Biological Science Disciplines
All of the divisions of the natural sciences dealing with the various aspects of the phenomena of life and vital processes. The concept includes anatomy and physiology, biochemistry and biophysics, and the biology of animals, plants, and microorganisms. It should be differentiated from BIOLOGY, one of its subdivisions, concerned specifically with the origin and life processes of living organisms.
Biomedical Research
Research that involves the application of the natural sciences, especially biology and physiology, to medicine.
Education, Graduate
Research
Critical and exhaustive investigation or experimentation, having for its aim the discovery of new facts and their correct interpretation, the revision of accepted conclusions, theories, or laws in the light of newly discovered facts, or the practical application of such new or revised conclusions, theories, or laws. (Webster, 3d ed)
Research Support as Topic
Financial support of research activities.
Serial Publications
Publications in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely. (ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983, p203)
National Institutes of Health (U.S.)
An operating division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. It is concerned with the overall planning, promoting, and administering of programs pertaining to health and medical research. Until 1995, it was an agency of the United States PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE.
Universities
Educational institutions providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees.
Educational Measurement
Biomedical Engineering
Application of principles and practices of engineering science to biomedical research and health care.
Computational Biology
A field of biology concerned with the development of techniques for the collection and manipulation of biological data, and the use of such data to make biological discoveries or predictions. This field encompasses all computational methods and theories for solving biological problems including manipulation of models and datasets.
United States
The term "United States" in a medical context often refers to the country where a patient or study participant resides, and is not a medical term per se, but relevant for epidemiological studies, healthcare policies, and understanding differences in disease prevalence, treatment patterns, and health outcomes across various geographic locations.
Laboratory Animal Science
The science and technology dealing with the procurement, breeding, care, health, and selection of animals used in biomedical research and testing.
Information Storage and Retrieval
Natural Language Processing
Academies and Institutes
Organizations representing specialized fields which are accepted as authoritative; may be non-governmental, university or an independent research organization, e.g., National Academy of Sciences, Brookings Institution, etc.
Animals, Laboratory
'Laboratory animals' are non-human creatures that are intentionally used in scientific research, testing, and education settings to investigate physiological processes, evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs or medical devices, and teach anatomy, surgical techniques, and other healthcare-related skills.
Abstracting and Indexing as Topic
Activities performed to identify concepts and aspects of published information and research reports.
Translational Medical Research
Vocabulary, Controlled
A specified list of terms with a fixed and unalterable meaning, and from which a selection is made when CATALOGING; ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING; or searching BOOKS; JOURNALS AS TOPIC; and other documents. The control is intended to avoid the scattering of related subjects under different headings (SUBJECT HEADINGS). The list may be altered or extended only by the publisher or issuing agency. (From Harrod's Librarians' Glossary, 7th ed, p163)
Research Personnel
Those individuals engaged in research.
Ethics, Research
The moral obligations governing the conduct of research. Used for discussions of research ethics as a general topic.
PubMed
A bibliographic database that includes MEDLINE as its primary subset. It is produced by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. PubMed, which is searchable through NLM's Web site, also includes access to additional citations to selected life sciences journals not in MEDLINE, and links to other resources such as the full-text of articles at participating publishers' Web sites, NCBI's molecular biology databases, and PubMed Central.
MEDLINE
The premier bibliographic database of the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. MEDLINE® (MEDLARS Online) is the primary subset of PUBMED and can be searched on NLM's Web site in PubMed or the NLM Gateway. MEDLINE references are indexed with MEDICAL SUBJECT HEADINGS (MeSH).
Data Mining
Terminology as Topic
The terms, expressions, designations, or symbols used in a particular science, discipline, or specialized subject area.
Database Management Systems
Bibliometrics
The use of statistical methods in the analysis of a body of literature to reveal the historical development of subject fields and patterns of authorship, publication, and use. Formerly called statistical bibliography. (from The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983)
Medical Informatics
The field of information science concerned with the analysis and dissemination of medical data through the application of computers to various aspects of health care and medicine.
Publications
Copies of a work or document distributed to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending. (From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983, p181)
Social Sciences
Research Design
Biological Specimen Banks
Biomedical Enhancement
The use of technology-based interventions to improve functional capacities rather than to treat disease.
Animal Welfare
Publishing
"The business or profession of the commercial production and issuance of literature" (Webster's 3d). It includes the publisher, publication processes, editing and editors. Production may be by conventional printing methods or by electronic publishing.
Medical Informatics Computing
Research Subjects
Internet
A loose confederation of computer communication networks around the world. The networks that make up the Internet are connected through several backbone networks. The Internet grew out of the US Government ARPAnet project and was designed to facilitate information exchange.
