Research Strategy for Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland

Research Strategy for Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland The Report of the Commission on Nursing (1998, para. 6.77) recommended that the Nursing Policy Division in the Department of Health and Children, in consultation with the appropriate bodies, draw up a national strategy for nursing and midwifery research. In response to the above, the Chief Nursing Officer at the Department of Health and Children convened a consultative committee to prepare a research strategy for nursing and midwifery in Ireland. This committee was representative of those with a core interest in nursing and midwifery research. Click here to download PDF 501kb

Social inequalities in health. New evidence and policy implications

Health inequalities according to people's social standing are persisting, or even growing, in modern societies. Recent decades have revealed evidence of strong variations in life expectancy, both between countries and within them. This widening of social inequalities has developed despite considerable progress in medical science and an increase in health care spending. The reasons behind this are complex, and the implications considerable.   This book provides a summary of the major achievements of a five-year European Science Foundation (ESF) Programme on 'Social Variations in Health Expectancy in Europe'. The contributors are major figures in their subjects, and combine state of the art reviews with the latest results from interdisciplinary research in epidemiology, sociology, psychology and biomedicine.   Three conceptual frameworks of life course influences, health effects of stressful environments, and macro social determinants of health, are unified, while each chapter addresses the policy implications and recommendations derived from currently available evidence. The major topics covered include the role of family in early life, social integration and health, work stress and job security, successful ways of facing adversity, and the impact of the larger environment on health. Epidemiologists, public health research and policy makers, and students of related public health and sociology courses wlll find the results of this research fascinating.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

The mental health of young people in Ireland:a report of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research across the Lifespan (PERL) Group Dublin.

There has been a dearth of epidemiological research on rates of mental disorder among Irish people and little is known about the numbers of young people in Ireland who are experiencing diagnosable mental disorders. In the context of such limited epidemiological research in the field of mental health, the PERL Group in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland has conducted two studies on mental disorders and psychopathology among young Irish people. This report is the first research report from these two studies by the PERL Group. It provides data on the prevalence rates of mental disorder, substance use, deliberate self-harm and suicidality among young Irish people aged 11-24 years.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Need of reduced and harmonized bureaucracy in multi-centre clinical research - a case-report from a Swiss trial

Introduction We launched an investigator-initiated study(ISRCTN31181395) to evaluate the potential benefit of pharmacokinetic-guided dosage individualization of imatinib for leukaemia patients followed in public and private sectors. Following approval by the research ethics committee (REC) of the coordinating centre, recruitment throughout Switzerland necessitated to submit the protocol to 11 cantonal RECs.Materials and Methods We analysed requirements and evaluation procedures of the 12 RECs with associated costs.Results 1-18 copies of the dossier, in total 4300 printed pages, were required (printing/posting costs: ~300 CHF) to meet initial requirements. Meeting frequencies of RECs ranged between 2 weeks and 2 months, time from submission to first feedback took 2-75 days. Study approval was obtained from a chairman, a subor the full committee, the evaluation work being invoiced by 0-1000 CHF (median: 750 CHF, total: 9200 CHF). While 5 RECs gave immediate approval, the other 6 rose in total 38 queries before study release, mainly related to wording in the patient information, leading to 7 different final versions approved. Submission tasks employed an investigator half-time over about 6 months.Conclusion While the necessity of clinical research evaluation by independent RECs is undisputed, there is a need of further harmonization and cooperation in evaluation procedures. Current administrative burden is indeed complex, time-consuming and costly. A harmonized electronic application form, preferably compatible with other regulatory bodies and European countries, could increase transparency, improve communication, and encourage academic multi-centre clinical research in Switzerland.

Omics meets hypothesis-driven research. Partnership for innovative discoveries in vascular biology and angiogenesis.

