Ethics of the Use of Human Subjects in Research: (Practical Guide)

Book Description

Recent media headlines about research misconduct in American Universities have focused public attention on the dramatic ethical problems that can arise during the conductof research. In the current atmosphere of accountability, scientific research on humans is now under increased scrutiny by the media, Congress and the public. Ethics of the Use of Human Subjects in Research fills the need for learning materials and strategies providing support for training programs related to the ethics of the use of human subjects in research. It presents a practical introduction to the ethical issues at stake in the conduct of research with human subjects. Beginning with a chapter on research ethics, a total of 10 chapters range in scope from the deveolopment of a protocol for ethical decision making to how to obtain IRB approval, with an emphasis on ethical factors underpinning the IRB process.

Customer Reviews:

Critical Analysis.......2005-04-15

I believe that the subjects of this book were very well researched. The author's definitely seem to know what they are talking about. As a reader, I think that the evidence used was very strong and convincing although I think that certain parts needed more evidence. This book has not really altered my ideas of using human subjects in research, but I did add to my understanding of what is involved when it comes to research and human beings. Most of the book increased my knowledge of the subject and made me ask new questions, but there are certain parts that I feel covered things that most readers would already know. These parts of the book was frustrating to read. All in all, I really liked the book and I would have to recommend this book to others if they have an interest in this topic.

Book Description

An in-depth look at real analysis and its applications, including an introduction to wavelet
analysis, a popular topic in "applied real analysis". This text makes a very natural connection between the classic pure analysis and the applied topics, including measure theory, Lebesgue Integral,
harmonic analysis and wavelet theory with many associated applications.

*The text is relatively elementary at the start, but the level of difficulty steadily increases
*The book contains many clear, detailed examples, case studies and exercises
*Many real world applications relating to measure theory and pure analysis
*Introduction to wavelet analysis

Book Description

Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhood memories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Year walks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. In meticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of a city under siege; the often gruesome medical precautions and practices of the time; the mass panics of a frightened citizenry; and the solitary travails of Defoe's narrator, a man who decides to remain in the city through it all, chronicling the course of events with an unwavering eye. Defoe's Journal remains perhaps the greatest account of a natural disaster ever written.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the original edition published in 1722.

Customer Reviews:

Yes, Bubonic Plague is no fun........2007-03-04

A Journal of the Plague Year. Is it a novel or a historical document? Apparently it is a bit of both, as Daniel Defoe took a real journal from a real survivor of the London plague of 1664 and filled in various historical tidbits to enliven the text six decades after the fact. The result is a most illuminating description of London life when half the city is sick and dying. There is no particular organization to the text, and Defoe does not include anything like a chapter or section break. He, speaking as the narrator, simply comments on subjects of interest that he witnessed or recalled. Some is repetitive, but deadly epidemics are repetitive things and the stories of the dead, dying, sick and crazy do tend to follow various repeated trends. The original author did seem to get around a bit, though, and at various times seemed to be in a position of some responsibility to examine the effects of the plague as it spread. He also maintained, possibly with Defoe's posthumous aid, an eye for relevant detail and a willingness to put it to paper. While the text maintains a style of detached, impersonal writing common to the era, it does make abundantly clear that a plagued city is a thoroughly unpleasant place to avoid.

History will repeat itself.......2005-11-21

Defoe, Daniel, A Journal of the Plague Year. 1722. Penguin Books, 1966.
Now that we're all reading up on bird flu, the flu pandemic of 1918, and even the Black Plague, it seems appropriate to revisit Daniel Defoe's account of the London outbreak of 1665. The author cleverly spins a fictional world based on the real one which struck England when he was only five. Using real statistics and first or second hand accounts, he brings the reader full into that world with its constant terror, its bell-ringing nightly dead carts, the screams of the dying and their families, all of which teaches us something about the fragility of society as we know it. During the pestilence and for months afterward all foreign trade was stopped between Britain and other countries; shops were shut, factories closed, and the wretchedness of the poor, which was only partially relieved by charity--primarily private--increased immeasurably. Aside from total isolation, which was virtually impossible in a mercantile economy, there were only a few ways to avoid the sickness. One mentioned by Defoe was by a woman who doused herself from head to toe with vinegar. I used this method myself in Acapulco in 1951, to avoid being bitten by sand fleas, and it works.

