ABSTRACT
The methods section of a manuscript is one of the most important parts of a research paper because it provides information on the validity of the study and credibility of the results. Inadequate description of the methods has been reported as one of the main reasons for manuscript rejection. The methods section must include sufficient detail so that others could repeat the study and reproduce the results. The structure of the methods section should flow logically and chronologically. There are multiple components of methods sections, including study design, materials used, study procedures, and data analysis. Each element must be adequately described and thoroughly detailed to provide an understanding of how the results were obtained and how to interpret the findings. Studies that involved humans or animals must include an ethics statement of approval from the appropriate governing body. The methods section should explain how subjects were identified and should state inclusion and exclusion criteria. All materials used to complete the study should be described in detail, including equipment, drugs, gases, chemicals, treatments, interventions, or other items. Study procedures should outline all steps taken to obtain the results and clearly state the outcome measures. Subheadings might be helpful for organizing the methods section into subsections when there is a considerable amount of information to report. A well-written methods section will guide the reader through the research process and provide adequate information to evaluate study validity and reproduce the work. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for writing the methods section of a manuscript.
Subject(s)
Research Design , Writing , HumansABSTRACT
Probiotics are gradually gaining importance in the field of psychiatry in the form of psychobiotics. Psychobiotics' studies examine the existing relationship between gut microbiota and mental phenomena; the intake of certain strains of probiotics, such as Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, for example, allow the gut microbial system to be modified in order to provide benefits at the psychic, immune, hormonal, and mental levels. Those who suffer from forms of depression, anxiety disorders, chronic stress, low mood, but also people who do not suffer from such disorders, can therefore benefit from the use of psychobiotics. Thanks to probiotics, neurochemicals can in fact be produced within the gut microbiota and interact with receptors of the enteric nervous system that innervate the entire gastrointestinal tract. Once they enter the portal circulation, these substances go on to influence components of the nervous system and ultimately the brain, through what is called the gut-brain axis. This article proposes an exploratory overview of the proven effects of probiotics on brain activity and psycho-related diseases, focusing on clinical studies and measurable outcomes. The search was conducted using two different online tools: ClinicalTrials.gov and PubMed.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: A journal club is one of the well-established and popular methods of post-graduate education. In this work, we were interested to understand how the participants perceive journal club as a whole and how they evaluate their personal process of acquiring new scientific knowledge and development of soft-skills as an indispensable prerequisite of the lifelong learning. Project description: This study is a survey analysis examining perception of journal club sessions by post-graduate medical students. A checklist for journal club preparation as well as a questionnaire for evaluation of the journal club session by participants has been developed to determine if the journal club had met its aims. Data were collected by summing up all answers to each question of the questionnaire for each session. Qualitative data from a five-year evaluation period were compiled and analyzed. Results: The journal club checklist served as a guideline for the preparation of a journal club session as well as an evaluation questionnaire containing 24 items. Our work presents evidence that journal club seminars are well perceived by participants. Furthermore, a high percentage of participants deemed the working atmosphere to be constructive and found it worthwhile to participate in the sessions. The topics of the presentations have been positively evaluated, however only a minority of participants found that the topics of the journal club was related to their own specific research topic. Concerning the distribution of the journal article, we could show that distributing the paper one week before the journal club event provided sufficient time for preparation. Our evaluation revealed that two-thirds of the participants found discussions during journal club sessions rich and productive. The motivation to think more critically increased during journal club sessions. From our work, it is evident that the participants perceived the speakers´ soft-skills to have improved with the practice. Finally, we show a clear trend of improved perception of the value of journal club sessions from beginning to the end of the evaluation time. Conclusion: Based on the analyzed evaluations, we can conclude that journal club events are highly valued by participants and could be a good option for the development of certain soft-skills.
