Health disparities research in rural populations is based on several common taxonomies identified by geography and population density. However, little is known about the implications of different rurality definitions on public health outcomes. To help illuminate the meaning of different rural designations often used in research, service delivery, or policy reports, this study will (1) review the different definitions of rurality and their purposes; (2) identify the overlap of various rural designations in an eight-county Brazos Valley region in Central Texas; (3) describe participant characteristic profiles based on distances traveled to obtain healthcare services; and (4) examine common profile characteristics associated with each designation. Data were analyzed from a random sample from 1,958 Texas adults participating in a community assessment. K-means cluster analysis was used to identify natural groupings of individuals based on distance traveled to obtain three healthcare services: medical care, dental care, and prescription medication pick-up. Significant variation in cluster representation and resident characteristics was observed by rural designation. Given widely used taxonomies for designating areas as rural (or provider shortage) in health-related research...

Traditional medicine (TM) is being used more frequently all over the world. However most often these are choices made by the patient. Integrating TM into mainstream health care would require research to understand the efficacy, safety, and mechanism of action of TM systems. This paper describes research done on TM and difficulties encountered in researching TM, especially when an attempt is made to conform to the model for conventional medicine. The research articles were PubMed searched and categorized as experimental, quasiexperimental, reviews, descriptive, historical, interviews, case histories, and abstract not available. The last part of the report provides suggestions to make research on TM more acceptable and useful, with the ultimate goal of integrating TM into mainstream healthcare with sufficient knowledge about the efficacy, safety, and mechanism of action of TM systems.

Historical research is playing an increasingly important role in marine sciences. Historical data are also used in policy making and marine resource management, and have helped to address the issue of shifting baselines for numerous species and ecosystems. Although many important research questions still remain unanswered, tremendous developments in conceptual and methodological approaches are expected to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the global history of human interactions with life in the seas. Based on our experiences and knowledge from the “History of Marine Animal Populations” project, this paper identifies the emerging research topics for future historical marine research. It elaborates on concepts and tools which are expected to play a major role in answering these questions, and identifies geographical regions which deserve future attention from marine environmental historians and historical ecologists.

Introduction: The lack of aggregated longitudinal health data on farmworkers has severely limited opportunities to conduct research to improve their health status. To correct this problem, we have created the infrastructure necessary to develop and maintain a national Research Data Repository of migrant and seasonal farmworker patients and other community members receiving medical care from Community and Migrant Health Centers (C/MHCs). Project specific research databases can be easily extracted from this repository.

Do different fields of knowledge require different research strategies? A numerical model exploring different virtual knowledge landscapes, revealed two diverging optimal search strategies. Trend following is maximized when the popularity of new discoveries determine the number of individuals researching it. This strategy works best when many researchers explore few large areas of knowledge. In contrast, individuals or small groups of researchers are better in discovering small bits of information in dispersed knowledge landscapes. Bibliometric data of scientific publications showed a continuous bipolar distribution of these strategies, ranging from natural sciences, with highly cited publications in journals containing a large number of articles, to the social sciences, with rarely cited publications in many journals containing a small number of articles. The natural sciences seem to adapt their research strategies to landscapes with large concentrated knowledge clusters, whereas social sciences seem to have adapted to search in landscapes with many small isolated knowledge clusters. Similar bipolar distributions were obtained when comparing levels of insularity estimated by indicators of international collaboration and levels of country-self citations: researchers in academic areas with many journals such as social sciences...

The management of research data is now a major challenge for research organisations. Vast quantities of born-digital data are being produced in a wide variety of forms at a rapid rate in universities. This paper analyses the contribution of academic libraries to research data management (RDM) in the wider institutional context. In particular it: examines the roles and relationships involved in RDM, identifies the main components of an RDM programme, evaluates the major drivers for RDM activities, and analyses the key factors influencing the shape of RDM developments. The study is written from the perspective of library professionals, analysing data from 26 semi-structured interviews of library staff from different UK institutions. This is an early qualitative contribution to the topic complementing existing quantitative and case study approaches. Results show that although libraries are playing a significant role in RDM, there is uncertainty and variation in the relationship with other stakeholders such as IT services and research support offices. Current emphases in RDM programmes are on developments of policies and guidelines, with some early work on technology infrastructures and support services. Drivers for developments include storage...

This study analyzes funding acknowledgments in scientific papers to investigate relationships between research sponsorship and publication impacts. We identify acknowledgments to research sponsors for nanotechnology papers published in the Web of Science during a one-year sample period. We examine the citations accrued by these papers and the journal impact factors of their publication titles. The results show that publications from grant sponsored research exhibit higher impacts in terms of both journal ranking and citation counts than research that is not grant sponsored. We discuss the method and models used, and the insights provided by this approach as well as it limitations.

