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This episode is sponsored by Digital Science, a global leader in AI-driven technology, providing advanced software and data solutions that empower researchers, universities, and organizations across the research ecosystem. Born out of the research community itself, Digital Science was founded by researchers who sought to solve the challenges they were facing. Now Digital Science is dedicated to making open, collaborative, and inclusive research a reality, partnering with academic institutions to provide pioneering AI-powered tools that enhance decision-making, foster innovation, and help shape a future where trusted, collaborative research drives progress for all. Learn more at https://www.digital-science.com/. Today's episode features Caroline Goldsmith, Associate Director, Charleston Hub, who talks with Dr. Leslie McIntosh, Founder, Ripeta, and VP, Research Integrity, Digital Science. Leslie talks with us about how she defines research integrity, and the major issues she sees currently facing the scholarly communication industry around research integrity. Leslie dedicates her work to improving research and investigating and reducing mis- and disinformation in science. She founded Ripeta in 2017 to improve research quality and integrity using algorithms which lead in detecting trust markers of research manuscripts. Leslie has given hundreds of talks to the US-NIH, NASA, and World Congress, and her work was the most read Retraction Watch post in 2022. She also talks about the work being done at Digital Science and the new tool, Dimensions Author Check, which supports publishers with the author verification process. The video of this interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/x8lA-59Zi08 Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-goldsmith-94459112/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-mcintosh/ Keywords: #DigitalScience, #digital, #ResearchTransformation, #Research Quality, #ResearchEthics, #OpenResearch, #ResearchInnovation, #EmergingTechnologies, #AcademicResearch, #DigitalLibrarian, #DigitalLibrary, , #ResearchReliability, #ResearchIntegrity, #PublishingIntegrity, #PoweringResearch, #ScientificMisconduct, #Retractions, #AuthorVerification, #ScienceTalks, #Misinformation, #Disinformation, #knowledge, #awareness, #efficiency, #innovation, #partnerships, #CommunityEngagement, #collaboration, #scholcomm, #ScholarlyCommunication, #libraries, #librarianship, #LibraryNeeds, #LibraryLove, #ScholarlyPublishing, #AcademicPublishing, #publishing, #LibrariesAndPublishers, #podcasts
Welcome to 'Now that's Significant,' a market research podcast hosted by Michael Howard, Head of Marketing at Infotools. In this episode, Steven Snell, PhD, head of research at Rep Data, shares insights on data quality, combating online fraud, and research strategy in market research. Key points in this discussion 1. Fraud in Market Research: Steven discusses the challenges of detecting fraud in survey research, highlighting how sophisticated fraudsters have become, making traditional detection methods less effective. 2. Impact of Fraudulent Data: The conversation addresses how fraudulent data can skew insights by dragging results towards the middle, making it difficult to derive actionable insights. 3. Role of Technology in Combating Fraud: Steven emphasizes the importance of using technology to fight fraud, noting that while tech enables fraud, it is also essential in detecting and preventing it. 4. Ownership of Data Quality: The discussion covers who should be responsible for data quality, suggesting that researchers, panel providers, and tech solutions must collaborate to ensure high-quality data. 5. Future of Fraud Prevention: Steven shares his views on the evolving landscape of fraud prevention, advocating for a comprehensive approach that includes pre-survey, during-survey, and post-survey measures. A question to consider: How can your organization implement more robust fraud detection and prevention measures to ensure the integrity of your data insights? If you found this discussion valuable, please share it with others, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a review. Listen to our other episodes for more insights into market research. *** Infotools Harmoni is a fit-for-purpose market research analysis, visualization, and reporting platform that gives the world's leading brands the tools they need to better understand their consumers, customers, organization, and market. www.infotools.com Established in 1990, we work with some of the world's top brands around the world, including Coca-Cola, Orange, Samsung, and Mondelēz. Our powerful cloud-based platform, Harmoni, is purpose-built for market research. From data processing to investigation, dashboards to collaboration, Harmoni is a true "data-to-decision-making" solution for in-house corporate insights teams and agencies. While we don't facilitate market research surveys, provide sample, or collect data, we make it easy for market researchers to find and share compelling insights that go over-and-above what stakeholders want, inspiring them to act decisively. One of the most powerful features of Harmoni is Discover, a time-tested, time-saving, and investigative approach to data analysis. Using automated analyses to reveal patterns and trends, Discover minimizes potential research bias by removing the need for requesting and manually analyzing scores of cumbersome crosstabs – often seeing what you can't. Discover helps you easily find what differentiates groups that matter to you, uncover what makes them unique, and deliver data points that are interesting, relevant, and statistically significant, plus see things others can't. Add to all this an impending GenAI feature, and you have an extremely powerful, future-proofed tool.
