Clueless doctor...reinvents calculus,and names it after herself.

[Kai]

The title is priceless.

A mathematical model for the determination of total area under glucose tolerance and other metabolic curves.

"OBJECTIVE: To develop a mathematical model for the determination of total areas under curves from various metabolic studies. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: In Tai's Model, the total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately calculated from their respective geometrical formulas. The total sum of these individual areas thus represents the total area under the curve. Validity of the model is established by comparing total areas obtained from this model to these same areas obtained from graphic method (less than +/- 0.4%). Other formulas widely applied by researchers under- or overestimated total area under a metabolic curve by a great margin. RESULTS: Tai's model proves to be able to 1) determine total area under a curve with precision; 2) calculate area with varied shapes that may or may not intercept on one or both X/Y axes; 3) estimate total area under a curve plotted against varied time intervals (abscissas), whereas other formulas only allow the same time interval; and 4) compare total areas of metabolic curves produced by different studies. CONCLUSIONS: The Tai model allows flexibility in experimental conditions, which means, in the case of the glucose-response curve, samples can be taken with differing time intervals and total area under the curve can still be determined with precision."

Also, from the comments:

Technically, she invented the Riemann sum approximation to the integral. I assume that the follow up where she determines the gravitational attraction between two bodies is in press

[Nephew Twiddleton]

...

I don't know anything about calculus, but presumably someone at Diabetes Care would...


Er.... How did this get published?

[Igor]

 

Oooh god that's so embarrassing. Why did no one tell her?! 

[Kai]

...

I don't know anything about calculus, but presumably someone at Diabetes Care would...


Er.... How did this get published?

I DON'T KNOW!! 

It just shows that the current peer review system is fucked up. I feel like all scientific articles (except taxonomy articles which require print publication in The Codes) should be published online openly in something like the physics and math site arXiv.org. We trust the private, behind closed doors peer review scheme too much, and it is excruciatingly slow. Instead of posting draft articles online, letting them be torn apart by other scientists, and revising them over time so they actually turn out good (or are discredited), we send a final draft to journals, where they are scrutinized to see if their content matches the venue, then sent off to a couple reviewers who have barely any time on their hands to really analyze the hypotheses and conclusions.

When I was in grad school, I took part in journal clubs where we tore articles to bits. Even the best article had something that could have been improved upon. Unfortunately, this was after the articles were published, not before.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What the fuck? Didn't she have to take Calculus in order to take the Chemistry prereqs to get into med school? How could she not know?

[Cain]

This is like that time I invented the notion of a unitary sovereign state, only worse.

I mean, maybe this is more of a humanities thing than a science thing, but aren't you usually meant to devote a part of your paper to how AWESOMELY ORIGINAL and GROUND-BREAKING your research is, and how it fills the gaps left by previous, less intelligent researchers?   Usually that is the point where I discover someone else has already done my incredibly clever thesis, and go back to the drawing board.

[Kai]

What the fuck? Didn't she have to take Calculus in order to take the Chemistry prereqs to get into med school? How could she not know?

Not to mention, there are literally easier ways of doing this. NEWTON invented easier ways of doing this; you don't have to calculate all the shapes, you just have to take the derivative. And you can have a computer program do this for you. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

...

I don't know anything about calculus, but presumably someone at Diabetes Care would...


Er.... How did this get published?

I DON'T KNOW!! 

It just shows that the current peer review system is fucked up. I feel like all scientific articles (except taxonomy articles which require print publication in The Codes) should be published online openly in something like the physics and math site arXiv.org. We trust the private, behind closed doors peer review scheme too much, and it is excruciatingly slow. Instead of posting draft articles online, letting them be torn apart by other scientists, and revising them over time so they actually turn out good (or are discredited), we send a final draft to journals, where they are scrutinized to see if their content matches the venue, then sent off to a couple reviewers who have barely any time on their hands to really analyze the hypotheses and conclusions.

When I was in grad school, I took part in journal clubs where we tore articles to bits. Even the best article had something that could have been improved upon. Unfortunately, this was after the articles were published, not before.

Yeah, clearly it's working even worse than I thought. 80+ doctors (The author, the at least 75 authors who cited the paper, the 3 reviewers and whoever at Diabetes Care accepted the paper) are not up to snuff on 400 year old mathematical concepts.

