Good practice in reviewing and publishing studies on herbal medicine, with special emphasis on traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese materia medica

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Studies on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), like those of other systems of traditional medicine (TM), are very variable in their quality, content and focus, resulting in issues around their acceptability to the global scientific community. In an attempt to address these issues, an European Union funded FP7 consortium, composed of both Chinese and European scientists and named ���Good practice in traditional Chinese medicine��� (GP-TCM), has devised a series of guidelines and technical notes to facilitate good practice in collecting, assessing and publishing TCM literature as well as highlighting the scope of information that should be in future publications on TMs. This paper summarises these guidelines, together with what has been learned through GP-TCM collaborations, focusing on some common problems and proposing solutions. The recommendations also provide a template for the evaluation of other types of traditional medicine such as Ayurveda, Kampo and Unani. Materials and methods: GP-TCM provided a means by which experts in different areas relating to TCM were able to collaborate in forming a literature review good practice panel which operated through e-mail exchanges, teleconferences and focused discussions at annual meetings. The panel involved coordinators and representatives of each GP-TCM work package (WP) with the latter managing the testing and refining of such guidelines within the context of their respective WPs and providing feedback. Results: A Good Practice Handbook for Scientific Publications on TCM was drafted during the three years of the consortium, showing the value of such networks. A ���deliverable ��� central questions ��� labour division��� model had been established to guide the literature evaluation studies of each WP. The model investigated various scoring systems and their ability to provide consistent and reliable semi-quantitative assessments of the literature, notably in respect of the botanical ingredients involved and the scientific quality of the work described. This resulted in the compilation of (i) a robust scoring system and (ii) a set of minimum standards for publishing in the herbal medicines field, based on an analysis of the main problems identified in published TCM literature.

Traditional Chinese medicine research in the post-genomic era: good practice, priorities, challenges and opportunities

Background and aims: GP-TCM is the 1st EU-funded Coordination Action consortium dedicated to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) research. This paper aims to summarise the objectives, structure and activities of the consortium and introduces the position of the consortium regarding good practice, priorities, challenges and opportunities in TCM research. Serving as the introductory paper for the GPTCM Journal of Ethnopharmacology special issue, this paper describes the roadmap of this special issue and reports how the main outputs of the ten GP-TCM work packages are integrated, and have led to consortium-wide conclusions. Materials and methods: Literature studies, opinion polls and discussions among consortium members and stakeholders. Results: By January 2012, through 3 years of team building, the GP-TCM consortium had grown into a large collaborative network involving ���200 scientists from 24 countries and 107 institutions. Consortium members had worked closely to address good practice issues related to various aspects of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) and acupuncture research, the focus of this Journal of Ethnopharmacology special issue, leading to state-of-the-art reports, guidelines and consensus on the application of omics technologies in TCM research. In addition, through an online survey open to GP-TCM members and non-members, we polled opinions on grand priorities, challenges and opportunities in TCM research. Based on the poll, although consortium members and non-members had diverse opinions on the major challenges in the field, both groups agreed that high-quality efficacy/effectiveness and mechanistic studies are grand priorities and that the TCM legacy in general and its management of chronic diseases in particular represent grand opportunities. Consortium members cast their votes of confidence in omics and systems biology approaches to TCM research and believed that quality and pharmacovigilance of TCM products are not only grand priorities, but also grand challenges. Non-members, however, gave priority to integrative medicine, concerned on the impact of regulation of TCM practitioners and emphasised intersectoral collaborations in funding TCM research, especially clinical trials. Conclusions: The GP-TCM consortium made great efforts to address some fundamental issues in TCM research, including developing guidelines, as well as identifying priorities, challenges and opportunities. These consortium guidelines and consensus will need dissemination, validation and further development through continued interregional, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations. To promote this, a new consortium, known as the GP-TCM Research Association, is being established to succeed the 3-year fixed term FP7 GP-TCM consortium and will be officially launched at the Final GP-TCM Congress in Leiden, the Netherlands, in April 2012.

Theory building with system dynamics: topic and research contributions

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including the articles "Closing the Loop: Promoting Synergies with other Theory Building Approaches to Improve System Dynamics Practice," by Birgit Kopainsky and Luis Luna-Reyes, and "On improving dynamic decision-making: Implications from multiple-process cognitive theory," by Bent Bakken.