On the most recent episode of TPI's podcast "Two Think Minimum," Dr. Meicen Sun, assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign joined TPI's Scott Wallsten to discuss her research on the effects of a country's decision to control international internet traffic. She finds that China's Great Firewall has helped increase profits of Chinese firms, but at the cost of reducing research quality as scientific collaboration and connections wither. This result presents a dilemma for autocrats if they try to balance short-term and long-term effects.
Access 2 Perspectives – Conversations. All about Open Science Communication
Karen Stroobants is a policy adviser and consultant on research policy and strategy while Noémie Aubert - Bonn is interested in understanding how research assessment and research careers influence the quality and integrity of research and the wellbeing of researchers. They join Jo to talk about research assessment as a lever to improve research quality and research culture. Explore all our episodes at access2perspectives.org/conversations Host: Dr Jo Havemann, ORCID iD 0000-0002-6157-1494 Editing: Ebuka Ezeike Music: Alex Lustig, produced by Kitty Kat License: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) At Access 2 Perspectives, we guide you in your complete research workflow toward state-of-the-art research practices and in full compliance with funding and publishing requirements. Leverage your research projects to higher efficiency and increased collaboration opportunities while fostering your explorative spirit and joy. Website: access2perspectives.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/access2perspectives/message
Welcome back to Intellicast! In this episode, Brian Lamar and Producer Brian are joined by EMI's Marketing Specialist, Emma Nicolls (a.k.a. Associate Producer Emma) to discuss the latest market research news and give a recap of Insights Marketing Day in Chicago last week. The guys start by discussing some EMI-centric info about the expansion of our business development team. We welcomed Angie Trujillo Emrie, Goshen Perry, and Sahil Mehta—all industry veterans—to our team and we're incredibly excited to have them. Brian and Brian then share news from CIRQ (Certification Institute for Research Quality) that they have been accredited to audit and certify market research and data analytics companies to support compliance with several well-known data privacy requirements. They analyze Google's announcement of the retirement of its Surveys and Survey 360 solutions which will be effective November 1st and congratulate PureSpectrum on the hire of their new Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Counsel, Jonathan Flatow. In the second segment of the episode, Producer Brian and Emma share their takeaways from Insights Marketing Day. The 1-day conference is a learning opportunity for marketers in the insights industry where they can network, hone their skills, and hear from industry leaders on new trends and best practices. Brian and Emma share what they learned, highlights from their favorite sessions, other takeaways from their experience, and more. This is a great episode to learn more about this unique conference. Thanks for listening! Learn more about our new hires here: https://emi-rs.com/2022/10/07/industry-leading-online-sample-consultancy-expands-team/ Missed our webinar, Dispelling the Myth: All Panels are the Same? No problem! You can register for the on-demand version here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3616620354739/WN_ysZOaYSeRoyA73QRJTubyA EMI's annual report on the sample industry, The Sample Landscape, is now available! Get your copy here: https://emi-rs.com/the-sample-landscape/ Want to catch up on our blogs? Click here. Missed one of our webinars or want to get some of our whitepapers and reports? You can find it all on our Resources page on our website here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Commentary by Dr. Anju Nohria
Episode 23 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander and Drs. Leilani Gjellstad (head of IRB) and Sri Banerjee (Public Health faculty) discuss ensuring survey validity.
