Statistical Evidence in Medical Trials is a lucid, well-written and entertaining text that addresses common pitfalls in evaluating medical research. Including extensive use of publications from the medical literature and a non-technical account of how to appraise the quality of evidence presented in these publications, this book is ideal for health care professionals, students in medical or nursing schools, researchers and students in statistics, and anyone needing to assess the evidence published in medical journals. Stephen D. Simon earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Iowa in 1982. He currently works as a research biostatistician at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, MO. He has authored or co-authored over 60 publications in a variety of medical and statistical journals, four of which have won awards. He has given a wide range of lectures and classes on statistics, evidence based medicine, research ethics, and quality control.

Membrane processes today play a signifi cant role in the replacement therapy for acute and chronic organ failure diseases. Current extracorporeal blood purifi cation and oxygenation devices employ membranes acting as selective barriers for the removal of endogeneous and exogeneous toxins and for gas exchange, respectively. Additionally, membrane technology offers new interesting opportunities for the design of bioartificial livers, pancreas, kidneys, lungs etc. This book reviews the latest developments in membrane systems for bioartificial organs and regenerative medicine, investigates how membrane technology can improve the quality and efficiency of biomedical devices, and highlights the design procedures for membrane materials covering the preparation, characterization, and sterilization steps as well as transport phenomena. The different strategies pursued for the development of membrane bioartifi cial organs, including crucial issues related to blood/cell-membrane interactions are described with the aim of opening new and exciting frontiers in the coming decades. The book is a valuable tool for tissue engineers, clinicians, biomaterials scientists, membranologists as well as biologists and biotechnologists. It is also a source of reference for students, academic and industrial researchers in the topic of biotechnology, biomedical engineering, materials science and medicine.

The book contains the refereed contributions from the 45th Annual Meeting of the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue (ISOTT) 2017. This volume covers cross-disciplinary work on a broad range of topics related to the dynamics of oxygen transport: microcirculation and vascular medicine; O2 deficiency and its impact on molecular processes in cells and tissues; cellular metabolism and mitochondrial function; multimodal functional imaging; mathematical modeling; the clinical relevance of oxygen supply as well as therapeutic interventions (e.g. in oncology or critical care medicine). The annual meetings of ISOTT bring together scientists from diverse fields (medicine, physiology, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, etc.) in a unique international forum. The book includes sections on brain oxygenation and function, NIRS oxygenation measurements, tumor oxygenation, cell metabolism, tissue oxygenation and treatment, methodical aspects of O2 measurements and physicochemical aspects of oxygen diffusion. Chapters 3, 24, 49 and 51 of this book are open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Rabies is the deadliest zoonotic disease that threatens humans and animals on all continents except Antarctica. Asia and Africa are worst affected as more than 95 per cent of rabies associated human deaths occur in these regions. India alone bears about 36 per cent of the global human rabies burden. Dogs are the main transmitters of rabies that potentially threaten over 3 billion people in Asia and Africa. Many developed nations have been able to successfully control dog rabies but continue to face the risk from wildlife including bats. Bat rabies is responsible for most human rabies deaths in the United States of America and Canada but has emerged as a public health threat in Australia, Latin America and Western Europe as well. Despite being vaccine preventable, rabies continues to haunt the mankind. Poor resources is a major constraint but the factors like low priority attributed to rabies, misconceptions in the community about the disease and unsystematic approach for its prevention and control are also responsible for the grim situation. Targets have been set for elimination of human and dog rabies in all Latin American countries by 2015 and of human rabies transmitted by dogs in South-East Asia by 2020. However, the myths prevailing among the people together with inadequate knowledge of the health professionals, veterinarians, and the civic body staff about the rabies prevention and control strategies might make the task very difficult. This book comprising eight chapters elaborates the causation of rabies in man and animals, its global epidemiology, risk analysis and effective strategies for the management of exposures. Proven methods of rabies prevention and control have been discussed in length along with the challenges and ways to overcome the constraints through intersectoral coordination. The inclusion of 200 frequently asked questions is a unique feature of the book which may help not only the common people and pet lovers in clearing their doubts about rabies in man and animals also be equally instrumental in updating the knowledge and skills of the public health personnel, veterinarians and other professionals. Apt illustrations and simple language make the contents of the book easily comprehensible and a reading pleasure.

