Evangelos Evangelou - Meta-Research: Methods and Protocols

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/7651

For over 35 years, biological scientists have come to rely on the research protocols and methodologies in the critically acclaimed Methods in Molecular Biology series. The series was the first to introduce the step-by-step protocols approach that has become the standard in all biomedical protocol publishing. Each protocol is provided in readily-reproducible step-by-step fashion, opening with an introductory overview, a list of the materials and reagents needed to complete the experiment, and followed by a detailed procedure that is supported with a helpful notes section offering tips and tricks of the trade as well as troubleshooting advice. These hallmark features were introduced by series editor Dr. John Walker and constitute the key ingredient in each and every volume of the Methods in Molecular Biology series. Tested and trusted, comprehensive and reliable, all protocols from the series are indexed in PubMed.

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As the scientific evidence in biosciences is accumulating exponentially, meta-research provides a meticulous approach to examine different aspects of research itself, including its methods for synthesis, reporting, reproducibility, assessment of biases, and interpretation of the results and their heterogeneity. This exponential increase in scientific publications has also resulted in the emergence of novel methods for synthesizing and interpreting the available evidence in biomedical fields.

This book elegantly covers a wide range of design, analysis, and integration approaches for biomedical data including recent statistical models for a comprehensive and powerful synthesis of scientific evidence. It is a broad overview written at a level that should be accessible to a wide range of related scientists. We also hope that the book will be helpful to graduate students pursuing research in related fields. Experts in the field describe both conventional and novel state-of-the-art methodologies for data synthesis and meta-research.

Chapter describes the challenges in extending standard meta-analytical methods to synthesize multiple diagnostic tests.

We thank sincerely all those who have helped to bring this book together. We are grateful to the coauthors who accepted our invitation and contributed to this book, devoting valuable time and effort.