#control group

The Mechanicsburg Solstice Festival, that is!

(The first page of “A Mechanicsburg Solstice Story” was posted on Monday, November 30, 2020.)

I love Christmas!

This donation wallpaper is titled "Glowy Canes" and is dated 2013, but it is based on the the fifth panel of page 61 of volume 9, Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm, posted to the Girl Genius website on Monday, July 6, 2009.

Here is the original panel, in context:

High Command has issued me an additional 1000 Super Credits to fund access to another Warbond

I am leaving the decision of which Warbond I purchase up to you:

Control Group (2019) is a collection of four mid-length original scenarios for Delta Green. Each of the scenarios stands alone as a one-shot, but the more intriguing thing is the rough framework for connecting them all. More on that in a minute.

The first is my favorite, involving a team of astronauts accompanying two people who have no business being on a shuttle. Those two are under orders to repair a black ops satellite. Things get weirder from there. I love how audacious it is to set a scenario on a space shuttle, and it seems like a recipe for disaster, but it totally works. The second scenario is a little wobbly for me, depicting an attempt by US forces in Afghanistan at a bit of regional diplomacy that goes terribly wrong. It sure is tense, and the messed up politics of the real world adds dimension to it, but I dunno, it feels fraught to me. This hesitance carries through to the third scenario, which it excellent, but involves a supernatural pandemic and I am just never going to be in the mood to run that in a post-2020 world, you know? That’s just me, though — even though I am unlikely to run these, I appreciate the commitment to having Delta Green’s horror butt up against real world horrors.

(if dr. doofenschmirtz had recruited a control group one (1) time.. )

experiment groups: a part of the total sample which undergoes treatment.

control groups: that part of the total sample which is not subjected to the experiment, but is vital in deciding the significance of results obtained.

if a control group is absent in a trial which tests whether a treatment truly works, there is no normal to compare it with. the treatment was created to be better than the current conventional treatment or no known cure at all. without a control group, there is no way to confirm that the treatment is the better option from now on.

therefore, a control group is not the less imporant group. results of different types of studies are more reliable based on how well the control group was designed. yes, designed.

while testing a drug, its effect is compared against a control group, which is given no drug at all or is given placebo (for eg., giving a sugar cube and having people believe they've been given the drug). these are called the untreated control group and placebo control group, respectively.

in some studies, the researchers and participants themselves do not know the control group. the analysis and results are thoroughly unbiased here. this is called a double-blinded control group.

people in the wait list control group receive treatment after experiment is complete, in case they suffer bad consequences due to the experiment. this is extremely important to consider when recruiting patients with depression, anxiety, cardiac problems, etc.

two broader classifications are positive and negative control groups. in the former, researchers expect a known outcome (for eg., giving the control group a known and effective drug for a particular condition); in the latter, no effect is expected (no drug or placebo is given to the control group).

in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the total sample is sorted into control and experiment groups randomly, to avoid bias. RCTs are considered the gold standard and are the most common.

an interesting method of building a suitable control group is to find a near identical match for each member of the experiment group. this is used in studies where a common baseline condition cannot be established across the total sample. these are used in observational studies as well.

that said, a number of questions need to be answered. is the control group selected ethical? is there a chance the selected control group might produce unwanted results in parameters that are not being observed in this study?

in conclusion, a control group ensures that the findings in a study are real and not just believed to be real.

"controlled conditions" is a frequent phrase to encounter in research, especially in clinical research.

researchers design studies to understand the phenomenon they are studying. this means each step, from hypothesis to publishing the article is carefully considered. likewise, the conditions under which to study this phenomenon are controlled. this means that anything that isn't being studied should not behave abnormally.

RFK Jr | The Real Anthony Fauci ~ The Highwire

Killing hundreds of thousands with AZT, and forcing human children to take poisonous drugs – through tubes in their stomachs. The legacy of a murderer. https://www.bitchute.com/video/6H5WumhgFqfC/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/6H5WumhgFqfC/