Preface

Contributors

List of Abbreviations and Symbols

Chapter 1 Philosophy of Science

1.1 Philosophy of the Natural Sciences

1.2 Philosophy of The Social Sciences

Chapter 2 Ethics and Scientific Conduct

2.1 A Brief Introduction to Ethics

2.2 Scientific Conduct and Misconduct

2.3 Misconduct and Why It Occurs

2.4 Fabrication and Other Forms of Misconduct Affecting the Truth Claims of Scientific Findings

2.5 Authorship Issues

2.6 Salami, Imalas and Duplicate Publication

2.7 The Investigation and Punishment of Scientific Misconduct

Appendix 1

Chapter 3 Ethics in Human and Animal Studies

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Basic Principles of Human Research Ethics

3.3 International Regulation

3.4 The Ethics of Animal Research

Appendix 1 World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects

Appendix 2 Oviedo Convention (Council of Europe, European Treaty Series 164)

Appendix 3 Oviedo Convention – Additional Protocol Concerning Biomedical Research, Chapter I–IX (Council of Europe, European Treaty Series 195)

Chapter 4 Research Methodology: Strategies, Planning and Analysis

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Your Scientific Problem

4.3 More On Scientific Problems

4.4 Literature, Methods and Techniques

4.5 Research Conditions

4.6 Data Types

4.7 Techniques

4.8 Repeatability, Reproducibility and Reliability

4.9 Validity, Effect Measure and Choice of Statistical Test

4.10 Experimental Protocol

4.11 Experimental Routine

Chapter 5 Literature Search and Personal Reference Databases

5.1 Information Literacy

5.2 Systematic Literature Search

5.3 How to Formulate a Query: PICO

5.4 Search Technique

5.5 Methodology Filters

5.6 Quality: Critical Appraisal

5.7 Impact Factor

5.8 Principal Bibliographic Databases

5.9 Staying Up to Date

5.10 Medical and Scientific Internet Search Engines

5.11 Personal Reference Databases

Chapter 6 Methods in Molecular Biology

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Recombinant DNA Technology

6.3 DNA and RNA: Isolation, Identification, Synthesis and Analysis

6.4 Practical Applications of DNA/RNA Technology

6.5 Protein Analyses

6.6 Bioinformatics

Chapter 7 Strategies and Methods of Basic Medical Research

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Long-Term Goals and Specific Aims

7.3 Background and Significance

7.4 Experimental Strategies and Methods

7.5 Pilot Studies

7.6 Rules for Basic Medical Research Projects

Chapter 8 Clinical Research

8.1 Controlled Clinical Trials

8.2 Publication Bias

8.3 Estimating Sample Size

8.4 ‘Non-Inferiority’ Studies

8.5 Generalization

Chapter 9 Epidemiology: Concepts and Methods

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Definitions

9.3 The Role of Epidemiology

9.4 Population and Sample

9.5 Measures of Disease Occurrence, Association, Risk and Implications

9.6 Vital Statistics

9.7 Study Designs of Epidemiological Studies

9.8 Effect Measures in Epidemiological Studies

9.9 Experimental Studies and Randomized Control Trials

9.10 Measurement Error and Sources of Error

9.11 Tests and Validity

9.12 Causes of Disease

9.13 Association Versus Causality

Chapter 10 Qualitative Research

10.1 Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research

10.2 Using Qualitative Research

10.3 What Qualitative Research Cannot be Used for

10.4 Samples in Qualitative Studies

10.5 Reliability and Validity

10.6 Ethical Challenges in Qualitative Research

10.7 Qualitative Data Collection

10.8 Triangulation

10.9 Analyses of Qualitative Data

10.10 Releasing Qualitative Data

Chapter 11 Statistical Issues

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Effect Measure, Hypothesis Testing and Confidence Interval

11.3 Bernoulli Trial

11.4 Comparing Two Proportions

11.5 Measures of Association in 2 x 2 Tables

11.6 Normal Distribution

11.7 Comparison of Means

11.8 Non-Parametric Methods

11.9 Regression Analysis

Chapter 12 Evidence-Based Practice and Critical Appraisal of Systematic Reviews

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Systematic Reviews

12.3 Critical Appraisal of a Systematic Review: One Example

12.4 Summary

Chapter 13 Scientific Communication

13.1 Introduction

13.2 The Scientific Paper

13.3 Posters

Chapter 14 Successful Lecturing

14.1 Introduction

14.2 Preparing the Lecture

14.3 Lecture Content and Form

14.4 Manuscript

14.5 Delivering a Lecture

Chapter 15 Guide to Grant Applications

15.1 Introduction

15.2 Getting Started

15.3 The Postdoctoral Fellow and Junior Scientist

15.4 What Goes into a Successful Grant Application?

15.5 The Investigator-Initiated Research Grant

15.6 Multiproject Grants

15.7 International Research Collaborations

15.8 The European Union's Seventh Framework Program

15.9 Summary and Perspective

Index