Books by "Brian R. Mitchell"
5 books found
Place and Health as Complex Systems
by Brian Castellani, Rajeev Rajaram, J. Galen Buckwalter, Michael Ball, Frederic Hafferty
2015 · Springer
The history of public health has focused on direct relationships between problems and solutions: vaccinations against diseases, ad campaigns targeting risky behaviors. But the accelerating pace and mounting intricacies of our lives are challenging the field to find new scientific methods for studying community health. The complexities of place (COP) approach is emerging as one such promising method. Place and Health as Complex Systems demonstrates how COP works, making an empirical case for its use in for designing and implementing interventions. This brief resource reviews the defining characteristics of places as dynamic and evolving social systems, rigorously testing them as well as the COP approach itself. The study, of twenty communities within one county in the Midwest, combines case-based methods and complexity science to determine whether COP improves upon traditional statistical methods of public health research. Its conclusions reveal strengths and limitations of the approach, immediate possibilities for its use, and challenges regarding future research. Included in the coverage: Characteristics of places and the complexities of place approach. The Definitional Test of Complex Systems. Case-based modeling using the SACS toolkit. Methods, maps, and measures used in the study. Places as nodes within larger networks. Places as power-based conflicted negotiations. Place and Health as Complex Systems brings COP into greater prominence in public health research, and is also valuable to researchers in related fields such as demography, health geography, community health, urban planning, and epidemiology.
What are the key issues and concerns raised by the debate about making social work more of an evidence-based profession? How is it possible to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of specific research projects? How can research findings be applied in social work practice? In an era where professions are increasingly being questioned and made more accountable for their actions, social workers are required to relate their activities more directly to research findings than ever before. In the modern evidence-based practice debate, there are many claims (and counter-claims) about the benefits of research and about its applicability to social work practice. There are also major disputes about what type of research is most valid to the concerns of social work. This book tackles these debates with a view to clarifying the issues for students and practitioners in social work and social care fields. In particular, the book examines: The political and ideological disputes surrounding the evidence-base debate in social work A wide range of research into social work with children, older people, mental illness and disability The three main paradigms of social research – objectivist, subjectivist and critical How research knowledge can be applied to practice Applying Research in Social Work Practice presents social work students and practitioners with the background to the key current issues relating to social work practice and social research. It also provides guidance on the skills needed to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a range of research studies. Finally, it offers help and guidance about how research can actually be applied in practice.
Protein Moonlighting in Biology and Medicine
by Brian Henderson, Mario A. Fares, Andrew C. R. Martin
2016 · John Wiley & Sons
The past 25 years has seen the emergence of a wealth of data suggesting that novel biological functions of known proteins play important roles in biology and medicine. This ability of proteins to exhibit more than one unique biological activity is known as protein moonlighting. Moonlighting proteins can exhibit novel biological functions, thus extending the function of the proteome, and are also implicated in the pathology of a growing number of idiopathic and infectious diseases. This book, written by a cell biologist, protein evolutionary biologist and protein bioinformatician, brings together the latest information on the structure, evolution and biological function of the growing numbers of moonlighting proteins that have been identified, and their roles in human health and disease. This information is revealing the enormous importance protein moonlighting plays in the maintenance of human health and in the induction of disease pathology. Protein Moonlighting in Biology and Medicine will be of interest to a general readership in the biological and biomedical research community.
The colonial era in Africa, spanning less than a century, ushered in a more rapid expansion of Islam than at any time during the previous thousand years. In this groundbreaking historical investigation, Brian J. Peterson considers for the first time how and why rural peoples in West Africa "became Muslim" under French colonialism.Peterson rejects conventional interpretations that emphasize the roles of states, jihads, and elites in "converting" people, arguing instead that the expansion of Islam owed its success to the mobility of thousands of rural people who gradually, and usually peacefully, adopted the new religion on their own. Based on extensive fieldwork in villages across southern Mali (formerly French Sudan) and on archival research in West Africa and France, the book draws a detailed new portrait of grassroots, multi-generational processes of Islamization in French Sudan while also deepening our understanding of the impact and unintended consequences of colonialism.
A unique reference on peripheral pain receptor mechanisms While considerable advances have been made on pharmacotherapies for many chronic disease states, options available to treat chronic pain have remained relatively unchanged for decades. However, utilizing the receptors involved in peripheral pain transduction mechanisms offers a significant opportunity to create novel therapies for pain. A comprehensive review of peripheral pain mechanisms, Peripheral Receptor Targets for Analgesia: Novel Approaches to Pain Management provides a unique resource that brings together a body of knowledge that was previously widely dispersed. As such, it gives readers a framework for further basic and clinical studies on potential receptor targets, as well as the development of improved topical analgesics. Coverage includes: The latest discoveries by leading researchers relating to the function of various ion channels and receptors in the peripheral nervous system Novel delivery techniques An appendix listing currently available topical analgesic medications A Foreword by Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen of the Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI) at Aalborg University An unmatched resource for improving drug therapies and making pain management more efficient, Peripheral Receptor Targets for Analgesia supplies pharmaceutical scientists, pharmacologists, neuroscientists, and graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with a comprehensive, up-to-date reference.