Gary Cramer

My "Managing Editor's Message" introduction to the April 2020 issue of Clinical Researcher for the Association of Clinical Research Professionals.

If the need (or simply the desire) to earn money is the principal goal of trial participation, does this somehow classify the volunteer as vulnerable? Perhaps not in the same manner that research ethicists usually think of certain other categories of subjects as being vulnerable to coercion, but perhaps so if the economically distressed volunteer is a student and the researcher has some real or perceived authority over him or her.

My "Managing Editor's Message" introducing the theme of the January 2019 issue of Clinical Researcher from the Association of Clinical Research Professionals.

Specialized travel services that seek to bring clinical trial participants and researchers together more easily and efficiently have the added benefit of providing patients with an extra point of contact that is seen to be impartial.

According to W. H. Auden, “Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.” On the other hand, “Routine and predictable days are the breeding grounds for complacency,” warns Wayde Goodall. Anyone who works on a particular publication long enough can certainly fall into some comfortable routines that make the birth pangs of each issue easier to bear.

Imagine you are a research nurse/clinical research coordinator for a double-blind study that aims to lower “bad” cholesterol. One of your subjects is seen by a resident who is not on the study team, and who orders a lipid panel, the positive results of which are then shared with your subject by a non-team nurse before you realize what’s going on. Whoops. So much for blinding the patient from knowing if she was receiving the active treatment or a placebo.

In this article, the Managing Editor for Clinical Researcher looks back on how he began his career with ACRP just as the Association was celebrating its 30th anniversary, and considers the melancholy and excitement engendered by celebrating 10 years with ACRP even as the 40th anniversary arrives.

The Catch-22 presented by annual reports is a familiar one at many associations. Even if organizational stakeholders spend less than a minute flipping through it before shelving it with the previous years’ installments, they expect a pleasingly designed, energetically messaged, and thoroughly fact-checked report — as long as it doesn’t look like it cost too much to produce.

Expressions of the sentiment that a greater good for more common and related conditions will come from breakthroughs in treatments for rare diseases represent just one tactic that patient advocates are wielding in their quest for recognition and support.

On the Maryland side of the Potomac River, landscape designers renovating a well-established park for a cash-strapped nonprofit needed to deal with serious erosion problems. On the Virginia side, landscape architects working with a substantial budget on a brand new park were asked to include a children’s interactive area. Both teams used rain gardens to address these challenges.

Although land development can be a relatively lonely career path for landscape architects to tread, changing from private practice to corporate work suits some.

How the high goals for Penn State’s eco-friendly design school were brought down to Earth.

Ever since large garden follies went out of vogue on European estates in the early nineteenth century, chances for designers to erect brand new ruins in the landscape have been rather limited. A new veterans’ memorial that adds many layers of symbolism and function to the old form suggests an alternative future in ruins for landscape architects.

Whether the goal is minor revision, middling restoration, or major re-creation, historic timber bridge projects offer distinct opportunities for landscape architects to join with engineers in crafting results that honestly span the past and present.

The Flight 93 memorial design takes wing from a yearlong competition.

Even in the most tranquil of park settings, land wars can break out between opposing factions with vastly different ideas of how to use available space. And when the four-legged friends of one of those factions are at the heart of the dispute, stepping into the middle of it benefits more from diplomacy than it does from throwing water on the combatants.

If being able to stroll from a 1600s England forge to the Wright brothers' late-1800s Dayton, Ohio, cycle shop within a matter of minutes doesn't confuse visitors, then the administrators of Greenfield Village shouldn't worry about losing them intellectually. However, losing them physically was once such an issue at the Michigan tourist attraction that a village-wide makeover was called for.

An overview of the life and career of influential Pittsburgh-based landscape architect John Ormsbee Simonds.

If there is such a thing as a "Ten Commandments of Zoo Landscaping," and Laura Hamilton thinks there is, then many zoos are committing sins of omission by not following cost-effective, but creative routes to educational exhibits that represent local biodiversity.

What would it take to get more people to explore the remote upper reaches of the Susquehanna River's North Branch? Besides more restrooms, the results of a Penn State project suggest that a better understanding of the landscape features that distinguish the area from trendy neighboring regions will help promoters attract a different breed of visitor to a future river trail system along the branch.

"Getting there is half the fun" may be true for many college students who are taking recreational spring break trips this semester, but for a Penn State team that will perform a "rapid environmental assessment" in Belize, getting to its ultimate destination could be half the challenge.

Little did a Penn State literary detective tracing sources for Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" dream of discovering an anonymous novelist's significance for the renowned work, or the rigors it would take to unearth that novelist's identity.

Scaring the bejeebers out of children is not normally considered an act of charity, but the Penn State students who dressed in black and lurked in the dark corners of a former sewing factory to do just that would say it was "for the good."

Too many tourism experiences are diluted by a limited focus on a few buildings and historic events when new promotional tactics could afford visitors a deeper experience of a site by fostering its "sense of place," say two recent Penn State graduates in an award-winning research project.

Construction of the Arboretum at Penn State on the University Park campus may be a few years down the road, but it's already being used as a classroom. "Why wait until it's built?" asked Jim Minesky, biology instructor. "The land's here. There's a rich biology here. Nature's already built the classroom."

Whether the goal is helping rural areas retain open space while accommodating development, transforming stagnant suburban and urban tracts into more traditional neighborhoods, or fostering public health and decreasing traffic with pedestrian-friendly amenities, a new, free Penn State tool promises to ease the chore of navigating Pennsylvania's complex Municipal Planning Code.

Even before the aftermaths of the Flight 93 tragedy of Sept. 11 and the Quecreek Mine rescue brought national attention and an influx of visitors to southwestern Pennsylvania for two very different reasons, local observers recognized the potential to enliven the region for residents and tourists through its rich historical and cultural resources.

Kaitlin O'Connell says that fellow Penn State students who spent spring break in Jamaica last year told her "it was the best thing they ever did." Thus encouraged, this year, she's going to follow their lead and spend seven days in paradise working as hard as for any other class she's taking.

Long before the Cold War thawed and trade pacts and tourism made many formerly communist and socialist nations more familiar to Americans, the United States and Penn State had an ambassador to the far corners of the world who waged both war and diplomacy against determined opponents on the smallest of battlefields -- the chess board.

The most detailed plan unveiled yet for the future Arboretum at Penn State portrays the facility as a focal point for horticultural, environmental and related education -- as well as a year-round tourist attraction -- that will provide a new "front door" to the University Park campus.

Thanks to the Charles and Betty Jacques Amusement Park Collection, recently donated to the Penn State University Libraries, researchers and fans can now appreciate the early 20th century golden age of these parks in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, as well as study present-day trends.

An examination of senior class gift tactics university fundraisers may consider to encourage a lifetime habit of alumni giving, including input from advancement staff at a variety of institutions. Prepared as an offshoot of my former duties with the Development Communications & Special Projects unit at Penn State.

In the course of its 140-year afterlife, the "real" Nittany Lion has had both the metaphorical and literal stuffing knocked out of him. But last month, the conservator in charge of knocking the stuffing back into the remains made what was probably her last visit to the well-traveled cat.

The amazing persistence of contemporary legends like "The Devil-Worshippers at the Prom" and "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" is partly due to people sometimes acting out portions of the tales, a Penn State folklore researcher said.