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Browse the failure-mode index

21,294 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures. 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 accessMedicine

No effect of multi-axis dot pattern symmetry on subjective duration.

Alexis David James Makin, Afzal Rahman, Marco Bertamini · 2020 · PLoS ONE

Previous work has shown that symmetrical stimuli are judged as lasting longer than asymmetrical ones, even when actual duration is matched. This effect has been replicated with different methods and stimuli types. We aimed to a) replicate the effect of symmetry on subjective duration, and b) assess whether it was further modulated by the number of symmetrical axes. There was no evidence for either effect. This null result cannot be explained by reduced statistical power or enhanced floor or ceiling effects. There is no obvious stimulus-based explanation either. However, we are mindful of the r

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Search for ultralight axion dark matter in a side-band analysis of a ${}^{199}$Hg free-spin precession signal

C. Abel, N. J. Ayres, G. Ban, G. Bison, K. Bodek, V. Bondar, E. Chanel, C. B. Crawford, M. Daum, B. Dechenaux, S. Emmenegger, P. Flaux, W. C. Griffith, P. G. Harris, Y. Kermaidic, K. Kirch, S. Komposch, P. A. Koss, J. Krempel, B. Lauss, T. Lefort, Prajwal MohanMurthy, Oscar Naviliat Cuncic, D. Pais, F. M. Piegsa, Guillaume Pignol, M. Rawlik, D. Ries, Stephanie Roccia, D. Rozpedzik, Philipp Schmidt-Wellenburg, N. Severijns, Y. V. Stadnik, J. A. Thorne, A. Weis, E. Wursten, Jacek Zejma, Geza Zsigmond · 2023 · SciPost Physics

Ultra-low-mass axions are a viable dark matter candidate and may form a coherently oscillating classical field. Nuclear spins in experiments on Earth might couple to this oscillating axion dark-matter field, when propagating on Earth's trajectory through our Galaxy. This spin coupling resembles an oscillating pseudo-magnetic field which modulates the spin precession of nuclear spins. Here we report on the null result of a demonstration experiment searching for a frequency modulation of the free spin-precession signal of \magHg in a 1 $\mu$T magnetic field. Our search covers the axion mass rang

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Internal Cumulants for Femtoscopy with Fixed Charged Multiplicity

H. C. Eggers, B. Buschbeck · 2013 · Advances in High Energy Physics

A detailed understanding of all effects and influences on higher-order correlations is essential. At low charged multiplicity, the effect of a non-Poissonian multiplicity distribution can significantly distort correlations. Evidently, the reference samples with respect to which correlations are measured should yield a null result in the absence of correlations. We show how the careful specification of desired properties necessarily leads to an average-of-multinomials reference sample. The resulting internal cumulants and their averaging over several multiplicities fulfill all requirements of c

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Intervention development and treatment success in UK health technology assessment funded trials of physical rehabilitation: a mixed methods analysis

Katie Finning, David A Richards, Victoria A Goodwin et al. · 2019 · BMJ Open

Objectives Physical rehabilitation is a complex process, and trials of rehabilitation interventions are increasing in number but often report null results. This study aimed to establish treatment success rates in physical rehabilitation trials funded by the National Institute of Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) programme and examine any relationship between treatment success and the quality of intervention development work undertaken.Design This is a mixed methods study.Setting This study was conducted in the UK.Methods The NIHR HTA portfolio was searched for all complet

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessAstrophysics

A Thorough Search for Short-timescale Periodicity in Four Active Repeating Fast Radio Bursts

Chen Du, Yong-Feng Huang, Zhi-Bin Zhang et al. · 2024 · The Astrophysical Journal

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond durations, which typically occur at extragalactic distances. The association of FRB 20200428 with the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154 strongly indicates that they could originate from neutron stars, which naturally leads to the expectation that periodicity connected with the spinning of magnetars should exist in the activities of repeating FRBs. However, previous studies have failed to find any signatures supporting such a conjecture. Here we perform a thorough search for short-timescale periodicity in the four most active

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPharmacy and materia medica

Formulation, Stability and Bioequivalency Study of Prepared Salbutamol Sulphate Nebules .

