A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of reports of clinical trials published in six Brazilian dental journals indexed in the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO)

Introduction: Open access publishing is becoming increasingly popular within the biomedical sciences. SciELO, the Scientific Electronic Library Online, is a digital library covering a selected collection of Brazilian scientific journals many of which provide open access to full-text articles. This library includes a number of dental journals some of which may include reports of clinical trials in English, Portuguese and/or Spanish. Thus, SciELO could play an important role as a source of evidence for dental healthcare interventions especially if it yields a sizeable number of high quality reports. Objective: The aim of this study was to identify reports of clinical trials by handsearching of dental journals that are accessible through SciELO, and to assess the overall quality of these reports. Material and methods: Electronic versions of six Brazilian dental Journals indexed in SciELO were handsearched at www.scielo.br in September 2008. Reports of clinical trials were identified and classified as controlled clinical trials (CCTs - prospective, experimental studies comparing 2 or more healthcare interventions in human beings) or randomized controlled trials (RCTs - a random allocation method is clearly reported), according to Cochrane eligibility criteria. Criteria to assess methodological quality included: method of randomization, concealment of treatment allocation, blinded outcome assessment, handling of withdrawals and losses and whether an intention-to-treat analysis had been carried out. Results: The search retrieved 33 CCTs and 43 RCTs. A majority of the reports provided no description of either the method of randomization (75.3%) or concealment of the allocation sequence (84.2%). Participants and outcome assessors were reported as blinded in only 31.2% of the reports. Withdrawals and losses were only clearly described in 6.5% of the reports and none mentioned an intention-to-treat analysis or any similar procedure. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that a substantial number of reports of trials and systematic reviews are available in the dental journals listed in SciELO, and that these could provide valuable evidence for clinical decision making. However, it is clear that the quality of a number of these reports is of some concern and that improvement in the conduct and reporting of these trials could be achieved if authors adhered to internationally accepted guidelines, e. g. the CONSORT statement.

Clinical research on new drugs (Phase I). Profile of scientific publications: data from the pre-clinical phase and bioethical aspects

OBJETIVO: Traçar o perfil das publicações científicas de fase I e procurar saber se a publicação oferece dados da fase pré-clínica com ênfase nos aspectos bioéticos. MÉTODOS: Foram analisados 61 artigos científicos publicados no ano de 2007, que relatam pesquisas envolvendo seres humanos com novos fármacos, medicamentos ou vacinas em fase I. Foi elaborado um roteiro para coleta de dados, com o qual fosse possível analisar e avaliar os artigos científicos. O roteiro contempla itens referentes à fase pré-clínica (associados à fase clínica) e itens referentes às características da amostra. RESULTADOS: Nos artigos analisados, a maioria das pesquisas foi realizada nos EUA. Devido ao grande número de publicações destinadas às doenças oncológicas a maioria delas foi realizada com voluntários doentes. Quanto às informações sobre a fase pré-clínica presente nas publicações de fase I observamos que são pobres ou inexistentes. Mesmo que os autores julguem a pesquisa fase I como promissora e sugiram estudos futuros de fase II, ao leitor não é possível este mesmo julgamento pela escassez de informações da fase pré-clínica. CONCLUSÃO: O perfil das publicações levanta dados que merecem reflexão e análise para melhor avaliação do que está ocorrendo com as publicações de fase I.

A catalogue of the types of Asiloidea (Diptera) in the collection of the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil (Part 1: Bombyliidae and Mydidae)

A catalogue of the type-specimens of Bombyliidae and Mydidae (Diptera) held in the collection of the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulo (MZUSP) is provided, with information on 109 type specimens of 34 Neotropical (mostly Brazilian) species of the families Bombyliidae and Mydidae.

A catalogue of the types of Bolitophilidae and Ditomyiidae (Diptera, Bibionomorpha) in the collection of the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris

An annotated list is provided of the type specimens of seven species of Bolitophilidae Winnertz, 1863 and Ditomyiidae Keilin, 1919 (Diptera, Bibionomorpha) the Museum national d' Histoire naturelle (Paris).

A corpus of Middle English medical prologues in the Sloane Collection of The British Libray: an introduction to the genre in prose

[ES] Esta tesis trata sobre los prólogos a textos ingleses de carácter médico escritos o copiados en forma de prosa durante el siglo XV. En este trabajo se han contemplado dos objetivos generales: por un lado, la creación de un corpus con todos los prólogos inéditos que cumplen con estos criterios y que se encuentran en la colección de Sloana en la British Library de Londres, según Voigts & Kurtz: Scientific an Medical Writtings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference (2000); y por otro, la presentación de estod prólogos como conjunto, incluyendo: los datos recopilados sobre la codicología de los manuscritos, afiliación de los textos, sus fuentes y el dialecto utilizado. Asimismo, como parte de esta presentación, se aporta un análisis original de la estructura, forma y contenido de los materiales seleccionados para el estudio. El propósito de esta tesis es llenar un hueco en la literatura académica acerca de los prólogos a textos médicos escritos en inglés medieval tardío, tal y como lo señala Voigts (1982:54)

The International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE): An Overview

From its original formulation in 1990 the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) has had as its primary aim the collection and interpretation of a continent-wide array of environmental parameters assembled through the coordinated efforts of scientists from several nations. ITASE offers the ground-based opportunities of traditional-style traverse travel coupled with the modern technology of CPS, crevasse detecting radar, satellite communications and multidisciplinary research. By operating predominantly in the mode of an oversnow traverse, ITASE offers scientists the opportunity to experience the dynamic range of the Antarctic environment. ITASE also offers an important interactive venue for research similar to that afforded by oceanographic research vessels and large polar field camps, without the cost of the former or the lack of mobility of the latter. More importantly, the combination of disciplines represented by ITASE provides a unique, multidimensional (space and time) view of the ice sheet and its history. ITASE has now collected > 20 000 km of snow radar, recovered more than 240 firn/ice cores (total length 7000m), remotely penetrated to similar to 4000m into the ice sheet, and sampled the atmosphere to heights of > 20 km.

Geochemical composition of a representative collection of manganese nodules and slabs collected in the Western Pacific

Chemical analyses were performed on seveteen manganese nodules collected from the Pacific Ocean floor. The results were discussed compared with the previous data on the manganese nodules. Minerals were found to be todorokite, delta-MnO2 and other silicates, montmorillonite, illite, phillipsite and alpha-SiO2. Average composition shows that copper is concentrated on the deep sea nodules more than the shallow ones, and that the todorokite rich nodules contain more copper and nickel than the delta-MnO2 rich ones.