Medical Informatics Applications
Software
Facility Design and Construction
Architecture, exterior and interior design, and construction of facilities other than hospitals, e.g., dental schools, medical schools, ambulatory care clinics, and specified units of health care facilities. The concept also includes architecture, design, and construction of specialized contained, controlled, or closed research environments including those of space labs and stations.
Unified Medical Language System
A research and development program initiated by the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE to build knowledge sources for the purpose of aiding the development of systems that help health professionals retrieve and integrate biomedical information. The knowledge sources can be used to link disparate information systems to overcome retrieval problems caused by differences in terminology and the scattering of relevant information across many databases. The three knowledge sources are the Metathesaurus, the Semantic Network, and the Specialist Lexicon.
Databases, Factual
Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of facts and data garnered from material of a specialized subject area and made available for analysis and application. The collection can be automated by various contemporary methods for retrieval. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, BIBLIOGRAPHIC which is restricted to collections of bibliographic references.
Bioethics
Biology
One of the BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINES concerned with the origin, structure, development, growth, function, genetics, and reproduction of animals, plants, and microorganisms.
Algorithms
Databases, Bibliographic
Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of references and citations to books, articles, publications, etc., generally on a single subject or specialized subject area. Databases can operate through automated files, libraries, or computer disks. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, FACTUAL which is used for collections of data and facts apart from bibliographic references to them.
Animal Rights
The moral and ethical bases of the protection of animals from cruelty and abuse. The rights are extended to domestic animals, laboratory animals, and wild animals.
Scientific Misconduct
Artificial Intelligence
Theory and development of COMPUTER SYSTEMS which perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. Such tasks may include speech recognition, LEARNING; VISUAL PERCEPTION; MATHEMATICAL COMPUTING; reasoning, PROBLEM SOLVING, DECISION-MAKING, and translation of language.
Informed Consent
Voluntary authorization, by a patient or research subject, with full comprehension of the risks involved, for diagnostic or investigative procedures, and for medical and surgical treatment.
Editorial Policies
Systems Integration
User-Computer Interface
Animal Care Committees
Institutional committees established to protect the welfare of animals used in research and education. The 1971 NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals introduced the policy that institutions using warm-blooded animals in projects supported by NIH grants either be accredited by a recognized professional laboratory animal accrediting body or establish its own committee to evaluate animal care; the Public Health Service adopted a policy in 1979 requiring such committees; and the 1985 amendments to the Animal Welfare Act mandate review and approval of federally funded research with animals by a formally designated Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC).
Journal Impact Factor
Medical Subject Headings
Medical Waste Disposal
Management, removal, and elimination of biologic, infectious, pathologic, and dental waste. The concept includes blood, mucus, tissue removed at surgery or autopsy, soiled surgical dressings, and other materials requiring special control and handling. Disposal may take place where the waste is generated or elsewhere.
Environmental Pollution
Peer Review, Research
The evaluation by experts of the quality and pertinence of research or research proposals of other experts in the same field. Peer review is used by editors in deciding which submissions warrant publication, by granting agencies to determine which proposals should be funded, and by academic institutions in tenure decisions.
Genetic Research
National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
An agency of the NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH concerned with overall planning, promoting, and administering programs pertaining to advancement of medical and related sciences. Major activities of this institute include the collection, dissemination, and exchange of information important to the progress of medicine and health, research in medical informatics and support for medical library development.
Animal Use Alternatives
Alternatives to the use of animals in research, testing, and education. The alternatives may include reduction in the number of animals used, replacement of animals with a non-animal model or with animals of a species lower phylogenetically, or refinement of methods to minimize pain and distress of animals used.
Authorship
Information Management
Access to Information
Cooperative Behavior
Libraries, Medical
'Medical Libraries' are repositories or digital platforms that accumulate, organize, and provide access to a wide range of biomedical information resources including but not limited to books, journals, electronic databases, multimedia materials, and other evidence-based health data for the purpose of supporting and advancing clinical practice, education, research, and administration in healthcare.
Genomics
The systematic study of the complete DNA sequences (GENOME) of organisms.
Biological Ontologies
Structured vocabularies describing concepts from the fields of biology and relationships between concepts.
Databases as Topic
Organized collections of computer records, standardized in format and content, that are stored in any of a variety of computer-readable modes. They are the basic sets of data from which computer-readable files are created. (from ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983)
Veterinary Medicine
The medical science concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in animals.
Computer Security
Protective measures against unauthorized access to or interference with computer operating systems, telecommunications, or data structures, especially the modification, deletion, destruction, or release of data in computers. It includes methods of forestalling interference by computer viruses or so-called computer hackers aiming to compromise stored data.