Defoe's narrator says that he fell ill for a few days before the pestilence reached its peak, but quickly recovered. He obviously gained immunity through this mild exposure. Samuel Pepys kept a diary during the 1660s, and casually mentions in one passage that he poured gin into his bathwater for its cooling effect. The gin, of course, killed any fleas that might have been around and Pepys survived unharmed and unaware of what had saved him from death.

Vinegar and gin will not save us from the flu pandemic that is threatened. Face masks and strictly enforced quarantine (disapproved of by Defoe) seem to be the answer, as inoculation will not likely be timely or sufficiently available. Defoe's tale shakes the reader's confidence in government's ability to help its people in a crisis; if it cannot figure out what to do in a hurricane, what will happen when disaster strikes the entire country?

Five stars.

Malignity is the very nature of man.......2005-10-06

In this documentary novel, Defoe sketches poignantly the irrational behaviour of man under extreme circumstances, when death threatens behind every corner of the street.
People turned to fortune-tellers, astrologers or conjurers who deluded them. They became the victims of `doctors' selling `infallible preventive pills'. They `swarmed to a wicked generation of pretenders to magic and black art'.
People were terrified by the force of their imagination and saw representations and appearances in clouds. Their impudence increased by using devilish blasphemous language.
Others risked their lives by stealing and plundering without any regard to the danger of infection.
Man behaved as a mad dog.

The Government encouraged devotion, public prayers, fasting and humiliation to implore the mercy of God to avert the dreadful judgment. `Many a penitent confession was made of crimes long concealed.'
Innumerable religious sects and divisions fought for the souls of the condemned. It was `altar against altar'. The discourses of the religious ministers were full of terror, prophesying evil tidings.
Unfortunately, religion was not the solution: `the best physic against the plague was to run away from it.' People who believed in predestination (`tis the hand of God, there is no withstanding it') and stayed home, were infected too and died by thousands.
For Swift `there was no apparent extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, it was really propagated by natural means.'

The near view of death reconciled men of good principles one to another.
But as the terror of infection abated, things all returned again to the course they were in before.
More, after the plague, `people, hardened by the danger they had been in, were more wicked and more stupid, more bold and hardened, in their vices and immoralities.'

In this impressive panorama, worth a Breughel or a Hieronymus Bosch, the only weakness is the lack of some kind of plot.

Not to be missed.

Rare record of a terrible year........2005-01-08

This fictionalised journal (written decades after the event when Defoe was only 5 years old) argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 339 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Building our imaginary.......2003-12-12

This is quite an interesting book. Looks pretty much like journalism in a time the concept was not yet developed. It is very realistic and it looks like the author was actually present went the story happened, when in fact he wrote the whole thing many years after. Another interesting aspect regarding this book is that it "constructed" in a sense, our imaginary regarding middle ages epidemics. The descriptions are so vivid that they were used many, many times in the movies, paintings and other fictional pieces to characterise this kind of situations. Just for the sake of curiosity, one can read Noah Gordon's "The Physiscian" or watch the movie "Interview with the Vampire" (pay attention to the episode of the epidemics in New Orleans), to see that Defoe's influence came a long way through. Good read!

A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics)

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THE DAWN OF SCIENCE
Journalism not fiction
A credible account of a time of horror

A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics)
Daniel Defoe , and Cynthia Wall
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0140437851
Release Date: 2003-08-26

Book Description

In 1665, the Great Plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 lives. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Defoe vividly chronicles the progress of the epidemic. We follow his fictional narrator through a city transformed-the streets and alleyways deserted, the houses of death with crosses daubed on their doors, the dead-carts on their way to the pits-and encounter the horrified citizens of the city, as fear, isolation, and hysteria take hold. The shocking immediacy of Defoe's description of plague-racked London makes this one of the most convincing accounts of the Great Plague ever written.

Customer Reviews:

THE DAWN OF SCIENCE .......2006-11-26

Since Daniel Defoe was only four years old in 1664, A Journal of the Plague Year is a novel rather than a journal. It was written as a pamphlet to warn people of what to expect and how best to defend themselves should another plague strike. What makes any book written in the distant past interesting is the glimpse it affords into the mentality of the people of the time. This was the plague that caused Isaac Newton leave London for the country, where he purportedly started the work that led to the invention of calculus and the laws of gravity. We can see the struggle between clear thinking and self-destructive superstition in the thoughts of Defoe's character.

