On Structures and Self-Work: Locating Anti-Racist Politics in LIS

The tension between the individual and the structural continues to be a key issue in racial politics. This tension has marked recent discussions on the dog-whistle demagoguery of Donald Trump, the racialization of violence through Thug/Loner/Terrorist media narratives, the accountability of police brutality perpetrators, and beyond. The degree to which racialized power and difference are understood to represent individual phenomena and/or structural phenomena — and the anti-racist implications of such critical understandings — have long been sites of contention in anti-racist discourse. As Goldberg (1993) has demonstrated, the liberal racial politics that has dominated anti-racist thought has tended to locate racism and anti-racism (and, indeed, race itself) chiefly as matters of individual (in)action. In particular, racism comes to be framed as aberrant ignorance and irrationality and anti-racism as “self-work,” whether this be personal “unlearning” or individual institutional reform; consequently, investigations of racism as a structuring aspect of broader social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be deemphasized. The goal becomes diversification of existing arrangements towards harmonious “race relations” rather than the exploration of the complex ways in which such structures work to reproduce race and white supremacy. This presentation seeks to explore this central problem in anti-racist analysis within the context of Library and Information Studies (LIS). While LIS critics (e.g. Honma (2005), Hussey (2010), Peterson (1996, 1999)) have long pointed to the tendency within dominant narratives of diversity to ignore structural critique, individualized accounts of racial power and difference continue to dominate the field, underpinning literature on cultural competence, microaggressions, demographic alignment, and white privilege and allyship. Drawing on work by Goldberg (1993, 1997, 2002, 2009), Ahmed (2012), Bonnett (2000), López (2014), and other critical race scholars, the proposed paper will offer context through (a) an overview of key issues in critical race engagements with the question of the individual versus the structural; and (b) an elaboration of the ways in which such issues play out in LIS discourse on race. We will then explore questions on the dynamics, implications, possibilities, and challenges of individual and structural analyses. What, for instance, might an LIS emphasis on structural dynamics look like? Would a shift towards such an emphasis require changes in research culture? And what modes of analysis might such a shift enable? Is analysis like this methodologically practical in the library world (and what are the implications of asking such a question)? If white supremacy is understood to be a structural formation, how do we integrate critique of individual behavior, from microaggression to macroaggression? Does individual education have a place within structural analysis? How — if at all — might individual and structural approaches ultimately work in tandem to create more robust critiques of white supremacy from within our field? In highlighting key analytical tensions within anti-racist politics, this presentation hopes to contribute to the foundation of a more theoretically nuanced understanding of race, power, and difference within our field’s emerging critical race analyses

Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration

Much medical research is observational. The reporting of observational studies is often of insufficient quality. Poor reporting hampers the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a study and the generalisability of its results. Taking into account empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, a group of methodologists, researchers, and editors developed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) recommendations to improve the quality of reporting of observational studies. The STROBE Statement consists of a checklist of 22 items, which relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of articles. Eighteen items are common to cohort studies, case-control studies and cross-sectional studies and four are specific to each of the three study designs. The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors about how to improve the reporting of observational studies and facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies by reviewers, journal editors and readers. This explanatory and elaboration document is intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the STROBE Statement. The meaning and rationale for each checklist item are presented. For each item, one or several published examples and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature are provided. Examples of useful flow diagrams are also included. The STROBE Statement, this document, and the associated Web site (http://www.strobe-statement.org/) should be helpful resources to improve reporting of observational research

Mejorar la comunicación de estudios observacionales en epidemiología (STROBE): explicación y elaboración

Gran parte de la investigación biomédica es de tipo observacional. Los informes de los estudios observacionales a menudo poseen una calidad insuficiente, lo que dificulta la evaluación de sus fortalezas y debilidades para generalizar los resultados. Teniendo en cuenta la evidencia empírica y consideraciones teóricas, un grupo de expertos en metodología, investigadores y editores de revistas científicas, desarrollaron una lista de recomendaciones para aumentar la calidad de las publicaciones de los estudios observacionales: (STROBE). La Declaración STROBE consiste en una lista de verificación de 22 puntos que guardan relación con las diferentes secciones de un artículo: título, resumen, introducción, metodología, resultados y discusión. De ellos, 18 puntos son comunes a los tres diseños de estudio: cohorte, casos y controles, y transversales; los otros cuatro son específicos para cada una de estas tres modalidades. La Declaración STROBE proporciona a los autores información sobre cómo mejorar la calidad de los artículos sobre estudios observacionales y facilita a los revisores, editores de revistas y lectores su apreciación crítica y su interpretación. Este documento explicativo tiene el propósito de impulsar el uso, la comprensión y la difusión de la Declaración STROBE. Se presentan el significado y el análisis razonado para cada punto de la lista de verificación, proporcionando uno o varios ejemplos publicados en la literatura y, en lo posible, referencias de estudios empíricos relevantes y literatura metodológica. También se incluyen ejemplos de diagramas de flujo. La Declaración STROBE, el presente documento y la página Web asociada () son recursos útiles para mejorar la divulgación de la investigación observacional.Much medical research is observational. The reporting of observational studies is often of insufficient quality. Poor reporting hampers the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a study and the generalisability of its results. Taking into account empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, a group of methodologists, researchers, and editors developed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) recommendations to improve the quality of reporting of observational studies. The STROBE Statement consists of a checklist of 22 items, which relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of articles. Eighteen items are common to cohort studies, case-control studies and cross-sectional studies and four are specific to each of the three study designs. The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors about how to improve the reporting of observational studies and facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies by reviewers, journal editors and readers. This explanatory and elaboration document is intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the STROBE Statement. The meaning and rationale for each checklist item are presented. For each item, one or several published examples and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature are provided. Examples of useful flow diagrams are also included. The STROBE Statement, this document, and the associated Web site () should be helpful resources to improve reporting of observational research

Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration.

Much medical research is observational. The reporting of observational studies is often of insufficient quality. Poor reporting hampers the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a study and the generalisability of its results. Taking into account empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, a group of methodologists, researchers, and editors developed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) recommendations to improve the quality of reporting of observational studies. The STROBE Statement consists of a checklist of 22 items, which relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of articles. Eighteen items are common to cohort studies, case-control studies and cross-sectional studies and four are specific to each of the three study designs. The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors about how to improve the reporting of observational studies and facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies by reviewers, journal editors and readers. This explanatory and elaboration document is intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the STROBE Statement. The meaning and rationale for each checklist item are presented. For each item, one or several published examples and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature are provided. Examples of useful flow diagrams are also included. The STROBE Statement, this document, and the associated Web site (http://www. strobe-statement.org/) should be helpful resources to improve reporting of observational research. Present article is Russian-language translation of the original manuscript edited by Doctor of Medicine R.T. Saygitov.Present translation was first published in Digital Diagnostics. doi: 10.17816/DD70821. It is published with minor changes related to the literary editing of the translation itself

Повышение качества отчётов о наблюдательных исследованиях в эпидемиологии (STROBE): разъяснения и уточнения

Большинство медицинских исследований являются наблюдательными (observational). Сообщения о таких ис-следованиях часто невысокого качества, что затрудняет оценку сильных и слабых сторон работы, а также обоб-щаемости (generalizability) её результатов. Принимая во внимание эмпирические свидетельства и теоретические соображения, группа методологов, исследователей и научных редакторов разработала рекомендации «Повышение качества отчётов о наблюдательных исследованиях в эпидемиологии (STROBE): разъяснения и уточнения». Реко-мендации STROBE содержат 22 пункта, связанных с оформлением следующих разделов научных статей: название, аннотация, введение, методы, результаты и их обсуждение, при этом 18 пунктов являются общими для когортных исследований (cohort studies), исследований «случай–контроль» (case-control studies) и одномоментных исследова-ний (cross-sectional studies); 4 пункта специфичны для каждого из указанных дизайнов исследований (study designs). STROBE ― руководство для авторов, необходимое для повышения качества отчётов о наблюдательных исследова-ниях, облегчающее критическую оценку исследования и его интерпретацию рецензентами, редакторами журналов и читателями. Цель этой разъясняющей и уточняющей статьи ― способствовать более широкому применению, пониманию и распространению стандартов STROBE. В ней даётся разъяснение смысла и обоснование применения каждого пункта руководства (checklist). По каждому пункту приводятся один или несколько опубликованных при-меров правильного представления исследований и, при возможности, библиографические ссылки на подходящие эмпирические исследования и методологическую литературу. Представлены примеры потоковых диаграмм (flow diagrams) для описания последовательности исследования. Рекомендации STROBE, настоящая статья и соответ-ствующий веб-сайт (http://www.strobe-statement.org/) должны стать полезным источником для повышения качества отчётов о результатах наблюдательных исследований. This article is the reprint with Russian translation of the original that can be observed here: Vandenbroucke JP, von Elm E, Altman DG, Gotzsche PC, Mulrow CD, et al. Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration. PLoS Med. 2007;4(10):e297. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0040297

Phase II Clinical Trials in Oncology: Strengths and Limitations of Two-Stage Designs

Two-stage designs are used widely in Phase II oncology clinical trials to reduce the number of patients placed on ineffective experimental therapies. They provide clear-cut rules for stopping early in the event that treatment is not succeeding as hoped and are relatively simple to implement. Such designs, however, can lead to situations in which patient accrual is continued in the face of a clearly inferior treatment. In situations where patients' response can be determined for many or most subjects before additional patients are enrolled, analyses using Bayesian methodology can lead to earlier termination of studies of ineffective treatments and better align the statistical assessment of treatment effect with the therapeutic objectives of study. These points are discussed in context of the role of Phase II clinical trials in the development of new treatments for cancer