Note: FRONT COVER -- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN THE MEDICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES -- COPYRIGHT PAGE -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Further reading. , 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Guidelines -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- 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 × 2 tables -- 11.6 Normal distribution -- 11.7 Comparison of means -- 11.8 Non-parametric methods -- 11.9 Regression analysis -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- References -- Further reading -- CHAPTER 13 SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION -- 13.1 Introduction -- 13.2 The scientific paper -- 13.3 Posters -- References -- Further reading -- 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 -- Further reading -- 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 Programme -- 15.9 Summary and perspective -- References -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q. , R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.