Bazigha K. Al –Temimy, Alaa A. Abdul –Rasool · 2017 · Iraqi Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

ABSTRACT: Salbutamol sulphate nebules is considered as the most rapid effective route of administration for treatment of acute attacks of asthma . This study was carried out to formulate a stable formula of salbutamol nebules containing 0.1% (2.5mg / 2.5ml) of the active ingredient in a buffered solution . Stability study in different buffers at pH 3 showed that the longest shelf life was equal to 3.5 years for formula F .In addition the bioequivalency of this formula incomparison to ventolin nebules was measured and it was equal to (± 5.2) %. Also it was found that there was no significant d

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessLanguage and Literature

Words can interfere with perception at their associated locations: the role of orthography in spatial interference

Elisa Scerrati, Zachary Estes · 2025 · Language and Cognition

The spatial interference effect, whereby words with implicit spatial associations (e.g., ‘bird’) hinder identification of unrelated visual targets (e.g., a square) at the associated locations (i.e., at the top of a display), has been demonstrated many times in English, although it has failed to replicate several times in Italian. The current study tested whether the replication failures in Italian may be due to insufficient semantic processing of the words. Indeed, while languages with highly inconsistent pronunciations, such as English, are more likely to involve semantic processing during wo

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry

Not so different after all? An event-related potential study on item and source memory for object-scene pairs in German and Chinese young adults

Michael Weigl, Qi Shao, Qi Shao et al. · 2023 · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

In recent years, several cross-cultural studies reported that Westerners focus more on central aspects of a scene (e.g., an object) relative to peripheral aspects (e.g., the background), whereas Easterners more evenly allocate attention to central and peripheral aspects. In memory tasks, Easterners exhibit worse recognition for the central object when peripheral aspects are changed, whereas Westerners are less affected by peripheral changes. However, most of these studies rely on hit rates without correcting for response bias, whereas studies accounting for response bias failed to replicate cu

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Negative / Null Result Report

Spain: the Failed Front of the Second World War

Alexander Sagomonyan · 2022 · ISTORIYA

The little-known aspects of a problem long discussed in historiography are highlighted: why Spain did not enter the Second World War. On the eve of his suicide, Hitler called his two fatal mistakes: the attack on the USSR, as well as the…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people’s choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Born to fail: flaws in replication design produce intended results

Abraham D. Flaxman, Riley Hazard, Ian Riley et al. · 2020 · BMC Medicine

Abstract We recently published in BMC Medicine an evaluation of the comparative diagnostic performance of InSilicoVA, a software to map the underlying causes of death from verbal autopsy interviews. The developers of this software claim to have failed to replicate our results and appear to have also failed to locate our replication archive for this work. In this Correspondence, we provide feedback on how this might have been done more usefully and offer some suggestions to improve future attempts at reproducible research. We also offer an alternative interpretation of the results presented by

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

The unconscious thought advantage: Further replication failures from a search for confirmatory evidence

Mark Nieuwenstein, Hedderik van Rijn · 2012 · Judgment and Decision Making

According to the deliberation without attention (DWA) hypothesis, people facing a difficult choice will make a better decision after a period of distraction than after an equally long period of conscious deliberation, an effect referred to as the unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The status of the DWA hypothesis is controversial, as many studies have tried but failed to replicate the UTA. Here, we report a series of experiments that sought to identify the conditions under which the UTA can be replicated. Our starting point was a recent meta-analysis that identified the conditions under whic

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ptbp1 is not required for retinal neurogenesis and cell fate specification

Haley Appel, Rogger P Carmen-Orozco, Clayton P Santiago et al. · 2025 · eLife

The RNA-binding protein Ptbp1 has been proposed as a master regulator of neuronal fate, repressing neurogenesis through its effects on alternative splicing and miRNA maturation. While prior studies using RNA interference suggested that Ptbp1 loss promotes neurogenesis, recent genetic studies have failed to replicate glia-to-neuron conversion following Ptbp1 loss of function. To evaluate the role of Ptbp1 in developmental neurogenesis in vivo, we conditionally disrupted Ptbp1 in mouse retinal progenitors. Ptbp1 was robustly expressed in both retinal progenitors and Müller glia but absent from p

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessSocial Sciences

Good luck, bad luck, and ambiguity aversion

Briony D. Pulford, Poonam Gill · 2014 · Judgment and Decision Making

We report a series of experiments investigating the influence of feeling lucky or unlucky on people's choice of known-risk or ambiguous options using the traditional Ellsberg Urns decision-making task. We induced a state of feeling lucky or unlucky in subjects by using a rigged wheel-of-fortune game, which just missed either the bankrupt or the jackpot outcome. In the first experiment a large reversal of the usual ambiguity aversion effect was shown, indicating that feeling lucky made subjects significantly more ambiguity seeking than usual. However, this effect failed to replicate in five ref

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Exploring the role of Honesty-Humility in replicating "The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality"

Singh, Anjali, Durand, Guillaume · 2022 · Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology

This study is a replication of Andreassen and colleagues (2013) [The relationships between behavioral addictions and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2(2), 90-99]. We partially replicated the findings of the original study. Our results support the role of personality, particularly conscientiousness, in predicting behavioral addictions, such as video game, Internet, and mobile phone addiction. However, we failed to replicate the same pattern of personality traits for each behavioral addiction.

