Glossary
Each technical term on the findings pages, defined the way we use it: what we mean, the field the term comes from and what it excludes. A term shared across the findings has one definition; a term one study fixed for itself is defined in that study's scope. Each definition lists every page that uses it, and each use links back here.
362 terms, 420 scoped definitions, 626 first uses across 30 findings.
106-means rule
In F14 history of optics; Newton's own rule in Opticks, Book II
Newton's statement that the thickness goes as the secant of an angle whose sine is the first of 106 arithmetical means between the sines of incidence and refraction, counted from the bigger sine. Excludes the secant law, which uses the air angle alone.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
95% interval
Across the findings statistics
The range that holds the middle 95 percent of the bootstrap or control draws for a number; we report it beside the number. Excludes a statement that the true value lies inside with 95 percent probability.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
A-B-C ranking
In F152 literature-based discovery, after Swanson
Scoring an unlinked pair A and C by the intermediate concepts B that each is linked to; here a cosine over shared neighbours with each edge weighted down when both of its ends are popular. Excludes methods trained on known outcomes, and the expert reading that Swanson applied to each candidate.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
aCompCor
In F50 neuroimaging (denoising)
Anatomical component correction: the main components of the signal in white matter and cerebrospinal fluid, where little neural signal is expected, are regressed out as noise. Excludes global signal regression, which removes the mean of the whole brain.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
acoustic horizon
In F281 analogue gravity
The place in a moving fluid where the flow speed equals the sound speed, so that sound travelling against the flow cannot get out; it mimics the horizon of a black hole. Excludes a gravitational horizon, and any place where the flow is slower than sound.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
Adamic-Adar index
In F152 network science
A count of the neighbours two nodes share in which each shared neighbour is weighted by one over the logarithm of its own degree. Excludes the popularity discount on edges that the A-B-C score uses.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
AIC
In F23 statistics (model selection)
The Akaike information criterion, twice the number of fitted parameters minus twice the log-likelihood; between two models fitted to the same data the lower value is preferred, and a gap of 2 or more is the usual bar. Excludes a test that one model is true.
In F76 statistical model selection
The Akaike information criterion, a fit score that adds a penalty of two per fitted parameter, used here to choose the autoregressive order. Excludes choice by held-out error, which would use the test half.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
Airy reflectance
In F14 optics; named after George Airy
The share of light power a thin layer reflects when every reflected and re-reflected beam inside it is summed, rather than only the first two. Excludes the two-beam approximation, and absorption in the glass.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
amygdala
In F50 neuroanatomy
A pair of almond-shaped structures deep in the temporal lobes, one per hemisphere, involved in detecting threat and in emotional learning. Excludes its separate subnuclei, which the anatomical masks here do not distinguish.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
analogue forecaster
In F76 nonlinear time-series prediction (method of analogues)
A forecast that finds the k past states most like the present one and averages what came next; it can follow nonlinear structure a linear model misses. Excludes trained nonlinear models such as neural networks.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
AR(1) process
In F27 time-series statistics
A series in which each value is the mean plus a fixed fraction of the previous value's distance from the mean, plus fresh random noise; the fraction is the single parameter. Excludes models with separate rates for small and large deviations, and models with measurement noise on top.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
area under the risk-coverage curve
In F32 machine learning, selective prediction
The mean risk over coverages from 10 to 100 percent in steps of 5, one number for a whole filter; lower is better. Excludes coverages below 10 percent.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
area under the ROC curve
In F152 statistics and machine learning
The chance that a randomly chosen target scores above a randomly chosen non-target; 0.5 is chance and 1 is perfect. Excludes how the top of the list performs, which precision in the top 200 measures.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
arithmetic coding
In F515 data compression
A method that turns a model's probability for each next symbol into a single binary number, so a symbol given probability p costs close to minus log2 p bits, and a decoder with the same model recovers the text exactly. Excludes codes that give each symbol a fixed whole number of bits, such as Huffman codes.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
arousal and valence
In F39 psychology of emotion (the circumplex model)
Two rating scales for emotion: arousal runs from calm to excited and valence from unpleasant to pleasant; in DEAM each is a nine-point scale averaged over crowd raters. Excludes named emotions such as sadness or nostalgia, which the ratings place only as points on the two scales.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
attenuation
In F27 psychometrics
The shrinking of an observed correlation toward zero when the measures that enter it are noisy. Excludes a true weak relation between the underlying quantities.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
AUC
In F23 statistics (signal detection)
The area under the ROC curve: the chance that a randomly chosen damaged tree is ranked above a randomly chosen undamaged one, with 0.5 for guessing. Excludes how close the predicted probabilities are to the observed rates.
In F47 statistics (signal detection)
The area under the ROC curve: the chance that a randomly chosen positive case is ranked above a randomly chosen negative one, with 0.5 for guessing. Excludes accuracy at any one threshold.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
In F320 statistics and machine learning
The probability that a classifier gives a randomly chosen positive case a higher score than a randomly chosen negative case; 0.5 is chance and 1 is perfect separation. Excludes accuracy at one threshold, and any statement about how well the scores are calibrated as probabilities.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
autoregressive model
In F76 time-series statistics
A linear forecast of the next value from a weighted sum of the last p values, with the weights fitted by least squares; p is the order. Excludes models with moving-average terms, external inputs or nonlinear terms.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
b-file
In F308 the OEIS
A text file stored beside an OEIS entry that lists the sequence's index and term pairs much further than the entry's own data section, often to thousands of terms. Excludes the entry's data section, which holds only the first few dozen terms.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
base rate
In F152 statistics
The share of all unlinked candidate pairs that are targets, the precision a random ranking would reach on average. Excludes the precision of any particular ranker.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
In F172 forecasting
A forecast that gives every effect in a held-out field the same chance of replicating, the share that replicated in the training fields. Excludes any use of an effect's own statistics.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
benefit-to-cost ratio
In F190 social evolution
The benefit b that one producer's goods give in total divided by the cost c it pays, written b/c. Excludes the net payoff to any one cell, which also depends on its neighbours.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
Benjamini-Hochberg correction
In F63 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate, here 0.05; the adjusted value is called q. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
In F81 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
In F97 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
In F114 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
In F132 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate, here 0.05; the adjusted value is called q. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F147 statistics
A rule for many tests at once: rank the p values from smallest, and reject the k smallest when the kth is no larger than k over the number of tests times the chosen false discovery rate, here 0.05. Excludes a correction for one test, and the stricter Bonferroni rule.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
In F166 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values into q values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
In F172 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05; the adjusted values are called q values. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
In F320 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false discoveries stays at or below a chosen level q. Excludes control of the chance of even one false discovery, which is a stricter rule.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
In F329 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate q, here 0.05. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
In F344 statistics (multiple testing)
A rule that raises a set of p values to control the expected share of false discoveries among the tests called significant; the smallest raw p is multiplied by the number of tests and larger ones by less. Excludes an uncorrected p value read on its own when several tests were run.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
In F675 statistics, multiple testing
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate, here 0.05; the adjusted value is called q. Excludes the stricter Bonferroni rule, which bounds the chance of any false call.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
Benjamini-Hochberg correction
In F76 statistics (multiple testing)
A rule that adjusts a set of p values so that, among the tests called significant, the expected share of false calls stays at or below a chosen rate, here 0.05. Excludes corrections that control the chance of any false call at all, such as Bonferroni.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
BIC
In F27 statistics (model selection)
The Bayesian information criterion, a fit score that charges each extra parameter a penalty growing with sample size; the lower value is preferred. Excludes a test of whether either model is true.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
In F147 statistics; the Bayesian information criterion
A model score that adds a penalty for each fitted parameter to the misfit, lower being better, so that a more flexible model must earn its extra parameters. Excludes a test on held-out data.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
In F166 statistics, model selection
The Bayesian information criterion with the log-likelihood divided by the dispersion: a score that trades fit against the number of parameters, lower being better. Excludes an absolute test of a model, since it only compares models on the same data.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
In F172 statistics, model comparison
The Bayesian information criterion, minus twice the maximised log likelihood plus the number of parameters times the log of the number of rows; lower is better, and a difference of 10 is the usual bar for strong preference. Excludes a test of whether either model is right.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
binding check
In F675 research method, our usage
A preregistered rule on a synthetic world that the instrument must pass before any reading of the real data counts; under the kill condition a single failure removes all standing. Excludes power checks and limit checks, which were recorded but could not remove standing.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
binomial likelihood
In F166 statistics
Fitting by choosing the parameters under which the observed counts of B choices are most probable, treating each choice as an independent draw at the predicted rate; here five choices per listed participant. Excludes extra scatter between problems, which the dispersion handles.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
biologically labelled method
In F183 our usage for this study
An optimiser whose published description is framed by an animal, plant or other organism, here slime mould, grey wolf, particle swarm, bee colony, ant colony and invasive weed. Excludes any claim that the method works the way the organism does.
bipartite network
In F23 network science
A network with two kinds of node, here trees and fungal genets, in which a link joins a tree to a genet found on at least one of its root tips and never joins two nodes of the same kind. Excludes a network of measured flows between trees.
bit
In F114 information theory
The unit of information: one bit halves the uncertainty about an outcome, so a record that keeps b bits a year narrows each year's range of possible summers by a factor of 2 to the power b, as measured by its standard deviation. Excludes a count of stored numbers, and any statement about which way the dependence runs.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
bits per character
In F515 information theory and data compression
The length of a compressed text in bits divided by the number of characters in the original; lower is better, and 8 is the cost of plain one-byte text. Excludes bits per token or per byte, which divide by a different count.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
bits per letter
In F508 information theory
The average number of binary digits needed to write down each letter of a text under a given model of the text; one bit halves the number of equally likely choices, so 4.75 bits per letter is the cost of picking blindly among 27 symbols. Excludes a count of bytes in a file, and any statement about meaning.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
block cross-validation
In F114 statistics and machine learning
The years are split into contiguous blocks, here five; each block in turn is held out, the model is fitted on the rest and scored on the held-out block. Excludes a score on the fitting years, and splits that scatter single years so that neighbouring years leak into the fit.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
Bogoliubov dispersion
In F281 condensed-matter physics (Bose-Einstein condensates)
The frequency of small waves in a uniform condensate: equal to the sound speed times the wavenumber at long wavelength and rising faster, towards the free-particle law, at wavelengths near the healing length. Excludes sound in an ordinary gas or solid, whose dispersion is set by other physics.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
bootstrap interval
In F23 statistics
An interval made by recomputing a number many times on units drawn with replacement from the data, here trees, logs or inventory plots, and keeping the middle 95 percent of the results. Excludes an interval that also covers doubt about the model's form.
In F32 statistics
Recomputing a number many times on data resampled with replacement, here within strata or over questions, to see how much it varies. Excludes an interval from a textbook formula that assumes a distribution.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F166 statistics
Refitting a model many times on problems resampled with replacement to read how much an estimate varies. Excludes an interval from a textbook formula that assumes a distribution.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
In F281 statistics
Resampling the data with replacement many times and recomputing the estimate each time, so that the spread of the recomputed values gives an interval for it. Excludes an interval taken from a formula that assumes a distribution.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
In F362 statistics, resampling
Redrawing the quantities of a table with replacement, here 300 times, and recomputing the coverage each time; the middle 95 percent of the recomputed values is the interval. Excludes uncertainty from the choice of editions or from shared inputs, which resampling quantities does not touch.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
Brier score
In F32 forecast verification, from weather forecasting
The squared difference between the stated probabilities and the outcomes, here summed over the answer options in the GJP form so it runs from 0 to 2; lower is better. Excludes questions left unanswered, which it does not score.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F47 forecast verification (meteorology)
The mean squared difference between a probability forecast and the outcome coded 0 or 1; lower is better. Excludes measures that score only whether the most likely outcome happened.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
Brier score
In F172 forecast verification
The mean squared difference between a forecast probability and the outcome coded 1 or 0, from 0 for a perfect forecast to 1 for a confident wrong one; 0.25 is what a forecast of one half always earns. Excludes a ranking measure such as AUC, which ignores whether the probabilities are at the right level.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
Brier skill
In F23 forecast verification (meteorology)
One minus the Brier score of a model divided by the Brier score of always forecasting the base rate, where the Brier score is the mean squared gap between a probability and the outcome coded 0 or 1. Excludes a ranking measure such as AUC, which ignores whether the probabilities are right in size.
calibration
In F172 forecast verification
Agreement between forecast probabilities and observed frequencies: among effects given a chance near 0.7, about 70 percent should replicate; checked here in five bands of equal count. Excludes discrimination, the separate question of whether higher forecasts go with more successes.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
carry-forward baseline
In F23 forecast verification
The forecast that a later sampling will show the same mean relative density as the last sampling used for fitting, here year 16. Excludes a forecast from a fitted decay curve.