Episode 22 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander and Drs. Leilani Gjellstad (head of IRB) and Sri Banerjee (Public Health faculty) discuss using data derived from social media.
Episode 21 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander and Drs. Leilani Gjellstad (head of IRB) and Sri Banerjee (Public Health faculty) discuss recruiting study participants through social media.
Episode 20 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander and Dr. Sri Banerjee (Public Health faculty) discuss geo spatial data and analysis and its application for doctoral studies.
Episode 19 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander and Dr. Sri Banerjee (Public Health faculty) discuss statistical software R and Python for doctoral studies. Transcript available at: https://laureatena.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PodcastPlaylistOwners/EbtpiKWpvT9NuUDu5jUD0VIBbyf0Q29CDWNCEkVG2WD7lw?e=jztgdP
Episode 18 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Drs. Stadtlander, Annie Morgan (Walden Associate Dean), and Nina McCune (Associate Dean of Office of Inclusive Teaching) discuss the research method Appreciative Inquiry. Transcript available at: https://laureatena.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PodcastPlaylistOwners/EeNLubmiINdAhBBfszNYB08BUcXXhh0J0sxyDukEb5iNvw?e=1fjQKi
Episode 17 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Drs. Stadtlander, Leilani Gjellstad (Director of Walden's IRB), and Nina McCune (Associate Dean of Office of Inclusive Teaching) discuss issues related to research and demographics. Transcript available at: https://laureatena.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PodcastPlaylistOwners/EYbKdw8_YQ1KkfyLucLQITYBa7zPH8AuHXXek-6y7op9bg?e=EeZtzV
Episode 16 of Research Talk, from the Office of Research and Doctoral Services (formerly the Center for Research Quality) at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Drs. Stadtlander, Leilani Gjellstad (Director of Walden's IRB), and Nina McCune (Associate Dean of Office of Inclusive Teaching) discuss issues related to diversity and research recruitment.
Episode 15 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander interviews Dr. Sara Moubayed, an alumna of Walden's PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision program. Transcript available at: https://laureatena.sharepoint.com/:b:/s/PodcastPlaylistOwners/EUWP2DsljB5Fmr4hT-sXnR8Bk9fMQY-kyT8yfzvPqzAn-Q?e=vWAWIq
Episode 14 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander interviews Dr. Julienne King, an alumna of Walden's PhD psychology program.
Episode 13 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander demonstrates how to orient a beginning student (Quanny) to the term plan.
Episode 12 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander demonstrates how to orient a beginning student (Quanny) to the dissertation process.
It’s Thursday and that means it’s time for the REALest talk on the Internet. Join Jimmy today as he welcomes Shawn Stevenson. “Your cardiologist is treating your heart while not realizing that your heart is made from the food you eat.” - Shawn Stevenson Shawn Stevenson is the author of the USA Today National bestseller Eat Smarter and the international bestselling book Sleep Smarter. He’s also creator of The Model Health Show, featured as the number #1 health podcast in the U.S. with millions of listener downloads each year. A graduate of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Shawn studied business, biology, and nutritional science and became the cofounder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance. Shawn has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The New York Times, Muscle & Fitness, ABC News, ESPN, and many other major media outlets. In this interview, Jimmy is honored to have a fellow author, podcaster, and incredible human being named Shawn Stevenson on the show to discuss the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling book SLEEP SMARTER entitled EAT SMARTER. Anybody who knows the work of Shawn Stevenson can appreciate the thoroughness in his research about anything he talks about. Jimmy and Shawn get deep into this on the science supporting sleep, against the use of wearing masks, and what the latest studies show on the impact of food on your body. Shawn on Instagram The Model Health Show Podcast
Episode 10 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander demonstrates how to mentor a beginning dissertation student (Yassi)through designing a qualitative study.