The emergence of omics technologies allowing the global analysis of a given biological or molecular system, rather than the study of its individual components, has revolutionized biomedical research, including cardiovascular medicine research in the past decade. These developments raised the prospect that classical, hypothesis-driven, single gene-based approaches may soon become obsolete. The experience accumulated so far, however, indicates that omic technologies only represent tools similar to those classically used by scientists in the past and nowadays, to make hypothesis and build models, with the main difference that they generate large amounts of unbiased information. Thus, omics and classical hypothesis-driven research are rather complementary approaches with the potential to effectively synergize to boost research in many fields, including cardiovascular medicine. In this article we discuss some general aspects of omics approaches, and review contributions in three areas of vascular biology, thrombosis and haemostasis, atherosclerosis and angiogenesis, in which omics approaches have already been applied (vasculomics).

What new cell biology findings could bring to therapeutics: is it time for a phenome-project in Toxoplasma gondii?

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat" (SunTzu the Art of War, 544-496 BC). Although written for the managing of conflicts and winning clear victories, this basic guideline can be directly transferred to our battle against apicomplexan parasites and how to focus future basic research in order to transfer the gained knowledge to a therapeutic intervention stratey. Over the last two decades the establishment of several key-technologies, by different groups working on Toxoplasma gondii, made this important human pathogen accessible to modern approaches in molecular cell biology. In fact more and more researchers get attracted to this easy accessible model organism to study specific biological questions, unique to apicomplexans. This fascinating, unique biology might provide us with new therapeutic options in our battle against apicomplexan parasites by finding its Achilles' heel. In this article we argue that in the absence of a powerful high throughput technology for the characterisation of essential gene of interests a coordinated effort should be undertaken to convert our knowledge of the genome into one of the phenome.

Back to the future in Chagas disease: from animal models to patient cohort studies, progress in immunopathogenesis research

Despite the wealth of information generated by trans-disciplinary research in Chagas disease, knowledge about its multifaceted pathogenesis is still fragmented. Here we review the body of experimental studies in animal models supporting the concept that persistent infection by Trypanosoma cruzi is crucial for the development of chronic myocarditis. Complementing this review, we will make an effort to reconcile seemingly contradictory results concerning the immune profiles of chronic patients from Argentina and Brazil. Finally, we will review the results of molecular studies suggesting that parasite-induced inflammation and tissue damage is, at least in part, mediated by the activities of trans-sialidase, mucin-linked lipid anchors (TLR2 ligand) and cruzipain (a kinin-releasing cysteine protease). One hundred years after the discovery of Chagas disease, it is reassuring that basic and clinical research tends to converge, raising new perspectives for the treatment of chronic Chagas disease.

Opportunities for a cultural specific approach in the computational description of music

The current research in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) is showing the potential that the Information Technologies can have in music related applications. Amajor research challenge in that direction is how to automaticallydescribe/annotate audio recordings and how to use the resulting descriptions to discover and appreciate music in new ways. But music is a complex phenomenonand the description of an audio recording has to deal with this complexity. For example, each musicculture has specificities and emphasizes different musicaland communication aspects, thus the musical recordings of each culture should be described differently. At the same time these cultural specificities give us the opportunity to pay attention to musical concepts andfacets that, despite being present in most world musics, are not easily noticed by listeners. In this paper we present some of the work done in the CompMusic project, including ideas and specific examples on how to take advantage of the cultural specificities of differentmusical repertoires. We will use examples from the art music traditions of India, Turkey and China.

Narrative interviews: an important resource in qualitative research

Objetives This methodological study explain and emphasize the extent and fertility of the narrative interview in qualitative research. Methods To describe the narrative method within the qualitative research. Results The qualitative research method is characterized by addressing issues related to the singularities of the field and individuals investigated, being the narrative interviews a powerful method for use by researchers who aggregate it. They allow the deepening of research, the combination of life stories with socio-historical contexts, making the understanding of the senses that produce changes in the beliefs and values that motivate and justify the actions of possible informants. Conclusion The use of narrative is an advantageous investigative resource in qualitative research, in which the narrative is a traditional form of communication whose purpose is to serve content from which the subjective experiences can be transmitted.

