Background: Only data of published study results are available to the scientific community for further use such as informing future research and synthesis of available evidence. If study results are reported selectively, reporting bias and distortion of summarised estimates of effect or harm of treatments can occur. The publication and citation of results of clinical research conducted in Germany was studied.Methods: The protocols of clinical research projects submitted to the research ethics committee of the University of Freiburg in 2000 were (...) analysed. Published full articles in several databases were searched and investigators contacted. Data on study and publication characteristics were extracted from protocols and corresponding publications.Results: 299 study protocols were included. The most frequent study design was randomised controlled trial, followed by uncontrolled studies, laboratory studies and non-randomised studies. 182 were multicentre studies including 97 international collaborations. 152 of 299 had commercial funding and 46 non-commercial funding. 109 of the 225 completed protocols corresponded to at least one full publication ; the publication rate was 48%. 168 of 210 identified publications were cited in articles indexed in the ISI Web of Science. The median was 11 citations per publication.Conclusions: Results of German clinical research projects conducted are largely underreported. Barriers to successful publication need to be identified and appropriate measures taken. Close monitoring of projects until publication and adequate support provided to investigators may help remedy the prevailing underreporting of research. (shrink)

Background: Only data of published study results are available to the scientific community for further use such as informing future research and synthesis of available evidence. If study results are reported selectively, reporting bias and distortion of summarised estimates of effect or harm of treatments can occur. The publication and citation of results of clinical research conducted in Germany was studied.Methods: The protocols of clinical research projects submitted to the research ethics committee of the University of Freiburg in 2000 were (...) analysed. Published full articles in several databases were searched and investigators contacted. Data on study and publication characteristics were extracted from protocols and corresponding publications.Results: 299 study protocols were included. The most frequent study design was randomised controlled trial , followed by uncontrolled studies , laboratory studies and non-randomised studies . 182 were multicentre studies including 97 international collaborations. 152 of 299 had commercial funding and 46 non-commercial funding. 109 of the 225 completed protocols corresponded to at least one full publication ; the publication rate was 48%. 168 of 210 identified publications were cited in articles indexed in the ISI Web of Science. The median was 11 citations per publication .Conclusions: Results of German clinical research projects conducted are largely underreported. Barriers to successful publication need to be identified and appropriate measures taken. Close monitoring of projects until publication and adequate support provided to investigators may help remedy the prevailing underreporting of research. (shrink)

Excerpt: In 1974… I wrote a chapter assembling some philosophical precedents and presenting my interpretation of Piaget’s theory. It was the first time the epithet “radical” was used. It was intended in the sense that William James had used in his radical empiricism, i.e., meaning “going to the roots” or “uncompromising”. I chose it because at the time many developmental psychologists were mentioning Piaget’s constructivism but without going into its epistemological implications. What they called construction seemed to refer to the (...) fact that children acquire adult knowledge not all at once, but in small pieces. I did not think that this was a revelation and therefore called their approach “trivial constructivism”. It was clearly no way to gain the friendship of traditional psychologists but in the long run it did not do much harm. (shrink)

This paper, written in honor of the “800 years from the birth of Bonaventure”, underlines the affinity of the philosophy and the theology of Bonaventure, General Ministry of the Franciscan Order, with the perspective of Dietrich von Hildebrand, father of the realist phaenomenology. It is delineated a curious correlation between the two authors that have been able to generate a real revolution of love. The epistemic structure and the ontology of Bonaventure are caracterized by a structural unity that through an (...) itinerarium lead to the visio Dei. On the other hand von Hildebrand in What is philoso­phy? construes a strong epistemology in which the “evidence” and the “experience” of external realities play a fundamental role in reaching the perfect knowledge. A return to God is encouraged by two philosophers through the search and the veri cation of the phamenological facts that constitute and characterize the human being. (shrink)