On the one hand he insists the plague is doubtless "stroke from Heaven, a messenger of His vengeance, and a loud call to repentance," but in the next paragraph he understands that the plague arises from natural causes, propagated by natural means." So he concludes that God is using natural causes to exact his vengeance, even though he also says he must be allowed to believe than all who got sick received it in the ordinary way of infection. So he speaks disparagingly of fatalistic Christians, and especially Moslems, who ignore simple safety precautions because they are convinced that only those whom God wishes to will get the plague. Though convinced that the plague is God's way of punishing the wicked, he acknowledges that it strikes the good and wicked alike, and the wicked were just as likely to survive as the good. When the plague finally ends, he is convinced that nothing but God could have ended it - not even the worst of people could have doubted this. He seems surprised by man's unthankfulness and the return of all manner of wickedness soon after the plague. Presumably, the average people of the time really felt that they deserved to die arbitrarily of an awful disease, and after living with the horror of seeing friends and family die agonizing deaths, that they should feel thankful that God had not done the same to them. Thankfully, science has put an end to this kind of superstition. True, some people still cling to this ugly notion of God, but while we can respect Defoe as an unusually intelligent man of his time, any writer with such ideas today would be happily dismissed as a crank.
(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA BATTLES THE BEELZEBUBIAN BEASTS OF THE BIBLE)

Journalism not fiction.......2006-04-01

This edition restores Defoe's original punctuation, with capitals for nouns and colons for stops, so that the writing has recovered the vitality, weight and flexibility that Defoe intended when he wrote it.

To enjoy this book you need to read it as creative journalism rather than fiction otherwise it will seem dull, and Daniel Defoe is never dull. It can't satisfy as fiction because it isn't fiction. It doesn't have any of the benefits of fiction such as plot, author's whimsy, or character development. The Journal is based on the eyewitness experience of his uncle Henry Foe, which has been expanded by Defoe's own journalistic research after the event. He has simply taken the eyewitness experience of his uncle and created a masterpiece out of it for posterity.

This technique began with his first book, The Storm, except that in that book the eyewitness accounts - no doubt spruced up by himself - and his own work were separated. In the Journal of the Plague Year these are blended together so that his book has the vividness of the eyewitness view of the events as well as the talent and research that history would wish of an account of these events.

By misclassifying the book as fiction (and by modernizing the punctuation) we have been degrading the book's value to history and to readers.

I wish the print was bigger and blacker and this applies to the Modern Library edition too, as does the above review.

A credible account of a time of horror .......2005-11-10

The Great Plague took place when Defoe was five years old. Therefore his account written many years afterwards is as much fiction as eye-witness reporting. Yet his first- person narrator collects statistics and provides a credible account of the horrifying effect of the plague upon the citizens of London.
He relates the effects of the 'Plague' on various parts of the population and traces its develoment in time. One can sense in it how much Camus in writing his great work , " The Plague" is indebted to this work.
In the concluding days as the Plague wanes Defoe reflects upon the citizens of the city and their new reality.
This is the concluding section of the work, and gives an excellent feel of Defoe's language and narrative stance.

"It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all apprehensions, and that too fast; indeed we were no more afraid now to pass by a man with a white cap upon his head, or with a doth wrapt round his neck, or with his leg limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which were frightful to the last degree, but the week before. But now the street was full of them, and these poor recovering creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of their unexpected deliverance; and I should wrong them very much if I should not acknowledge that I believe many of them were really thankful. But I must own that, for the generality of the people, it might too justly be said of them as was said of the children of Israel after their being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they passed the Red Sea, and looked back and saw the Egyptians overwhelmed in the water: viz., that they sang His praise, but they soon forgot His works.

I can go no farther here. I should be counted censorious, and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wickedness among us, which I was so much an eye-witness of myself. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year therefore with a coarse but sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were written:-

A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive!"