Episode 11 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander. In this session Dr. Stadtlander demonstrates how to mentor a beginning dissertation student (Quanny) through designing a secondary data quantitative study.
Episode 9 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest panelists Drs. Michelle Brown (director in Walden's Center for Research Quality) and Tony Perry(Psychology faculty). They discuss mentoring doctoral students through quantitative data collection and data analysis.
Episode 8 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest panelists Drs. Laura Lynn (dean of Walden's Center for Research Quality), Cheryl Keen and Bonnie Mullinix (Education faculty). They discuss mentoring doctoral students through qualitative data collection and data analysis.
Dr. Shai Silberberg is the Director of Research Quality at the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) leading the Institute efforts to increase the excellence of science and the completeness of research reporting. Prior to joining NINDS, Dr. Silberberg was an Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, investigating the biophysical functions and physiological roles of ion channels.
Dr. Shai Silberberg is the Director of Research Quality at the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) leading the Institute efforts to increase the excellence of science and the completeness of research reporting. Prior to joining NINDS, Dr. Silberberg was an Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, investigating the biophysical functions and physiological roles of ion channels.
Episode 7 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest Dr. Michelle Brown, a director in Walden's Center for Research Quality. They discuss how to mentor students in achieving research design alignment in their research projects.
Episode 6 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest Dr. Leilani Gjellstad, the head of Walden's IRB. They discuss the impact of COVID 19 on data collection for researchers and Leilani offers some possible solutions.
Episode 5 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest health psychologist, Dr. Ethel Perry. They discuss recognizing COVID 19 anxiety in your dissertation students and some ideas to help students stay focused. Also, some ideas to reduce your own anxiety.
Episode 4 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest Dr. Daniel Salter. They discuss options and ethics for faculty to consider in publishing with doctoral students and their graduates.
Treat the patient, not the data point. If you do this, you will have better quality data in your research trials. You will have better quality adverse event profiles. The adverse events that you document on your patients will be far more likely to be truthful and accurate than if you do otherwise. The patients that you do early terminate, or patients that you screen fail, will be far more appropriate to have been early terminated in a trial or to screen fail. We need to treat these data points differently in research than we do today. We need to treat them more like we do in normal healthcare.
Functional Medicine Research: Quality of Life, Iterative Healing, and the Therapeutic Partnership by The Institute for Functional Medicine
Episode 3 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University is a panel discussion with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and panelists, faculty members: Drs: Shanna Barnett, Marty Giles, and Tony Perry. The panel discusses options for synchronous meetings with online dissertation students outside the online classroom and creating a sense of community. Music by audionautix.com
Episode 2 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University is a discussion with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and guest research methodologist, Dr. Marydee Spillett. They discuss issues faculty need to know about the use of qualitative software by dissertation students. Music by audionautix.com
Episode 1 of Research Talk, from the Center for Research Quality at Walden University is a discussion with host, Dr. Lee Stadtlander and her guest, Dr. Leilani Gjellstad, head of Walden's IRB, discussing ethics for doctoral committees. Music by audionautix.com
More information on https://www.modbot.comThis podcast is part of the Wevolver network. Wevolver is a platform & community providing engineers informative content to help them innovate.Learn more at Wevolver.comPromote your company in our podcast?If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, you can contact us at richard@wevolver.com
ACA President and CEO, Matt Polka sits down with founding partner of MoffettNathanson, Craig Moffett. Craig Moffett has been elected to Institutional Investor Magazine’s All-American Research Team in the U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite sectors on fifteen separate occasions, including nine separate appearance as the #1 analyst in America in either U.S. Telecom and/or Cable & Satellite. He has also been rated the #1 analyst in the U.S. Telecommunications sector by Bloomberg Markets, and he has consistently ranked #1 in Research Quality in Greenwich Research’s annual survey in both Telecommunications and U.S. Cable and Satellite sectors. Prior to founding MoffettNathanson, Mr. Moffett spent more than ten years at Sanford Bernstein & Co., LLC as a senior research analyst.