I always thought it was odd that the authors never know which reviewer said what, but the reviewers can see who all of the authors of the paper are too, and, furthermore that the authors request their reviewers. If you want good reviewing without bias, take the names off, assign random reviewers. The guy who I used to work for had his name on about 750 papers by the time I started working for him. He obviously had a name for himself. It perhaps would have been better if they didn't see that name at all.

[Kai]

This is like that time I invented the notion of a unitary sovereign state, only worse.

I mean, maybe this is more of a humanities thing than a science thing, but aren't you usually meant to devote a part of your paper to how AWESOMELY ORIGINAL and GROUND-BREAKING your research is, and how it fills the gaps left by previous, less intelligent researchers?   Usually that is the point where I discover someone else has already done my incredibly clever thesis, and go back to the drawing board.

Generally the research and references speak for themselves, since unlike in the humanities where research goes round in circles chasing it's own tail over and over, in the sciences we march ever forward, building on past research by steps. Figuring out what has been done before is a simple literature review.

And any scientist would know that the crude way of finding the area under a curve is to calculate all the shapes, and that a simpler way is to calculate the derivative, but thats with the assumption that they actually passed their primary language requirements (i.e. maths, including calculus) in undergrad. A scientist that doesn't at least understand calculus and it's uses is a bad scientist. I may not remember how to take derivatives anymore but I at least understand that.

[Kai]

...

I don't know anything about calculus, but presumably someone at Diabetes Care would...


Er.... How did this get published?

I DON'T KNOW!! 

It just shows that the current peer review system is fucked up. I feel like all scientific articles (except taxonomy articles which require print publication in The Codes) should be published online openly in something like the physics and math site arXiv.org. We trust the private, behind closed doors peer review scheme too much, and it is excruciatingly slow. Instead of posting draft articles online, letting them be torn apart by other scientists, and revising them over time so they actually turn out good (or are discredited), we send a final draft to journals, where they are scrutinized to see if their content matches the venue, then sent off to a couple reviewers who have barely any time on their hands to really analyze the hypotheses and conclusions.

When I was in grad school, I took part in journal clubs where we tore articles to bits. Even the best article had something that could have been improved upon. Unfortunately, this was after the articles were published, not before.

Yeah, clearly it's working even worse than I thought. 80+ doctors (The author, the at least 75 authors who cited the paper, the 3 reviewers and whoever at Diabetes Care accepted the paper) are not up to snuff on 400 year old mathematical concepts.

I always thought it was odd that the authors never know which reviewer said what, but the reviewers can see who all of the authors of the paper are too, and, furthermore that the authors request their reviewers. If you want good reviewing without bias, take the names off, assign random reviewers. The guy who I used to work for had his name on about 750 papers by the time I started working for him. He obviously had a name for himself. It perhaps would have been better if they didn't see that name at all.

You're right. The journal usually requests a few names of experts in the topic of the article as go-to reviewers when the paper is submitted. To be honest, I think it would be better for everyone if the whole review process was in the open, everyone knew all the names. This would of course require people not to get butthurt from constructive criticism, and I guess that's too much to ask.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

...

I don't know anything about calculus, but presumably someone at Diabetes Care would...


Er.... How did this get published?

I DON'T KNOW!! 

It just shows that the current peer review system is fucked up. I feel like all scientific articles (except taxonomy articles which require print publication in The Codes) should be published online openly in something like the physics and math site arXiv.org. We trust the private, behind closed doors peer review scheme too much, and it is excruciatingly slow. Instead of posting draft articles online, letting them be torn apart by other scientists, and revising them over time so they actually turn out good (or are discredited), we send a final draft to journals, where they are scrutinized to see if their content matches the venue, then sent off to a couple reviewers who have barely any time on their hands to really analyze the hypotheses and conclusions.

When I was in grad school, I took part in journal clubs where we tore articles to bits. Even the best article had something that could have been improved upon. Unfortunately, this was after the articles were published, not before.

Yeah, clearly it's working even worse than I thought. 80+ doctors (The author, the at least 75 authors who cited the paper, the 3 reviewers and whoever at Diabetes Care accepted the paper) are not up to snuff on 400 year old mathematical concepts.

I always thought it was odd that the authors never know which reviewer said what, but the reviewers can see who all of the authors of the paper are too, and, furthermore that the authors request their reviewers. If you want good reviewing without bias, take the names off, assign random reviewers. The guy who I used to work for had his name on about 750 papers by the time I started working for him. He obviously had a name for himself. It perhaps would have been better if they didn't see that name at all.

