Ethical Consequences of Scientific frauds

As consequências éticas de um estudo falso e como a ânsia de publicar rápido uma "bomba" interferiu com o julgamento editorial de uma das mais importantes revistas médicas do mundo ( fosse publicado em uma revista menos notória, este estudo não teria tido o mesmo impacto )

Once upon a time, a scientist named Dr. Andrew Wakefield published in the medical journal The Lancet that he had discovered a link between autism and vaccines.

By Adam Mordecai

After years of controversy and making parents mistrust vaccines, along with collecting $674,000 from lawyers who would benefit from suing vaccine makers, it was discovered he had made the whole thing up. The Lancet publicly apologized and reported that further investigation led to the discovery that he had fabricated everything.

In the intervening years, millions have been spent on studying this further to see if there was anything that could connect autism and vaccines. This is what they found.

Student expectations

Expectations, Underestimations, and Realities

By Maryellen Weimer, PhD

Here’s a strategy you can tuck in your folder of good ideas: a survey tool for assessing student expectations for the course. The survey’s designers believe that knowing what students expect is helpful. They also cite research documenting that discrepancies between teacher and student expectations often exist. So they compiled a short survey that asks students what technology they’re expecting in the course, what learning activities they’re anticipating, what they’re thinking they’ll be graded on, their expectations regarding faculty-student interactions, and how soon they’re expecting faculty to answer emails, post grades, and/or return assignments and be available to meet with them. Here’s a link to the survey: http://bit.ly/1EXVUAi. Surveys like these are great idea generators. What course expectations do you and your students have?

The idea here is not to find out what students expect and then provide it because that’s what they want. Rather, it’s about finding out if their expectations are correct and how well they align with yours. You may need to elaborate on your expectations or possibly modify course plans based on students’ expectations. It’s all about communication, and an activity like this helps to get everyone on the same page.

Designers tested the survey with 816 responses from undergraduates in 25 STEM courses. They included one other interesting feature. In each area of expectation, they asked students to rank whether the activity was important in terms of their learning. So if they expected the teacher to use PowerPoint, was it an important component in their learning? Their findings are noteworthy: “As a general trend, students placed greater value on learning tools available to them during their independent study time, such as study guides and textbooks, while they discounted the value of in-class activities (like discussion groups and in-class participation) for learning.” (p. 256)

Students in these STEM courses expected that their teachers would be using clickers, but they placed little value on them as a tool for learning. Discussion, participation, and clickers are all widely used, and there’s lots of research documenting their value as well. So what’s the problem here? The teachers weren’t using the strategies effectively? Students aren’t always aware of what does and doesn’t help them learn? Teachers and students need to discuss learning and what supports it more often?

And while we’re on the topic of expectations, I wanted to gently remind us not to underestimate our students. We need to be realistic about who we’re teaching. Most of them aren’t the kind of good students we once were (well, some of us were). Many students come to us with multiple learning needs and attitudes that make them challenging to teach. It’s easy to lose faith in them, to become frustrated, and to always be critical, especially in conversations with colleagues who are all too ready to agree and offer examples of their own.

We do hold students to high standards, but when we think about the students in our courses right now, who and how many do we expect to reach those standards? I loved a recent post in the Guide on the Side blog. My colleague Lolita Paff shared the first assignment she gave in two sections of microeconomics. “Typical homework assignments ask students to ANSWER questions. This assignment is different. I’d like you to ask questions. What are you curious about? What problems or issues are important to you? What topics matter to you? What questions do you wish you could answer?” She writes that she was “blown away” by the questions students shared. Her post includes a long list of questions that don’t look to me like the kind of queries I’d be expecting from beginning students in a required econ course. She concludes, “It’s a little scary. I don’t have all the answers. But perhaps that’s the point. This term students are going to partner in learning with me, not just from me.”

Sometimes having great expectations for students pays off big time.

Reference (and this is an open-access journal): Schmitt, K. R. B., et. al. (2013). A survey tool for assessing student expectations early in a semester. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 14 (2), 255-257.