Session 4 In this episode, Ryan talks with Dr. Patrick Pickett, an anesthesiologist who practices in the community hospital in Oklahoma as he shares about his path to anesthesiology, his typical day at work, work-life balance, as well as the things that he like most and least about being an anesthesiologist. Finally, he gives his opinion on the future of anesthesiology specifically merging with CRNAs. Here are the highlights of the conversation with Patrick: Choosing the kind of setting to practice in: Always thinking he wanted to do academics Realizing he didn't want to do academic setting after doing a fellowship in critical care medicine Started looking for jobs and happened to find a community job and realized it was a better fit for him When he knew he wanted to be an anesthesiologist: Patrick majored in engineering and volunteered at a biomedical engineering department at a hospital and realized it wasn't something he wanted to do. Getting to watch surgeries and working with the anesthesia side of it Went through shadowing and didn't like it but after going through rotation and training, he had a turnaround What caused him to like anesthesiology after rotation: Coming from a family with medical background, he knew what specialties he didn't like Thinking he wanted radiology coming into medical school Not liking clinic and liking hospital setting Liked being in the operating room but not liking to be a surgeon Choosing the specialty through the process of elimination Traits that lead to being a good anesthesiologist: Flexibility in time and treatment options Thinking on your feet Being well-versed and liking different things Having broad knowledge Being able to change gears quickly Being able to get along with people and the team Being able to assume leadership role at times A typical day in the say of an anesthesiologist: Starting before 7 am and ending the day 4-5 pm on average There is no one typical day since you will be working at different locations for different cases If in the operating room: 3-5 cases on average for 1-2 hours each If in the GI lab: 10-15 cases for 30 minutes each If in neurosurgery/spine surgery/cardiac: 1-2 cases for 4-8 hours each If in general surgery: Meets with patients; talks about the plan, risks, and alternatives and then to the operating room Walks patients through the procedure to reduce anxiety; manages vital signs, making sure all things are in place At the end of the surgery, takes them to the recovery room Taking calls: Less frequent calls but more likely to go to the hospital to be there Work-life balance: Yes.This is one of Patrick's pre-requisites in choosing a specialty because he wanted something that would give him some flexibility. 55-60 hours a week Some days are predictable so he gets to see his kids more. Being on call is part of the deal but it's manageable. What makes a competitive applicant for anesthesia: It's almost like Emergency Medicine in terms of the board scores and the grades Intangible aspect: Being appropriately aggressive, knowing when to step back and when to step forward to help out Doing well in your rotations It's not a small field as there are many programs in anesthesiology (around 1500 spots) What residency looks like: 4 years - Intern year (medicine, surgery, EM, ICU, etc.) + 3 years (general rotations) Most programs won't put you in the OR by yourself on day 1 of that 2nd year More independence and advanced rotations as you go along Pain management as a multidisciplinary field in anesthesiology similar to critical care Less calls than surgeons but more than some others and almost always in-house and they couple a senior and a junior on-call Orals boards: 2 hours 2 rooms (an hour each room and with 2 examiners in each room) Each candidate has the same stem of the case but which direction each goes is up to the examiners. It probes the limits of your knowledge and the format can be intimidating. Written board exam first before taking the oral exams Not a question of content but about being able to think on your feet Bias among DOs vs. MDs: Any bias perceived is not deserved. Sub-specialties: Pain management: Neurologist Psychiatrist PMnR Internal Medicine Critical Care: ICU medicine Other sub-specs: Pediatric anesthesia Cardiac anesthesia > echocardiography Obstetric anesthesia Liver transplant anesthesia What he wished he knew going into anesthesiology that he knows now: Job opportunities available The business side of medicine Other specialists he works the closest with: All surgical fields expanding to procedural fields such as: GI - endoscopy Cardiology Internal radiologist MRI (they may provide sedation for really young patients) Special opportunities outside of clinical medicine: Expert witness testimony Research Quality improvement Expansion of training Quality management What he wished other specialties