Thesis (M. Med. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

To evaluate the methodological quality of randomised trials in recently published articles and to examine the associations between methodological quality and bias, three related investigations were undertaken. First, to ensure the development of useful measures for the adequacy of randomisation, approaches to allocation were assessed as reported in 206 parallel group trials published in recent volumes of journals of obstetrics and gynaecology. Next, a study was conducted of associations between methodological quality and treatment effects. The material analysed came from 250 trials in 33 meta-analyses on pregnancy and childbirth topics. Finally, the reported approaches to blinding and handling of exclusions were assessed from a random sample of 110 of the 206 previously identified reports. In the 206 published trials, 77% reported either inadequately or unclearly concealed treatment allocation. Additional analyses suggest that non-random manipulation of comparison groups may have occurred. In the next study. compared with trials in which authors reported adequately concealed treatment allocation, trials in which authors reported inadequately or unclearly concealed allocation yielded larger estimates of treatment effects (p < 0.001). Odds ratios were distorted by 41% and 33%, respectively. Those associations likely represent bias and are particularly disconcerting in light of the results above from recently published trials. Lack of double-blinding in trials was also associated with larger treatment benefits. However, trials in which authors reported excluding 2 participants after randomisation were not associated with larger treatment effects. That lack of association appeared to be due to incomplete reporting. 3 The analysis of 110 recently published trials also supported the findings that some of the trials not reporting exclusions may actually have had exclusions. In practice, that incomplete reporting could lead to misinterpretations of trial quality. Moreover, only about half the trials that could have double-blinded actually did so. When investigators attempted double-blinding, only 16% provided any written assurances of successfully implementing blinding and only 6% tested its efficacy.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

On 1 July 1941 Mr Greenhalgh issued a writ against his co-shareholders in the Arderne Cinema Company, and thus began a series of cases which ended with a Court of Appeal Judgment handed down on,10 November 1950. During the almost ten-year period of the litigation, seven actions were brought by Mr Greenhalgh, five of which were taken on appeal. Mason1 writing in the Australian Law Journal said of the litigation "It thus represents something of an epic of litigious heroism· while Professor Sealy2 in a note in the Cambridge Law Journal dealing with the Clemens case3 in referring to a seemingly wide choice of remedies .... available to a minority through the courts ... remarks that many of them have a sorry history as the ghost of Mr Zuccani ...., Mr Sidebottom ...., Mr Greenhalgh .... and the many other unsuccessful litigants who haunt the pages of the textbooks could plainly testify." The first two references are to Allen v Gold Reefs of West Africa [1900] 1 Ch.656 and Shuttleworth v Cox Bros. &amp; Co. (Maidenhead) [1927] 2 K.B. 9, of which more later and the third, of course, to Mr Greenhalgh of the Arderne Cinema company. D D Prentice4 In a Law Quarterly Review article entitled 'Restraints on the Exercise of Majority Shareholder Power' begins with the words: "The plight of Mr Greenhalgh is known to all students of company law and his fate has been held up as a salutary warning to all minority shareholders who have the temerity to do battle with the big battalions." Gower in Principles of Modern Company Law 4 ed (1979), referring to the last appeal, says "This last case, however, was merely the culmination of a long battle in the courts which is such an admirable illustration of the vulnerability of a minority shareholder that it is worthwhile summarising the whole story.

No description available.