The ubiquitin system has two major functions in eukaryotic cells: it r- ulates protein degradation, which is essential for normal cellular fu- tion and for the removal of potentially harmful, damaged, or misfolded proteins, and it controls protein activity by regulating protein-protein interactions and subcellullar localization. The ubiquitin system is thus involved in processes as diverse as cell cycle progression, signal tra- duction, gene transcription, and DNA repair. Not surprisingly, defects in the ubiquitin system have been linked with numerous diseases such as cancer, in?ammation, central nervous system disorders, and metabolic dysfunction. Ubiquitin is a highly conserved 76-amino acid protein which is transferred to its target protein in an ATP-dependent manner. This post-translational modi?cation takes place in a hierarchical, three-step fashion involving an E1 ubiquitin-activating enzyme, an E2 ubiquit- conjugating enzyme, and an E3 ubiquitin ligase. Substrate speci?city is predominantly controlled by members of a large family of E3 - zymes, which form complexes with the proteins that will be modi?ed. This ultimately leads to the covalent attachment of the C-terminus of ubiquitin to usually an?-amino group of a lysine residue in the targeted protein. Additional ubiquitin transfer to lysine-48 of ubiquitin itself will form a polyubiquitin chain, which usually targets the conjugate for degradation by the proteasome. By contrast, mono- or polyubiquityla- VI Preface tion involving lysine-63 is normally involved in the control of protein activity. Ubiquitylation can be reverted by deubiquitylating enzymes, of which approximately 95 exist in mammals.

This book gathers multidisciplinary articles that present advances of our understanding of diseases and the effective treatment of patients. The authors share recent clinical and experimental research findings, highlighting poorly understood areas with uncertain treatment outcomes, such as giant-cell bone tumors and their propensity to metastasize to the lungs; subterranean rehabilitation in pulmonary disorders; male reproductive hormone regulation during physical exercise in hyperbaric, hyperoxic environments, like underwater diving; and amelioration of cognitive decline owing to increased cerebral blood transit time after internal carotid artery stenting. Other topics include new concepts and innovations in the treatment of diabetes in pregnancy, and leg ulcers in chronic venous insufficiency, as well as molecular research on the toxic effects of oxidative stress, impaired cell autophagy, and experimental conditions resembling air pollution. Featuring the latest interdisciplinary advances in biomedicine, this book is a valuable resource for medical professionals, both academics and practitioners, and all allied health-care workers.

Basic Biostatistics for Medical and Biomedical Practitioners, Second Edition makes it easier to plan experiments, with an emphasis on sample size. It also shows what choices are available when simple tests are unsuitable and offers investigators an overview of how the kinds of complex tests that they won't do on their own work. The second edition presents a new, revised and enhanced version of the chapters, taking into consideration new developments and tools available, discussing topics, such as the basic aspects of statistics, continuous distributions, hypothesis testing, discrete distributions, probability in epidemiology and medical diagnosis, comparing means, regression and correlation. This book is a valuable source for students and researchers looking to expand or refresh their understanding of statistics as it applies to the biomedical and research fields. Based on the author's 40+ years of teaching statistics to medical fellows and biomedical researchers across a wide range of fields, it is a valuable source for researchers who need to understand more about biostatistics to apply it to their work.

The volume is comprehensively covers emerging technologies for health care, various aspects of biomedical research towards understanding of pathophysiology of the diseases, advances in improvement in diagnostic procedures and therapeutic tools, the fundamental role of biomedical research in the development of new medicinal products

This book systematically reviews the most important findings on cancer immune checkpoints, sharing essential insights into this rapidly evolving yet largely unexplored research topic. The past decade has seen major advances in cancer immune checkpoint therapy, which has demonstrated impressive clinical benefits. The family of checkpoints for mediating cancer immune evasion now includes CTLA-4, PD-1/PD-L1, CD27/CD70, FGL-1/LAG-3, Siglec-15, VISTA (PD-1L)/VSIG3, CD47/SIRPA, APOE/LILRB4, TIGIT, and many others. Despite these strides, most patients do not show lasting remission, and some cancers have been completely resistant to the therapy. The potentially lethal adverse effects of checkpoint blockade represent another major challenge, the mechanisms of which remain poorly understood. Compared to the cancer signaling pathways, such as p53 and Ras, mechanistic studies on immune checkpoint pathways are still in their infancy. To improve the responses to checkpoint blockade therapy and limit the adverse effects, it is essential to understand the molecular regulation of checkpoint molecules in both malignant and healthy cells/tissues. This book begins with an introduction to immune checkpoint therapy and its challenges, and subsequently describes the regulation of checkpoints at different levels. In closing, it discusses recent therapeutic developments based on mechanistic findings, and outlines goals for future translational studies. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers in the cancer immunotherapy field, helping to form a roadmap for checkpoint regulation and develop safer and more effective immunotherapies.