Subject(s)
Students, Medical , Students, Pharmacy , Humans , Perception , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
Writing and publishing biomedical research papers in English for academic purposes (EAP) has become an essential requirement for medical postgraduates in China. To face this challenge, medical postgraduates need adapt themselves to the local environment of English as a second language and the transformation from writing for examinations to writing for application. This change determines the features of biomedical research papers, including being application-oriented, using clear and concise language, organizing the discourse by specific genre rules, and assessing the quality according to the completion of communicative purposes. Based on these features, students can exploit the learning strategies of choosing a word suited for the style, structuring a sentence according to the logic, creating a paragraph of continuity and one main idea, and composing the discourse in line with the genre. These strategies may help medical postgraduates effectively improve their ability to write biomedical research papers in English.
ABSTRACT
After in-depth needs analysis, we combined our previously written textbook with digitalized platform by information technology, and proposed construction principles guided by English for academic purposes (EAP) theories. Through scientific design and ongoing modification, we finally developed an open online digital course with academic and practical properties. The course received positive feedback after release online. It may become an effective way to improve research paper writing skills for medical postgraduates and provide references for medical colleges to develop other EAP digital courses.
ABSTRACT
The abstract of a scientific research paper must be well written and reviewed. Sometimes is the only section of a paper that is read, therefore must have the problem, research question, objective, hypothesis, method, results and conclusions, with the limitation of the study. Editors through the abstract deduce what a paper is about and its scientific relevance. The title condenses the paper's content in a few words, must capture the reader's attention and includes patients and methods. Both, the research summary and title of the paper are used for references databases. The paper gives some tips to write a good research abstract and title.
El resumen de un artículo científico debe ser prolíjamente redactado y revisado ya que muchas veces es lo único que se lee. Debe ser específico y representativo del texto, describiendo el problema, el objetivo, la hipótesis, cómo se hizo la investigación y que resultados se obtuvieron con sus conclusiones, mostrando las limitaciones del estudio. El título debe llamar la atención del lector y describir los pacientes y el método en forma breve. Es en base al resumen que editores evaluan la validez y relevancia del artículo científico. El título y resumen es lo que se incorpora en las bases de datos bibliográficas. En este artículo se describen los pasos para la redacción de un resumen de un buen artículo científico.
Subject(s)
Periodicals as Topic , Research Design/standards , Biomedical Research , Abstracting and Indexing/standards , Subject HeadingsABSTRACT
With globalization of biomedicine,Chinese postgraduates in medical colleges are facing increasing challenges.Writing and publishing research papers in English have become an essential requirement for their graduation and career development,but for non-native English speakers,having a good command of English for academic purposes (EAP) is of special difficulty.In China,lack of self-written textbooks is a bottleneck that restricts the teaching of EAP.Therefore,guided by EAP theories,this study carries out in-depth demand analysis for graduate students in medical colleges and universities,and designs a textbook framework with genre analysis theory.Based on self-established corpus finally completed an EAP writing textbook for postgraduates of biomedicine.This textbook and the writing and research process can provide implications for construction of EAP textbooks in other principles,thus promoting the all-round development of postgraduate education in China.