Cauchy distribution
In F362 probability
The Student t distribution with nu equal to 1, whose tails are so heavy that its mean and variance do not exist. Excludes any distribution with a finite variance.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
CC0 1.0
In F32 copyright and data licensing
The Creative Commons public domain dedication, under which anyone may reuse the work for any purpose without permission. Excludes a licence condition requiring citation, which stays a scholarly courtesy.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
ceiling AUC for a shift
In F320 statistics, our derivation
The AUC a perfect reader of the one shifted feature could reach when the stress and non-stress values of that feature are normal with a variance of 1.09 each (a block offset of variance 1 plus window noise of variance 0.09). Excludes the effect of the 19 features that carry no shift, and of the small number of people.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
censoring
In F50 neuroimaging (motion quality control)
Dropping single brain volumes whose head motion exceeds a threshold before connectivity is computed. Excludes dropping whole runs or whole participants, which follow separate rules.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
centre bias
In F183 evolutionary computation benchmarking, after Kudela
A tendency of a method's update rule to pull candidates toward the centre of the search box, which helps on any function whose minimum happens to sit there. Excludes good performance that survives when the minimum is moved.
centre cheat
In F183 our usage for this study
A dummy method that only samples points within a tiny distance of the centre of the box, so it solves any function whose minimum sits there and nothing else. Excludes any real optimiser.
characteristic curve
In F147 photographic sensitometry; also called the H and D curve
The developed optical density of a film plotted against the logarithm of the exposure it received. Excludes the film's spectral sensitivity and its grain.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
chi-square difference test
In F27 statistics (model comparison)
A test of whether a model with more free parameters fits nested data better than a simpler model, using the drop in the chi-square fit statistic against its degrees of freedom. Excludes comparisons of models that are not nested.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ)
In F50 clinical psychology
A 28-item adult self-report questionnaire about childhood experiences, scored as five subscales (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect) of 5 to 25 each and a total of 25 to 125, plus minimisation items that flag denial. Excludes records of maltreatment from the time it happened, and clinical diagnosis.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
CIE D65
In F14 colour science (International Commission on Illumination)
A standard table of the power in average midday daylight at each wavelength, used as the white light in this study. Excludes the measured spectrum of any one day's sunlight, and Newton's own light.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
citation-weighted share model
In F149 statistics (logistic regression)
A regression of the number of unsupported citations out of all citations in each study-year on the year, so a year with thirty citations counts thirty times as much as a year with one. Excludes the equal weight per study-year that a model of the deposited percentages gives.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
climate division
In F63 US climatology (NOAA)
One of the regions into which NOAA splits the contiguous United States for climate records, each with one averaged monthly series per variable. Excludes a single weather station, and a regular grid cell.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
cluster bootstrap
In F39 statistics
A bootstrap that resamples whole groups, here artists with all their clips, so that clips by one artist count as one draw. Excludes a bootstrap over single clips, which treats one artist's clips as independent.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
In F172 statistics
An interval made by recomputing a statistic many times, here 2,000, on samples of whole replication projects drawn with replacement, so rows from one project stay together. Excludes resampling single rows as if they were independent.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
In F320 statistics, resampling
Redrawing people with replacement, 2,000 times, and recomputing the mean of the per-person scores each time; the middle 95 percent of those means is the interval. Excludes redrawing single windows, which would treat one person's many windows as many independent people.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
clustered standard errors
In F63 econometrics
Standard errors computed so that events in the same climate division may be correlated with each other, which widens the interval when they are. Excludes ordinary standard errors that treat every event as independent.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
CMA-ES
In F183 evolutionary computation, after Hansen and colleagues
Covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy: it samples candidates from a multivariate normal distribution and adapts the distribution's centre, shape and step size from the best samples. Excludes the larger-population restart schedule known as IPOP, which our version did not use.
coefficient of efficiency (CE)
In F114 hydrology and dendroclimatology; also called the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency
One minus the mean squared error of a reconstruction on held-out years divided by the variance of the true values in those years; 1 is perfect and 0 means no better than the held-out years' own mean. Excludes a correlation, which ignores bias and scale errors.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
combined value formula (COMB)
In F166 our usage
CPT's value difference plus four added terms in one choice rule: entropy for information, loss probability for threat, and the mean and mean square of outcomes for drive toward a setpoint; ten parameters. Excludes any claim about mechanisms in the brain, and any reading of the terms other than this operationalisation.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
common mycorrhizal network
In F149 forest ecology and mycology
A set of fungal threads that colonise the roots of two or more plants at once and so may link them below ground. Excludes claims about what such a network does, such as moving carbon or signals between trees, which are the matters in dispute.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
conjecture line
In F308 the OEIS, our usage
A comment or formula line in an OEIS entry that states an equation for the sequence and labels it a conjecture; most were found by fitting the terms then known. Excludes a line marked as proved, and a statement with no equation.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
context model
In F508 data compression and statistical language modelling
A model that predicts the next symbol from counts of what followed the same few preceding symbols in training text, blending long and short contexts; prediction by partial matching (PPM) is the classic form. Excludes models that use word meaning, grammar or knowledge outside the letter counts.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
control
Across the findings statistics and experimental design
A version of the data with the structure under test removed (for example shuffled or pooled), scored the same way as the real data, so the real score has something to beat. Excludes a comparison with a different dataset or with a published number.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended, F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high, F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
controversy flag
In F310 NASA Exoplanet Archive catalogue fields
A catalogue field set to 1 when a planet's existence or confirmation has been questioned in the published literature and 0 otherwise. Excludes independent confirmation, which a flag of 0 does not give.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
convergent cross mapping
In F132 nonlinear dynamics and ecology (Sugihara and colleagues 2012)
A test that rebuilds the state of one series from its own lagged values and asks how well that rebuilt state predicts the other series; the driven series is expected to predict the driver. Excludes regression of one series on the lagged values of the other.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
counterexample
In F308 mathematics (logic)
A single case where a general statement is false; one is enough to refute a conjecture. Excludes a term that disagrees because the data are wrong.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
coverage
In F362 statistics and metrology
The share of cases in which an interval drawn round an earlier value contains the value that later replaced it; here the interval is one or two of the earlier value's own stated sigma either side. Excludes the share of intervals that contain the true value, which no later table can supply.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
cross-validated R²
In F166 statistics and machine learning
One minus the squared error of out-of-fold predictions over the variance of the observed rates, with 10 folds grouped by problem: the share of variance that predictions made without seeing those rates account for. Excludes in-sample R², which rewards fitting noise.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
cubic harmonic
In F344 mathematics (spherical harmonics) and crystallography
The simplest pattern on a sphere with the symmetry of a cube: here x^4 + y^4 + z^4 minus its average, largest along the six cube axes and smallest along the eight diagonals. Excludes a dipole, a single hot spot, or any pattern that a rotation of the cube by a right angle would change.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
cumulative prospect theory (CPT)
In F166 behavioural economics
A model of choice between gambles with a value function concave for gains and steeper for losses, a loss aversion coefficient and a probability weighting function applied to cumulative probabilities; here six parameters. Excludes any account of the feelings or brain processes behind a choice.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
decade
In F183 measurement
A factor of ten; a change of one decade in error is a change of one in its base-10 logarithm. Excludes a difference on a linear scale.
decay rate k
In F23 decomposition ecology
The constant k in the single-exponential model, the fraction of remaining density lost per year; a half-life is the natural log of 2 divided by k. Excludes a rate measured from mass, and the rate in the first years of a lag model.
degree
In F23 network science
The number of links a node has: the genets on one tree, the trees one genet reaches, or, in the tree-tree view, the other trees that share at least one genet with a tree. Excludes the strength or direction of a link.
In F152 network science
The number of other concepts a concept is linked to in the training graph, our measure of how popular it is. Excludes how many documents mention the concept.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
degree-preserving rewiring
In F152 network science, after Maslov and Sneppen
Repeatedly swapping the ends of two randomly chosen edges, so every concept keeps its degree while who is linked to whom is scrambled. Excludes changes to any concept's popularity.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
degree-preserving shuffle
In F23 network ecology
A control that rewires the links of a network at random while every tree keeps its number of genets and every genet its number of trees, drawn here by the curveball algorithm 1,000 times per plot. Excludes a shuffle that also changes how many links each node has.
description setting
In F166 our usage, after decision research
The 1,928 choices13k problems answered without outcome feedback, where people chose from stated odds alone. Excludes the 9,831 problems answered with feedback on outcomes.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
description-experience gap
In F166 decision research
The pattern that people choose as if they overweight rare events when choosing from stated odds and underweight them when they learn the odds from sampled outcomes. Excludes differences in the gambles themselves.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
detection rate
In F132 statistics, our usage
The share of sites at which the score in one direction beats its own surrogates at p 0.05 or below. Excludes a rate corrected for testing 135 sites, which is reported separately.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 statistics, our usage
The share of sites at which the Granger test in one direction gives p 0.05 or below; for synthetic worlds it is averaged over the draws. Excludes a rate corrected for testing 161 sites.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
detective quantum efficiency (DQE)
In F147 imaging science and detector physics
The share of the information carried by the arriving photons that a detector's output keeps, measured as the square of its output signal-to-noise ratio divided by the square of the input's; 1 is a perfect photon counter. Excludes the plain share of photons absorbed, and the speed of a film.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
deviance
In F166 statistics, generalised linear models
Twice the log-likelihood shortfall of a model against a perfect fit; a deviance gain is the fall in deviance when a term is added. Excludes any penalty for the added parameter.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
deviation
In F50 research method (metascience)
A dated, reasoned change to a preregistered plan, written into the plan's log, with the point in the study at which it was decided. Excludes a silent change to the analysis.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
In F308 research method (metascience)
A dated, recorded change from the preregistered plan, stated with its reason and with what had been seen when it was made. Excludes a change made silently, and a change made after seeing the outcome it would affect without saying so.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
direction accuracy
In F132 method validation, our usage
The share of sites at which the climate-to-ring score is larger than the ring-to-climate score; 0.5 is what a coin would give. Excludes whether either score is significant.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 method validation, our usage
The share of sites at which the sign of d matches the direction planted in a synthetic world; 0.5 is what a coin would give. Excludes whether the test at any site is significant.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
dispersion
In F166 statistics, quasi-likelihood
The factor phi by which observed rates scatter more than independent binomial choices would allow, taken from the COMB fit in each setting. Excludes a parameter of choice behaviour.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
In F281 wave physics
The dependence of a wave's speed on its frequency or energy, written as a relation between frequency and wavenumber. Excludes a delay that is the same at every energy, such as a fixed travel time.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
dispersion exponent
In F97 physics of waves and diffusion
The power beta in a decay rate that grows as the wavenumber to the power beta; diffusion gives about 2, and fine and broad patterns that fade at the same rate give 0. Excludes a speed of travel, which the propagation test measures.