Real-world evidence (RWE) has been at the forefront of pharmaceutical innovations. It plays an important role in transforming drug development from a process aimed at meeting regulatory expectations to an operating model that leverages data from disparate sources to aid business, regulatory, and healthcare decision making. Despite its many benefits, there is no single book systematically covering the latest development in the field. Written specifically for pharmaceutical practitioners, Real-World Evidence in Drug Development and Evaluation, presents a wide range of RWE applications throughout the lifecycle of drug product development. With contributions from experienced researchers in the pharmaceutical industry, the book discusses at length RWE opportunities, challenges, and solutions. Features Provides the first book and a single source of information on RWE in drug development Covers a broad array of topics on outcomes- and value-based RWE assessments Demonstrates proper Bayesian application and causal inference for real-world data (RWD) Presents real-world use cases to illustrate the use of advanced analytics and statistical methods to generate insights Offers a balanced discussion of practical RWE issues at hand and technical solutions suitable for practitioners with limited data science expertise

This book, written by members of the European network PROTEOSTASIS, provides an up-to-date review of the research regarding protein homeostasis in health and disease. With new discoveries contributing to the increasing complexity of this topic, the book offers a detailed overview of the pathways regulating protein homeostasis, including autophagy and the ubiquitin protein family. Following a basic introduction, it explains how defects in protein homeostasis contribute to numerous pathologies, including cancer, neurodegeneration, inflammation and a number of rare diseases. In addition, it discusses, the role of protein homeostasis in cellular development and physiology. Highlighting the latest research in the field of protein homeostasis and its implications for various clinically relevant diseases, the book appeals to researchers and clinicians, while also offering a reference guide for scholars who are new to the field.

This book systemically presents the latest research on renal fibrosis, covering all the major topics in the field, including the possible mechanisms, biomarkers, and strategies for prevention and treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Due to its high prevalence, CKD represents a huge global economic and social burden. Irrespective of the initial causes, CKD progresses to end stage kidney disease (ESKD) due to renal fibrosis, which is characterized by glomerulosclerosis, tubule atrophy and atresia, and the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the kidney. Unfortunately, an estimated 1%-2% of the adult population living with CKD will need renal replacement therapy at some point as a result of ESKD. As such, strategies for preventing or slowing CKD progression to ESKD are of utmost importance, and studies aiming to understand the mechanisms of renal fibrosis have been the focus of intensive research. Recently, novel insights into the pathophysiological processes have furthered our understanding of the pathogenesis of renal fibrosis, and more importantly, promoted studies on the early diagnosis and treatment of CKD. This book draws lessons from the extensive, state-of-the-art research in this field, elaborating the new theories and new techniques to offer readers a detailed and comprehensive understanding of renal fibrosis and as well as inspiration for future research directions.

Much research has focused on the basic cellular and molecular biological aspects of stem cells. Much of this research has been fueled by their potential for use in regenerative medicine applications, which has in turn spurred growing numbers of translational and clinical studies. However, more work is needed if the potential is to be realized for improvement of the lives and well-being of patients with numerous diseases and conditions.This book series 'Cell Biology and Translational Medicine (CBTMED)' as part of Springer Nature's longstanding and very successful Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology book series, has the goal to accelerate advances by timely information exchange. Emerging areas of regenerative medicine and translational aspects of stem cells are covered in each volume. Outstanding researchers are recruited to highlight developments and remaining challenges in both the basic research and clinical arenas. This current book is the 16th volume of a continuing series. Chapter "Epithelial Stem Cells: Making, Shaping and Breaking the Niche" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