ABSTRACT
The ability to critically read a research paper is a skill that all postgraduate students and academicians require because the findings of a study must be interpreted in the context of its strengths and limitations. This article summarizes a recent study on continuation vs. discontinuation of antidepressants during pregnancy; preterm birth and low-birth weight were the outcomes of interest. The strengths and limitations of the study are considered, as are the best and worst case scenarios related to antidepressant use during pregnancy. It is hoped that this exercise will increase the reader's awareness of statistical and methodological issues that emerge when a study is critically examined.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: As the world's second largest economy, China makes unique contributions to the world in many fields, including sociology, the economy, technology and defense. Medical informatics (MI) is an important cross-disciplinary field that, along with its applications, has received massive funding from the Chinese government. However, the question of how to evaluate China's input and output in MI remains important and complex issue of great significance for China and the rest of the world. OBJECTIVE: This paper analyzed, for the first time, the quality and quantity of research by Chinese academics in MI based on their articles published in international specialty journals in recent years and examined MI research hotspots in China. Our purpose is to summarize the experiences and lessons learned by China and the rest of the world as they develop MI. METHOD: We targeted 18 MI journals listed in the JCR 2016 report and searched for papers published by Chinese academics in these 18 journals in the WOS and PUBMED databases and on journal sites. We also performed data cleansing and categorized the obtained information. We used Excel, SPSS, Ucinet and NetDraw to conduct quantitative analyses on the research papers. RESULTS: A total of 1340 articles satisfied the inclusion criteria of this study. We observed a significant upward trend in the number of articles published over time, particularly after 2011. Lei Jianbo, Huang Zhengxing and Li Jin-song are active Chinese authors in the MI discipline who have written many high-quality publications. Meanwhile, universities remain the primary breeding grounds for scientific research: 93.36% of the articles came from universities. Zhejiang University published the most first-author articles, whereas Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tsinghua University produced 17.76% of the total articles. According to the lists of authors, 24% of the papers were co-authored with foreign researchers. This rate of cooperation is increasing each year, from 5.88% to the current rate of 39.04%. An analysis of keywords showed that "EMR", "SVM", "Authentication", "Telecare medical information system", "EEG", "ECG" and "RFID" were the most frequently searched terms in popular technological fields, including artificial intelligence and image processing. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of high-frequency keywords and a broadening range of research fields, which has led to the emergence of several research hotspots, including MI systems, mobile health care, telecare, data mining and machine learning. CONCLUSIONS: Through the quantitative analysis of publications, we discovered the emergence of three stages - infancy, slow growth and rapid growth - in China's MI research in recent years as academics make achievements in their research works. The global influence of Chinese academics is growing, and they are making increasingly conscious efforts to enter into research collaborations with foreign researchers. The findings of Chinese academics' publications are gaining international recognition.
Subject(s)
Medical Informatics/trends , Bibliometrics , China , Databases, Factual , Humans , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Publications/statistics & numerical data , Research , UniversitiesABSTRACT
English biomedical research paper writing is a key skill for biomedical postgraduates as it directly determines the publicity of their research findings and their international academic influence. It belongs to the field of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), and has the characteristics of diversified students, specialized and complicated teaching content, and a curriculum with time and space constraints. Based on the characteristics, needs analysis of this course as well as years of discipline construction and teaching research, the flipped classroom for English biomedical research paper writing based on collaborative teaching is put forward, which has combined the advantages of both collaborative teaching and flipped classroom: it integrates the knowledge expertise of biomedical teachers and English teachers to meet the requirements for ESP teachers; in the meantime, it has broken the time and space constraints of traditional classroom through "after-class knowledge input and in-class knowledge extension and deepening", blazing new trails for course delivery.
ABSTRACT
Objective In order to learn about the cognitive condition of data processing and diagram designing in medical postgraduates, and provide data for improving the teaching mode and content. Methods A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a total of 150 medicine graduate students in three grades by cluster sampling to understand the cognitive situation and teaching requirements of data process-ing and chart making in scientific research papers by postgraduates of different levels and different cate-gories. EpiData software was used for data entry and sorting, and SPSS 22.0 was used for descriptive analysis and chi square test. Results 64.08％ (110) of the students used statistical software, but only 32.39％ (32) could use it expertly, in which graduate students were less proficient in doctoral students (P<0.05), and academic graduate students were less proficient in professional graduate students (P<0.05); in addition, 90.14％(128) of the students thought that the scientific research data processing and charting related courses were very important, while 82.39％ (117) supported the opening of related courses. Conclusion Graduate students' scientific research ability directly affects the level of scientific research. According to postgraduates' demand for data processing and chart making of research papers, it is of great significance to enhance teach-ing reform and improve teaching quality of higher medical education.
ABSTRACT
In order to continuously improve the level of English abstracts for medical postgraduates , this paper introduces the definition, purpose, types, contents and writing strategies of English abstracts .It also introduces the writing difference and evolution of the word abstractand the writing tips of all kinds of abstracts , especially the structured abstract .In reference to international and do-mestic writing criteria , it points out the problems which should be paid attention to in writing English abstracts and tried to develop the students′consciousness in improving their level of writing English abstracts so that their thesis will be better recognized and cited by in -ternational experts , thus promoting the international academic exchanges as well as the development of China ′s medical undertakings .
