrate a wide range of health-promoting effects throughout human life, from the womb to old age. They can exert these effects by modulating signaling pathways, regulating gut microbiota, influencing gene expression, and regulating epigenetic pathways. Thi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBusiness, Management and Accounting

Family Firm Leader’s Socioemotional Wealth Importance Perceptions: The Influence of Negative Forms of Conflict

Özgür Atılgan, Franz W. Kellermanns · 2025 · Family Business Review

We investigate how negative types of intra-family conflicts (i.e., status conflict and relationship conflict) influence the family firm leader’s socioemotional wealth importance (SEWi). Based on 159 matched responses from family firm…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Maximizing the Utility of Alzheimer's Disease Trial Data: Sharing of Baseline A4 and LEARN Data

Gustavo Jimenez‐Maggiora, Arndt‐Peter Schulz, Michael Donohue et al. · 2024 · The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer s Disease

BACKGROUND: The Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer's Disease (A4) and Longitudinal Evaluation of Amyloid Risk and Neurodegeneration (LEARN) studies were conducted between 2014 and 2023, with enrollment completed in 2017 and final study results reported in 2023. The study screening process involved the collection of initial clinical, cognitive, neuroimaging, and genetic measures to determine eligibility. Once randomized, enrolled participants were assessed every four weeks over a 4.5-year follow-up period during which longitudinal clinical, cognitive, and neuroimaging measures wer

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDecision Sciences

Enhancing the Ethical Culture of Organizations: A Longitudinal Study Using a Comprehensive Ethics Training

Pablo Ruiz‐Palomino, Juliana Toro‐Arias, María del Pilar Rodríguez‐Córdoba et al. · 2025 · Business Ethics the Environment & Responsibility

ABSTRACT A supportive ethical culture (EC) can encourage moral behavior among employees and help them avoid wrongdoing. One option for fostering EC is ethics training; its longer‐term effectiveness, however, has rarely been examined,…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEngineering

A Hybrid YOLO and Segment Anything Model Pipeline for Multi-Damage Segmentation in UAV Inspection Imagery

Rafael Cabral, Ricardo Santos, José A.F.O. Correia et al. · 2025 · Sensors

The automated inspection of civil infrastructure with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is hampered by the challenge of accurately segmenting multi-damage in high-resolution imagery. While foundational models like the Segment Anything Model (SAM) offer data-efficient segmentation, their effectiveness is constrained by prompting strategies, especially for geometrically complex defects. This paper presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of deep learning strategies to identify an optimal deep learning pipeline for segmenting cracks, efflorescences, and exposed rebars. It systematically evalua

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessHealth Professions

Rethinking the ‘wellness influencer’: Medical doctors, lifestyle expertise and the question of credentials

Rachel O’Neill · 2025 · International Journal of Cultural Studies

Medical doctors are central to existing networks for wellness content on Instagram in and beyond the UK, yet remain overlooked within scholarship concerned with this terrain. Taking a case study approach, this article examines three such figures prominent in the UK context. In doing so, it challenges existing conceptualisations of the 'wellness influencer' and argues for an expanded understanding of the category, one that does not assume its representatives are 'lay' persons without recognised expertise in health and well-being. The analysis developed demonstrates that credentials cannot resol

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics and Astronomy

Active Galactic Nuclei and Host Galaxies in COSMOS-Web. II. First Look At the Kiloparsec-scale Dual and Offset AGN Population

Junyao Li, Ming-Yang Zhuang, Yue Shen et al. · 2025 · The Astrophysical Journal

Abstract Kiloparsec-scale dual and offset active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are signposts of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) triggered during late-stage galaxy mergers, offering crucial insights into the coevolution of SMBHs and galaxies. However, robustly confirmed systems at high redshift (e.g., z > 1) are scarce and biased toward the most luminous and unobscured systems. In this study, we systematically search for kiloparsec-scale (projected separation <15 kpc) dual and offset AGNs around 571 moderate-luminosity, X-ray-selected AGNs, including the obscured population, utilizing

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Genomics of Neotropical biodiversity indicators: Two butterfly radiations with rampant chromosomal rearrangements and hybridization

Eva S. M. van der Heijden, Karin Näsvall, Fernando Seixas et al. · 2025 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

