Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information Two Volumes (1959) / Chapter Skim
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The Place of Analytical and Critical Reviews in Any Growing Biological Science and the Service They May Render to Research
The Place of Analytical and Critical Reviews in Any Growing Biological Science and the Service They May Render to Research
Pages 571-588
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From page 571... ...
Reviews of literature, published as such, are now an established part of the information services offered to help scientific research and the application of its results in practice. The stated policy of the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, planned as a comprehensive information service for agriculture, requires the production of reviews.
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From page 572... ...
In practice value tends to vary inversely with the extent to which an article is a summary of opinions and directly with the extent to which it is a discussion of findings. Physiological Reviews has produced many memorable reviews in this class, of which the following are particular examples which come to mind because they belong to our particular field of work: Henderson (1925)
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From page 573... ...
, and that learned and charming book Ourselves Unborn by Corner (1944) which offers the unexpected conclusion that "the human body is not notably endowed with specialised anatomical features calf a kind that would fit us to perform limited activities supremely well, but on the contrary is built rather closely to the general mammalian pattern, and therefore can perform varied tasks under the guidance of a superior brain." The research review THE SUBJECT MATTER The field of biology in general and of nutrition in particular offers plenty of material for treatment in analytical and constructive reviews.
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From page 574... ...
These 600 journals are seen regularly in five different libraries in seven different places: the Reid Library at the Rowett Research Institute, which is devoted to the literature of animal nutrition, Aberdeen University Library with three branches, the library of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and FoocI, the library of the Royal Society of Meclicine, and the library of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, the last three in London. In addition, there are reprints from yet other journals and reports from research centres all over the world which are sent direct to the Commonwealth Bureau of Animal Nutrition or the Reid Library, and are not widely available in libraries.
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From page 575... ...
Since the advent of isotopes in metabolic work, the shepherd and the medical specialist make direct contact with the atomic physicist; the biochemist and the psychiatrist hobnob over esoteric studies of the composition and metabolism of brain cells, and the cook and taste panel consult with big business and public health experts on "additives" to food. Hence, individual contributions to knowledge in nutrition, and in biology in general, are small ant!
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From page 576... ...
The Medical Research Council Committee on Haemoglobin Surveys (1945) wrote: There can be little doubt, therefore, that the errors detected in this experiment are smaller than those likely to occur when a relatively inexperienced technician, after forcing a drop of blood from a reluctant patient and using an unstanclarclised pipette, hurriedly matches the resultant (possibly undergassed)
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From page 577... ...
We suggest that, if experimenters were made familiar with the idea that their results would, in due course, become part of a larger array of data, they would possibly take more thought to describe their material fully. Types of research review At opposite extremes in this class are the review which is a purely statistical analysis of assembled data, and that which is a review of concepts, not of primary data.
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From page 578... ...
B Fisher, then lecturer in Geography at Aberdeen University, who had been a meteorological officer with the Royal Air Force during World War II, and who still had access to the records of the Air Ministry.
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From page 579... ...
The data were supplied by School Medical Officers in response to a direct request from us, and a sample of measurements of 1,180,000 children aged 5, 8, and 12 years was built up. Not only did this review put on record for wide circulation important measurements that would otherwise have remained hidden in local medical reports with an exceedingly limited circulation, but, because of the size of the combined sample, deductions could be drawn that would have been impossible from inspection of the individual reports.
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From page 580... ...
Since neither D'Arcy Thompson nor Laws had produced a true picture of the relation of birth weight of young to weight of mother, we decided to Took for information about different species. After a search of the immediately accessible journals and monographs we retrieved data for 70 species, and the information was condensed into a graph (Fig.
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From page 581... ...
on the diagnosis of malnutrition in man. It surveys concepts and definitions, the accepted or proposed criteria of specific deficiency states, the clinical pictures of the well fed and the ill fed, and finally suggests the overriding importance of somatometric studies in which attained dimensions of the body are compared with primary patterns of growth and development.
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From page 582... ...
are expressed as "per 100 g. feed," the feed is a ration of artificial type containing a sugar, starch, or air-dry cereal, a protein, most often purified casein, oil, minerals, and vitamins, or is a simple pig or poultry ration of much the same sort.
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From page 583... ...
The analysis of the adult material was made on the assumption that no adult ought to retain or lose calcium or nitrogen continuously, and that the amount required for maintenance would be the amount that would give equal chances of gain or loss. The concept seemed, and is, both simple and logical, but was not at first well received in some quarters.
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From page 584... ...
The Bureau had for some time been collecting data on heights and weights of school children from reports of School Medical Officers, and more general information showing, or suggesting, a relation of ill health and high mortality to poverty and poor diet. A preliminary report was prepared, of which the essence was embodied in Food Health and Income.
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From page 585... ...
The reviews to which reference has been made in this paper involve a knowledge of chemistry, physiology, clinical medicine, embryology, zoology, economics, statistics, animal husbandry, and field work of several kinds. Clearly, the setting up of a centre in which research reviews in biology are to be produced would require either a team of experts or a superior jack-o£aD-trades with access to theoretical and practical help from experts.
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From page 586... ...
Further study will be required to show in what ways the composite picture may differ from a limited, true longitudinal study. Substitution Early in World War II, the question of the policy to be adopted in respect of stock farming, which had been heavily dependent on imported concentrates, caned urgently for information on the relative efficiencies with which animals convert feed to food for man.
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From page 587... ...
Each review can claim to have retrieved and made use of knowledge in danger of disappearance and loss, or to have clarified issues and cleared the way to further research. Indeed, the technique of the research review, by virtue of the assembly and use of scattered records, appears to be unequalled as an instrument for retrieval of buried work.
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From page 588... ...
(1951~. Commonwealth Bureau of Animal Nutrition.
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