document bootstrap
In F152 statistics (resampling)
Redrawing the test slice's documents with replacement, recomputing which pairs are targets, and rescoring the fixed top-200 lists each time, so the interval shows how much the result depends on which documents happened to arrive. Excludes uncertainty from the training graph, which is held fixed.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
drive reduction
In F166 motivation psychology, our operationalisation
For a setpoint S, the quantity S squared minus (S minus x) squared for an outcome x, whose expectation is linear in the mean and mean square of outcomes. Excludes any measured need or state of the people choosing.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
drought legacy
In F63 forest ecology
Growth that stays below its expected level for one or more years after a drought ends. Excludes the loss of growth in the drought year itself.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
EeV
In F344 physics (units)
An exaelectronvolt, 1e18 electronvolts, or 1e9 GeV, carried by a single particle. Excludes the total energy of the shower in a detector, which is spread over many secondary particles.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
electrodermal activity (EDA)
In F320 psychophysiology
The electrical conductance of the skin, which rises with sweat gland activity under sympathetic nervous control. Excludes a direct reading of emotion; temperature and movement also change it.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
emotional inertia
In F27 affective science
How far a person's mood at one prompt predicts their mood at the next, measured as the lag-one correlation of their own mood series. Excludes average mood, how much mood varies, and any claim about what causes the carryover.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
equivalence test (two one-sided tests)
In F50 statistics
A test that supports the absence of a meaningful effect when the 90 percent interval of the estimate lies wholly inside the band set by the smallest effect of interest, which is the same as rejecting both edges of the band at the 5 percent level. Excludes a test of whether the effect is exactly zero.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
expected calibration error
In F32 forecast verification and machine learning
The gap between stated probability and hit rate, averaged over probability bins and weighted by bin size; folded here by taking each forecast on the side it leans to. Excludes how informative forecasts are, since a forecast of the base rate every time can score zero.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
expected value (EV)
In F166 probability theory
The probability-weighted average payoff of a gamble, used here as the baseline value model. Excludes any allowance for risk, loss or probability weighting.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
experience sampling
In F27 psychology (methods)
A study design in which people answer short questions on a phone several times a day, so that mood is recorded close to the moment it is felt. Excludes one-off questionnaires and recall of past weeks.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
exposure
In F344 astroparticle physics
How much of each part of the sky a detector watched over time; a ground array sees some declinations far more than others, so an isotropic sky still looks uneven in its data. Excludes the number of events, which is exposure times the true flux.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
expressed population signal (EPS)
In F114 dendrochronology
How well the mean of k series stands for the mean of an infinite set of such series, k r over 1 plus (k minus 1) r, with r the mean correlation between series; 0.85 is the conventional threshold. Excludes a measure of how well the series track climate.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
extra-binomial noise
In F166 statistics
Scatter in a choice rate from problem to problem beyond what independent choices would give, simulated here with a Beta distribution. Excludes a bias in the rate.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
extremising
In F32 forecast aggregation
Pushing a probability away from 50 percent by multiplying its log-odds by a factor a, with a below 1 pulling it inward instead. Excludes changing which side a forecast leans to.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
face-value forecast
In F172 forecasting, our usage
A forecast that takes each published original effect as the true effect and predicts replication from the power a replication of the given size would have against it. Excludes any correction for how the original was selected.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
factor model
In F27 psychometrics (confirmatory factor analysis)
A model that explains the correlations among several measured indicators by a smaller number of unseen common factors, fitted by maximum likelihood. Excludes exploratory searches for the number of factors, and models of change over time.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
false-success check
In F166 our usage
A run of the full procedure on data simulated with no added effect, showing how large a gain the procedure finds when there is nothing to find. Excludes a planted check, which asks whether a real effect is found.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
far-site pairing
In F132 statistics, our usage
A control in which each ring series is paired with the climate of a random site at least 1,000 km away, so that real coupling is removed while both series keep their own form. Excludes pairings with nearby sites, which share regional climate.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 statistics, our usage
A control in which each ring series is paired with the summer temperature of a random site at least 1,000 km away, so that real coupling is removed while both series keep their own form; repeated 199 times. Excludes pairings with nearby sites, which share regional climate.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
findings ledger
Across the findings our records
The append-only, dated list of every result we have recorded, numbered F1, F2 and on; corrections are added as new dated lines and old entries are never rewritten. Excludes a curated list of successes.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended, F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
first differences
In F675 time-series statistics
Each year's value minus the previous year's, a second way to remove slow trends that weights the fastest changes most. Excludes the high-pass filter, which removes trends by smoothing.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
Fisher z
In F50 statistics
The transform z = artanh(r) of a correlation, which makes its sampling spread close to normal so that correlations can be averaged and given intervals. Excludes any change to the sign or ranking of correlations.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
In F172 statistics
The transform of a correlation r to half the natural log of (1 + r) over (1 - r), on which the sampling error is close to normal with standard error 1 over the square root of n minus 3. Excludes the z statistic of a test, which is an effect divided by its standard error.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
fitness-proportional replacement
In F190 evolutionary dynamics
The update rule in which a cell's next occupant is copied from a parent drawn with chance in proportion to the parent's fitness, here among the 3 by 3 window around the cell including the cell itself. Excludes other update rules, such as death followed by birth from neighbours only, or imitation of the best neighbour.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
fixed effects
In F63 econometrics and statistics
One free constant per site (or species) and one per calendar year in a regression, so that differences between sites and between years cannot be mistaken for the effect of the variable under test. Excludes random effects, which treat those constants as draws from one distribution.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
fixed point (reputation model)
In F329 game theory
A report distribution that, when used to compute how honest each report looks, leads people to make the same distribution of reports; found here by repeated damped updates starting from honest reporting. Excludes a guarantee that the fixed point found is the only one.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
fMRIPrep
In F50 neuroimaging software
An open preprocessing pipeline for functional MRI that corrects head motion and distortion, aligns images to a standard brain space and writes nuisance signals for later cleaning. Excludes the denoising and statistics that follow, which were run by our own code.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
focal study
In F149 our usage, following Karst and colleagues
One of the 18 field studies on these networks whose later citations the original authors read and coded, 11 on network function and 7 on network structure. Excludes the citing papers, which are the units counted inside each focal study.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
forecast horizon
In F47 dynamical systems (chaos)
The time until a forecast from a slightly wrong starting state differs from the truth by more than a set tolerance; in a chaotic system it grows with the logarithm of the starting precision. Excludes errors from a wrong model, which the toy does not have.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
forecast skill
In F23 forecast verification
One minus the mean absolute error of a model's forecast divided by the mean absolute error of a baseline on the same held-out logs; 0 means no better than the baseline and 1 means perfect. Excludes a score on the logs used to fit the model.
forecaster-year
In F32 our usage
One person's forecasts within one tournament year, the unit for skip rate and relative score. Excludes pooling of different people, and pooling one person's years.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
framewise displacement
In F50 neuroimaging (motion quality control)
A summary of how far the head moved between two consecutive brain volumes, in millimetres, from the six rigid-body motion parameters. Excludes motion within a single volume.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
gamma
In F147 photographic sensitometry
The local slope of the characteristic curve: the change in density per unit change in log exposure. Excludes the display gamma of video and computer screens.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
genet
In F23 population genetics of clonal organisms
One genetic individual of a fungus, recognised by its microsatellite profile, which may spread through the soil and colonise many root tips. Excludes a species, and a single fungal thread or fruiting body.
geometric mean
In F310 statistics
For two numbers, the square root of their product, which is the plain average taken on a log scale; here the neighbour baseline for a dropped planet's period. Excludes the ordinary average of the two periods, which is larger whenever they differ.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
global signal regression
In F50 neuroimaging (denoising)
Removing the average signal of the whole brain from every region before connectivity is computed. Excludes aCompCor and motion regression, which remove other nuisance signals.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
goods box
In F190 our usage for this study
The square of cells over which one producer's goods are spread, 3 by 3 at range 1 and 5 by 5 at range 2. Excludes the 3 by 3 window from which parents are drawn, which stays fixed.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
gradient-boosted trees
In F166 machine learning
A predictor built by adding many small decision trees, each fitted to what the previous ones missed; here a flexible learner's score on the same folds. Excludes a theory of choice, since it states no value function.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
Granger test
In F132 econometrics and time-series statistics
A regression test of whether the past values of one series improve the prediction of another beyond that series' own past; for Gaussian data it is equivalent to transfer entropy. Excludes a test of same-year effects, and proof of a physical cause.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 econometrics and time-series statistics
A regression test of whether the past values of one series improve the prediction of another beyond that series' own past; here an F test on lags 1 and 2. Excludes a test of same-year effects, and proof of a physical cause.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
group velocity
In F281 wave physics
The speed at which a packet of waves, and the energy it carries, moves; it equals the slope of frequency against wavenumber. Excludes the phase velocity, the speed of a single crest, which can differ from it.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
guessing game
In F508 information theory, after Shannon 1951
A reader guesses the next letter in order of preference until right; the share of letters found at the first, second and later guesses gives an upper and a lower bound on the entropy. Excludes a direct measure of the probabilities a reader holds.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
half-wave flip
In F14 optics
The change of sign of the reflected wave at one face of the air gap and not the other, which makes the centre of the rings dark in reflected light. Excludes the phase delay from the path across the gap.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
Harvard-Oxford atlas
In F50 neuroimaging
A probabilistic atlas of cortical and subcortical regions in standard brain space; at a 50 percent threshold a voxel belongs to a region when at least half of the reference brains placed it there. Excludes regions drawn from each participant's own anatomy or from functional data.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
healing length
In F281 condensed-matter physics
The length below which a condensate's density cannot change smoothly; waves shorter than it stop behaving like sound. Excludes the wavelength of any particular wave.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
held-out gain
In F32 machine learning
The drop in Brier score from extremising, with the factor fitted on one half of the questions and scored on the other half. Excludes the in-sample improvement any fitted factor gives on the data it was fitted to.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F39 statistics and machine learning
Data kept apart from everything that was fitted or standardised, here every clip by 30 percent of the artists, so that a result on it is a check on new material. Excludes data used to fit the model, choose a threshold or compute a scaling.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
In F508 statistics and machine learning
Text kept apart from the text a model was trained on and used only to score it. Excludes any text whose counts entered the model.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
held-out papers
In F329 statistics, cross-validation
Papers kept out of all fitting, chosen by a hash of the citation (30 percent of papers), on which every model is scored once; all treatments from one paper fall on the same side. Excludes a split by treatment or subject, which would let one paper's design appear in both fitting and scoring.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
held-out person (leave one subject out)
In F320 machine learning evaluation; called subject-wise cross-validation
Training on all people but one and scoring on the one left out, repeated so that each person is held out once. Excludes a test on people from another study, lab or protocol.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
held-out R2 gain
In F39 statistics
The share of variance in the test outcome explained by a model fitted on training data with the added measures, minus the same share for the model without them. Excludes the in-sample R2 of a fit, which can only grow as variables are added.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
held-out skill
In F47 statistics and machine learning
A model's score on cases kept apart from fitting: R2 for numbers, the area under the ROC curve for yes-or-no outcomes, and accuracy for triplet choices. Excludes the score on the data used to fit the model.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
high-pass filter
In F114 signal processing
A filter that keeps fast variation and removes slow trends; here each series minus a Gaussian smooth of width 10 years, which keeps roughly the 2 to 30 year band. Excludes a fixed polynomial detrend.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
In F132 signal processing
A filter that keeps fast variation and removes slow trends; here each series minus a Gaussian smooth of width 10 years. Excludes a fixed polynomial detrend.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 signal processing
A filter that keeps fast variation and removes slow trends; here each series minus a Gaussian smooth of width 10 years, then scaled to unit variance. Excludes first differences, which are reported as a separate arm.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
hinge
In F147 curve fitting
A response that is zero below a threshold exposure and rises in a straight line above it, here in log exposure. Excludes any form that saturates at high exposure.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
hold-out score
In F147 statistics and machine learning
The error of a model fitted on one part of the data and scored on a part it never saw; here fitted on the lowest 70 percent of the axis and scored on the top 30 percent. Excludes an error computed on the points used to fit.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
Holm correction
In F50 statistics (multiple testing)
A step-down adjustment of p values across a family of tests that keeps the chance of any false positive in the family at the stated level. Excludes adjustment for analyses outside the declared family, such as the exploratory sensitivity checks.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
honest normal world
In F362 statistics, our control
Simulated shifts drawn from a standard normal distribution at the PDG sample size, so that every stated sigma is exactly right, scored the same way as the real shifts. Excludes heavy tails and shared inputs.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
honest null
Across the findings research method (our usage)
A working test that found no effect beyond a stated bound, a forecast that failed, or an error of our own found and fixed, reported with the same weight as a positive result. Excludes a void run, and a result left unpublished because it was negative.