Notwithstanding that ‘public engagement’ is conceptualised differently internationally and in different academic disciplines, higher education institutions largely accept the importance of public engagement with research. However, there is limited evidence on how researchers conceptualise engagement, their views on what constitutes engagement and the communities they would (or would not) like to engage with. This paper presents the results of a survey of researchers in the Open University that sought to gather data to fill these gaps. This research was part of an action research project designed to embed engagement in the routine practices of researchers at all levels. The findings indicate that researchers have a relatively narrow view of public engagement with research and the communities with which they interact. It also identified that very few strategically evaluate their public engagement activities. We conclude by discussing some of the interventions we have introduced with the aim of broadening and deepening future researcher engagement.

Good quality medical research generally requires not only an expertise in the chosen medical field of interest but also a sound knowledge of statistical methodology. The number of medical research articles which have been published in Indian medical journals has increased quite substantially in the past decade. The aim of this study was to collate all evidence on study design quality and statistical analyses used in selected leading Indian medical journals. Ten (10) leading Indian medical journals were selected based on impact factors and all original research articles published in 2003 (N = 588) and 2013 (N = 774) were categorized and reviewed. A validated checklist on study design, statistical analyses, results presentation, and interpretation was used for review and evaluation of the articles. Main outcomes considered in the present study were – study design types and their frequencies, error/defects proportion in study design, statistical analyses, and implementation of CONSORT checklist in RCT (randomized clinical trials). From 2003 to 2013: The proportion of erroneous statistical analyses did not decrease (χ2=0.592, Φ=0.027, p=0.4418), 25% (80/320) in 2003 compared to 22.6% (111/490) in 2013. Compared with 2003, significant improvement was seen in 2013; the proportion of papers using statistical tests increased significantly (χ2=26.96...

The p53 tumor suppressor gene (TP53) is reported to be mutated in nearly half of all tumors and plays a central role in genome integrity. Detection of mutations in p53 can be accomplished by many assays, including the AmpliChip p53 Research Test. The AmpliChip p53 Research Test has been successfully used to determine p53 status in hematologic malignancies and fresh frozen solid tissues but there are few reports of using the assay with formalin fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue. The objective of this study was to describe analytical performance characterization of the AmpliChip p53 Research Test to detect p53 mutations in genomic DNA isolated from archival FFPE human ovarian tumor tissues. Method correlation with sequencing showed 96% mutation-wise agreement and 99% chip-wise agreement. We furthermore observed 100% agreement (113/113) of the most prevalent TP53 mutations. Workflow reproducibility was 96.8% across 8 samples, with 2 operators, 2 reagent lots and 2 instruments. Section-to-section reproducibility was 100% for each sample across a 60 μm region of the FFPE block from ovarian tumors. These data indicate that the AmpliChip p53 Research Test is an accurate and reproducible method for detecting mutations in TP53 from archival FFPE human ovarian specimens.

The objective of this paper is to provide a detailed evaluation of type 2 diabetes mellitus research output from 1951-2012, using large-scale data analysis, bibliometric indicators and density-equalizing mapping. Data were retrieved from the Science Citation Index Expanded database, one of the seven curated databases within Web of Science. Using Boolean operators "OR", "AND" and "NOT", a search strategy was developed to estimate the total number of published items. Only studies with an English abstract were eligible. Type 1 diabetes and gestational diabetes items were excluded. Specific software developed for the database analysed the data. Information including titles, authors’ affiliations and publication years were extracted from all files and exported to excel. Density-equalizing mapping was conducted as described by Groenberg-Kloft et al, 2008. A total of 24,783 items were published and cited 476,002 times. The greatest number of outputs were published in 2010 (n=2,139). The United States contributed 28.8% to the overall output, followed by the United Kingdom (8.2%) and Japan (7.7%). Bilateral cooperation was most common between the United States and United Kingdom (n=237). Harvard University produced 2% of all publications...

A “Medication Profile,” the information about the medicines a person is using and has used, is a core part of many electronic health record systems and summaries. However, there is little objective research into the data elements that the profile should contain to support the uses it must serve. With the increasing emphasis on secondary uses of electronic health information, as well as supporting the requirements to support direct to patient care, the Medication Profile should also support the requirements from clinical research. However, there is little, if any, description of these available. This paper describes an analysis of a set of study eligibility criteria that was undertaken to investigate which medication-related data elements would be required to support two clinical research use cases: the parameters to query a patient's Medication Profile to assess their suitability for entry into a trial (patient recruitment) and the parameters to query a set of Medication Profiles in a data warehouse to assess whether the eligibility criteria as described would yield a reasonable cohort of patients as potential subjects (protocol feasibility). These medication-related data elements then become information requirements that a Medication Profile should ideally meet...

The Injury Prevention Research Unit was established in 1990 to reduce the incidence, severity and consequences of injury. Research into sport and recreational injury is one of five major areas of research being undertaken. National data sources have been used to estimate the overall size of the problem and to describe the nature and circumstances of injury associated with a variety of sport and recreational activities. Analytical studies are now being undertaken to identify significant risk and protective factors. Research activity is being directed toward the development, implementation and evaluation of preventive measures.