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Failed Experiment Report

Failure Investigation on Failed Towing Arm of an Aircraft: A Case of Improper Material Processing and Failed Repair Welding of a Cast Al-Cu-Si Type Aluminium Alloy

Mrityunjoy Hazra, Ashok Kumar Singh · 2023 · International Journal of Engineering Materials and Manufacture

Present work describes the metallurgical failure investigation of a failed towing arm/bar. Aircraft attached with this incident travelled a distance of 2 km with normal towing speed (8 km/hr). The component is said to have broken while…

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurology. Diseases of the nervous system

Exploring EEG resting state differences in autism: sparse findings from a large cohort

Adam J.O. Dede, Wenyi Xiao, Nemanja Vaci et al. · 2025 · Molecular Autism

Abstract Background Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition, the precise neurobiological underpinnings of which remain elusive. Here, we focus on group differences in resting state EEG (rsEEG). Although many previous reports have pointed to differences between autistic and neurotypical participants in rsEEG, results have failed to replicate, sample sizes have typically been small, and only a small number of variables are reported in each study. Methods Here, we combined five datasets to create a large sample of autistic and neurotypical individuals (n = 776) and extracted 726 variable

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessMedicine

Ten minutes of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation does not reliably modulate motor cortex excitability.

Sabrina Lorenz, Birte Alex, Thomas Kammer · 2020 · PLoS ONE

Recently, modulatory effects of static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) on excitability of the motor cortex have been reported. In our previous study we failed to replicate these results. It was suggested that the lack of modulatory effects was due to the use of an auditory oddball task in our study. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the role of an oddball task on the effects of tSMS on motor cortex excitability. In a within-subject-design we compared 10 minutes tSMS with and without oddball task. In one of the two sessions subjects had to solve an auditory oddball task during the exposure to the ma

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessEducation (General)

Challenging the notion of a general disfluency effect: the moderating effect of element-interactivity on perceptual disfluency

Maik Beege, Maik Beege, Christoph Mengelkamp et al. · 2026 · Frontiers in Education

IntroductionThe disfluency effect proposes that deliberately introducing challenges or difficulties into the learning process can be advantageous. Particularly, perceptual disfluency (e.g., harder to read fonts) might affect learning positively. However, an ongoing debate persists regardxing the robustness of this effect, as some studies have failed to replicate it or have uncovered opposing outcomes.MethodsTo investigate potential moderators of the disfluency effect, two experiments were conducted using different types of instructional materials (instructional texts: N1 = 76; concept maps: N2

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Nogo stimuli do not receive more attentional suppression or response inhibition than neutral stimuli: evidence from the N2pc, PD and N2 components in a spatial cueing paradigm

Caroline eBarras, Dirk eKerzel · 2016 · Frontiers in Psychology

It has been claimed that stimuli sharing the color of the nogo-target are suppressed because of the strong incentive to not process the nogo-target, but we failed to replicate this finding. Participants searched for a color singleton in the target display and indicated its shape when it was in the go color. If the color singleton in the target display was in the nogo color, they had to withhold the response. The target display was preceded by a cue display that also contained a color singleton (the cue). The cue was either in the color of the go or nogo target, or it was in an unrelated, neutr

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessElementary particle physics

Avoiding Bias in Measurements of Fundamental Constants from High Resolution Quasar Spectra

John K. Webb, Chung-Chi Lee, Dinko Milaković · 2022 · Universe

Recent advances in spectroscopic instrumentation and calibration methods dramatically improve the quality of quasar spectra. Supercomputer calculations show that, at high spectral resolution, procedures used in some previous analyses of spacetime variations of fundamental constants are likely to generate spurious measurements, biased systematically towards a null result. Developments in analysis methods are also summarised and a prescription given for the analysis of new and forthcoming data.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessNeurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry

Hebbian Control of Fixations in a Dyslexic Reader: A Case Report

Albert Le Floch, Guy Ropars · 2023 · Brain Sciences

When reading, dyslexic readers exhibit more and longer fixations than normal readers. However, there is no significant difference when dyslexic and control readers perform only visual tasks on a string of letters, showing the importance of cognitive processes in reading. This linguistic and cognitive processing requirement in reading is often perturbed for dyslexic readers by perceived additional letters and word mirror images superposed on the primary images on the primary cortex, inducing internal visual crowding. Here, we show that while for a normal reader, the number and the duration of f

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDiseases of the genitourinary system. Urology

Concerns about stone free rate and procedure events of percutaneous nephrolithotripsy (PCNL) for 2–4 cm kidney stones by standard-PCNL vs mini-PCNL- comparative randomised study