knew about anesthesiologists: Their focus on safety particularly a combination of three: Patient and their medical problems The surgery and how it affects the body The anesthetic and how it affects the body They have different ways of looking at patients. Pre-anesthesia process to decide who's a good candidate and who's not and what they can do to make them a good candidate They try to get everybody on the same page. What he likes most as an anesthesiologist: Variety of the things they do everyday They also have their share of excitements but he also likes the routine stuff What he likes the least being an anesthesiologist: Night calls Would he still choose anesthesiology if he were to do it again? Yes, it's the right fit for him. You have to go through it to find out what works for you. The future of anesthesiology vs. CRNA's merging: The Anesthesia Care Team is a very safe approach. Patrick finds that although the topic is controversial, most people working get along just fine. For premeds, you should be prepared to supervise nurses and you should be prepared to do your own cases because you can do both. Some pieces of advice for those considering anesthesiology for a specialty: If you like the fast-paced hospital-based specialty, give it a try. Give it a rotation and if you don't like it, there are plenty other fields to choose from but if you do, it can be a great career. Links and Other Resources: www.mededmedia.com
Healthcare Tech Talk- Exploring how technology can help meet the challenges in Healthcare.
From wearable technology to smart homes, the means to gather or monitor our health information is growing leaps and bounds. Connected Health is playing an increasing role in our daily health and is poised to play a major role in the future of healthcare. How does one keep up and create a stratagy for leveraging this technology, either as an organization or as an individual? In this episode we talk with Jennifer Kent, Ph.D., Director of Research Quality and Product Development and Parks Associates about this exciting sector of health devices. Connected Health Summit September 9-10, San Diego, CA Download our Apps: iPhone Android
Multiple Sclerosis Discovery: The Podcast of the MS Discovery Forum
[intro music] Host – Dan Keller Hello, and welcome to Episode Twenty-one of Multiple Sclerosis Discovery, the podcast of the MS Discovery Forum. I’m your host, Dan Keller. This week’s podcast features an interview with Dr. Paul Matthews about imaging in multiple sclerosis. But to begin, here’s a brief summary of some of the latest developments on the MS Discovery Forum at msdiscovery.org. We recently reported on a draft of a review released by the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality about discontinuing disease-modifying therapies in patients with MS. Though the report’s main conclusion was that little evidence is available to assess the risks and benefits of discontinuing therapies, several MS groups came together to criticize the report during the open comment period. Groups like the National MS Society and Medical Partners 4 MS raised concerns that the review was not conducted properly and that insurance providers may use it as justification to reduce coverage of DMTs for MS. The AHRQ told Multiple Sclerosis Discovery Forum that they would consider the comments carefully and make any necessary revisions. MSDF’s parent organization, the Accelerated Cure Project, is launching a new research resource called iConquer MS. Hollie Schmidt, Vice President of Scientific Operations at the Accelerated Cure Project, recently wrote a blog post explaining that the new initiative aims to take data and biosamples from 20,000 people with MS and make them open-access to researchers. We want your input about what you may want to do with such a resource. If you’re interested, go to the blogs section of MS Discovery Forum under the “News and Future Directions” tab and click on the blog post titled, “Invitation to Share Your Thoughts on a New MS Research Resource.” Our list of meetings and events is ever-growing. We’ve posted multiple meetings of all shapes and sizes sprinkled throughout 2015 and even into 2016. And if you know of a meeting that’s not yet listed, please do submit what information you have. We’ll take care of the rest. Just go to “Meetings and Events” under the “Professional Resources” tab on our website and click on the “submit new item” button to tell us about your event. We’re even willing to list local departmental seminars and journal clubs. [transition music] Now to the interview. Professor Paul Matthews is at Imperial College London in brain sciences. He met with MSDF to talk shop about imaging in MS. Interviewer – Dan Keller Welcome, Professor Matthews. What do you see now as new modalities or new ways of doing imaging, and what’s coming along? Interviewee - Paul Matthews Thanks, Dan. Imaging continues to reinvent itself in areas particularly like MS. Magnetic resonance is becoming more and more powerful with use of particularly multiband techniques, allowing multiple coils to be used to accelerate the imaging process, and because of that being able to collect much more data to enhance particularly diffusion images. So, for example, within the Human Connectome Project, development of new multiband techniques has accelerated imaging to the point where very high resolution diffusion tensor images can be acquired in spaces of 15-20 minutes. The implications of this for MS are that we can begin to develop powerful approaches to expression of the diffusion tensor information in terms of diffusion parallel to the fibers, perpendicular to the fibers, and free diffusion that is anisotropic. This means that potentially we’re going to be able to separate out free-water contributions from those contributions arising from myelin and axonal loss, providing a very powerful complement to magnetization transfer images. A second area of major development in magnetic resonance is the increased use of ultra-high field systems at 7T, and potentially higher, for applications in MS. The first advantage this has brought is for increased spatial resolution that can be used to begin to image cortical lesions with a really impressively enhanced sensitivity. The second area has been new kinds of contrast. The high magnetic fields allow new susceptibility-weighted contrast to be generated which provides a powerful way of visualizing vessels. It’s very clearly defining the vessels at the center of most of the inflammatory lesions, helping a little bit with differential diagnosis, but even more importantly helping us understand what the microvascular architecture is in and around lesions. A second potential advantage of the ultra-high field is simply increasing the sensitivity of MR for applications in magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We’ve known for a long time that signals from myo-inositol can help us understand glial components of inflammatory lesions, but there’s increasing interest in applying this kind of tool to measurements of glutathione, to provide indices related to reactive oxygen species generation, and potentially also to measuring excitotoxic neurotransmitters such as glutamate. In a completely different space, positron emission tomography (PET) has begun to play a renewed kind of role in MS. I’ve always been a little bit disappointed that more wasn’t done with it over the last decade or so since pioneering studies that demonstrated that assessments of energy metabolism based on simply the fluorodeoxyglucose signal not only discriminated people with MS from healthy volunteers, but, more importantly, began to show discrimination between different stages of the disease and a relationship to cognitive impairment, with potentially reversible components with treatment. Now, that still is an area of potential work. But more recently focus has shifted particularly to use of ligands that bind to the 18 kilodalton translocator protein which provides a marker of microglial inflammation in the brain. While it’s not entirely specific and with the caveat that we have little understanding of the relationship between the TSPO expression and the microglial phenotype, it clearly is highlighting some very interesting things. First, we found that the TSPO binding by ligands is increased multifocally in brains of people with MS; it’s increased multifocally in the white matter and in the grey matter. Moreover, increases in binding in both regions are related to degrees of disability; patients with higher disability show increased binding particularly in the cortex. There’s emerging evidence, driven first by elegant preclinical studies done by the Finnish group and some human studies yet to be fully reported, that there are also strong treatment effects with powerful amino modulators. So because this provided us a window that is clearly giving us information distinct from that provided by T2 hyperintense lesions on MRI or by gadolinium enhancement on MRI, it promises a powerful adjunct. And, finally, just to kind of round that idea out, it’s clear that it will be the combination of MR and PET that’s powerful rather than PET replacing MR in some way in our diagnostic or monitoring armamentarium for treatment. One manufacturer has already started supplying commercially integrated MRI-PET systems. Another manufacturer is expected to do so very soon, and potentially a third. This may become a platform for brain imaging that is very powerful for disorders like MS that have multifocal manifestations where the registration – the precise registration – between the MRI and the PET becomes important. Moreover, the potential to use dynamic MRI acquisitions