A central question in evolutionary biology is what drives the diversification of lineages. Rapid, recent radiations are ideal systems for this question because they still show key morphological and ecological adaptations associated with speciation. While most research on recent radiations focuses on those occurring in insular environments, less attention has been given to continental radiations with complex species interactions. Here, we study the drivers of continental radiations of Melinaea and Mechanitis butterflies (Nymphalidae: Ithomiini), which have rapidly radiated in the continental Ne

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEconomics, Econometrics and Finance

Clinical aspects of reimbursement policies for orphan drugs in Central and Eastern European countries

S Jakubowski, Paweł Kawalec, Przemysław Holko et al. · 2024 · Frontiers in Pharmacology

Objectives: The aim of this study was to characterize the reimbursement policy for orphan drugs (ODs) in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in relation to the availability and impact of clinical evidence, health technology assessment (HTA) procedure, selected economic indicators, and the drug type according to indications. Materials and methods: A list of authorized medicines with orphan designation and information about active substance, Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification, and therapeutic area was extracted from the web-based register of the European Medicines Agen

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEngineering

Pulsatile sequential drug release system for cascade tumor deep penetration and differentiation therapy to enhance chemoimmunotherapy

Fengxiang Liu, Shipeng Ning, Xia Wang et al. · 2025 · Science Advances

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) contribute to chemoresistance and immunosuppression, constraining chemoimmunotherapy outcomes. Differentiation therapy, aiming to mature CSCs and MDSCs, shows great promise. However, its efficacy is hindered by limited accessibility in hypoxic deep tumor regions. Inspired by the apoptotic body (ApoBD)-mediated deep tumor penetration, we design a pulsatile sequential drug release system with a core-shell structure. The reversible acid-responsive shell protonates and swells in lysosomes to release doxorubicin, inducing lysosom

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeuroscience

Regulation of LEAP2 by insulin and glucagon in mice and humans

Valdemar Brimnes Ingemann Johansen, Anna Katrina Jógvansdóttir Gradel, Stephanie Kjærulff Holm et al. · 2025 · Cell Reports Medicine

Liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide 2 (LEAP2) is an endogenous antagonist and inverse agonist of the ghrelin receptor, countering ghrelin's effects on cell signaling and feeding. However, despite an emerging interest in LEAP2's…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEconomics, Econometrics and Finance

Firm-level climate sentiments, climate politics and implied cost of equity capital

Katsiaryna Salavei Bardos, Dev R. Mishra, Hyacinthe Somé · 2025 · Journal of Corporate Finance

In a sample of U.S. firms, we find strong evidence that firms' implied cost of equity is decreasing in a novel proxy of firm-level climate change sentiments of earnings call participants, supporting prior literature that shows investors demand higher returns from their investments in brown firms and lower returns from that in green firms. This effect, however, is particularly pronounced for the firm-years headquartered in the states experiencing higher than median per-capita energy related CO2 emissions, those headquartered in climate related disaster intensive counties and those headquartered

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics and Astronomy

Revealing the χ eff–q Correlation among Coalescing Binary Black Holes and Tentative Evidence for AGN-driven Hierarchical Mergers

Yin-Jie Li, Yuan-Zhu Wang, Shao-Peng Tang et al. · 2025 · The Astrophysical Journal

Abstract The origin of the correlation between the effective spins ( χ eff ) and mass ratios ( q ) of LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA’s binary black holes (BBHs) is still an open question. Motivated by the recent identification of two subpopulations of the BBHs, in this work we investigate the potential χ eff – q correlation for each subpopulation. Surprisingly, the χ eff – q correlation either significantly weakens or disappears for the low-mass subpopulation if we introduce a second χ eff distribution for the high-mass subpopulation, which likely originates from hierarchical mergers. This suggests that the

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEngineering

Prediction of Compressive Strength of Concrete Using Explainable Machine Learning Models

H. Fu, Xiong Zhou, Pengfei Xu et al. · 2025 · Materials

Predicting the compressive strength of concrete is essential for engineering design and quality assurance. Traditional empirical formulas often fall short in capturing complex multi-factor interactions and nonlinear relationships. This study employs an interpretable machine learning framework using Gradient Boosting Trees, Random Forest, and Backpropagation Neural Networks to predict concrete compressive strength. Bayesian optimization was employed for hyperparameter tuning, and SHAP analysis was used to quantify feature contributions. Based on 223 sets of compression test data, this study sys

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