The quality of randomised controlled trials may be better than assumed

Object Groups May Be Better Than Pages

I argue against trying to solve the problem of clustering objects into disk pages. Instead, I propose that objects be fetched in groups that may be specific to an application or user, and that can be computed at fetch time. I briefly describe crystals, which serve to record such groups statically. Finally, I speculate that object fetching may be particularly relevant for providing services to v...

Quality of randomised controlled trials

Editor—The Save European Science campaign (www.SaveEuropeanResearch.org) was launched on 9 December 2003 out of concern for the future of academic and investigator led research in Europe with the advent of the European Union clinical trials directive (see p 240). It was launched from a cancer platform but is inclusive in spirit and has already gained momentum in cardiology, dermatology, and psy...

The transitive property across randomized controlled trials: if B is better than A, and C is better than B, will C be better than A?

In everyday practice, clinicians are faced with questions on the comparative benefits and risks of the various health interventions available to treat patients. When performed well and reported completely, randomized controlled trials (and systematic reviews of such trials) are generally considered to be the most scientifically rigorous approach to determine whether a cause-effect relationship ...

The dairy fat paradox: Whole dairy products may be healthier than we thought

Can “realist” randomised controlled trials be genuinely realist?

In this paper, we respond to a paper by Jamal and colleagues published in Trials in October 2015 and take an opportunity to continue the much-needed debate about what applied scientific realism is. The paper by Jamal et al. is useful because it exposes the challenges of combining a realist evaluation approach (as developed by Pawson and Tilley) with the randomised controlled trial (RCT) design....