Awards and Prizes
Ethics Committees, Research
Hospital or other institutional committees established to protect the welfare of research subjects. Federal regulations (the "Common Rule" (45 CFR 46)) mandate the use of these committees to monitor federally-funded biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects.
Information Systems
Information Science
The field of knowledge, theory, and technology dealing with the collection of facts and figures, and the processes and methods involved in their manipulation, storage, dissemination, publication, and retrieval. It includes the fields of COMMUNICATION; PUBLISHING; LIBRARY SCIENCE; and informatics.
Autoexperimentation
Intentionally using oneself as a research subject.
Guidelines as Topic
A systematic statement of policy rules or principles. Guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, professional societies, governing boards, or by convening expert panels. The text may be cursive or in outline form but is generally a comprehensive guide to problems and approaches in any field of activity. For guidelines in the field of health care and clinical medicine, PRACTICE GUIDELINES AS TOPIC is available.
Pattern Recognition, Automated
Documentation
Systematic organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of specialized information, especially of a scientific or technical nature (From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983). It often involves authenticating or validating information.
Models, Animal
Non-human animals, selected because of specific characteristics, for use in experimental research, teaching, or testing.
Nursing Research
Biotechnology
Body of knowledge related to the use of organisms, cells or cell-derived constituents for the purpose of developing products which are technically, scientifically and clinically useful. Alteration of biologic function at the molecular level (i.e., GENETIC ENGINEERING) is a central focus; laboratory methods used include TRANSFECTION and CLONING technologies, sequence and structure analysis algorithms, computer databases, and gene and protein structure function analysis and prediction.
Databases, Genetic
Databases devoted to knowledge about specific genes and gene products.
Subject Headings
Medical Laboratory Personnel
Health care professionals, technicians, and assistants staffing LABORATORIES in research or health care facilities.
Confidentiality
The privacy of information and its protection against unauthorized disclosure.
Neurosciences
The scientific disciplines concerned with the embryology, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, etc., of the nervous system.
Public Policy
Computer Communication Networks
A system containing any combination of computers, computer terminals, printers, audio or visual display devices, or telephones interconnected by telecommunications equipment or cables: used to transmit or receive information. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed)
Federal Government
Online Systems
Government Agencies
Nanotechnology
Health Services Research
The integration of epidemiologic, sociological, economic, and other analytic sciences in the study of health services. Health services research is usually concerned with relationships between need, demand, supply, use, and outcome of health services. The aim of the research is evaluation, particularly in terms of structure, process, output, and outcome. (From Last, Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2d ed)
Information Services
Academic Medical Centers
Reproducibility of Results
The statistical reproducibility of measurements (often in a clinical context), including the testing of instrumentation or techniques to obtain reproducible results. The concept includes reproducibility of physiological measurements, which may be used to develop rules to assess probability or prognosis, or response to a stimulus; reproducibility of occurrence of a condition; and reproducibility of experimental results.
Knowledge Bases
Drug Industry
That segment of commercial enterprise devoted to the design, development, and manufacture of chemical products for use in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, disability, or other dysfunction, or to improve function.
International Cooperation
United States Public Health Service
Diagnostic Imaging
Conflict of Interest
A situation in which an individual might benefit personally from official or professional actions. It includes a conflict between a person's private interests and official responsibilities in a position of trust. The term is not restricted to government officials. The concept refers both to actual conflict of interest and the appearance or perception of conflict.
Genetic Privacy
Disease
Social Justice
Interdisciplinary Communication
Communication, in the sense of cross-fertilization of ideas, involving two or more academic disciplines (such as the disciplines that comprise the cross-disciplinary field of bioethics, including the health and biological sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences and law). Also includes problems in communication stemming from differences in patterns of language usage in different academic or medical disciplines.
Religion and Science
Religion and science are distinct domains of human experience and inquiry, with religion often concerned with spiritual, moral, and transcendent aspects of life, and science focused on empirical, observable, and measurable phenomena, although they may intersect and inform each other in various ways.
Anatomy
A branch of biology dealing with the structure of organisms.
Clinical Trials as Topic
Works about pre-planned studies of the safety, efficacy, or optimum dosage schedule (if appropriate) of one or more diagnostic, therapeutic, or prophylactic drugs, devices, or techniques selected according to predetermined criteria of eligibility and observed for predefined evidence of favorable and unfavorable effects. This concept includes clinical trials conducted both in the U.S. and in other countries.
Community-Institutional Relations
Budgets
Privacy
Neoplasms
Animal Husbandry
The science of breeding, feeding and care of domestic animals; includes housing and nutrition.
