Research Trail Research Articles

Impact of Research Trails on Seedling Dynamics in a Tropical Forest

ABSTRACTWe evaluated the impact of research access trails on adjacent seedling density, survival, and recruitment in a permanent tropical forest plot in Panama. Significant differences were detected up to 20 m from trails, indicating that data collected close to trails may be biased. However, observed effects were not substantial enough to affect plot‐wide estimates of seedling dynamics, suggesting that research trail impacts are negligible when affected areas constitute only a small fraction of the total area sampled.

Potential applicability and utilization of left atrial appendage occlusion devices in patients with atrial fibrillation

The WATCHMAN left atrial appendage occluder device (Atritech, Inc, Minneapolis, MN) is currently being tested in a Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial, the PROTECT AF trial, for patients who are diagnosed with paroxysmal, persistent, or permanent nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. However, rigorous screening and the study design have resulted in the exclusion of a large number of patients. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess the potential utility of this device among those who were eligible but excluded for trial criteria and the reasons for exclusion. Screening logs from the respective sites participating in the PROTECT AF trial were collected and analyzed for potential utilization outside of a research trial. Only 31 patients were enrolled into the research trail from the screening of 1798 total patients. Information from the excluded patients was examined and it was determined that 79% of these patients would be eligible for the device outside the research trial. Twenty-one percent of patients were not able to receive the device because of long-term warfarin need, contraindications to warfarin, unsuitable anatomy as determined by echocardiography, or the inability to take short-term aspirin and clopidogrel for protocol requirements. Should a device like the WATCHMAN left atrial appendage occluder be approved, approximately 79% of all patients with atrial fibrillation would be eligible for device placement.

“Pass It On” – 75 Years of Leadership in Kinesiology and Physical Education: Introduction

The 2005 annual meeting of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education (AAKPE) marked the 75th anniversary meeting of the Academy. From the original 5 members to the 460 Fellows identifi ed over these 75 years, the Academy has played a signifi cant role in our profession. The meeting theme was “Pass It On,” the Academy motto, taken from the Academyʼs logo, created by R. Tait Mackenzie (Fellow #2). The unifying concept of the 75th anniversary meeting was for us to learn where we come from, who we are, and where we are going as an Academy, as a profession, and as individuals. I asked each speaker to prepare comments from whatever perspective they believed to be most effective. Some chose to look back, some at the present, and some to the future. Some speakers chose to use a biographical perspective, others an historical, others a thematic, others a research trail, etc. I believe that readers will fi nd the papers interesting and insightful. Clearly, as evidenced in the following papers, Academy Fellows have infl uenced our discipline. We have been infl uenced by those who came before us, those with whom we work, and it is important that we “Pass It On” to those who come after us. Among the important issues that the Academy has addressed over the years is graduate education. The Academy aspires to be “the place” that graduate students, faculty, and administrators turn to for information about doctoral training in kinesiology and physical education. The Academy recently posted a listing of doctoral programs in our discipline at www.aakpe.org. Additionally, for the past 10 years, the Academy has been developing a project that provides students, faculty, and administrators greater insight into our disciplineʼs doctoral programs. The closing paper of these Academy Papers is the result of the work of many committee members, Fellows, and others in our profession. The doctoral program rankings presented by Thomas and Reeve are but the fi rst of what the Academy hopes will be ongoing evaluations of this type conducted by the AAKPE every 5 years. Much like other academic and lay projects, the AAKPEʼs Doctoral Program Review Committee has striven to create objective methods that refl ect programs, faculty, and students, important considerations for those making evaluative decisions about doctoral study in kinesiology and physical education. Enjoy the following papers and “pass them on” to your colleagues, students, and administrators as we celebrate 75 years of leadership.

The narrative research trail: values of ambiguity and relationships

Engle Angela Chan sets out the experiential function of ambiguity in nursing research through a narrative study of Canadian college nurse educators. Through the methods of conversation, journal writing and participation observation, the author, who was also one of the participants, explored with her colleagues the impact of nursing education and healthcare changes on their teaching lives. The article examines how researcher-participant relationships illuminate research outcomes.