You're right. The journal usually requests a few names of experts in the topic of the article as go-to reviewers when the paper is submitted. To be honest, I think it would be better for everyone if the whole review process was in the open, everyone knew all the names. This would of course require people not to get butthurt from constructive criticism, and I guess that's too much to ask.

That would also give you the opportunity to see, and for everyone else to see, if a reviewer is just being a dick.

Like if Dr. AB Smith keeps saying your papers are shit and everyone else says they're great, then Dr. Smith apparently has an ax to grind.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Ahahaha!

[LMNO]

And then she accidentally the whole calculus.

[Triple Zero]

The title is priceless.

A mathematical model for the determination of total area under glucose tolerance and other metabolic curves.

"OBJECTIVE: To develop a mathematical model for the determination of total areas under curves from various metabolic studies. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: In Tai's Model, the total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately calculated from their respective geometrical formulas. The total sum of these individual areas thus represents the total area under the curve. Validity of the model is established by comparing total areas obtained from this model to these same areas obtained from graphic method (less than +/- 0.4%). Other formulas widely applied by researchers under- or overestimated total area under a metabolic curve by a great margin. RESULTS: Tai's model proves to be able to 1) determine total area under a curve with precision; 2) calculate area with varied shapes that may or may not intercept on one or both X/Y axes; 3) estimate total area under a curve plotted against varied time intervals (abscissas), whereas other formulas only allow the same time interval; and 4) compare total areas of metabolic curves produced by different studies. CONCLUSIONS: The Tai model allows flexibility in experimental conditions, which means, in the case of the glucose-response curve, samples can be taken with differing time intervals and total area under the curve can still be determined with precision."

Also, from the comments:

Technically, she invented the Riemann sum approximation to the integral. I assume that the follow up where she determines the gravitational attraction between two bodies is in press

Technically it's not the Riemann sum approximation but the trapezoidal rule for integration. The method decribes using both rectangles and triangles, which is what the trapezoidal rule does.

In fact, the "other formulas" mentioned that over- or underestimate the integrals, actually sound like the left and right Riemann sum integrals, which is what you'd get if you count only the rectangles.


Four different types of Riemann sums, resp. the right Riemann sum, the minimum Riemann sum, the maximum Riemann sum and the left Riemann sum.

This is the trapezoidal rule, described in the paper as "Tai's model" (heh):



Which counts both the rectangle and the triangle (sloped edge). It's relatively trivial to see that the trapezoidal rule yields the same value as the average between the left and right Riemann sums.

Arguably, one could say the trapezoidal rule is also a kind of Riemann sum, btw. Could be Riemann even invented the trapezoidal rule. But it's not "the" Riemann sum.

What the fuck? Didn't she have to take Calculus in order to take the Chemistry prereqs to get into med school? How could she not know?

Not to mention, there are literally easier ways of doing this. NEWTON invented easier ways of doing this; you don't have to calculate all the shapes, you just have to take the derivative. And you can have a computer program do this for you. 

Not only NEWTON, but LEIBNIZ too! They independently discovered the fundamental theorem of calculus.

Which states the relationship between the derivate and the integral: to compute an integral, you're not taking the derivative, but the anti-derivative.

Except that this is all besides the point, because this is not really calculus, but doing numerical integration over a series of measurements. In which case you do have to calculate all the shapes to find the area. Even if you'd decide to define the function as a piecewise-linear interpolation of the measuring points and take the anti-derivative of that, the operations to do that are exactly equivalent to calculating the shapes and summing them.

Which is exactly what the computer program will do when you ask it to compute such an area. You can even specify to count just the rectangles or use the trapezoidal rule, and there's even more fancy methods such as Simpson's rule.

Calculus deals with limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. In this case, we're attempting to crunch a bunch of measurement numbers in a most accurate fashion, so this isn't even calculus, but numerical analysis.

So while the doctor is sorta stupid for re-inventing the wheel, they actually did come up with a correct solution. While article criticising that doctor is actually kinda sorta factually wrong. One or two people in the comments got it right, re-tweeting the article but correcting the title to "reinvents numerical integration".

I'm just saying because numerical analysis is WAY cooler than calculus because you get to throw big and powerful computers at it

(yeah I realize without calculus we'd probably have no numerical analysis but STILL)

[Freeky]