With new statistical and scientific issues arising in adaptive clinical trial design, including the U.S. FDA's recent draft guidance, a new edition of one of the first books on the topic is needed. Adaptive Design Methods in Clinical Trials, Second Edition reflects recent developments and regulatory positions on the use of adaptive designs in clinical trials. It unifies the vast and continuously growing literature and research activities on regulatory requirements, scientific and practical issues, and statistical methodology. New to the Second EditionAlong with revisions throughout the text, this edition significantly updates the chapters on protocol amendment and clinical trial simulation to incorporate the latest changes. It also includes five entirely new chapters on two-stage adaptive design, biomarker adaptive trials, target clinical trials, sample size and power estimation, and regulatory perspectives. Following in the tradition of its acclaimed predecessor, this second edition continues to offer an up-to-date resource for clinical scientists and researchers in academia, regulatory agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. Written in an intuitive style at a basic mathematical and statistical level, the book maintains its practical approach with an emphasis on concepts via numerous examples and illustrations.

The Transformative Power of Mobile Medicine: Leveraging Innovation, Seizing Opportunities, and Overcoming Obstacles of mHealth addresses the rapid advances taking place in mHealth and their impact on clinicians and patients. It provides guidance on reliable mobile health apps that are based on sound scientific evidence, while also offering advice on how to stay clear of junk science. The book explores the latest developments, including the value of blockchain, the emerging growth of remote sensors in chronic patient care, the potential use of Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant as patient bedside assistants, the use of Amazon's IoT button, and much more. This book enables physicians and nurses to gain a deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of mobile health and helps them choose evidence-based mobile medicine tools to improve patient care.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the development and application of microfluidics and biosensors in cancer research, in particular, their applications in cancer modeling and theranostics. Over the last decades, considerable effort has been made to develop new technologies to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Microfluidics has proven to be a powerful tool for manipulating biological fluids with high precision and efficiency and has already been adopted by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. With recent technological advances, particularly biosensors, microfluidic devices have increased their usefulness and importance in oncology and cancer research. The aim of this book is to bring together in a single volume all the knowledge and expertise required for the development and application of microfluidic systems and biosensors in cancer modeling and theranostics. It begins with a detailed introduction to the fundamental aspects of tumor biology, cancer biomarkers, biosensors and microfluidics. With this knowledge in mind, the following sections highlight important advances in developing and applying biosensors and microfluidic devices in cancer research at universities and in the industry. Strategies for identifying and evaluating potent disease biomarkers and developing biosensors and microfluidic devices for their detection are discussed in detail. Finally, the transfer of these technologies into the clinical environment for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients will be highlighted. By combining the recent advances made in the development and application of microfluidics and biosensors in cancer research in academia and clinics, this book will be useful literature for readers from a variety of backgrounds. It offers new visions of how this technology can influence daily life in hospitals and companies, improving research methodologies and the prognosis of cancer patients.

The public is bombarded daily with reports about risk factors, many conflicting with each other, others accepted as "scientific truth" for awhile, then scientifically disproved, yet others questionable that later prove to be true. Physicians are faced with trying to make sense of those conflicting or questionable results in the scientific literature in order to guide their patients to the best possible decisions. The situation is not much easier for scientists who may waste years of their productive life, and considerable resources, basing their research efforts on what prove to be misleading earlier research findings. What this book does is to present, in non "academese" and with many examples from the general media and scientific journals, a guide to a critical reading of research reports, which, in turn, serves as a guide to researchers as to which approaches are likely to be regarded with raised eyebrows, and what they need to do to generate results that will be taken seriously. This stimulating and helpful book was written for informed consumers and physicians as well as for scientists evaluating the risk research literature or contemplating projects on risk research.

Big Data Analytics for Intelligent Healthcare Management covers both the theory and application of hardware platforms and architectures, the development of software methods, techniques and tools, applications and governance, and adoption strategies for the use of big data in healthcare and clinical research. The book provides the latest research findings on the use of big data analytics with statistical and machine learning techniques that analyze huge amounts of real-time healthcare data.

The main aim of this book is to collect a series of research articles and reviews from a diverse group of scientists to share their research work on the role of free radical research and environmental toxicity. This book presents various state-of-the-art chapters of recent progress in the field of cellular toxicology and clinical manifestations of various disorders. Topics include cell signaling, various risk factors, the pathophysiology of disease instigation and distribution, mechanistic insights into metal and nanoparticle toxicity, neural toxicity, nongenotoxic carcinogenicity, immune and idiosyncratic toxicity, prevention, biomarkers related to disease progression and therapeutic strategies. In particular, this book provides valuable insight for researchers, pathologists, and clinicians with an interest in toxicological research and cellular impairments with special emphasis on therapeutic advancement.