Fair trade and European public procurement: legal principles and governance dynamics

Purpose The article examines principles of Fair Trade in public procurement in Europe, focusing on legal dimensions related to the European Public Procurement Directives. Design/methodology/approach The article situates public procurement of Fair Trade products in relation to the rise of non-state regulatory initiatives, highlighting how they have entered into new governance dynamics in the public sector and play a part in changing practices in sustainable procurement. A review of legal position on Fair Trade in procurement law is informed by academic research and campaigning experience from the Fair Trade Advocacy Office. Findings Key findings are that the introduction of Fair Trade products into European public procurement has been marked by legal ambiguity, having developed outside comprehensive policy or legal guidelines. Following a 2012 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is suggested that the legal position for Fair Trade in procurement has become clearer, and that forthcoming change to the Public Procurement Directives may facilitate the uptake of fair trade products by public authorities. However potential for future expansion of the public sector ���market��� for Fair Trade is approached with caution: purchasing Fair Trade products as a marker of sustainability, which started to be embedded within procurement practice in the 2000s, is challenged by current European public austerity measures. Research limitations/implications Suggestions for future research include the need for systematic cross-institutional and multi-country comparison of the legal and governance dimensions of procurement practice with regard to Fair Trade. Practical implications A clarification of current state-of-play with regard to legal aspects of fair trade in public procurement of utility for policy and advocacy discussion. Originality/value The article provides needed elaboration on an under researched topic area of value to academia and policy makers.

Integrating science into humanitarian and development planning and practice to enhance community resilience

There has been an increased emphasis upon the application of science for humanitarian and development planning, decision-making and practice; particularly in the context of understanding, assessing and anticipating risk (e.g. HERR, 2011). However, there remains very little guidance for practitioners on how to integrate sciences they may have had little contact with in the past (e.g. climate). This has led to confusion as to which ���science��� might be of use and how it would be best utilised. Furthermore, since this integration has stemmed from a need to be more predictive, agencies are struggling with the problems associated with uncertainty and probability. Whilst a range of expertise is required to build resilience, these guidelines focus solely upon the relevant data, information, knowledge, methods, principles and perspective which scientists can provide, that typically lie outside of current humanitarian and development approaches. Using checklists, real-life case studies and scenarios the full guidelines take practitioners through a five step approach to finding, understanding and applying science. This document provides a short summary of the five steps and some key lessons for integrating science.

Adding a treatment arm to an ongoing clinical trial: a review of methodology and practice

Incorporating an emerging therapy as a new randomisation arm in a clinical trial that is open to recruitment would be desirable to researchers, regulators and patients to ensure that the trial remains current, new treatments are evaluated as quickly as possible, and the time and cost for determining optimal therapies is minimised. It may take many years to run a clinical trial from concept to reporting within a rapidly changing drug development environment; hence, in order for trials to be most useful to inform policy and practice, it is advantageous for them to be able to adapt to emerging therapeutic developments. This paper reports a comprehensive literature review on methodologies for, and practical examples of, amending an ongoing clinical trial by adding a new treatment arm. Relevant methodological literature describing statistical considerations required when making this specific type of amendment is identified, and the key statistical concepts when planning the addition of a new treatment arm are extracted, assessed and summarised. For completeness, this includes an assessment of statistical recommendations within general adaptive design guidance documents. Examples of confirmatory ongoing trials designed within the frequentist framework that have added an arm in practice are reported; and the details of the amendment are reviewed. An assessment is made as to how well the relevant statistical considerations were addressed in practice, and the related implications. The literature review confirmed that there is currently no clear methodological guidance on this topic, but that guidance would be advantageous to help this efficient design amendment to be used more frequently and appropriately in practice. Eight confirmatory trials were identified to have added a treatment arm, suggesting that trials can benefit from this amendment and that it can be practically feasible; however, the trials were not always able to address the key statistical considerations, often leading to uninterpretable or invalid outcomes. If the statistical concepts identified within this review are considered and addressed during the design of a trial amendment, it is possible to effectively assess a new treatment arm within an ongoing trial without compromising the original trial outcomes.