Used in F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
human-blind pair
In F81 our usage, after the metamer of colour science
A pair of surfaces whose modelled colour distance for the human trichromat is at most 1 JND, so the model says a person cannot tell them apart by colour; dog-blind pairs are defined the same way. Excludes pairs a person cannot tell apart by brightness, which the model does not test.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
iAAFT surrogate
In F132 time-series statistics, surrogate data
A copy of a series built by repeated rounds of Fourier phase randomisation and rank reordering, so that it keeps both the original spectrum, and with it the autocorrelation, and the original set of values, while its timing against any other series is lost. Excludes a shuffle of single years, which destroys the autocorrelation.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 time-series statistics, surrogate data
A copy of a series built by repeated rounds of Fourier phase randomisation and rank reordering, so that it keeps both the original spectrum, and with it the autocorrelation, and the original set of values, while its timing against any other series is lost. Excludes a shuffle of single years, which destroys the autocorrelation.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
ideal code length
In F515 information theory
The sum over a text of minus log2 of the probability the model gave to each symbol that came next; a real arithmetic coder comes within a few bits of it. Excludes a measured file size, and any cost of storing the model.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
insect- and bird-pollinated
In F81 pollination ecology
The dataset's labels for flowers whose recorded pollinators are insects only or birds only. Excludes flowers visited by both, which the dataset does not include in these groups.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
instrument check
In F81 our usage; a known-answer test of the model against behaviour
A preregistered test in which the model must reproduce published behavioural measurements, here the smallest wavelength step each observer can detect; if it fails, only ranks and ratios from the model are used. Excludes a test of the model against its own output, and a planted check on synthetic data.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
iteratively reweighted least squares
In F166 statistics, generalised linear models
The standard routine for fitting a logistic model by repeated weighted least-squares steps. Excludes any effect on what is tested, since it is only the fitting method.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
just-noticeable difference (JND)
In F81 psychophysics
The unit of colour distance in the receptor-noise-limited model; a distance of 1 is treated as the threshold, so pairs at or below 1 count as indistinguishable for that observer. Excludes a measured threshold for a real animal on a real task.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
Kendall bias
In F27 time-series statistics
The downward bias of a lag-one correlation estimated from a short series, about (1 + 3 phi)/n for a series of n values with true value phi (Kendall 1954). Excludes bias from measurement noise, which is a separate attenuation.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
kill condition
Across the findings research method (our usage, after Popper's falsification)
A rule written in the preregistration that, when met, decides against the claim with no room for judgement after the run. Excludes reasons found after the run for setting a result aside.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
known-answer test
In F132 measurement and method validation
A test of a method on a case where the true answer is fixed by physics or by construction, so that any wrong reading is a fault of the method. Excludes agreement with another method, which can share the same fault.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 measurement and method validation
A test of a method on a case where the true answer is fixed by physics or by construction, so that any wrong reading is a fault of the method. Excludes agreement with another method, which can share the same fault.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
Kolmogorov-Szego bound
In F76 the theory of weakly stationary processes
The smallest one-step error variance any linear predictor can reach on a weakly stationary series, equal to the exponential of the average log spectrum; one minus the flatness is therefore the most variance a linear one-step forecast can remove. Excludes nonlinear predictors on non-Gaussian series, multi-step forecasts, and series whose statistics drift over time.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
Kruskal-Wallis test
In F183 statistics
A rank-based test of whether several groups of numbers come from the same distribution. Excludes a test of which group is better.
KSG estimator
In F114 statistics and information theory
The k-nearest-neighbour estimate of mutual information from samples given by Kraskov, Stoegbauer and Grassberger, here with 4 neighbours. Excludes estimates that first bin the data into histograms.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
KSG estimator, conditional form
In F132 statistics and information theory
The k-nearest-neighbour estimate of information from samples given by Kraskov, Stoegbauer and Grassberger and extended to conditional information by Frenzel and Pompe, here with 4 neighbours and the maximum norm. Excludes estimates that first bin the data into histograms.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
label shuffle
In F81 statistics (permutation test)
A control that randomly reassigns the flower and background labels over the same surfaces, here 500 times, and recomputes the separation ratio, which shows how large it gets when the labels carry no meaning. Excludes a shuffle of the spectra themselves.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
label-permutation null
In F63 statistics
A control in which the prior-drought labels are shuffled among each site's own events, keeping every drought date in place. Excludes a null that moves the droughts themselves.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
In F183 statistics (permutation test)
Shuffling which method name goes with which rank within each function, 2,000 times, to see how large a gap between the two groups' mean ranks arises by chance. Excludes uncertainty from the random repeats of each run.
lag pair
In F27 time-series analysis
Two adjacent prompts on the same study day, the earlier one called the lead; a missed prompt or a night breaks the pair. Excludes pairs that cross a night or skip a prompt.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
lattice spacing
In F344 lattice field theory
The distance between neighbouring points of a grid on which space is modelled; on a grid, waves shorter than about twice the spacing cannot exist and the speed of a wave depends on its direction. Excludes the Planck length, which is a scale built from constants and not a measured grid.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
law-like
In F310 our usage, fixed in the preregistration
The verdict that a Titius-Bode form beats the order-shuffle control's 95th percentile and predicts dropped planets better than the neighbour baseline. Excludes regularity that similar gaps alone produce, which beats only the pooled-gap control.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
leave-one-field-out test
In F172 statistics, cross-validation
A test in which each field in turn is held out, every parameter is fitted on the other fields, and forecasts are scored only on the held-out field. Excludes scoring forecasts on the rows that were used to fit them.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
leave-one-out prediction
In F310 statistics, cross-validation
Dropping one interior planet, fitting the rule to the others and comparing the predicted period with the true one, repeated for every interior planet. Excludes scoring a planet with a fit that has already seen it.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
linear energy scale (E_QG,1)
In F281 quantum gravity phenomenology
The photon energy at which a speed change that grows in proportion to energy would reach the full speed of light; a lower limit on it is the usual way to state a time-of-flight bound. Excludes the quadratic scale, for a speed change that grows with the square of energy, which this paper does not bound.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
linear recurrence
In F308 mathematics (combinatorics)
An equation that gives each term of a sequence as a fixed weighted sum of a set number of earlier terms, possibly with terms in n; here with integer coefficients. Excludes an equation with a product of earlier terms, and an equation with coefficients that are not integers.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
link
In F152 our usage for this study
Two concepts appearing in the same document; a concept here is a question tag on the Stack Exchange sites and a word or word pair on the research notes. Excludes any judgement that the two concepts are related in fact.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
link prediction
In F152 network science
Ranking pairs of nodes that are not yet joined in a network by how likely they are to become joined later. Excludes recovering links that exist but were hidden at random from the same snapshot.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
literature-based discovery
In F152 information science, after Swanson
The search for connections that no single document states but that follow from linking what separate documents say. Excludes finding links that some document already states, which is ordinary retrieval.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
Lloret indices
In F63 dendroecology
Three ratios of ring growth around a drought year: resistance is the drought-year growth over the mean of the three years before, recovery is the mean of the three years after over the drought-year growth, and resilience is the mean after over the mean before. Excludes measures of tree death, and growth responses that unfold over more than three years.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
local competition
In F190 social evolution, after Taylor and after Griffin and colleagues
Competition for space or resources among neighbours, which, when neighbours are relatives, can cancel the benefit that helping relatives brings. Excludes competition spread over the whole population.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
log loss (nats per report)
In F329 statistics and forecast verification
Minus the average natural log of the probability a model gave to each report that was made; lower is better, and the difference between two models in nats per report is how much better one predicts each report. Excludes an accuracy count, which ignores how much probability a model gave to what happened.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
In F508 information theory and machine learning; also called cross-entropy
The average of minus the base-2 logarithm of the probability a model gave to the letter that came next, in bits per letter; it is the length of the code an ideal coder driven by the model would write. Excludes the share of letters guessed right, and the entropy of the text itself, which log loss can only bound from above.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
log-odds
In F32 statistics
For a probability p, the natural log of p divided by 1 minus p; 0 at 50 percent and unbounded toward certainty. Excludes any information beyond the probability, of which it is a rescaling.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F166 statistics
For a rate p, the natural log of p divided by 1 minus p; 0 at an even split and unbounded toward certainty. Excludes any information beyond the rate, of which it is a rescaling.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
logistic regression
In F23 statistics
A model that gives the log odds of a yes-or-no outcome, here recorded wind damage, as a weighted sum of the features; here fitted with an L2 penalty on standardised features. Excludes a model of how much damage a tree has.
In F172 statistics
A model in which the log odds of success are a weighted sum of predictors, here the original z value, the log of the original sample size and the log of the replication sample size, fitted by maximum likelihood on the training fields. Excludes any model of how originals were selected.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
In F320 statistics
A classifier that models the log odds of the positive class as a weighted sum of the features; here on standardised features with an L2 (ridge) penalty at strength C = 1. Excludes interactions between features, which it does not model unless they are added by hand.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
Lorentz invariance violation
In F281 particle physics and quantum gravity phenomenology
Any departure from the rule of special relativity that every observer measures the same speed of light; the form tested here is a speed of light in vacuum that changes with photon energy. Excludes the slowing of light in a medium such as glass or plasma, which is ordinary optics.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
loss aversion
In F166 behavioural economics
The factor lambda by which a loss weighs more than an equal gain in the value function; 1 means losses and gains count alike. Excludes a dislike of risk as such, which curvature and weighting carry.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
luminance
In F14 colour science
The brightness of light as the standard eye weighs it, computed by weighting power at each wavelength with the CIE 1931 2 degree observer's brightness curve. Excludes hue and saturation, which the study does not score.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
maximum latewood density
In F114 dendrochronology (densitometry)
The highest wood density in the late, dense part of an annual ring, read from an X-ray image of a thin lath of the core. Excludes ring width and the mean density of the whole ring.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
maximum likelihood
In F329 statistics
Fitting a model's parameters by choosing the values that make the observed data most probable under the model. Excludes choosing parameters by hand or by fit to the test data.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
mean rank
In F183 benchmarking statistics
Each method's rank on each function by median final error, averaged over the seven functions; 1 is best and 10 is worst. Excludes how large the differences in error are.
mean-field recursion
In F190 population genetics
An exact formula for next generation's producer share in the mixed arm, used here as a known answer the simulation must match. Excludes the local and shuffled arms, which have no such formula.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
memorisation
In F515 machine learning; in evaluation also called training-data contamination
A model's ability to predict a specific text because that text, or close copies of it, was in its training data, as distinct from predicting text of the same kind it has not seen. Excludes any claim about how the model stores the text internally.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
meta-analysis
In F166 statistics, research synthesis
The statistical pooling of published estimates of one quantity into a summary and a measure of their spread. Excludes collecting new data.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
metaheuristic
In F183 optimisation
A general recipe for searching for the minimum of a function by sampling and updating a set of candidate points, used when the function gives no gradient or has many local minima. Excludes exact methods that come with a proof of finding the minimum.
mixed arm
In F190 our usage for this study
The version of the model in which every cell gains from the producer share of the whole population and parents are drawn from the whole population, so neighbours mean nothing. Excludes any spatial structure.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
modularity
In F23 network science
Newman's Q: how far links fall inside groups of nodes rather than between groups, beyond what random links with the same degrees would give; here the best of 20 Louvain runs. Excludes spatial clumping of samples, which can produce modules without any network structure.
moved-values arm
In F362 research method, our usage
The same coverage count repeated after dropping every quantity whose value did not change between the two editions, since an unchanged value counts as covered whatever its stated uncertainty. Excludes a test of whether the unchanged values were right.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
moving-block bootstrap
In F97 statistics
An interval made by recomputing a statistic many times on years resampled in runs of consecutive years, here 10, so that year-to-year correlation is kept inside each run. Excludes resampling single years as if they were independent.
