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Community-based research, that is, the meaningful involvement of affected populations in the production of scientific knowledge that concerns them, is a political struggle and an ethical necessity. Coalition PLUS, an international network of organizations (most of them NGOs) fighting against HIV and hepatitis, created a community-based research laboratory (CBRL) composed of people from more than sixteen countries and various disciplinary fields. The objectives of the CBLR are to build research capacity, ensure collaboration with local and international academic research centers, and develop international research projects. The CBRL acts as a bridge between different partners, reconciling sometimes divergent interests, and must provide mediation and support to promote dialogue, transparency, and a relationship of trust between the communities and academic researchers. However, the need for scientific legitimacy obliges us to continuously seek a balance between responding to the needs of the field and using rigorous scientific methods, while optimizing and prioritizing existing resources. The permanent quest for this balance has led the CBRL to reorganize its mode of operation to optimize existing synergies with academic research laboratories, with a view to asserting its scientific legitimacy and continuing to contribute to social transformation through community-based research that is both innovative and of high quality. This paper provides a critical reflection on the issues, challenges, practices, and solutions of community-based research within the Coalition PLUS network.

The academic poster, an illustrated summary of a scientific paper, is the most widely used tool by scientists to report on the progress of their work, in addition to oral presentations. It is often the first opportunity for a young clinician to present a clinical, public health or research work. In order to help with the realization of this work, we propose a practical guide including the necessary preparatory tools, the content, the appearance, the pitfalls to avoid as well as practical aspects to consider. The purpose of this article is to facilitate the realization of a visually appealing, structured and concise poster to promote discussion around the subject presented and possibly allow future collaborations., Competing Interests: Les auteurs n’ont déclaré aucun conflit d’intérêts en relation avec cet article.

Abstracting the main content of a recent report on the bad state of the archives of scientific research, this paper puts forward eleven thesis likely to feed, in this time of numeric transition to a new documentary regime and to a new patrimonial policy. The recent numeric conditions impose to set new archival pratices, more proactive, anticipative and prospective. Archives of scientific research must be thought in a double memorial and scientific dimension, and not only as a patrimonial or historical one.

Measurement of effect sizes is a practice that is increasingly encouraged, indeed required, by journals of psychological and social behaviour, in addition to the standard tests of statistical significance. This paper is a methodological note presenting the conceptual interest of the effect size, its main indicators and their interpretation.

In 2005, the National Observatory for Training, Research and Innovation on Disability (ONFRIH) was established by French law (Law 2005-102). The mission of ONFRIH is to provide an overview and recommendations for research, training and prevention in the field of disability. In this paper, the authors, respectively the Chairman and Rapporteur of the ONFRIH Working Group "Research and Innovation", present the Observatory's conclusions reached in its 2009 report about engineering sciences research and innovation. After introducing the ONFRIH and recalling the stakes and working methods, they highlight the current state of French research in this area and their thoughts about innovation chain. They evoke the broad outlines of their working group's analysis of this inventory. They conclude by identifying four action plans that express the Observatory's recommendations and were submitted to the responsible ministers. The four main objectives proposed are: (1) to consolidate disability as a major challenge for engineering sciences applications; (2) to reinforce the cooperation between operators at all levels of research and innovation; (3) to encourage the expression of needs within the research and innovation process, and (4) to facilitate the access of disabled people to technological innovations that promote their autonomy and social inclusion., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Allergic diseases represent a major health problem in Europe. They are increasing in prevalence, severity and costs. GA2LEN (Global Allergy and Asthma European Network), an FP6 Network of Excellence, was created in 2005 as a vehicle to ensure excellence in research bringing together research and clinical institutions to combat fragmentation in the European research area and to tackle Allergy in its globality. GA2LEN benefited greatly from the voluntary efforts of researchers who are strongly committed to this model of pan-European collaboration. The network was organized in order to increase networking for scientific projects in allergy and asthma around Europe and to make GA2LEN the world leader in the field. Besides these activities, research has been jointly made and the first papers are being published. GA2LEN achievements in general can be grouped as those for a durable infrastructure built up during the project phase those which are project-related work based on these novel infrastructures, and the development and implementations of guidelines. The major achievements of GA2LEN are reported in this paper.

The AHA has released its annual selection of the 10 top major advances in heart disease and stroke research for 2007. This list is very interesting. It contains papers on genetics which present the newly introduced genome-wide association studies of different common diseases, including coronary artery disease. The results of investigations carried out on cardiomyocytes derived from adult mouse spermatogonial stem-cells are mentioned. The value of angioplasty in chronic stable coronary artery disease is reassessed as is the need for mouth to mouth ventilation in resuscitation manoeuvres for cardiac arrest. The effectiveness and safety of drug-eluting stents in routine clinical practice is demonstrated and the merit of bivaluridin for the treatment of patients with a STEMI infarct is described. The improvement in quality of care provided by a statewide system for coronary revascularisation is outlined. Finally, two papers are devoted to epidemiological issues: one demonstrates that a reduced sodium intake lowers not only blood pressure, but also the risk of clinical cardiovascular disease outcomes; the second stresses that hypertension and prehypertension are often undiagnosed in the pediatric population.

