Methodology for high-quality studies on course and prognosis of inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel diseases(IBDs) are characterized by a chronic course with an alternation of relapses and remissions.Questions about prognosis are important for the patient who wants to know how the disease will affect his/her life and also for clinicians to make management decisions.Correct selection of the patients is the basis for good methodological studies on the course of IBD.A great proportion of data on the course of IBD is derived from a limited number of cohort studies.Studies help to define the endpoints for clinical trials and to identify subsets of patients in whom the prognosis of the disease can be stratified according to clinical features.Specific scientific requirements for high-quality studies on prognosis are the following:use of inception cohort,description of referral patterns,completeness of follow-up,objective outcome criteria,blind outcome assessment,adjustment for extraneous prognostic factors and statistical issues.We analyzed each of these requirements in studies on IBDs.To date,prospective and populationbased cohort studies are the standard for an unbiased assessment of prognosis.A better knowledge of the course of disease of chronic disorders ideally requires:(1) data from population-based studies,to avoid selection bias from referral centers in which patients with a more severe disease are usually treated;(2) inclusion of patients seen at the onset of the disease excluding misdiagnosed cases;and(3) follow-up from the onset of the disease to the end without dropouts.

METHODOLOGICAL EVALUATION ON CLINICAL RESEARCH LITERATURE OF ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT OF FACIAL PARALYSIS

Objective: To try to give an objective evaluation on the clinical research situation about acupuncture treatment of facial paralysis in the past 50 years and try to provide a possible evidence for clinical practice. Methods: All papers are searched and assessed according to the international standards and clinical epidemiology. Results: There is no systematic review (SR) on acupuncture treatment of facial palsy in a total of 1021 articles enlisted in the present paper. Comparing with the quantity of the descriptive studies and expert opinions (constituting 84.84%), that of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and clinical controlled trials (CCTs) is smaller (constituting 15.16%), besides, the quality of RCTs and CCTs is unsatisfactory. Conclusion: At present, the quantity and quality of studies with RCTs about acupuncture treatment of facial paralysis can’t meet the need of clinical practice, and in order to improve the therapeutic effect, a higher quality of RCTs and SR is required.

Assessing Disclosure Quality： A Methodological Issue

The voluntary disclosure studies conducted until today, in social accounting and related fields, use different approaches to evaluate the so-called ＂disclosure quality＂. Disclosure quality is not so easy to measure, and it is derived from the application of different methodologies. In particular, the methodologies to assess the level of disclosure could be classified as subjective or objective. To the first category belong all the ＂tools＂ that are used directly without relying on the analysis of the original source of the information studies （Imhoff, 1992; Coleman ＆ Eccles, 1997; Welker, 1995）. The objective measurements used to assess the disclosure quality are, instead, based on the direct study of the original information source in order to obtain the information required （Krippendorff, 1980; Weber, 1985; Botosan, 1997; Lang ＆ Lundholm, 2000）. The aim of the paper is to give scholars and researchers a brief framework to understand the different methodologies used in accounting literature to assess the disclosure quality, providing examples of the application of the same in different research contexts.

The Analysis of Asda-Sainsbury’s Merger/Acquisition

The merger of Sainsbury’s and Asda caused huge impacts on Britain retail industry.Since the announcement that J Sainsbury plc would acquire Asda for £7.5 billion was published in April,2018,the changes in the UK grocery market have been discussed and questioned.And the grocery market in UK will be reordered without doubt.This essay firstly introduces Sainsbury by using Pestle model,then aims to figure out the type and the benefits of this M&A,analyze the market response and how investors react to this event in the first two parts.In the third and the last part,we aim to explain why the CMA blocked the merge.

CircRNA: a rising star in plant biology

Circular RNAs(circRNAs) are covalently closed single-stranded RNA molecules, which are widespread in eukaryotic cells. As regulatory molecules, circRNAs have various functions, such as regulating gene expression, binding mi RNAs or proteins, and being translated into proteins, which are important for cell proliferation and cell differentiation, individual growth and development, as well as many other biological processes. However, compared with that in animal models, studies of circRNAs in plants lags behind and,particularly, the regulatory mechanisms of biogenesis and molecular functions of plant circRNAs remain elusive. Recent studies have shown that circRNAs are wide spread in plants with tissue-or developmentspecific expression patterns and are responsive to a variety of environmental stresses. In this review, we summarize these advances, focusing on the regulatory mechanisms of biogenesis, molecular and biological functions of circRNAs, and the methods for investigating circRNAs. We also discuss the challenges and the prospects of plant circ RNA studies.

Study on the Methodology of Developing Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guidelines of Chinese Medicine

At present, evidence-based clinical practice guideline （EBCPG） is the main mode of developing clinical practice guidelines （CPGs） in the world, but in China, most of CPGs of Chinese medicine （CM） are still guidelines based on expert consensus. The objective of this study is to construct initially the methodology of developing EBCPGs of CM and to promote the development of standardization of CM. Based on the development of ＂Guideline for Diagnosis and Treatment of Common Pediatric Diseases in CM＂, the methodology of developing EBCPG of CM was explored by analyzing the pertinent literature and considering the characteristics of CM. In this study, the key problem was to put forward the suggestion and strategies. However, due to the methodology study of developing EBCPG of CM is still in the initial stage, there are still some problems which need further study.