In F132 statistics
An interval made by resampling whole 2 degree blocks of sites with replacement, so that neighbouring sites that share climate move together and the interval is not too narrow. Excludes a bootstrap over single sites, and a binomial interval that treats sites as independent.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 statistics
An interval made by resampling whole 2 degree blocks of sites with replacement, here 2,000 times, so that neighbouring sites that share climate move together and the interval is not too narrow. Excludes a bootstrap over single sites, and a binomial interval that treats sites as independent.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
mutual information
In F114 information theory
The reduction in uncertainty about one variable from knowing another, in bits, which counts any dependence and not only linear dependence. Excludes a measure of the size of a slope or of causation.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
mycorrhiza
In F23 mycology and plant ecology
A root tip of a plant enclosed by a fungus that lives with it, the fungus taking sugars from the plant and passing it water and soil nutrients; here the tuberculate root tips that Rhizopogon fungi form on Douglas-fir. Excludes fungi that rot wood or cause disease, and fungal threads in the soil away from a root.
N-gram entropy
In F508 information theory, after Shannon 1951
The uncertainty of the next letter when the N minus 1 letters before it are known, averaged over the text; Shannon wrote it F with a subscript N, so F1 uses single-letter counts, F2 one letter of context and F3 two. Excludes the entropy of the language as a whole, which is the limit as N grows.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
needed multiple
In F362 metrology, our usage; a coverage factor fitted after the fact
The multiple of the stated sigma that would have covered 68.27 or 95.45 percent of the later values; it is the matching percentile of the shifts in units of the earlier sigma, written k68 and k95. Excludes a factor known before the later values were published.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
negative binomial model
In F149 statistics (count regression)
A regression for counts whose variance can exceed their mean, fitted here with a log link so that the fitted rate changes by a fixed factor per year. Excludes models that weight each year by how many citations it holds.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
nestedness (NODF)
In F23 network ecology
The degree to which the partners of poorly linked nodes are a subset of the partners of well linked nodes, scored from 0 to 100 by the NODF index (nestedness based on overlap and decreasing fill). Excludes modules, which are groups of nodes linked mostly among themselves.
net density
In F147 photographic sensitometry
Optical density above the film's base and fog, so that unexposed film reads zero. Excludes the density of the base and the fog themselves.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
Newton's rings
In F14 optics
The bright and dark circles seen where a curved lens rests on flat glass, made by light reflected from the two faces of the thin air gap between them, whose thickness grows with distance from the point of contact. Excludes rings made by diffraction at an edge or an aperture.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
no free lunch
In F183 optimisation theory, after Wolpert and Macready
The result that, averaged over all possible functions, every search method that never revisits a point does equally well, so any advantage on one class of functions is paid for on another. Excludes claims about any one class of functions, such as the test functions here.
node-label permutation
In F152 statistics (permutation test)
Shuffling which concept sits at which node of the training graph, so the graph's shape stays and its link to the real concepts is broken. Excludes any change to the shape of the graph.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
noise ceiling
In F47 measurement theory and computational neuroscience
The best held-out score any model could reach on a target, given how far repeated measurements of that same target disagree; it is estimated from the data's own repeats. Excludes the best score reached so far by any model, and a bound set by missing variables.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
noise-equivalent quanta (NEQ)
In F147 imaging science
The number of photons a perfect detector would need to give the same signal-to-noise ratio as the real output. Excludes the number of photons that arrived.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
null distribution
Across the findings statistics
The spread of scores a control gives over many random draws; its 95th percentile is the bar a real score must clear. Excludes a theoretical distribution assumed rather than drawn from the data.
Used in F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
obliquity
In F14 optics, in Newton's usage
The angle between the light's path and the perpendicular to the glass; Newton's table gives it twice, once inside the glass and once in the air gap. Excludes the tilt of the glass itself, which stays fixed.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
odds ratio per SD
In F23 statistics
The factor by which the odds of the outcome change when a feature rises by one standard deviation and the other features stay fixed; 1 means no change. Excludes a ratio of probabilities, and a causal effect.
OEIS
In F308 mathematics (reference databases)
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, a public database of number sequences in which each entry carries the first terms, formulas, comments and links contributed by many people. Excludes a peer-reviewed journal; a line in an entry is a contribution, and a conjecture line in it carries no proof.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
offset
In F166 regression
A part of the prediction fixed in advance and never refitted; here the fitted CPT log odds, so an added term can only explain what CPT leaves over. Excludes refitting CPT together with the added term.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
one-step skill
In F76 forecast verification
One minus the mean squared error of one-step-ahead forecasts on the test half, divided by the test half's variance; 0 matches forecasting the mean and 1 is perfect. Excludes skill at longer horizons and skill measured on the data used to fit the model.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
onset-locked tail
In F39 audio signal processing (our measure)
For each note onset found in the energy envelope, the time constant of the envelope's decay from its peak to the next minimum, with the median taken over onsets; it follows whichever of the note's own decay and the room's decay is slower. Excludes the reverberation time of the room on its own, which this measure cannot separate in dense music.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
order-2 Markov chain
In F508 probability
A random text in which each symbol depends only on the two symbols before it, through a fixed table of probabilities, so its entropy per symbol can be computed exactly. Excludes real text, whose dependence reaches further back.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
order-shuffle control
In F310 our usage, a permutation control
Each system rebuilt from its own innermost period and its own gaps in log period, put in a random order, and scored with the same form and freedom as the real system. Excludes gaps borrowed from other systems, which the pooled-gap control uses.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
out-of-fold prediction
In F32 machine learning, cross-validation
A prediction for each item made from a fit on the other folds only. Excludes any use of the item's own outcome to predict it.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
overlapping windows
In F320 signal processing
Fixed-length stretches cut from a recording at a step shorter than their length, so that neighbouring windows share samples; here 60 s windows every 15 s share 75 percent of their samples. Excludes windows cut end to end with no shared samples.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
p value (from draws)
Across the findings statistics
The share of control draws scoring at or above the real score, with one added to the count and to the number of draws, so it is never zero. Excludes a p value from a textbook formula that assumes a distribution.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)
In F63 climatology and hydrology
A monthly index of soil-moisture supply against demand built from temperature and precipitation; 0 is normal, -2 is moderate drought and -3 or lower is severe drought. Excludes a direct measurement of soil water, and drought indices built on precipitation alone.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
panel
In F675 statistics and econometrics
A set of units, here tree-ring sites, each observed over time and analysed together so that one statistic summarises all of them. Excludes a verdict reached site by site, and a pooled regression that treats all years of all sites as one series.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
panel direction index
In F675 time-series statistics, our usage
The mean over sites of d, the z-score of the climate-to-ring Granger test minus that of the ring-to-climate test; positive values point from summer temperature to ring width. Excludes a test of significance at any one site.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
paper bootstrap
In F329 statistics
An interval made by recomputing a statistic 2,000 times on held-out papers drawn with replacement, so subjects from one paper stay together. Excludes resampling single subjects as if they were independent.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
paper-level sign permutation test
In F329 statistics
A test that sums each held-out paper's difference in log loss between two models, then flips the sign of each paper's difference at random 5,000 times to see how often a sum as large arises with no true difference. Excludes a test that treats subjects within one paper as independent.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
parallel forms
In F47 psychometrics
Two items meant to measure the same thing, answered at the same time; their correlation estimates reliability, here happy and cheerful at the same beep. Excludes the same item repeated later, which also picks up real change.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
parser whitelist
In F308 computer science (parsing)
A rule that turns each line into a syntax tree and accepts it only if every part is on a fixed list: integers, n, the terms a(n-k), addition, subtraction, multiplication and powers. Excludes any line that needs division, sums, named functions or words to state.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
partial correlation
In F39 statistics
The correlation between two quantities after each has had the linear effect of a set of control variables removed by least squares. Excludes a causal effect, and any non-linear dependence on the controls.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
partial correlation
In F50 statistics
The correlation between two quantities after the linear effect of a set of covariates has been removed from both. Excludes adjustment for covariates that were not measured, and any statement about cause.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
partial Spearman rho
In F23 statistics
The Spearman correlation between two quantities after the ranks of a third, here the number of root tips sampled per tree, have been regressed out of both. Excludes a causal effect, and a correction that is known to be the right size.
payback length
In F515 our usage, after the two-part code of minimum description length
The number of characters a model must compress before the bits it saves over another compressor add up to the size of the model itself, when the model has to be sent along with the message. Excludes a compression ratio on one text, which ignores the cost of the model.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
Pearson r
In F27 statistics
The correlation coefficient between two quantities measured on the same units, from -1 through 0 for no linear relation to 1. Excludes non-linear relations and any statement about cause.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
peas in a pod
In F310 exoplanet surveys
The pattern, reported from Kepler data, that planets inside one system tend to be alike in size and in the ratios between neighbouring periods. Excludes a rule for the order of the gaps, and any likeness between planets of different systems.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
perceived emotion
In F39 music psychology
The emotion a listener judges the music to express, as opposed to the emotion the listener feels. Excludes felt or induced emotion, physiological response and any change in mood or symptoms.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
person bootstrap
In F27 statistics (resampling)
An interval found by drawing people with replacement many times, recomputing the statistic each time, and taking the middle of the resulting spread. Excludes resampling of single prompts, which would treat one person's prompts as independent.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
phase randomisation
In F97 time-series statistics, surrogate data
A copy of a series with the same power spectrum and random Fourier phases, so it keeps the series' autocorrelation and loses its timing against any other series. Excludes shuffling years, which also destroys the autocorrelation.
In F114 time-series statistics, surrogate data
A copy of a series with the same power spectrum and random Fourier phases, so it keeps the series' autocorrelation and loses its timing against any other series. Excludes shuffling years, which also destroys the autocorrelation.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
phase-randomised surrogate
In F76 nonlinear time-series analysis (surrogate data)
A copy of a series with the same power spectrum and random Fourier phases, so it keeps the autocorrelation and is Gaussian and stationary by construction. Excludes shuffling in time, which also destroys the spectrum.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
photon noise
In F81 physics of light detection
The random variation in how many photons a receptor absorbs, which every real receptor has and which matters most when the catch is small; added here as a term that falls with the catch. Excludes noise in the nerve cells after the receptors.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
placebo window
In F63 statistics and econometrics
The same test run with the exposure window placed after the event, years 5 to 12 later, where no causal effect is possible, so that any effect found there points to a flaw in the design. Excludes a control on the outcome data.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
Planck energy
In F281 physics
The energy built from the constant of gravitation, Planck's constant and the speed of light, about 1.22e19 GeV; many quantum-gravity models expect new effects near it. Excludes any energy reached by a particle accelerator, which is about fifteen powers of ten lower.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
planted check
Across the findings research method; called a positive control in experimental science
Data built so that the right answer is known, run through the same analysis before the real data, to show that the analysis can see the effect when it is there. Excludes any check made on the real data, which cannot show what the analysis misses.
Used in F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
planted shared shift
In F320 research method, our usage
A fixed amount added to one feature in every stress window of every person in planted data, in the same direction for all, so that a classifier tested on a new person has something real to find. Excludes the per-person, per-block offsets, which point in a random direction and carry nothing from one person to the next.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
plug-in estimate
In F508 statistics
An entropy computed by putting the observed relative frequencies of a sample straight into the entropy formula, with no correction for the size of the sample. Excludes corrected estimators that add a term for unseen or rare events.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
Poisson threshold model
In F147 photographic science and visual physiology
A model in which each grain, or each rod cell, responds once it has absorbed at least n photons, with photon counts following Poisson statistics; n is the hit number. Excludes models in which response grows smoothly with every photon.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
pooled-gap control
In F310 our usage, a resampling control
Each system rebuilt from gaps in log period drawn at random from all systems' gaps, and scored with the same form and freedom as the real system. Excludes planets or gaps from outside the 122 systems in the sample.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
positive control
In F32 experimental design
A test of an effect already known to be present, which the instrument must detect for its other readings to be trusted. Excludes a shuffle control, which removes an effect instead.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F50 experimental design
A test of a known effect run through the same pipeline, to show that the pipeline can find an effect of the expected kind. Excludes shuffled controls, which show what no effect looks like.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
post hoc control
In F515 research method
A control added after the first results were seen; it can test an explanation but carries less weight than a control fixed in advance, because the choice of control could follow the result. Excludes controls named in the preregistration.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
power law (scale-free)
In F23 network science
A degree distribution whose tail falls as a fixed power of the degree, so that a few nodes have very many links; a network with such a tail is called scale-free. Excludes skewed distributions with an exponential tail, which also have a few well linked nodes.
power spectrum
In F76 time-series analysis and signal processing
How a series' variance is spread over frequencies, from slow swings to fast jitter. Excludes the timing or phase of the swings, which the spectrum does not record.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
PPM
In F515 data compression
Prediction by partial matching, a compressor that predicts each character from counts of what followed the same preceding characters, falling back to shorter contexts when a longer one has not been seen; here method C with exclusion and contexts of up to 5 characters. Excludes models with learned weights, such as neural language models.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
precision in the top 200
In F152 information retrieval
The share of a ranker's 200 highest-scored unlinked pairs that turn out to be targets. Excludes how the ranker orders pairs below the top 200.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
prediction market
In F32 economics and forecasting
A market in which people trade contracts that pay on an outcome, with the price read as a probability. Excludes the individual survey forecasts analysed in this paper.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
preferential attachment
In F152 network science
A ranking of unlinked pairs by the product of the two concepts' degrees, so the most popular pairs come first. Excludes any use of which neighbours the two concepts share.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
Prelec weighting function
In F166 decision theory
A two-parameter probability weighting function, exp of minus delta times minus log p to the power gamma, that sets the curvature and the crossing point of the curve separately. Excludes the one-parameter Tversky and Kahneman function used in CPT.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
preregistration
Across the findings research method (metascience)
A dated written plan for a study, fixed and hash-locked before any result is seen: the question, the data, the statistic, the controls, the forecasts and the kill conditions. Excludes a plan revised after looking at the outcome, and a protocol written only for the record after the run.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended, F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high, F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
prior-summer coefficient
In F675 dendroclimatology
The slope on the previous year's summer temperature in a regression of this year's ring width on this year's and last year's summer temperature. Excludes the same-year slope, and any effect of the ring's own past unless it is added to the regression.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
private reporting task (die-under-the-cup)
In F329 experimental economics and psychology
An experiment in which a person observes a random outcome in private, such as a die roll or coin toss, reports it, and is paid by the report, so a lie pays and cannot be caught for any one person; lying shows only in the distribution of many reports. Excludes tasks where the experimenter can see each person's true outcome.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
probability weighting function
In F166 behavioural economics
A function that maps a stated probability to the weight a choice gives it, so that small chances can count for more than their size and large ones for less. Excludes a person's belief about the odds, which in these problems are stated.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
producer and cheater
In F190 social evolution
A producer pays a cost to make the public good; a cheater makes none and still gains from the goods of producers near it. Excludes any intention on either side; the words name two fixed strategies.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
proper scoring rule
In F32 decision theory and forecast verification
A score for probability forecasts on which a forecaster does best in expectation by stating their true belief. Excludes scores that pay for shading a forecast toward some answer, and any rule for which questions to answer.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
proxy truth
In F362 research method, our usage
A value fixed in advance and used in place of the unknown true value where no later edition settles it; here three values of the Hubble constant, 67.4, 70 and 73 km/s/Mpc, each reported on its own. Excludes a claim that any of the three is the true value.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
public good
In F190 social evolution and economics
A product that costs its maker something and benefits others nearby, such as an enzyme or iron-scavenging molecule a microbe releases into its surroundings. Excludes products the maker keeps for itself.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
quantum catch
In F81 vision science
The number of photons a receptor class absorbs from a surface, the sum over wavelength of reflectance times light times the receptor's sensitivity, here divided by the catch from a perfect white under the same light. Excludes the brightness a viewer reports.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
quasi-Poisson fit
In F149 statistics (count regression)
A log-linear count regression whose standard errors are scaled by the observed spread, used here for the within-study model. Excludes a full probability model for the counts.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
random forest
In F320 machine learning
A classifier that averages many decision trees, each grown on a resampled copy of the training data with a random subset of features tried at each split; here 100 trees with at least 3 windows per leaf. Excludes any model tuned on the test person.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
random split over windows
In F320 machine learning evaluation; called record-wise cross-validation in the clinical literature
Assigning windows to training and test sets at random, so that windows from the same person and the same recording block fall on both sides. Excludes any split that keeps all of one person's data on one side.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
rank-dependent weights
In F166 decision theory
Decision weights that depend on where an outcome ranks among a gamble's outcomes, taken as differences of the weighting function at cumulative probabilities. Excludes weighting each outcome's probability on its own, as the original 1979 prospect theory did.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
rebuilt denominator
In F149 our usage in this study
The number of citations a focal study received in a year, recovered by finding the whole number n for which a published count k gives the deposited rate k over n. Excludes a count read directly from any source; years with a rate of zero share what remains of the study's total and are the least certain.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
receptor class
In F81 vision science
One kind of light-sensitive cell in the eye, defined by the wavelengths it responds to; humans have three cone classes, bees three including one for ultraviolet, blue tits four. Excludes the rods used in dim light, and the nerve cells that compare receptor signals.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
receptor-noise-limited model
In F81 visual ecology
The model of Vorobyev and Osorio in which two colours can be told apart when the difference in log receptor signals is large compared with the noise in each receptor class; brightness differences are left out. Excludes models of colour appearance, and any effect of pattern, motion or learning.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
recovery
In F27 affective science (our operational form)
The median, over a person's spikes, of the share of each spike's distance from the person's mean that has gone by the next prompt, with 1 meaning back at the mean and 0 meaning no change. Excludes recovery measured in clock time, and recovery after events that did not produce a spike.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
reduction of error (RE)
In F114 dendroclimatology
The same as the coefficient of efficiency, except that the reference is the mean of the calibration years, so it rewards getting a shift in mean right. Excludes a score computed on the years used to fit the model.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
reflectance spectrum
In F81 optics and visual ecology
The share of light a surface reflects at each wavelength, here measured from 300 to 700 nm, which includes the ultraviolet below 400 nm. Excludes the colour a viewer sees, which also depends on the light and the eye.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
reflexive forecast
In F47 economics and social science
A published forecast that the forecast population reads and reacts to, so that publishing it changes the outcome it predicts. Excludes a forecast kept private from the people it describes.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
relative Brier score
In F32 forecast verification, our usage
A forecaster's mean, over the questions they answered, of their first-forecast Brier score minus the median first-forecast Brier score on that question; lower is better. Excludes the difficulty of the question, which subtracting the median removes.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
relative density
In F23 wood science and decomposition ecology
The apparent density of a log tissue at a sampling time divided by the same log's density of that tissue when the log was laid out in 1985. Excludes mass loss and carbon loss, which also count the volume a log loses as it fragments.
resting-state functional connectivity
In F50 neuroimaging
The correlation over time between the blood-oxygen signals of two brain regions while a person lies in the scanner with no task. Excludes anatomical connections, activity evoked by a task, and the direction of any influence between regions.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
ridge regression
In F47 statistics
Least squares with a penalty on the size of the coefficients, chosen by leave-one-out error, so that many variables can be fitted without chasing noise. Excludes non-linear models such as boosted trees or neural networks.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
right-ascension scramble
In F344 astroparticle physics (anisotropy searches)
A control sky made by keeping each event's declination and giving it a random right ascension; the Earth's rotation makes a ground array's exposure nearly even in right ascension, so the scramble keeps the exposure and removes any pattern. Excludes a fully random sky, which would ignore the detector's exposure.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
ring channel
In F114 dendrochronology, our usage after the channel of information theory
One quantity measured in every annual ring of a site's trees and kept as a yearly series: ring width, earlywood width, latewood width, minimum density or maximum latewood density. Excludes a climate variable, and a combination of several measured quantities.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
risk-coverage curve
In F32 machine learning, selective prediction
The error on kept items against the share kept; here risk is the mean Brier score of kept forecasts and coverage the share kept. Excludes any score for the forecasts withheld.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
rms granularity
In F147 photographic sensitometry
The standard deviation of density read through a small round aperture scanned across a uniformly exposed patch; Kodak's sheets use a 48 micrometre aperture. Excludes how grainy the image looks to a viewer, and noise measured at other apertures.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
root mean square residual
In F310 statistics
The square root of the mean squared difference between fitted and observed log period across a system's planets, a measure of scatter about the fit. Excludes any offset or trend the fit has already absorbed into its parameters.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
rung
Across the findings our findings ladder
Where a claim stands logically: lead, hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, theorem, law candidate, or killed. Excludes how ready the write-up is, which the tier records.
Not yet used on a findings page.
s and p polarisation
In F14 optics
The two directions of the light's electric field relative to the plane that holds the ray and the perpendicular to the surface: s across that plane and p within it; unpolarised light is their average. Excludes circular polarisation, which this study does not model.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
sampling ceiling
In F166 our usage, after reliability analysis
One minus the mean sampling variance of the observed rates over their variance across problems: the share of variance not explained by finite samples of participants. Excludes noise of other kinds, such as the structured decision noise reported for these data.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
sampling frame
In F308 survey statistics
The list from which a sample is drawn; a result describes the frame, so a change of frame changes what the result is about. Excludes the sample itself.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
saturating curve
In F47 curve fitting
The curve s(k) = a k / (k + h) fitted to skill above chance against the number of variables k, where a is the level it approaches. Excludes a forecast of skill with variables not in the dataset.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
search box
In F183 optimisation
The allowed region, here every coordinate between -100 and 100; a method may only propose and keep points inside it. Excludes constraints other than simple bounds on each coordinate.
secant law
In F14 thin-film optics
The statement that the air thickness at which a given ring appears grows as one over the cosine of the light's angle in the air gap, scaled here so that perpendicular light gives 10. Excludes any rule built from the angle in the glass.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended
selection model
In F172 meta-analysis and statistics
A model of observed results that writes down both a distribution of true effects and the rule by which results get seen, here the rule that only originals with z above 1.96 in absolute value are seen, and fits both together. Excludes a model that takes the observed results as an unselected sample.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
selective prediction
In F32 machine learning
Prediction with a reject option, where a system answers only the inputs it ranks most likely to be right and declines the rest. Excludes how the kept answers are produced.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
self-benefit
In F190 social evolution
The part of a producer's own goods that returns to the producer itself; with a 3 by 3 box a producer keeps a ninth of what it makes. Excludes benefit from the goods of other producers, including relatives.