POSTMARITAL RESIDENCE PRACTICE IN SOUTHERN BRAZILIAN COASTAL GROUPS: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

The coastal plains of the States of Parana and Santa Catarina, in Southern Brazil, were first settled around 6000 B.P. by shellmound builders, a successful fisher-hunter-gatherer population that inhabited the coastal lowlands practically unchanged for almost five thousand years. Shellmounds were typically occupied as residential sites as well as cemeteries, and are usually associated with rich alimentary zones. Around 1200 B.P., the first evidence of ceramics brought from the interior is found in coastal areas, and together with ceramics there is a progressive abandonment of shellmound construction in favor of flat cold shallow sites. Here we consider if these changes were reflected in the postmarital residence practice of coastal groups, i.e., if the arrival or intensification of contact with groups from the interior resulted in changes in this aspect of social structure among the coastal groups. To test the postmarital residence practice we analyzed within-group variability ratios between males and females, following previous studies on the topic. and between-group, correlations between Mahalanobis distances and geographic distances. The results suggest that in the pre-ceramic series a matrilocal, postmarital residential system predominated, while in the ceramic period there was a shift toward patrilocality. This favors the hypothesis that the changes experienced by coastal groups after 1200 B.P. affected not only their economy and material culture, but important aspects of their sociopolitical organization as well.

Pr��ticas interdisciplinares no ensino superior: a experi��ncia do curso de gradua����o em administra����o da UNAMA - Par��

This work addresses the study of interdisciplinarity in higher administration education, a topic of great relevance in the present context, due to guidelines issued by Ministry of Education through the National Curriculum Guidelines -NCGs for undergraduate courses in Management. The attention on the subject emerges from the gained experience of a researcher and teacher working as manager of an undergraduate course in Business Administration who set up interdisciplinarity through interdisciplinary projects in a management course pedagogical project at a private university in State of Par��/Brazil. The work rebuilds and reports experiences, and studies the practice of lecturers involved in those interdisciplinary actions. The study aimed to identify changes in pedagogical practices of teachers involved in the searched interdisciplinary experience. To address the questions that directed the work and achieve proposed objectives, from a qualitative approach, a significant bibliographical and documentary work was conducted on the topic. In the survey carried out on secondary sources such as publications of major authors and scientific papers reporting interdisciplinary experiences in higher administration education, it was found that interdisciplinarity for its ambiguous character is still poorly understood by teachers, and reports on its application in administration teaching are incipient. This study also used data collected from primary sources, from dialogues through interviews with educational fellows - teachers and officers of the institution that served as locus of the research, who had the opportunity to experience the studied interdisciplinary experience. Data were processed and analyzed using content analysis technique. Research results showed that teachers of the institution of research have a good understanding of meaning of interdisciplinarity as a link between disciplines; it was also found substantial evidence of changes in teaching practices and actions of such teachers based on their participation in interdisciplinary projects. Although the experience studied can be considered innovative and challenging, much needs to be done in the course management for achievement of interdisciplinary actions in the course, particularly regarding to the removal of institutional, methodological, psychosocial, epistemological obstacles in operationalizing interdisciplinary practices, with emphasis on the need of a process of continuous and specific training aiming at developing skills for interdisciplinary acting, to the extent that these education professionals do not perceive themselves able to act as interdisciplinary lecturers

O curr��culo escolar: uma an��lise na perspectiva da inclus��o de alunos com defici��ncia intelectual

A mid the many transformations and advances that the contemporary society is going through, the right to education is a topic that does not end and becomes increasingly present, given the urgency of including students with disabilities in education. Given this new reality, schools are challenged to receive them with quality, and implement actions that promote favorable conditions for their development at school. Accordingly, it is fundamental the organizational restructuring of education to meet the specific needs of students. Thus, it is imperative that educational institutions defining the type of person who intend to form and the society proposing to build. These are aspects that precede any question, since the knowledge covered in the curriculum will contribute directly to the creation of human beings are involved there. Based on this theme, this assignment reports aspects of a survey of a local public school, located in Natal/RN, which deals with the analysis of the curriculum and its implementation in teaching practice in the classroom, before the inclusion of students with disabilities intellectual. Thus, to undertake a study of case with five professionals at school, involving documentary analysis and observation of the curriculum of the pedagogical practice of teachers in the classroom, as well as conducting an interview with all stakeholders. To this end, the data analyzed shows that, although the right of citizens with disabilities is guaranteed by constitutional law, the school, locus of this study, have not realized the extent of conquest. Does not recognize the fact of being in school and learn together with others is also a right of persons with disabilities. Thus, while your resume is to present a progressive vision, believed to be open, concerned with the selection and organization of content, with flexibility in defining the goals, with the search for diversification of the procedures adopted, as well as the planning activities teaching and learning based on the level of student learning, this is not effective in teaching practice, either through ignorance of the guidelines defined either by lack of knowledge about the proposal and an inclusive curriculum can provide answers to all educational students, including those with intellectual disability