In Vitro Neurochemical Techniques is one of three volumes that rep- sent an update of the original Volume 1 of Neuromefkods, General Neu- chemical Techniques The expansion to three volumes was necessitated by the rapidly increasing number of techniques being used by neuroscrentists and the general tendency of neuroscience research to become more multidisciplrnary and collaborative in recent years. The two companion volumes are concerned primarily with In Vwo Neurometkods in one case, and with Cell Neurobiology Techniques in the other case. Even with three volumes, the coverage of General Neuvometkods is obviously not exhaustive. We have attempted to cover those techniques that seem particularly popular in multidisciplinary neuroscience research. Though some important techniques may have been omitted, we believe that most of these have been covered in detail in other recent volumes of Neurometkods or will be the subjects of upcommg volumes The editors anticipate that these volumes will prove unusually useful to neuroscientists across a wide range of fields-e.g., neurochemistry, neuropsychopharmacology, neurology, psychiatry, and neuroanatomy. Each chapter has been written by well-known neuroscientists with - tive research programs. Experienced researchers in the specific areas treated will appreciate the present updates on those topics, and neuros- entists expecting their research programs to become more multidisciplinary or to expand into new areas of research should find these volumes of enormous value, particularly those sections offering protocols with u- ful hints about the advantages and potential pitfalls of a particular te- nique.

This volume describes important methods, protocols, and techniques used for studying urinary biomarkers. Chapters detail different alterations use to studied different types of cancers and physiological conditions. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Urinary Biomarkers: Methods and Protocols aims to be a useful practical guide to researches to help further their study in this field.

Intelligent Speech Signal Processing investigates the utilization of speech analytics across several systems and real-world activities, including sharing data analytics, creating collaboration networks between several participants, and implementing video-conferencing in different application areas. Chapters focus on the latest applications of speech data analysis and management tools across different recording systems. The book emphasizes the multidisciplinary nature of the field, presenting different applications and challenges with extensive studies on the design, development and management of intelligent systems, neural networks and related machine learning techniques for speech signal processing.

This volume provides in-depth descriptions and discussion of clinical trial designs based on novel data analysis of high-quality trials for 11 different neurological conditions in order to ultimately improve the quality of care in neurology. Some of the conditions discussed in this book are stroke, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and tumors of the central nervous system. In Neuromethods series style, chapters include the kind of detail and key advice from the specialists needed to get successful results in your research center and clinical investigation. Thorough and comprehensive, Clinical Trials in Neurology is a valuable guide for individuals in the research, education, and clinical practice fields, specifically in the fields of medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, and public health. This volume is also an important resource for clinicians aiming to improve their understanding in methodology of clinical trials.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of health data, technology, and access to health informatics. The applications of several information technologies in the context of healthcare are proving instrumental in pandemic control. These technologies were already actively used in the healthcare sector before the pandemic. However, the pandemic has resulted in researchers reassessing how these technologies could have better assisted with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they may mitigate the threat of future pandemics. Health Informatics and Patient Safety in Times of Crisis provides a fresh perspective on how healthcare informatics has managed the current pandemic and how improved healthcare informatics could help in a future crisis. Covering topics such as digital public health, misinformation, and knowledge management, this premier reference source is an indispensable resource for medical professionals, hospital administrators, public health officials, community leaders, international leaders, libraries, medical students, medical professors, researchers, and academicians.

Counterfeit drugs continue to infiltrate the drug market in the United States, causing illness and death. This book addresses this issue and examines the recent trends in drug counterfeiting over the past 5-10 years. The text shows perspectives from crime lab and toxicology lab personnel and academic researchers, and includes topics such as a history of cases and issues with counterfeit drugs, trends observed in forensic labs, instrumental methods and approaches used in detecting counterfeit medicines, and policy approaches for controlling counterfeit drugs. There is a focus on ways to reduce counterfeit drugs in the market, to help improve the health and safety of people all over the world. Features : Focuses on recent (5-10) year trends in counterfeit drugs and analysis. Shows perspectives from crime lab and toxicology lab personnel and academic researchers. Focuses on drugs seized by law enforcement and approaches to reducing counterfeit medicine in the market. Discusses the detection and analysis of counterfeit drugs, and appropriate tools for combating this issue. Emphasizes the global impact of illegal medicines.