Not yet used on a findings page.
self-calibrating PDSI (scPDSI)
In F63 climatology
A version of the Palmer index whose constants are fitted to each location's own climate, so that the thresholds mean similar rarity everywhere; here taken from the CRU TS gridded product at 0.5 degree. Excludes the original Palmer index with fixed constants, and station measurements.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
In F97 climatology and hydrology
A monthly drought index computed from temperature and precipitation through a simple soil water balance, with its constants calibrated to each location so values compare across places. Excludes a direct measurement of soil moisture or of streamflow.
separable covariance
In F97 space-time statistics
A covariance that factors into a function of distance times a function of time lag, so the spatial pattern of correlation has the same shape at every lag. Excludes fields whose anomalies travel or whose broad and fine patterns fade at different rates.
separation ratio
In F81 our usage
Among pairs one observer cannot separate, the share of flower-background pairs a second observer separates divided by the share of background-background pairs it separates; 1 means flowers gain nothing over the background. Excludes how far apart the pairs are for the second observer.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
SHA-256
In F32 cryptography
A hash function that turns a file into a 64-character fingerprint which changes if any byte changes; a recorded hash shows the file was not altered after it was taken. Excludes encryption, because the hash keeps nothing secret and cannot be turned back into the file.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F310 cryptography
A hash function that turns a file into a 64-character fingerprint which changes if any byte of the file changes; a recorded hash shows the file was not edited after it was taken. Excludes encryption, because the hash keeps nothing secret and cannot be turned back into the file.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
Shannon entropy
In F166 information theory
Minus the sum of p log2 p over a gamble's outcomes, in bits: how uncertain the outcome is before it happens, 0 for a sure thing. Excludes the sizes of the payoffs.
Used in F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems
shift in units of the earlier sigma
In F362 statistics, our usage; called a normalised residual in metrology
The size of the change in a quantity's value between an earlier and a later edition of a table, divided by the uncertainty stated in the earlier edition. Excludes the sign of the change, and any uncertainty in the later value.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
shift penalty
In F183 our usage for this study
For one method, the median over the seven functions of how many decades its median error grows when the function moves from the unshifted arm to the shifted arm. Excludes effects of the rotation alone, which the design does not separate from the shift.
shifted arm
In F183 our usage for this study
The version of each test function whose minimum is moved to a random point with every coordinate between -70 and 70 and whose axes are turned by a random rotation, the same for every method within one repeat. Excludes the unshifted arm, with the minimum at the centre and the axes aligned.
shuffled arm
In F190 our usage for this study
The version of the model in which all positions are shuffled at random before each generation and the local rules then apply, so neighbours are strangers. Excludes the clustering of relatives that the local arm allows.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
Siedentopf's rule
In F147 photographic science
The classic statement that the variance of density grows in proportion to the mean density, so that rms granularity grows as its square root. Excludes Selwyn's law, which concerns the size of the measuring aperture.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
sign-flip permutation test
In F172 statistics
A test that sums the per-project differences between two forecasts' scores, then flips the sign of each project's difference at random many times, here 4,000, to see how often a sum as large arises with no true difference. Excludes a test that treats rows inside one project as independent.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
significance filter (winner's curse)
In F172 metascience and statistics
The selection of published results by a significance threshold, which lets lucky overestimates through more often than underestimates, so the published effects of a set of studies are on average larger than the true ones. Excludes deliberate misconduct, which the filter neither requires nor detects.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
site bootstrap
In F114 statistics
An interval made by recomputing a network mean many times on sites drawn with replacement from the panel, so the spread reflects differences between sites. Excludes an interval over years or over model refits at one site.
Used in F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits
skip
In F32 our usage
A closed question that was open during a forecaster's active window in a year and that they never answered, inferred from the data. Excludes questions outside the active window, and any recorded decision to decline, which the data do not hold.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
slenderness
In F23 forestry and tree biomechanics
Tree height divided by stem diameter at breast height, both in the same units. Excludes the height-to-diameter ratio measured at the base of the stem.
smallest effect of interest
In F50 statistics (equivalence testing)
The size of effect, fixed before the data are seen, below which an effect is treated as too small to matter for the decision at hand; here a correlation of 0.20 in size. Excludes a claim that smaller effects are zero.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
space band
In F97 signal processing on irregular sites, our usage
The part of a field that varies between two spatial scales, taken as the difference of two Gaussian smoothings of the site values with the two scales as widths; the six bands add back to the field. Excludes an exact wavenumber, because the bands overlap and the sites are irregular.
Spearman rho
In F23 statistics
The correlation between the ranks of two quantities, from -1 to 1, which counts any steadily rising or falling relation and is not pulled by single extreme values. Excludes the slope of a relation, and evidence of cause.
In F32 rank statistics
The correlation between the ranks of two quantities, from -1 to +1, which reads any steady rise or fall. Excludes the shape of the relation and the pull of outliers on the raw values.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
In F76 statistics (rank correlation)
The correlation between the ranks of two quantities across cases; 1 means the same order, 0 no relation of order. Excludes agreement in size, since two quantities can share an order and differ in scale.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
Spearman rho
In F320 statistics
The correlation between the ranks of two quantities; it runs from -1 to 1 and measures how well one quantity's order follows the other's, whatever the shape of the relation. Excludes the size of the change, and any causal direction.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
spectral flatness
In F76 signal processing (speech coding) and the theory of stationary processes
The geometric mean of a power spectrum divided by its arithmetic mean; it is 1 for white noise and near 0 when a few frequencies hold most of the variance. Excludes flatness of the series itself in time, and measures that use the spectrum's entropy instead of its geometric mean.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
spectral sensitivity
In F147 photographic sensitometry
For each wavelength, the reciprocal of the exposure energy per unit area needed to reach a stated net density, here 0.2. Excludes sensitivity to white light or to a named illuminant.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part
spectral slope
In F39 audio signal processing
The slope of log power against log frequency between 110 Hz and 5.5 kHz; a more negative slope means energy leans toward low frequencies and the sound is darker. Excludes pitch, loudness and the shape of the spectrum beyond its overall tilt.
Used in F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part
spike
In F27 our usage
A lead prompt whose mood sits at least 1.5 of the person's own standard deviations from the person's own mean. Excludes deviations judged against other people or against a population norm.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
split-half reliability
In F27 psychometrics
The correlation across people between a measure computed on one half of each person's data and the same measure on the other half; here the halves are odd and even study days. Excludes test-retest reliability over months, and the validity of the measure.
Used in F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits
In F47 psychometrics
The correlation between scores computed on two halves of the same items, here a forecaster's accuracy on the odd and the even questions. Excludes agreement between different people or different occasions.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
squared coherence
In F97 spectral analysis
The share of one series' variance in a frequency band that a linear filter of the other series can account for, between 0 and 1; here pooled over sites and years in each space and time band and called the passed share. Excludes a nonlinear dependence, and the size of the response, which the gain measures.
STAI, six-item form
In F320 psychology
A short form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory in which a person rates six statements about how they feel at that moment; positive items are reverse scored so that a higher total means more anxiety. Excludes a clinical diagnosis, and anxiety as a lasting trait.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
stakes elasticity
In F329 behavioural economics, our parametrisation
The parameter epsilon in a stakes factor (G/5) to the power 1 minus epsilon, where G is the money at stake; at epsilon 1 the size of the payment has no effect on reports, and at 0 the pull to lie grows in proportion to the payment. Excludes the effect of payment on whether people take part.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
standard chronology
In F63 dendrochronology
One yearly ring-width index for a site, made by removing each tree's age trend and averaging the trees, scaled so that an ordinary year is near 1. Excludes raw ring widths of single trees, and density or isotope records.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
In F97 dendrochronology
One yearly series for a site, built by dating many cores, removing each core's age and size trend and averaging the results into a dimensionless index. Excludes a single core's raw ring widths, and a climate reconstruction made from the series.
standardised report
In F329 experimental economics; the measure Abeler, Nosenzo and Raymond report, computed here by our own code
The mean report of a treatment after the outcomes are mapped evenly onto -1 for the lowest-paying report and +1 for the highest, so honest reporting gives 0 in expectation and everyone claiming the top gives 1; here averaged over treatments without weights. Excludes a share of liars, which the mean alone does not give.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
standing
Across the findings our findings ledger, after the citators used in law (KeyCite, Shepard's)
What later records did to a finding: held, extended, narrowed, questioned, refuted, retracted or superseded, computed from those records and never set by hand. Excludes the finding's own verdict at the time it was run.
Not yet used on a findings page.
stated 1 sigma uncertainty
In F362 metrology (the standard uncertainty of the GUM) and physics data tables
The plus-or-minus a table prints beside a value, meant as one standard deviation of the value's error; for a normal error the interval of one sigma either side holds the truth 68.27 percent of the time and two sigma 95.45 percent. Excludes an expanded uncertainty already multiplied by a coverage factor, and any bound meant to hold always.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
statistical power
In F50 statistics
The chance that a test detects an effect of a stated size, given the sample size and the threshold for significance. Excludes the chance that a detected effect is real.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
statistical power
In F149 statistics
The chance that a test detects an effect of a given size when that effect is real, measured here on planted data with a known doubling. Excludes the chance that an effect is real given that the test detected it.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
In F344 statistics
The share of planted skies, each with a pattern of known strength, in which the search finds the pattern at its preregistered threshold. Excludes the chance that a pattern exists in the real sky.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
steeling
In F63 psychology and stress biology, here applied to trees
The idea that a moderate earlier stress leaves an organism better able to cope with a later, harder one; here, that a tree which lived through a moderate drought loses less growth to a later severe drought. Excludes recovery from the same drought, and any gain that follows only from how the growth indices are computed.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
stratum
In F32 survey statistics
A group of units alike on the matched variables, here year and twentieth of forecast count, inside which a statistic is computed before averaging. Excludes control for variables that were not matched.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
strong variable
In F47 our usage in this study
A variable of a different kind from the base set, named for each target before the run: past behaviour of the same unit, or a human rating of a related quantity. Excludes one more variable of the kind already in the base set.
Used in F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling
Student t distribution and its tail index nu
In F362 statistics
A bell-shaped family with heavier tails than the normal curve; its degrees of freedom nu set the tail weight, so small nu means large shifts are common, nu of 1 is the Cauchy distribution and nu without limit is the normal curve. Excludes skewed or bounded shapes.
Used in F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part
study resampling
In F149 statistics (cluster bootstrap)
Drawing focal studies with replacement, refitting the model each time, and taking the middle 95 percent of the refitted ratios as the interval. Excludes resampling single study-years, which would ignore that citations of one study move together.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
study-year rate
In F149 our usage for the deposited table
The share of one focal study's citations in one calendar year that were coded unsupported, as stored in the deposit without its denominator. Excludes a count of citations, which the deposit does not hold.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
superteam
In F32 the Good Judgment Project design
A team made up of forecasters drawn from the top performers of the previous tournament year (condition 5). Excludes ordinary teams (condition 4), formed without selection on past accuracy.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
surface gravity (of a horizon)
In F281 analogue gravity, after black-hole physics
The slope of the flow speed at the acoustic horizon; it sets how fast a trapped wave's wavelength is stretched. Excludes the pull of gravity at a planet's surface.