Introduction: A recent report of the French research institute INSERM, based on a comprehensive review of the work done on the evaluation of psychotherapies Psychothérapies: trois approches évaluées, has shown the lack of research in France on this topic, notably in psychodynamic psychotherapy. The development of such research is needed. The first part of the paper deals with the limits of the third generation of studies on psychotherapy (medical model, use of RCT, DSM...) on which the INSERM report is based and reviews the existing propositions for a fourth generation of research in the field. METHODOLOGICAL FINDINGS: In the second part, a process-outcome research protocol developed by the authors, according to these new proposals as well as several on-going researches [J Clin Psychol, 27 2 (1998) 217-26, J Pragm Case Stud 3 (2000)(2), Arch Gen Psychiatry 59 (2002) 505-10, Psychother Res 12 3 (2002) 251-72 and Br J Psychiatry 165 (1994) 4-8] is presented. The proposed methodology is based on controlled single case studies. Quantitative and qualitative data are associated for the definition of the diagnosis, as well as initial, intermediate and final measures. Process analysis is used to describe the main characteristics of the on-going psychotherapy at different moments in time. It is thus possible to gain access to what is really done during the therapy and not only to what is supposed to be done, based on a manual or even on the name of the theory used by the therapist., Design of the Study: This methodology was tested during a one-year pilot study, in true conditions of psychotherapy with outpatients. The different phases of the analysis are presented: several tools dedicated to the observation, formalisation and data analysis are integrated in a coherent iterative process during the whole therapy. The interests and limits of each tool (ESM, DSM, PPQS, Hoglend, CORE...) are described together with the first results of the pilot study., Discussion: The overall architecture of a database designed to collect, search and analyse data is provided in the last part of the paper., Conclusion: This framework offers two possibilities at the same time: it provides therapists with the ability to follow the evolution of their cases and to compare them with similar cases. It provides researchers with the ability to drive true comparative analysis, based on psychotherapies conducted in real situations and on detailed-enough descriptions to obtain significant outcomes.

The development of an outstanding in vitro fertilization program greatly benefits from the contribution of research because it remains an unfailing source of questions on human reproduction, as much in the fields of physiology and pathology as in those of psychology and sociology. This paper shows five major themes that are tackled by the laboratory of biology and psychology of human fertility and the Fertility Clinic, whether it's endocrinology (the ovarian renin and angiotensin regulation), cellular metabolism (embryo metabolism), genetics (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) or cancerology (ovarian tissue conservation before or after chemo- or radiotherapy), all of these are crossed by the fifth (the psychological and ethical aspects of in vitro fertilization) which gives a human dimension to the biological work, since it's a very special biology that it's our own reproduction, the very base of the specie's survival.

This paper aims to clarify the concepts and terminology of clinical research, evaluation, and quality. Clinical research or clinical epidemiology aims to demonstrate the efficacy of medical care. The optimal methodology is a randomized, double-blind trial that allows a causal inference in respect of efficacy. This should be the first stage before generalization of all medical practice. Evaluation of quality of care aims to verify the effectiveness of medical care by comparing practice with references. The optimal methodology is clinical audit that allows fine-tuned diagnosis of the existence of deviant practices. The analysis of causes and correction of the care process are an integral part of the evaluation work. Thus quality assurance and quality management concepts and methods have been developed which tend to ensure solutions for better care and to maintain the level of quality of care to achieve patient satisfaction. Evaluation, clinical research and management quality could in fact be seen as the complementary facets of a comprehensive approach to quality of care.

Ever since the beginnings of economic entomology in Canada, research in biological control has drawn substantial support from the Federal Department of Agriculture. Enjoying a stable institutional environment with the establishment of the Dominion Parasite Laboratory in Belleville, Ontario, in 1929, biological control has also occupied an important position on the research agenda of the Department until the late sixties. Support from the scientific authorities was nevertheless fraught with important paradoxes. For example, research laboratories in biological control were built at a time when North American economic entomologists relied almost exclusively on synthetic chemical compounds like DDT. For some historians of science, the autonomy of Canadian entomologists explains the growth of this research program in the aftermath of World War II. However, the autonomy of the scientific community is a notion that is taken for granted in these historical explanations. In this article, I will demonstrate the institutional dynamic underlying the autonomy of Canadian entomologists in pursuing a research agenda suited to their interests. I will pay close attention to the role of certain actors -- foreign entomological services and the forest and pulp and paper industries - in the rise of a Canadian expertise in biological control. As well, I will show how their interventions forced a reorganization of research on the biological control of insect pests in agriculture and in forestry, and how this reorganization eventually entailed the dismantling of the Belleville laboratory in 1972.