Mohamed Wishahi, Ahmed El Feel, Amr Elkhouly et al. · 2023 · BMC Urology

Abstract Background To compare the efficacy and safety of standard percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) with mini- PCNL for kidney stones 2–4 cm. Methods Eighty patients were enrolled in a comparative study, they were randomly divided into mini-PCNL group (n = 40) and standard-PCNL (n = 40). Demographic characteristics, perioperative events, complications, stone free rate (SFR) were reported. Results Both groups showed no significant difference in clinical data about age, stone location, back pressure changes, and body mass index. The mean operative time was (95 ± 17.9 min) in mini-PCNL, and (7

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessHistory of scholarship and learning. The humanities

Psychological science from 'publish or perish' to 'trust but verify'

Keljanović Anđela D. · 2021 · Zbornik Radova Filozofskog Fakulteta u Prištini

At the time when social psychologists believed they could be proud of their discipline, there was the devastating news that Diederik Stapel had committed a major scientific fraud. This event coincided with the start of the discussion on trust in psychological findings. It was soon followed by the report of a series of nine studies that failed to replicate the 'professor's study'. These replication results were astounding due to earlier reports of successful replications. Due to the crisis of confidence in the results of field research, the Open Science Collaboration subsequently replicated 100

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessGeography. Anthropology. Recreation

Diversity of Monogononta rotifer species among standing waterbodies in northern Cambodia

Ratha Sor, Seanghun Meas, Ken K.Y. Wong et al. · 2014 · Journal of Limnology

The incidence and abundance of Monogononta rotifer species were recorded from lakes and reservoirs in the upper part of the Cambodian Mekong River basin in April and November 2010. One hundred and seven species are reported, 25 of which are new records to Cambodia and 8 taxa were unidentifiable to species level. Species richness at the regional and local scale was not significantly different between habitat types or between seasons, whether it was estimated using incidence or abundance data. Comparison of incidence data also revealed no significant difference from species richness of ponds con

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessTechnology

The optimal conditions for nata production from sugar palm syrup by Acetobacter xylinum TISTR 107

Laochareonsuk, T., Kaewtaro, S. · 2005 · Songklanakarin Journal of Science and Technology (SJST)

The optimal conditions of nata production from the fermentation of sugar palm syrup by Acetobacter xylinum TISTR 107 was studied. The results showed that optimized production for a litre of sugar palm syrup medium should compose 15 ºBrix concentration, 7.0 g NH4H2PO4 and 0.7 g MgSO4. 7 H2O at pH 4.25 and incubation at room temperature. The thickness of nata production reached 1.15 cm in 9 days. Sensory evaluation showed that there were no significant difference in odor and acceptability between the nata from sugar palm syrup and the traditional nata production from coconut juice whereas there

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessDiseases of the digestive system. Gastroenterology

Prophylactic Pancreatic Stent Placement for Endoscopic Duodenal Ampullectomy: A Single-Center Retrospective Study

· 2014 · Gut and Liver

Background/AimsWe investigated the efficacy of prophylactic pancreatic stent placement for preventing postprocedure pancreatitis in patients undergoing endoscopic papillectomy.Methods : This retrospective study included 82 consecutive patients who underwent endoscopic papillectomy for benign ampullary neoplasm at Samsung Medical Center between August 2002 and June 2011. The patients were subdivided into two groups, namely, those who received prophylactic pancreatic stent placement and those who did not. Patient demographics, baseline blood test, tumor characteristics, and endoscopic treatment

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessChemical technology

Effect of Addition of Fermented Soy Sauce on Quality Characteristics of Pork Patties during Refrigerated Storage

Yun-a Kim, Sanghun Park, Yunhwan Park et al. · 2022 · Foods

This study aimed to determine whether fermented soy sauce has a mutually synergistic effect on the quality and storage properties of pork patties, and to investigate the effects on the availability and physicochemical properties of various taste ingredients of soy sauce, a traditional Korean food ingredient. The experimental groups were as follows: Control (−): No additives; Control (+): 0.1% ascorbic acid; T1: 1% fermented soy sauce; T2: 3% fermented soy sauce; T3: 5% fermented soy sauce. No significant difference was detected in moisture, protein, and fat among the various treatment groups;

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPsychology

Examining the effect of impossible problem solving on state anger: Comparing in-person and MTurk participants

Thomas DiBlasi, Courtney Pisano, Kaleigh Keenan et al. · 2024 · International Journal of Personality Psychology

This research comprises of two studies examining the effect of impossible problem solving on state anger. For the first study, using 155 participants on Amazon’s MTurk, a significant difference was observed on state anger from baseline to post-intervention (p = .04). Due to the well documented concerns about using MTurk participants, a second study involving 111 participants from a small liberal arts college was conducted. Using the same design, no significant effect of time on state anger was observed (p > .05). Post-hoc analyses indicated a significant difference between MTurk and in-person

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