Proposal for a code of good practice in statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean and implementation plan for 2012-2013

Incluye Bibliograf��a

Population, social equity and changing production patterns

Includes bibliography

Trabalho de campo como contribui����o para a disciplina geografia no ensino fundamental: uma leitura em documentos oficiais

P��s-gradua����o em Geografia - IGCE

Curr��culo e forma����o docente no curso de ci��ncias sociais/UFPA: configura����es, continuidades e rupturas (1963-2011)

A tese investiga os desenhos curriculares do curso de Ci��ncias Sociais da Universidade Federal do Par��. campus de Bel��m no per��odo de 1963-2011. com o objetivo principal de refletir sobre o lugar da forma����o docente no referido curso. tendo em vista a rela����o que se estabelece entre o bacharelado e a licenciatura. De forma mais especifica, o estudo intenciona investigar e analisar as principais orienta����es que foram estabelecidas pelas propostas curriculares para 3 forma����o docente, assim como identificar como foram estruturados os desenhos curriculares para o referido curso e a forma como s��o contempladas as disciplinas voltadas para a licenciatura. A pesquisa foi feita a partir de levantamento bibliogr��fico sobre a tem��tica em bibliotecas f��sicas e banco de dados virtuais, pesquisa documental realizada sobre os desenhos curriculares. Resolu����es, ementas entre outros. Utilizou-se tamb��m de entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas com docentes do curso com o objetivo de aprofundar e esclarecer quest��es n��o contidas nos documentos. O estudo utilizou como referencial te��rico principal as contribui����es da teoria critica do curr��culo, principalmente das obras de Michael Young, Basil Bernstein, Ant��nio Fl��vio Moreira entres outros. Os resultados da pesquisa revelaram que as configura����es locais dos desenhos curriculares do curso de Ci��ncias Sociais deve-se em grande parte �� fatores estruturais do sistema educacional brasileiro e que a consolida����o da p��s-gradua����o, em meados da d��cada de 1960 e inicio de 1970, contribuiu para a aumentar a hierarquiza����o entre as atividades de ensino e pesquisa, entre a gradua����o e a p��s-gradua����o, entre o campo acad��mico e o escolar nos cursos de Ci��ncias Sociais. As reformula����es curriculares ocorridas no curso de Ci��ncias Sociais mantiveram os padr��es curriculares para a maioria dos cursos de Ci��ncias Sociais no pa��s desde sua cria����o. Os desenhos curriculares do curso de Ci��ncias Sociais analisados se orientam por unia concep����o de forma����o docente pautada no modelo de racionalidade t��cnica que favorece a separa����o entre a forma����o conteudista e a forma����o pedag��gica, entre teoria e pr��tica. Apesar das in��meras reformula����es curriculares ocorridas no curso de Ci��ncias Sociais estas altera����es mantiveram uma estrutura de organiza����o disciplinar sob a tipologia do curr��culo cole����o. em que as disciplinas singulares s��o orientadas para seu pr��prio desenvolvimento e protegidas por limites e hierarquias fortes. O curr��culo cole����o caracterizado pelo enquadramento e classifica����o forte promove o isolamento entre as ��reas do conhecimento o que contribuiu para a demarca����o de fronteiras r��gidas entre o campo das Ci��ncias Sociais e Educa����o, entre a forma����o voltada para pesquisador e a forma����o orientada para professor.

Choosing the right journal for your systematic review

Funda����o de Amparo �� Pesquisa do Estado de S��o Paulo (FAPESP)