Compositional Data in Biomedical Research

Modern methods of compositional data analysis are not well known in biomedical research.Moreover, there appear to be few mathematical and statistical researchersworking on compositional biomedical problems. Like the earth and environmental sciences,biomedicine has many problems in which the relevant scienti c information isencoded in the relative abundance of key species or categories. I introduce three problemsin cancer research in which analysis of compositions plays an important role. Theproblems involve 1) the classi cation of serum proteomic pro les for early detection oflung cancer, 2) inference of the relative amounts of di erent tissue types in a diagnostictumor biopsy, and 3) the subcellular localization of the BRCA1 protein, and it'srole in breast cancer patient prognosis. For each of these problems I outline a partialsolution. However, none of these problems is \solved". I attempt to identify areas inwhich additional statistical development is needed with the hope of encouraging morecompositional data analysts to become involved in biomedical research

Need of reduced and harmonized bureaucracy in multi-centre clinical research - a case-report from a Swiss trial

Introduction: We launched an investigator-initiated study (ISRCTN31181395) to evaluate the potential benefit of pharmacokinetic-guided dosage individualization of imatinib for leukaemiapatients followed in public and private sectors. Following approval by the research ethics committee (REC) of the coordinating centre, recruitment throughout Switzerland necessitatedto submit the protocol to 11 cantonal RECs.Materials and Methods: We analysed requirements and evaluation procedures of the 12 RECs with associated costs.Results: 1-18 copies of the dossier, in total 4300 printed pages, were required (printing/posting costs: ~300 CHF) to meet initial requirements. Meeting frequencies of RECs ranged between 2 weeks and 2 months, time from submission to fi rst feedback took 2-75 days. Study approval was obtained from a chairman, a subor the full committee, the evaluation work being invoiced by0-1000 CHF (median: 750 CHF, total: 9200 CHF). While 5 RECs gave immediate approval, the other 6 rose in total 38 queries before study release, mainly related to wording in the patient information, leading to 7 different fi nal versions approved. Submission tasks employed an investigator half-time over about 6 months.Conclusion: While the necessity of clinical research evaluation by independent RECs is undisputed, there is a need of further harmonization and cooperation in evaluation procedures. Current administrative burden is indeed complex, time-consuming and costly. A harmonized electronic application form, preferably compatible with other regulatory bodies and European countries, could increase transparency, improve communication, and encourage academic multi-centre clinical research in Switzerland.

The ant fauna of hospitals: advancements in public health and research priorities in Brazil

Ants inhabit several types of natural and urban habitats, where they successfully nest. In urban environments, the hospitals should be considered priority for studies, as ants pose risks to human health due to their pathogen carrying potential. We aimed at surveying the literature about studies on ants in hospital settings in Brazil in the past 20 years. We found 40 papers in 22 journals, the first one published in 1993. Among them, 26 papers assessed pathogenic microorganisms on ants. We recorded 59 ant species, being Tapinoma melanocephalumthe most common. The Minas Gerais and São Paulo states had the largest number of published papers. Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio Grande do Sul showed the highest number of species. Exotic ant species were recorded in all states, except Goiás. Considering the potential to carry microorganisms and the importance of thorough studies on the ecology of ant species, our results can support and guide further research in Brazil.

Editorial research and the publication process in biomedicine and health: Report from the Esteve Foundation Discussion Group, December 2012.

Despite the fact that there are more than twenty thousand biomedical journals in the world, research into the work of editors and publication process in biomedical and health care journals is rare. In December 2012, the Esteve Foundation, a non-profit scientific institution that fosters progress in pharmacotherapy by means of scientific communication and discussion organized a discussion group of 7 editors and/or experts in peer review biomedical publishing. They presented findings of past editorial research, discussed the lack of competitive funding schemes and specialized journals for dissemination of editorial research, and reported on the great diversity of misconduct and conflict of interest policies, as well as adherence to reporting guidelines. Furthermore, they reported on the reluctance of editors to investigate allegations of misconduct or increase the level of data sharing in health research. In the end, they concluded that if editors are to remain gatekeepers of scientific knowledge they should reaffirm their focus on the integrity of the scientific record and completeness of the data they publish. Additionally, more research should be undertaken to understand why many journals are not adhering to editorial standards, and what obstacles editors face when engaging in editorial research.