Massachusetts study finds that increases in district's special-education costs are not due to district policies and practices, but to three external factors: medical advances that have increased the survivability of children born with disabilities, the deinstitutionalization of special-needs children, and the higher percentage of children living…

Discussion of information retrieval and the derivation of new knowledge from bibliographic databases focuses on medical journal literature. Topics discussed include the incomplete coverage of medical literature on databases; searching by free text or title words versus searching by assigned subject headings; and the implications of these factors…

The analysis of costs of National Institutes of Health (NIH) bio-medical research demonstrates that the increased expenditures for research project grants are due to such factors as real growth in the program, artifacts of the calculation method, and the extent to which project periods of awards have lengthened. (Author/DB)

The article analyzes three challenges confronting academic medical centers in the areas of education, patient care, and research. Encouraged are: (1) an expanded role by medical centers in training primary care physicians; (2) modification of physician reimbursement policies; and (3) resolution of conflicts of interest for biomedical scientists in…

This issue presents six papers that provide both a historical perspective on and state-of-the-art knowledge about the study of clinical reasoning in medicine. A retrospective is followed by reviews of four approaches to clinical reasoning and an empirical study of current work in the field. (SLD)

Introduces psychological perspectives on stress, noting conceptual models that guide sport and exercise psychology. After presenting key aspects of Lazarus' stress model, the paper reviews major lines of research related to stress within sport and exercise psychology. Lazarus suggests more information can be gained by considering emotion along…

A review of the combined M.D.-Ph.D training program at Johns Hopkins Medical School (Maryland) found that, of 109 students who earned both degrees since 1980, 42 have completed all training and are now in career positions. Most (81 percent) are in full-time academic posts, with 14 percent in research institutes and the remaining 5 percent in…

Discusses the problem of fraud in scientific research and provides background on the medical research fraud case of John Darsee in 1981. Results of analysis of citations to Darsee's publications are reported, indicating that his work continues to be cited positively; and the dangers of fraudulent research are considered. (28 references) (MES)

Describes a study funded by the Commission of the European Community that applied document retrieval algorithms to the "Excerpta Medica" database using the EMTREE thesaurus. Nonhierarchical relations were added to enrich the thesaurus, and document ranking is discussed in terms of the conceptual distance between the documents and the…

Elaborates on a theoretical framework for analyzing the operation of the official classification system within the mental health professions. Uses the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM) to explicate agency in structuration theory and structuration theory to illuminate the structure/use of the DSM. (Author/AEF)

Suggests that doctors may one day be able to identify healthy people who will develop Alzheimer's disease. Discusses recent studies in which characteristics of a person's writing early in life appear to predict the disease, and brain scans can highlight changes that may precede dementia. (CCM)

This study conducted a crosslanguage analysis of conceptual alteration in medical translation between English and Chinese, focusing on the original and translated concepts in article titles from two English medical journals and two Chinese medical journals. Findings provide insights into future studies on crosslanguage information retrieval via…

Explains why the research requirement of the resident curriculum should be developed around the scientific method. The method can be stated in the form of: (1) make an observation; (2) make a hypothesis; (3) test the hypothesis; and (4) reach a conclusion. When research topics are broken down under these main steps, residents can see a more…

Reports on what appears to be a promising approach to the treatment and spread of cancer. Utilizes a mutant of the common cold virus that appears to kill many kinds of cancer cells but not normal cells. (DDR)

This paper describes the major findings from epidemiological studies on the sexual abuse of children, raises questions that need to be addressed by future epidemiological studies, and reviews some of the barriers to conducting these studies. Findings are organized into five categories: prevalence, reported incidence, data from children,…