where we’re just imaging very, very rapidly throughout the entire PET scanning period to follow the position of the head within the PET scanner may allow a new kind of precision of special resolution in the PET scan that allows MS studies where we rely on this very much to be done with far greater precision than it’s been possible in the past. So with these developments in MR, with the new radioligands in PET, and with this new technology for integrated MRI-PET, I think the brain imaging is off in incredibly new spaces. Now I can’t close the discussion of imaging without at least making a mention of the revolution in applications of optical coherence tomography that have been conducted over the last five years in particular for MS. This is really exciting, too. It’s an inexpensive examination that can be performed very rapidly in any clinic that provides very high-resolution measures of optic nerve fiber layers, of multifocal edematous regions within the nerve fiber layer, all of which can provide measures to stage MS and its associated neurodegeneration, and potentially to usefully monitor it in assessing the progress of patients on treatments. It’s an exciting time for imaging. Interviewer - MSDF Now just to clarify, this is optical coherence tomography of the retina and its surrounding structures. Interviewee - Dr. Matthews Yeah, Dan, thanks for clarifying that. Absolutely. So it’s an eye examination, but it’s an adjunct because the retina is just an extension of what we study in the brain. Interviewer - MSDF Either using metabolic markers or following metabolism with PET or something else, or using other ligands and markers, can you discern or image where remyelination is occurring? Interviewee - Dr. Matthews So, of course, the world of PET is a big one because what we can observe changes with the type of radiotracer that we use. Recently, Yanming Wang, who I had the privilege of collaborating with at Case Western, published, I think, a really groundbreaking paper. Although it was a preclinical study, I think it shows the way we could be moving in this space. Using a novel radiotracer that he developed called MeDAS – MeDAS for short – this carbon positron-emitting isotope-incorporated tracer allows specific myelin proteins to be imaged, and thus provides a marker of myelin integrity in life. Yanming has shown how it can selectively image myelin, it can image both established myelin and new myelin being formed, and he demonstrated in a proof of concept study in rodents that the dynamics of demyelination and remyelination following therapeutic intervention can be followed, and moreover, that the therapeutic effect can be quantified relative to an untreated control group. Really exciting and a potentially important adjunct to MTR or diffusion measurements in human studies. The trick of moving a tracer from preclinical studies into humans is not without some need for care, but because only microdoses of these tracers are used for the human imaging experiment, Yanming, myself, and colleagues believe we can make this transition rapidly. We’re watching closely to see what happens next. Interviewer - MSDF Pretty good. I appreciate it. Interviewee - Dr. Matthews Thanks, Dan. [transition music] Thank you for listening to Episode Twenty-one of Multiple Sclerosis Discovery. This podcast was produced by the MS Discovery Forum, MSDF, the premier source of independent news and information on MS research. MSDF’s executive editor is Robert Finn. Msdiscovery.org is part of the non-profit Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis. Robert McBurney is our President and CEO, and Hollie Schmidt is vice president of scientific operations. Msdiscovery.org aims to focus attention on what is known and not yet known about the causes of MS and related conditions, their pathological mechanisms, and potential ways to intervene. By communicating this information in a way that builds bridges among different disciplines, we hope to open new routes toward significant clinical advances. We’re interested in your opinions. Please join the discussion on one of our online forums or send comments, criticisms, and suggestions to editor@msdiscovery.org. [outro music]
Herman Aguinis, John F. Mee Chair of Management at the Kelley School of Business of Indiana University, Bloomington, and Robert J. Vandenberg, Robert O. Arnold Professor of Business at the Terry College of Business of the University of Georgia, talk about their article "An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure: Improving Research Quality Before Data Collection," which they wrote for the first volume of the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior. In this lecture, they discuss the various steps that researchers in organizational science can take to ensure that their work is of high quality and makes a lasting impact.