Remembrance of things past: a hike along the Grès d’Annot research trail

Abstract This brief aperçu recalls some keynote studies on the Grés d’Annot in the French Maritime Alps that paved the way for my involvement with these rocks in the late 1950s. At that time, the topic of gravitative flows was gaining momentum, and various theories on underwater avalanches, including turbidity currents capable of carrying coarse sand to the deep sea, had already been proposed. However, these transport processes still needed considerable clarification. Discoveries, including the identification of the sandstones as turbidites by Faure-Muret and others in 1956, were not conceived in a vacuum, but rested on many years of previous research by numerous geologists. Some of the key earlier findings are cited here. My interests then, and for several decades afterward, were focused on the broader context of sedimentary petrology, downslope-to-deep marine deposition, palaeogeography and regional structural geology pertaining to these spectacular Tertiary sequences. Now that more than 40 years have passed, I look back and can better appreciate the role of others and their influence serving as a base for my modest effort. The ‘cutting of teeth’ experiences on the Grés d’Annot were truly fortunate, not only for my early formation as a sedimentologist, but also as I have continued to pursue related and progressively more diverse activities.

Critical social theory as a grounded process.

This article reflects upon the research process that uses critical social science as its basis. Some of the common criticisms of critical social science research are rebutted by following the research trail taken by the authors when undertaking their own projects. The similarities and differences of critical social science and the interpretative methodologies are outlined in the selection of study area, the relationship of the researcher and participants, ethical issues, and data collection and analysis. The writers conclude that critical social science research reports that are correctly carried out should be firmly grounded in each of these stages, thereby a foundation for nursing and midwifery practice.

A research trail over half a century.

The author describes his major research activities from the time of his PhD thesis work (1937-1940) on properties of erythrocyte membranes to the present. His involvement in research on circulatory shock during World War II led to a continuing interest in the physiology and pharmacology of smooth muscle and cardiac muscle. From 1956 to 1978, his main areas of research were photorelaxation of blood vessels, factors influencing contractility of cardiac muscle, peripheral adrenergic mechanisms, and receptor theory. The major findings of his and his collaborators in these areas are described. He then recounts how an accidental finding in an experiment in 1978 on preparations of rabbit aorta eventually led to the discovery of endothelium dependent relaxation and the endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF); and how additional findings led him to propose in 1986 that EDRF is nitric oxide.

FROM THE TRIOSES TO THE SYNTHESIS OF NATURAL PHOSPHOLIPIDS: A RESEARCH TRIAL OF FORTY YEARS.

FROM THE TRIOSES TO THE SYNTHESIS OF NATURAL PHOSPHOLIPIDS: A RESEARCH TRIAL OF FORTY YEARS.

The Research Trail of the X-ray

The x-ray in the public mind is associated chiefly with hospitals, physicians' offices, and dental chairs. It is well known to have brought about revolutionary changes in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and to have a place in the investigations and teaching of physics, but fewer know that the trail of research, which led down the centuries to the discovery of the x-ray, has a much wider interest and significance. As we follow it we find ourselves witnessing the early development of electricity, magnetism, and the vacuum. We are led as directly to the radio, and to other manifold applications of electricity in vacuo, as to the x-ray itself, and the continuation of this same trail after the discovery of the x-ray brings us to the astonishing study of radiations, to radium, to the demonstration of the electron and to those revelations of the structure of atoms which are altering so profoundly the older concepts of matter and energy. A younger generation which has never lived in a world without x-ray and radio cannot hope to recapture that first wonder excited by these discoveries. But by retracing the winding, halting trail left by early experimentors, we will find a most fascinating story of exploration and discovery by pioneers in a world which lay close about mankind, unknown and unsuspected until new eyes of science could be evolved to see by the light of the invisible spectrum. It is a story of the forging of new weapons against ignorance as indispensable to the advance of civilization as were the weapons of bronze that enabled man to escape from the Stone Age; a story of rare geniuses isolated from each other by long stretches of years, yet maintaining a continuity of science by the written record, and finally a curious story of the intermingling of error with insight, one no less important than the other, in forming the trail which led not only to the x-ray but also to the age of electricity in which we live. I The discovery of the x-ray then is seen to be an associated result of the observations and experiments of many predecessors who left a trail of investigations leading back to sources in electricity, magnetism, and the vacuum. We shall find that the first electrical experiments were with amber, that the first observations on magnetism were with the lodestone, and that the first permanent vacuum was formed in the barometer. Before recorded history it was known that amber, when rubbed briskly, would attract or repel chaff, feathers, and similar light objects. Seldom has a fact so important seemed so trivial and lain under-foot so long a time. Amber, a fossil resin found chiefly on the shores of the Baltic, was a widely carried article of trade for at least two thousand years before the scientific investigation of its properties began. Although in a class with semi-precious stones, it was not especially rare. In fact, fifteen thousand pounds of it were brought into Rome during the reign of Nero.