OBJECTIVE--To ascertain general practitioners' views about the future provision of out of hours primary medical care. DESIGN--Self completing postal questionnaire survey. SETTING--Wessex and north east England. SUBJECTS--116 general practitioners in the Wessex Primary Care Research Network and 83 in the Northern Primary Care Research Network. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Intention to reduce or opt out of on call; plans for changing out of hours arrangements; the three most important changes needed to out of hours care; willingness to try, and perceived strengths and limitations of, three alternative out of hours care models--primary care emergency centres, telephone triage services, and cooperatives. RESULTS--The overall response rate was 74% (Wessex research network 77% (89/116), northern research network 71% (59/83)). Eighty three per cent of respondents (123/148) were willing to try at least one service model, primary care emergency centres being the most popular option. Key considerations were the potential for a model to reduce time on call and workload, to maintain continuity of care, and to fit the practice context. Sixty one per cent (91/148) hoped to reduce time on call and 25% (37/148) hoped to opt out completely. CONCLUSIONS--General practitioners were keen to try alternative arrangements for out of hours care delivery...

The lack of research opportunities in Canada and the large number of them in the US have cost Canada some of its brightest young researchers. The Robarts Research Institute in London, Ont., is trying to reverse that trend by bringing some of these researchers back home. However, Dr. Mark Poznansky says the repatriation efforts will mean little if research budgets keep getting cut in Canada. He says the budget of the Medical Research Council of Canada is barely adequate for today's needs.

Lattal and Perone's Handbook of methods used in human operant research on behavioral processes will be a valuable resource for researchers who want to bridge laboratory developments with applied study. As a supplemental resource, investigators are also encouraged to examine the series of papers in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis that discuss basic research and its potential for application. Increased knowledge of behavioral processes in laboratory research could lead to innovative solutions to practical problems addressed by applied behavior analysts in the home, classroom, clinic, and community.

CRISP (Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects) is a large database maintained and operated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It contains comprehensive scientific and selected administrative data on research carried out by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) or supported by PHS grants and contracts. Developed originally to meet the needs of NIH, it is an excellent, largely untapped resource for health information professionals at large, revealing new trends, methods, and techniques, often before they appear in the published literature. CRISP uses its own controlled vocabulary, developed to permit indexing of new and active research areas. Queries can combine subject headings with a great variety of administrative data elements (e.g., research category or principal investigator's name). Output is available in a variety of formats and media. While information professionals cannot directly access the CRISP system, abridged CRISP records are merged into the FEDRIP (Federal Research in Progress) database, and FEDRIP is publicly accessible through DIALOG. CRISP records in toxicology are also furnished to the National Library of Medicine's TOXLINE database. This paper discusses the indexing, information retrieval...

An index of faculty research interests terms has many uses for an institution's researchers and administrators. This paper describes the Faculty Research Interests Project (FRIP), which addresses vocabulary and compliance problems inherent in research interests index development. FRIP creates an index using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) associated with the MEDLINE-indexed publications of faculty authors. Following a preliminary study, a Web-based term selection component was developed that allows faculty users not only to choose MeSH terms but also to add both additional author names under which they have published and original terms in real time. In a study involving 136 medical school faculty, users successfully navigated the term selection component, and more than 90 percent of the terms they selected were MeSH terms, confirming MeSH's usefulness for indexing research interests.

The established practice of doctors using medical records for research purposes is threatened by the recent proposed guidelines from the Department of Health, the BMA, and the European Commission. The European Commission has proposed that explicit consent should be obtained from each patient before his or her medical records can be used; the proposals from the Department of Health and the BMA would require all research that needs access to personal medical records to be submitted to an ethics committee. We believe that these proposals would seriously impair an entire category of research and suggest therefore that another set of guidelines, proposed by a Royal College of Physicians' working group, should be used to modify the proposals. The guidelines of the working group encourage the use of medical records for research and ensure that such use can be made in a confidential manner without causing harm.

BACKGROUND: There is relatively little research concerning the processes whereby Local Research Ethics Committees discharge their responsibilities towards society, potential participants and investigators. OBJECTIVES: To examine the criteria used by LRECs in arriving at their decisions concerning approval of research protocols through an analysis of letters sent to investigators. DESIGN: Four LRECs each provided copies of 50 letters sent to investigators after their submitted proposals had been considered by the committees. These letters were subjected to a content analysis, in which specific comments and requests for additional information and changes in the protocols were recorded and compared. FINDINGS: Overall 24% of proposals were approved without request for changes or clarifications, but this varied by committee: one committee approved only 6% of proposals without change or clarification while the others ranged from 26% to 32%. The content analyses of responses indicated that they could be placed into four categories: (i) further information for the committee to aid in their deliberations; (ii) requests for changes to the design or justification for the design used; (iii) changes to the information sheets provided to potential participants; and (iv) changes to consent procedures. Of these...