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Nearly 75% of the abstracts in MEDLINE papers present in an unstructured format. This study aims to automate the reformatting of unstructured abstracts into the Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (IMRAD) format. The quality of this reformatting relies on the features used in sentence classification. Therefore, we explored the most effective linguistic features in MEDLINE papers. METHODS: We constructed a feature set consisting of bag of words, linguistic features, grammatical features, and structural features. In order to evaluate the effectiveness, which is the capability of the sentence classification with the features, three datasets from PubMed Central Open Access Subset were selected and constructed: (1) structured abstract (SA) for training, (2) unstructured RCT abstract (UA-1) and (3) unstructured general abstract (UA-2). F-score and accuracy were used to measure the effectiveness on IMRAD section level and the overall classification. RESULTS: Adding linguistic features improves the classification of the abstract sentence from 1.2% to 35.8% in terms of accuracy in three abstract datasets. The highest accuracies achieved were 91.7% in SA, 86.3% in UA-1, and 77.9% in UA-2. Linguistic features (dimensions=15) had fewer dimensions than bag-of-words (dimensions= 1541). All representative linguistic features (n-gram and verb phrase, and noun phrase) for each section are identified in our system (available at http://abstract.bike.re.kr). CONCLUSION: Linguistic features can be used to effectively classify sentence with low computation burden in MEDLINE abstract.
Subject(s)
Abstracting and Indexing/methods , Biomedical Research , Data Mining/methods , Linguistics/methodsABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In Japan, the departments of nursing were established by 2004, and graduate school programs for master's degree were established by 2008, in 42 national universities. With these changes, a more academic mission has been pursued, and the need for writing papers in English has increased. AIM: To investigate the numbers of papers published in English from the nursing departments of national universities in Japan over the past ten years. METHODS: The lists of teachers who have nursing licenses in the departments of nursing in the 42 national universities (n=2292) were obtained from the Japan Association of Nursing Programs in Universities. The number of papers published in English by these teachers from 2004 to 2013 was counted using the SCOPUS database. RESULTS: The average number of total papers, in which at least one of the authors was a nursing teacher, and first-authored papers, in which the first author was a nursing teacher, were 211.4 and 69.9 per year, respectively; both increased approximately two-fold during the past ten years. The means and standard deviations of the number of total papers and first-authored papers were 50.3±63.8 (range: 1-382) and 18.3±23.4 (range: 0-147) according to universities, and 1.39±5.84 (range: 0-140) and 0.33±1.28 (range: 0-21) according to teachers, respectively. When journals with the highest number of papers were analyzed, 12 of the top 20 (total papers) and 12 of the top 16 (first-authored papers) were in journals whose editorial offices are in Japan. CONCLUSION: The number of papers published in English has increased over the past ten years, varied markedly depending on the universities and teachers, and many papers were published in Japanese journals. To our knowledge, this is the first report anywhere to determine the average number of nursing papers "per teacher" in a specific population.
Subject(s)
Bibliometrics , Faculty, Nursing/statistics & numerical data , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Japan , Nursing Education Research , UniversitiesABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the training of writing research paper for graduate students majoring in medical imaging, therefore improving international academic communication. Methods: Analyzing the problems existed in English paper writing for the graduate students majoring in medical imaging. According to the feature of English paper writing in the field of medical imaging, the new teaching model was used and the problem-based-learning method was introduced.Results: The new training model of English research paper writing is practical and helpful for graduate students majoring in medical imaging to improve their writing skill and research ability.Conclusion: The training of English research paper writing is efficient for graduate students majoring in medical imaging. The training process can lay good foundation for their future research careers.