Forecasting
Biostatistics
Public Health
Branch of medicine concerned with the prevention and control of disease and disability, and the promotion of physical and mental health of the population on the international, national, state, or municipal level.
Knowledge
Books
A book is not a medical term, but generally refers to a set of printed or written sheets of paper bound together that can contain a wide range of information including literature, research, educational content, and more, which may be utilized in the medical field for various purposes such as learning, reference, or patient education.
Dictionaries as Topic
Molecular Biology
Leadership
Cognitive Science
The study of the precise nature of different mental tasks and the operations of the brain that enable them to be performed, engaging branches of psychology, computer science, philosophy, and linguistics. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed)
Models, Biological
Theoretical representations that simulate the behavior or activity of biological processes or diseases. For disease models in living animals, DISEASE MODELS, ANIMAL is available. Biological models include the use of mathematical equations, computers, and other electronic equipment.
Environmental Health
The science of controlling or modifying those conditions, influences, or forces surrounding man which relate to promoting, establishing, and maintaining health.
Search Engine
Software used to locate data or information stored in machine-readable form locally or at a distance such as an INTERNET site.
Public Relations
Genetics, Medical
Animal Testing Alternatives
Procedures, such as TISSUE CULTURE TECHNIQUES; mathematical models; etc., when used or advocated for use in place of the use of animals in research or diagnostic laboratories.
Genome
Gene Expression Profiling
Behavioral Research
Research that involves the application of the behavioral and social sciences to the study of the actions or reactions of persons or animals in response to external or internal stimuli. (from American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed)
Models, Theoretical
Theoretical representations that simulate the behavior or activity of systems, processes, or phenomena. They include the use of mathematical equations, computers, and other electronic equipment.
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Housing, Animal
Computer Systems
Systems composed of a computer or computers, peripheral equipment, such as disks, printers, and terminals, and telecommunications capabilities.
Dental Research
Book Reviews as Topic
Critical analyses of books or other monographic works.
Professional Review Organizations
Biocompatible Materials
Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine
Computer Simulation
Interlibrary Loans
Public Opinion
Models, Statistical
Computers
A computer in a medical context is an electronic device that processes, stores, and retrieves data, often used in medical settings for tasks such as maintaining patient records, managing diagnostic images, and supporting clinical decision-making through software applications and tools.
Physiology
The biological science concerned with the life-supporting properties, functions, and processes of living organisms or their parts.
Data Collection
Veterinarians
Individuals with a degree in veterinary medicine that provides them with training and qualifications to treat diseases and injuries of animals.
Primates
MEDLARS
A computerized biomedical bibliographic storage and retrieval system operated by the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. MEDLARS stands for Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System, which was first introduced in 1964 and evolved into an online system in 1971 called MEDLINE (MEDLARS Online). As other online databases were developed, MEDLARS became the name of the entire NLM information system while MEDLINE became the name of the premier database. MEDLARS was used to produce the former printed Cumulated Index Medicus, and the printed monthly Index Medicus, until that publication ceased in December 2004.
Industry
Any enterprise centered on the processing, assembly, production, or marketing of a line of products, services, commodities, or merchandise, in a particular field often named after its principal product. Examples include the automobile, fishing, music, publishing, insurance, and textile industries.
Europe
Hazardous Waste
Qualitative Research
Any type of research that employs nonnumeric information to explore individual or group characteristics, producing findings not arrived at by statistical procedures or other quantitative means. (Qualitative Inquiry: A Dictionary of Terms Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997)
Program Development
The process of formulating, improving, and expanding educational, managerial, or service-oriented work plans (excluding computer program development).
Nanomedicine
The branch of medicine concerned with the application of NANOTECHNOLOGY to the prevention and treatment of disease. It involves the monitoring, repair, construction, and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and NANOSTRUCTURES. (From Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, vol 1, 1999).
Quality Control
Protein Interaction Mapping
Methods for determining interaction between PROTEINS.
Journalism, Medical
Proteins
Linear POLYPEPTIDES that are synthesized on RIBOSOMES and may be further modified, crosslinked, cleaved, or assembled into complex proteins with several subunits. The specific sequence of AMINO ACIDS determines the shape the polypeptide will take, during PROTEIN FOLDING, and the function of the protein.
Computer Graphics
The process of pictorial communication, between human and computers, in which the computer input and output have the form of charts, drawings, or other appropriate pictorial representation.
Health Policy
Community-Based Participatory Research
Collaborative process of research involving researchers and community representatives.
Systems Biology
Clinical Nursing Research
Research carried out by nurses in the clinical setting and designed to provide information that will help improve patient care. Other professional staff may also participate in the research.