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The objective was to report on the creation, features and performance of a web-based data management system for a two-stage phase II randomized clinical trial of Co-Enzyme Q10 in ALS. We created a relatively comprehensive web-based data system that provided electronic data entry; patient management utilities; adverse event reporting, safety monitoring, and invoice generation; and standardized coding for medications and adverse events. In stage 1, clinical sites submitted 7207 forms reporting on 105 patients followed for 10 months. Less than 0.7% of submitted forms contained errors. At the time of the delivery of the analysis data set, only four errors remained unresolved. Data were available quickly, with a median time from event to data posting of two days. The data set was locked and the analysis data set produced nine days after the final patient visit. A survey of trial personnel yielded generally positive feedback, with 75% of respondents wishing to use a similar system in the future. Given sufficient resources, a comprehensive web-based data management system can meet the need for clean, available data in clinical trials in ALS and similar diseases, and can contribute significantly to their efficient execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a plural society approach to class and ethnic political mobilization. Plural society theorists endorse the strong structural orientation characteristic of all variants of class analysis, and routinely treat the class structure as an independent element affecting political mobilization. Many of key elements of the conceptual stock-in-trade of analytical sociology, such as conceptions of consciousness, interest, and the incorporation of social groups, are not inherently restricted in their applicability to classes. The article, working in the tradition of plural society analysis, has applied these concepts directly to ethnic groups. Marxists history is the history of class struggle, to plural society theorists it is the history of the struggle and accommodation of both classes and ethnic groups, the two being carefully distinguished. The theory of political incorporation helps to explain the overall pattern and character of political mobilization in plural societies. The paper is projected for both class and ethnicity, without prejudice against either while highlighting the whole area of political struggle in contexts of structural ambiguity, which reductionist theories tend to neglect or distort. This is a positive step towards the proclaimed goal of sociology of politics which is both structurally responsive and does justice to the genuinely autonomous and creative nature of political alliance-building, struggle and negotiation among diverse contending parties.