Ethical considerations must be given priority when deciding whether or not to include an Alzheimer's Disease patient in a study leading to direct individual benefits. Although the law applies to ethics, the Huriet-Serusclat law was nevertheless written in the spirit of the major ethical declarations of the last 50 years (Nurenberg, Helsinki, Tokyo...) in order to protect patients from abusive decisions, whether these decisions were for or against the patient receiving treatment. This paper describes an incident during a phase II trial involving patients with Alzheimer's Disease. Four incapacitated patients protected by guardianship had given their informed consent to take part in the study. Their participation required that the informed consent be signed by the guardian as well. By misunderstanding of the law, the guardian transmitted the decision to the guardianship judge. Surprisingly, the guardianship judge refused permission for all patients to take part in this therapeutic trial against the wishes of the patients. Even more surprisingly, it appeared clearly that this judge was not thoroughly informed of each detail of the law. Prevention of this kind of situation might require modifications of the responsibilities of the CCPPRB. It is suggested that before the start of a study the CCPPRB should give a precise definition of the way in which incapacitated persons should be treated.

"This brief paper identifies the most important moments and the most significant studies of Italian historiography on emigration. These range from the first formulation of economic and national models of the Italian exodus to their subsequent fragmentation into a mosaic of regional and local historical and anthropological studies. Ultimately, this will allow a much needed conceptual synthesis, aiming at new comparative research objectives, and a less specialized and sectorial analysis of emigration. Such an approach would also help us to tackle the migrational phenomena in contemporary society with a greater historical awareness and with more adequate cultural comprehension." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND ITA AND SPA), (excerpt)

"In the last decade, life-event history analysis, also called failure time data analysis or survival analysis, has been widely adopted by demographers. This methodology in demography allows [us] to overcome major hurdles especially when analyzing longitudinal survey data. This paper describes the new perspectives opened to research in that field, and is illustrated by new results and examples of research projects. The authors concentrate on four issues: the analysis of incorrect and imperfect data, the analysis based on more complex data and lastly the study of interaction between phenomena." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA), (excerpt)

In psychiatric epidemiology, culture has often been treated in one of two ways: as a confounding variable to be controlled or as an explanation for unexpected findings. In cases where culture is presented as an explanation, there is often little detailed examination of how culture shapes responses to psychiatric interviews. In this paper, I will argue that culture plays a central role in influencing responses to psychiatric interviews in at least three ways: culture affects the way people respond to psychiatric interviews; culture influences the valuation of specific symptom items; and cultural categories are embedded in responses to psychiatric interviews. Through a review of research on the mental health of Latino populations, I will examine the roles of cultural categories in shaping responses to psychiatric epidemiology studies and will outline an alternative research approach to simultaneously exploring psychiatric diagnostic categories and cultural idioms of distress.

Rheumatic diseases are very common and their consequences on both the individuals (leading cause of activity limitation between the age of the 18 and 64 years) and on society (socio-economic costs) are considerable. However, the epidemiology of these diseases remains poorly known. In this paper, a review of the epidemiological data for the most frequent rheumatic diseases (including recent advances) is followed by an analysis of the specific obstacles to epidemiological research in the rheumatology field and by a proposal of possible developments.

Empirical psychotherapeutic research has much progressed in the last teen years. In that field the american-english workers afford a great number of meaningfull studies and papers. Very definite experimental work has been made in subjects like therapeutic situation, therapist ways, patient's reactions and outcome facts or content analysis studies, in assessment of results and processes. In that paper an approach is made of: 1 degree psychotherapeutic research general trends, 2 degrees results from various theroretical orientations: psychoanalytic, behaviour therapy, Rogers or Balint, 3 degrees evaluation of main factors for therapeutic sessions, 4 degrees special fields like brief psychotherapies or group therapies.

"This paper examines two methods of indirectly estimating mortality: the Bourgeois-Pichat method (estimation of life expectancy at birth), and the Bourbeau and Legare method.... This last method consists of estimating various past mortality measures, for a given population, by examining these same measures as they were observed in certain other populations, during the period in question." These methods are applied to Norwegian data for 1826-1976. The results are then compared with data observed during the same period. The findings are used to evaluate the two methods and assess their advantages and disadvantages. However, the emphasis is on the Bourbeau and Legare method. (summary in ENG, SPA), (excerpt)