Physician information seeking: improving relevance through research

Health sciences libraries have considerable potential as resources for both formal continuing professional education, as well as the informal continuing education that results from the professional's efforts to solve problems in daily practice. While there is a growing interest in making the resources of health sciences libraries more accessible to practitioners on a routine, day-to-day basis, there also needs to be more awareness of how, when, where, and why professionals look for information in the context of practical problems. This paper reviews recent research that identifies the context in which physicians seek information and advice from external sources, the information sources that physicians access, and the factors that influence which particular sources are sought. The results indicate that physicians vary in their information needs, preferences, motivations, and strategies for seeking information. This diversity suggests that health sciences libraries, in their efforts to be more accessible, should consider "market research" to determine the needs, preferences, and use patterns of the library's targeted users. Libraries may also benefit from exploring alternative methods of improving access to their resources.     

Preparation for ethical decision-making: An analysis of research in professional education

The current societal and professional context presents a variety of ethical challenges to decision makers. The importance of educational preparation for ethical decision-making and ethical leadership has been addressed in the literature of library and information science (LIS), among other professions. However, it can be quite difficult to measure the impact of professional ethics education on students. This article is based on an evaluation of published original research related to ethics education in disciplines supported by professional education, including education, nursing, allied health, journalism, social work, public health, engineering, and LIS. The study considers data related to research design, methodologies used, populations studied, approaches to measuring impact, levels of impact, and publication in the journal literature. Results indicate more extensive research in education and nursing as compared with other fields, a lack of baseline data gathering for comparison, a reliance on a limited number of data-gathering techniques, and a tendency toward studying alumni over current students     

Advances in the phylogenesis of Agaricales and its higher ranks and strategies for establishing phylogenetic hypotheses

We present an overview of previous research results on the molecular phylogenetic analyses in Agaricales and its higher ranks (Agaricomycetes/Agaricomycotina/Basidiomycota) along with the most recent treatments of taxonomic systems in these taxa. Establishing phylogenetic hypotheses using DNA sequences, from which an understanding of the natural evolutionary relationships amongst clades may be derived, requires a robust dataset. It has been recognized that single-gene phylogenies may not truly represent organismal phylogenies, but the concordant phylogenetic genealogies from multiple-gene datasets can resolve this problem. The genes commonly used in mushroom phylogenetic research are summarized.     

On the problem of determining a citation index of publications by Kazakh scientists

This paper discusses the evaluation of scientific activity with the help of some scientometric indices, in particular, a citation index. The information massif of the bibliographic database of citations to domestic publications of Kazakh authors is statistically described.