ABSTRACT
Objective The paper proposed suggestions and measures for hospital scientific research management by statistical analyzing all the papers published from 2009 to 2013.Method By referring to research database of this hospital and by using Microsoft Excel,this research calculated the frequency distributions of different variables including quantity,publisher,disciplinary subject,and the author title as well as core author.Result 772 papers were published from 2009 to 2013,mainly in local periodicals.75.52％ of the title of first author are high-level or intermediate-level;86 core authors published 378 papers,account for 48.96％ of the total amount.Conclusion The number of research papers is increasing year by year.but the quantity and quality are still low.The research administorsshould take measures to encourage researchers to publish quality papers in periodicals with higher standards.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Despite peer review, publications in scientific journals are not always well written, sometimes contain errors, and often exhibit deliberate or unintended biases. It is necessary to learn how to identify such limitations. It is also necessary to learn how to read between and beyond the lines of papers no matter how well written they are and no matter how highly ranked the journal is. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This paper critically examines an important article in a leading journal with a view to help the reader learn how to place the findings of a study in perspective, understand its limitations, and glean information beyond that actually presented and discussed in the text. RESULTS: Several issues are examined; these relate to case-control research designs, confounding, propensity matching, absolute risk, confidence intervals, interpretation of findings, real-world relevance, ecological validity, and definition of a cause-effect relationship. CONCLUSIONS: The issues examined in this paper reflect common themes in research, and a reader aware of these themes will more easily identify them in his future readings.
ABSTRACT
In order to better fulfill the tasks of research,to turn out more quality papers,to produce outstanding results,and to further strengthen management and supervision of scientific research,the"quantitative economic management of scientific research quotas" was established in the hospital.Applying of the measure in scientific research management in the past eight years it was shown that the desired results were achieved,the academic advancement and the personnel growth were greatly promoted.
ABSTRACT
Background: We thought that it is needed to look over the past issues in the Korean Geriatrics Society Articles, in order to assure that it is proper as an academic journal of geriatrics. We scrutinized the articles published in the Journal of the Korean Geriatrics Society. Methods: We analyzed 20 volumes of Journal of the Korean Geriatrics Society, published from 2001 to 2005. We counted the number of review articles, original articles and case reports by year. We classified articles as geriatric principles, basic sciences, and clinical studies, which were classified again by subjects as understanding of geriatrics and elderly patients, problem common in elderly people, and clinical trial. We stratified articles by the research methods, such as descriptive, analytical(cross-sectional, case-control, and cohort study), and investigational study. Results: Journal of the Korean Geriatrics Society was published in every three months. For 5 years, 191 articles were published, which included 27 review articles(14.1%), 130 original articles(68.1%), and 34 case reports(17.8%). They were dealing with the geriatric principles in 51, basic science in 13, and clinical study in 93 articles respectively. By subjects, 64 articles(33.4%) worked on understanding of geriatrics and elderly patients, and many original articles were related with the cardiovascular and neurological system. Neurological diseases were most common in case reports. There were 40 descriptive(30.8%), 82 analytical(64.0%: cross-sectional 43.1%, casecontrol 19.2%, cohort 0.7%), and 8 investigational studies(6.2%). Conclusion: The proportion of original articles was highest in Journal of the Korean Geriatrics Society. A third of all articles were relevant to geriatrics original, and two thirds were analytical, which were thought to be proper as an academic journal of geriatrics.
Subject(s)
Aged , Humans , Case-Control Studies , Cohort Studies , GeriatricsABSTRACT
Objective:To analyze the delay in the publication of medical postgraduates' research papers and provide them with a guidance for the management of academic articles.Methods:A total of 293 articles were chosen from the Journal of Medical Postgraduates published from 2005 to 2006,of which,229 were original articles and 45 were reviews,including 184 funded and 109 non-funded research papers,and their delay in publication in different periods was statistically analyzed by SPSS13.0 software.Results:The total delay in the publication of the articles was(234.7 ? 116.9) d,including(57.0?36.8) d in manuscript examination,(109.4 ? 96.4) d in editing and(61.8 ? 52.4) d in suspension.The original articles were less delayed than the reviews,(224.2 ? 7.4) d vs(272.8 ? 19.3) d,P