Used in F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part
synchronous update
In F190 simulation
Every cell of the grid is replaced at once in each generation, from the fitnesses of the previous generation. Excludes asynchronous updating, where one cell at a time is replaced.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
TAP service
In F310 astronomical data services
The Table Access Protocol of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance, the standard query interface through which astronomical archives return table rows. Excludes any selection or cleaning of the rows, which the query itself sets.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
tapered periodogram
In F76 spectral estimation
The squared Fourier transform of a series after its ends are faded with a Hann window, used as a raw estimate of the power spectrum at each Fourier frequency. Excludes smoothed or averaged spectrum estimates such as Welch's method, which we report only as secondaries.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
target
In F152 our usage for this study
A pair of concepts never linked in the training slices that appears together in at least two documents of the next slice. Excludes pairs that appear together only once in the test slice, and any check that the later pairing is true.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
test function
In F183 optimisation benchmarking
A formula with a known minimum, chosen to be easy or hard in a known way, on which optimisers are compared by how close they get. Excludes real engineering problems, whose minimum is unknown.
test-retest correlation
In F32 psychometrics
The correlation between one person's value in one year and the same person's value in the next, a measure of how stable the quantity is. Excludes change caused by anything the person did between the two years.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
three-part reading
In F329 experimental economics, after Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi
A split of a report distribution into honest reporters, read as the number of outcomes times the share reporting the lowest outcome, maximal liars, the excess at the top over the honest share, and partial liars, the rest. Excludes an observation of any person's lie; it assumes the true outcomes are uniform and that no one lies downward on purpose.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
tier
Across the findings our publication register
How ready a finding is to publish: A candidate, B signal worth expanding (B* strong), C internal, D honest null worth reporting, E not reliable as it stands. Excludes a measure of how large or how true an effect is.
Used in F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
time band
In F97 spectral analysis
The part of a yearly series whose period lies between two limits, kept by masking its Fourier transform. Excludes a moving average or a fitted trend.
time reversal
In F132 time-series analysis
The same test run on both series read backwards in time; a method that reads direction from lag order should weaken or flip. Excludes a control on coupling strength.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
In F675 time-series analysis
The same test run on both series read backwards in time; a method that reads direction from lag order should flip. Excludes a control on coupling strength.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
time slice
In F152 forecast evaluation
One of five blocks of equal document count cut from a corpus ordered by date; a fold trains on the early slices and tests on the next one. Excludes random splits, which let later documents inform the training graph.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
time-shift null
In F63 time-series statistics, surrogate data
A control in which each drought record is moved in time by a random offset of 20 years or more, with the end wrapped round to the start, and the events rebuilt; it keeps each record's own pattern of droughts and breaks its timing against the rings. Excludes shuffling single years, which also destroys the drought record's own pattern.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
Titius-Bode rule
In F310 planetary astronomy
Any formula that places a system's planets at distances or periods growing by a near-constant ratio from one planet to the next, here fitted in three forms to the log of orbital period. Excludes a physical model of how planets form or migrate.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
token
In F515 natural language processing
The unit a language model reads and predicts, a whole word, part of a word or a single character taken from a fixed vocabulary of tens of thousands of pieces. Excludes a character or a byte.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
torus grid
In F190 simulation
A square grid whose opposite edges are joined, so every cell has the same number of neighbours and there is no border. Excludes grids with edges, where border cells have fewer neighbours.
Used in F190, Our model of cooperation on a grid had been rewarding selfishness
training-average baseline
In F329 forecast verification, where it is called climatology
A forecast that gives each held-out treatment the average report distribution of training treatments with the same number of outcomes. Excludes any theory of why people report as they do.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
transfer entropy
In F132 information theory (Schreiber 2000)
The information, in bits, that the past of one series adds about the next value of a second series beyond what the second series' own past already gives; a larger value one way than the other is commonly read as the direction of influence. Excludes plain correlation or mutual information, which are the same in both directions, and any proof of a physical cause.
Used in F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned
transfer penalty
In F508 our usage, from machine learning practice on domain shift
The extra log loss a reader pays on another kind of text compared with a reader trained on that kind of text, both scored on the same held-out passage. Excludes the difference in difficulty between two texts read by their own readers.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high
transit survey
In F310 observational astronomy
A search that finds planets by the small dip in a star's light as a planet crosses its disc, which favours short periods and orbits seen close to edge-on. Excludes planets found only by other methods, such as radial velocity or direct imaging.
Used in F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part
tremble
In F329 game theory and behavioural economics
A parameter that mixes a share of uniformly random reports into a model's prediction, standing for mistakes and inattention; in these models it is the only source of downward lies. Excludes a preference, since the tremble does not depend on payoffs.
Used in F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
Trier Social Stress Test
In F320 psychology and psychoneuroendocrinology
A laboratory stressor in which a person prepares and gives a short public talk and then does mental arithmetic aloud in front of an evaluating panel. Excludes daily stress, chronic stress and trauma.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
two-lines test
In F63 statistics (Simonsohn 2018)
A test for a rise-then-fall shape that fits one straight line on each side of a data-chosen break point and asks whether the first rises and the second falls, both significantly. Excludes a quadratic fit, which can report a peak where none exists.
Used in F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part
ultra-high-energy cosmic ray
In F344 astroparticle physics
A charged particle from space, a proton or heavier nucleus, arriving with an energy above about 1e18 electronvolts; it is recorded through the shower of secondary particles it makes in the atmosphere. Excludes photons and neutrinos, and the far more common cosmic rays of lower energy.
Used in F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part
unsupported citation
In F149 citation analysis, as coded by Karst and colleagues
A citation that credits a focal study with a claim that the original authors judged the study's results do not support. Excludes any judgement of ours: every coding in this paper is the original authors'.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
In F50 neuroanatomy
The lower middle part of the frontal lobe, linked to the regulation of emotional responses; here defined by the Harvard-Oxford label Frontal Medial Cortex. Excludes functional definitions from a task, and the dorsal and lateral prefrontal cortex.
Used in F50, Childhood trauma scores showed no meaningful link to amygdala-prefrontal coupling in 187 adults
verdict
Across the findings research method (our usage)
The pass or fail of one preregistered rule set against the run's numbers, read off by code. Excludes an interpretation written after reading the numbers.
Used in F14, Newton's grazing-angle ring table follows his fitted rule, which runs 27% low at 85°extended, F23, Fungal hub trees mostly track sampling, cedar heartwood rots slowest, wind damage evades prediction, F27, Mood that lingers and mood that bounces back were not shown to be separate traits, F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability, F39, Music with long ringing tails and dark spectra is rated calmer, and also less pleasantnarrowed in part, F47, More variables raise prediction skill, yet most targets stall far below their noise ceiling, F63, Across 1,175 tree-ring sites, an earlier moderate drought did not detectably toughen treesnarrowed in part, F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld, F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part, F97, Tree rings track the broad drought pattern in a gridded record and almost none of its local detail, F114, How much summer warmth one tree ring remembers, measured in bits, F132, Transfer entropy could not tell which way climate and tree rings are linkedquestioned, F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting, F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F281, A home rerun of the GRB 090510 light-speed test, and sound waves that keep their own limitnarrowed in part, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part, F344, No cubic pattern in public Auger cosmic-ray directions, at sensitivity that sees only large onesnarrowed in part, F362, Published 1 sigma error bars hold near nominal; a 95 percent interval needs 3 to 5 sigmanarrowed in part, F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high, F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59, F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
Verified line
Across the findings our publication rule
The closing statement of what was checked for publication, by what means, with what result and on what date; anything not checked is named as such. Excludes a claim that the finding is true.
Used in F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended
violation of the bound
In F76 our usage in this study
A series whose excess skill over the bound beats that of at least 38 of its own 39 phase-randomised surrogates, which happens to 5 percent of Gaussian stationary series by chance. Excludes a series whose skill merely exceeds the point bound, which estimation error makes common.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
void
Across the findings research method (our usage)
The verdict of a run whose planted check failed or whose sample fell below its stated minimum; it says nothing for or against the claim. Excludes a null result, which comes from a working instrument.
Used in F147, Kodak's own curves put modern colour negative at 0.6 to 4.9 percent quantum efficiencynarrowed in part, F166, Our combined value formula lost to plain prospect theory on 11,759 risky choice problems, F172, A selection model shrinks the overstatement in published effects but cannot pick which replicateextended, F183, After we fixed our own bug, CMA-ES ranked first and two nature-inspired optimisers proved centre-biased, F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part, F310, Titius-Bode regularity in 122 exoplanet systems sits in gap sizes; their order adds nothingnarrowed in part, F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part, F329, In held-out private die-roll reports, about 45 percent read as honest, and this method cannot tell us whynarrowed in part
voided question
In F32 the Good Judgment Project tournament
A question the tournament cancelled without scoring, so no forecast on it has an outcome. Excludes a void verdict in our sense, which concerns a failed planted check or a sample below its minimum.
Used in F32, Forecasters who skip questions score better, and the best filter reads the probability
von Kries adaptation
In F81 colour science
Scaling each receptor class's catch by its catch from a white under the same light, a simple model of how eyes adjust to the colour of the light. Excludes adaptation that mixes signals between receptor classes.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
weakly stationary
In F76 probability and time-series analysis
A series whose mean and autocovariance do not change over time. Excludes series with trends, level shifts or drifting variance, such as a machine whose load changes between the halves.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
Weber fraction
In F81 psychophysics and vision science
The noise in one receptor class as a fixed share of its signal, the same at every light level; we call a model with only this noise the Weber model. Excludes photon noise, which grows in relative size as the catch falls.
Used in F81, Among colours people cannot tell apart, modelled bees and blue tits split flowers from backgrounds more oftennarrowed in part
Wilson interval
In F76 statistics (binomial proportions)
A 95 percent interval for a proportion that stays inside 0 and 1 and behaves well when the count is small. Excludes intervals from resampling.
Used in F76, How flat a spectrum is predicts forecast skill, but real series follow it looselyheld
In F308 statistics
A 95 percent interval for a proportion, found by inverting the score test; it stays inside 0 to 1 and behaves well when the count is small or near zero. Excludes the simple interval of the proportion plus or minus 1.96 standard errors, which fails near zero.
Used in F308, Checking 213 OEIS recurrence conjectures against their b-files finds one failure, already knownnarrowed in part
within-decile AUC
In F152 our usage for this study
The area under the ROC curve computed separately inside each tenth of the candidate pairs ranked by degree product, then averaged with weights equal to each tenth's number of targets. Excludes any advantage that comes from ranking popular pairs above unpopular ones.
Used in F152, Finding missing links by shared neighbours lost to simple popularity on three corporaheld
within-person AUC
In F320 machine learning evaluation, our usage
The AUC computed on one held-out person's windows alone, then averaged over people; it asks whether the classifier ranks that person's stress windows above their other windows. Excludes the global AUC, which pools all held-out windows and also rewards separating people from each other.
Used in F320, A random split scores a stress classifier perfect on data with nothing to learnnarrowed in part
within-study model
In F149 statistics (fixed effects)
A regression with its own baseline level for each focal study, so the year slope is estimated only from change inside studies. Excludes change that comes from which focal studies happen to be cited in early and late years.
Used in F149, Did unsupported citations about fungal networks double? It depends on the weighting
xz
In F515 data compression software
A general-purpose file compressor using the LZMA method, which replaces repeated strings with references to earlier copies; here at its strongest preset. Excludes any model of language beyond repeated byte strings.
Used in F515, A small language model squeezes the UDHR to 0.27 bits a character, and fresh text to 1.59
z score against the null
In F23 statistics
The real value minus the mean of the control draws, divided by their standard deviation; values beyond 2 in size are rare under the control. Excludes a p value, and a measure of effect size in the units of the data.
In F675 statistics
The point of the standard normal distribution that leaves the p value above it, so that a smaller p gives a larger z; here capped at 6. Excludes a standardised value of the data themselves.
Used in F675, A panel test read climate driving tree rings correctly, and our own rule still failed itnarrowed in part
Zipf's law
In F508 quantitative linguistics
The observation that the frequency of a word falls roughly in inverse proportion to its rank in the frequency list. Excludes an exact law that holds for every word or every text.
Used in F508, Shannon's 1951 letter statistics hold on old and new English; his third-order value reads high