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.

HTRIdb: an open-access database for experimentally verified human transcriptional regulation interactions

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The WIPO development agenda and the contribution of the international library community

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international strengthening of copyright law in developing countries and the active involvement of the international library community in the movement against it.Design/methodology/approach - The paper describes the overprotection of intellectual property rights through international and bilateral treaties, the reaction against such through the proposal of a WIPO development agenda, and the contribution of the international library organizations to the debates and discussions in the WIPO arena.Findings - The initiative for a development agenda for WIPO has proven much more successful than many had imagined, even its promoters. The most relevant proposals made by the international library community were included in the final list of approved recommendations.Originality/value - The paper raises awareness of the relationship between copyright and access to knowledge and, in consequence, the need for library organizations to exert influence in such legislation.

Library in virtual reality: An innovative way for accessing, disseminating, and sharing information

This paper focuses on Virtual Reality (VR) as a very powerful technology that can be applied to the libraries, aiming at contributing to the activities of accessing, disseminating, and sharing information. The paper presents the VR concept and describes some libraries in virtual reality under utilization in different countries. In the final considerations, it is pointed out the use of virtual reality to develop libraries as collaborative virtual environments.

Some considerations on the possible effects of the failure of the United States Congress to renew the ATPDEA

Includes bibliography

The University and its libraries: Reactions and resistance to scientific publishers

This paper addresses the relationship of copyright and the right of universities on scientific production. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are causing many changes in the system of scientific communication, such as the creation of Institutional Repositories that aim to gather scientific production in digital format. The University needs quicker ways of spreading academic production and many questions are emerging due to contexts such as the Open Access movement. Thus, this paper questions the positioning of Universities, especially Public Universities, which despite having policies related to intellectual property to protect the transferring forms of research results to society; many times do not have a positioning or a mechanism that regulates the self-deposit of scientific production in these Institutional Repositories. In order to develop this paper, the following issues are addressed: lack of interest of the University in storing scientific production; reports on the relationship of the library with scientific publishing houses; the participation of faculty members and students in supporting the Free Access movement; and initiatives aimed at greater flexibility of copyright to the context of scientific production. In order to follow the development of these issues at international level, it was opted for qualitative research with non-participating direct observation to carry out the identification and description of copyright policy of important publishers from the ROMEO SHERPA site; therefore, it can be observed that there are changes regarding the publishers' flexibility before self-archiving of authors in open access institutional repositories in their universities. Given this scenario, we presente reflections and considerations that involve the progress and mainly the integration of the University and its faculty members; the institution should recommend and guide its faculty members not to transfer their copyrights, but to defend their right of copy to Institutional Repositories along with Publishing Houses.

Generalização cartográfica para um Sistema de Navegação e Guia de Rota em Automóvel áudio-dinâmico com múltiplas escalas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

CARIBTRADE, trade statistics database: user manual

Includes bibliography

Serviço de referência e informação para smartphones: análise de acesso e uso

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Arquitetura da informação para biblioteca digital colaborativa: uma proposta de um sistema de interação

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

A dimensão teórica e metodológica da catalogação de assunto

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A indexação em catálogo on-line em bibliotecas universitárias na percepção de usuários integrantes de grupos de pesquisa: uma contribuição ao desenvolvimento de política de indexação na rede de biblioteca da UNESP

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Catalogação descritiva no século XXI: um estudo sobre o RDA

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

Arquitetura da informação para biblioteca digital personalizável

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

A disseminação da informação mediada por novas tecnologias e a educação do usuário na biblioteca universitária

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC