DEVELOPMENT OF A RESEARCH QUESTION DATABASE

本文提出的活动是建立一个研究问题数据库， 癌症（RQDB）。 这个想法是，每个记录将只代表一个 研究问题。 例如，“是否有一个必要的致病因素， 艾滋病？“对于这个特殊的问题，研究界有一个目前的 共识答案（是），但对于许多开放的RQ，答案是未知的， 矛盾：情绪状态会影响癌症的发展吗？ 是 农药、杀虫剂和其他用于食品的化学品（如ALAR） 人类致癌的重要因素？ 做单线态氧和自由 自由基在癌症诱导中起重要作用？ RQDB将包含： 活动问题，（每个问题都有唯一的编号），当前候选人答案 (with指向CANCERLIT和MEDLINE中适当记录的指针），索引 (to方便检索），链接到更广泛和更狭窄的问题， 对每个问题进行开放/封闭评估。 在第一阶段，工作将绘制 在NCI的大约173篇肿瘤学综述出版物中， 它是由一位杰出的评论家创作的，但没有一个是 在计算机数据库中。 希望RQDB能给用户一个 比现在更平衡、更完整、更直接地概述我们所知道的 可以通过直接访问MEDLINE和CANCERLIT。

The activity proposed herein is to make a database of research questions in cancer (RQDB). The idea is that each record will represent exactly one research question. For example, "Is there a necessary causative agent for AIDS?" For this particular question, the research community has a current consensus answer (yes), but for many open RQs either answers are unknown or conflicting: Does emotional state modify cancer development? Are pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals applied to food (like ALAR) significant factors inhuman carcinogenesis? Do singlet oxygen and free radicals play significant roles in cancer induction? RQDB will contain: active questions, (each with a unique number), current candidate answers (with pointers to appropriate records in CANCERLIT and MEDLINE), indexing (to facilitate retrieval), links to broader and narrower questions, and open/closed assessments for each question. In Phase I, the work will draw on the approximately 173 Oncology Overview publications of the NCI, each of which was composed by a distinguished reviewer, but none of which are available in a computer database. It is hoped that RQDB will give a user a more balanced, complete and direct overview of what is known than is now possible via direct access to MEDLINE and CANCERLIT.