Ciência em crise

Crise econômica atinge pesquisas científicas e universidades no Brasil

Orçamento para pesquisas deve cair de R$ 7,7 bilhões para R$ 5,6 bilhões.
Quem sofre são pesquisadores científicos de universidades como a UFRJ.

Sandra Passarinho

Com a crise econômica e o aperto nas contas do governo, o investimento em pesquisas científicas vem caindo a cada ano.

Segundo dados do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, em 2014 o orçamento para as pesquisas era de R$ 7,7 bilhões. Neste ano, caiu para R$ 7,5 bilhões, mas a previsão para 2016 é bem pior: os recursos devem cair para R$ 5,6 bilhões, uma redução de 25%.

UFRJ SOFRE COM ATRASOS

E não é só o corte no orçamento. O dinheiro também demora a chegar. Na UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), pesquisas que já duram anos estão em risco justamente por causa do atraso no repasse das verbas.

O dinheiro para pesquisas na área de biofísica da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro deveria ter sido depositado em novembro do ano passado, mas só foi liberado há pouco mais de um mês. Os produtos básicos para dar continuidade aos projetos já foram encomendados, mas demoram a chegar.

O trabalho do dia a dia em um laboratório de biologia celular está sendo prejudicado por causa da falta de material usado em pesquisas essenciais para o desenvolvimento científico do país.

No laboratório se estuda a utilização de células-tronco no tratamento de doenças renais e neurodegenerativas, mas já acabou a preparação química para manter as células, por exemplo. Cada litro custa em torno de R$ 3 mil.

“Desse jeito a gente corre um risco muito grande de ver tudo isso que a gente conquistou nesses anos simplesmente ruir porque essa área de pesquisa com célula tronco é uma área competitiva demais no mundo”, diz o professor Marcelo Einicker Lamas, chefe do laboratório de biomembranas da UFRJ.

Alguns pesquisadores já pensam em suspender as atividades. “Vários colegas estão falando em fechar seus laboratórios. Nós vamos ter menos pesquisadores sendo treinados hoje, daqui a 10 anos nós vamos pagar um preço bastante alto aí em termos de atraso nas pesquisas do Brasil em relação a outros países mais desenvolvidos”, explica o professor Sérgio Teixeira Ferreira, chefe do laboratório de doenças degenerativas da UFRJ.

A presidente da SBPC (Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência afirma que cortes estão afetando instituições por todo país. “Está afetando a todas, sem exceção. Federal, estadual, municipal, públicas, privadas. Onde tem ciência esse corte está chegando e afetando. Está inviabilizando as atividades”, diz Helena Nader, presidente da SBPC.

A Capes, que é o órgão responsável pelo repasse das verbas, afirmou que só recebeu o pedido do professor Marceli Lamas em fevereiro deste ano.

Printed models of organs

High Quality 3D Printed Model Hearts Printed Within Hours of MRI Scans

At MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital, researchers worked out a system allowing clinicians to take an MRI scan of patients’ hearts and create 3D printed models of the organs within hours. The model hearts can then be used to plan surgeries and practice different approaches before working on the actual patients. The next step is to actually test the clinical value of these models, which will involve seven Boston Children’s cardiac surgeons applying them to their practice.

The technology relies on new approaches for processing MRI scans and improving the imaging resolution that is produced so that high quality models can be produced. In particular, the identification of the 3D boundaries of various tissues has been worked out to result in models that are more accurate than ever before.

The new system will be presented next month at the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention in Munich, Germany.

More about the upcoming study of the system according to MIT:

“The clinical study in the fall will involve MRIs from 10 patients who have already received treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital. Each of seven surgeons will be given data on all 10 patients — some, probably, more than once. That data will include the raw MRI scans and, on a randomized basis, either a physical model or a computerized 3-D model, based, again at random, on either human segmentations or algorithmic segmentations.

Using that data, the surgeons will draw up surgical plans, which will be compared with documentation of the interventions that were performed on each of the patients. The hope is that the study will shed light on whether 3-D-printed physical models can actually improve surgical outcomes.”