A Journal of the Plague Year (Norton Critical Editions)

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Brilliant, mesmerizing
A Journal of the Plague Year : Authoritative Text Background

A Journal of the Plague Year (Norton Critical Editions)
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393961885

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant, mesmerizing.......2002-03-28

Well, it's not really clear that Defoe used actual accounts, though he did draw on much discussion about the Great Plague. He was, after all, only five or six years old when it occured. But the narrative is utterly absorbing. Written by one of the greatest novelists of all time (he was Joyce's favorite English novelist), the narrative is vivid, moving, and sometimes hilarious. It is also remarkably contemporary. You meet quacks and prophets disturbingly similar to the no-nothings who dominate our own time. The descriptions of behavior, disease, fear, and denial are as fresh today, and as relevant, as they were when Defoe wrote the Journal. Don't miss it!

A Journal of the Plague Year : Authoritative Text Background.......2000-03-31

I liked the book. It was very factual and helped a great deal with research. It contains many accounts of the Plague.

Average customer rating:

Politically correct ...
A Terrifying Science Fiction Thriller

Journals of the Plague Years
Norman Spinrad
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0553373994
Release Date: 1995-08-01

Customer Reviews:

Politically correct ..........2002-02-28

Don't bother tracking this one down... it's a politically correct fantasy about the AIDS epidemic, complete with equal opportunity victims and a melodramatic happy ending. The cure is being hidden from the people, typical politically correct hollywood style ... cliches. Sure, this is a sensitive topic, so sensitive, few would dare do other than to pat Spinrad on the back. The book is intentionally an unrealistic depiction of the disease, a melodramatic fantasy.
The novella(?) is also pretty uneven, since it is basically a rough draft. Older Spinrad is better.

A Terrifying Science Fiction Thriller.......2001-02-15

The most basic (and best) science fiction stories are those that take a current condition and extrapolate to the future. Here Spinrad writes of a future threatened by a sexually transmitted disease that started in Africa worked its way through the gay and drug communities and now is at large in the general population. The term "AIDs" is not used at all in the story, only mentioned in the author's afterword. The disease is particularly deadly because as each successful vaccine is found, the virus mutates to a resistant strain almost immediately. Spinrad's story follows 4 characters: A soldier in a military division of the infected (nicknamed The Army of the Living Dead), a fundamentalist Christian politician who heads a new Quarantine Bureau of the government, an infected young girl who tries to bring sexual solace to as many of the infected as she can, and a research scientist looking for the ultimate vaccine. Because the disease requires repeated vaccines to counteract the many mutations, the drug companies don't want this "SuperVaccine" found. Starting with these vastly different characters, Spinrad spins a web of intrigue until the story culminates in the quarantined San Francisco. The story is tense and exciting. All the characters grow, for example, the girl becomes almost a religious icon to the infected. All of this is set in a world where sex is done through machines and various interfaces to protect the quickly diminishing ranks of the uninfected. This is an excellent SF tale with an adult theme and frightening settings.

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A Journal of the Plague Year
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000J13T58

Robinson Crusoe, and A journal of the plague year (The Modern library of the world's best books)

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Robinson Crusoe, and A journal of the plague year (The Modern library of the world's best books)
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: Modern Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007DLFHC

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A Journal of the Plague Year
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0460012894

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A Journal Of The Plague Year
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1419101803

Book Description

The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in the last week in December 1664 another man died in the same house, and of the same distemper. And then we were easy again for about six weeks, when none having died with any marks of infection.

A Journal of the Plague Year: The Diary of the Barcelona Tanner Miquel Parets, 1651

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A Journal of the Plague Year: The Diary of the Barcelona Tanner Miquel Parets, 1651
Miquel Parets , and James S. Amelang
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Rumors that plague had entered Barcelona's poorest quarter started circulating shortly after the New Year of 1651, but local officials hesitated to impose a full quarantine on the city. Within months the number of sick in the pesthouse had swelled to 4,000, and thousands more had fled the
city. By the time the plague abated in September, at least 15,000 Barcelonans had died. This book is a translation of the 1651 journal of Miquel Parets, a Barcelona tanner who set out, like the protagonist of Camus' The Plague, "to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence." His
journal is rich with the details of life during the epidemic, including accounts of prisoners who escaped from jail by claiming they had the disease; of priests hearing confessions with a torch held between them and the sick to avoid contagion; and of people desperately seeking wetnurses for
children after their mothers had died. Unlike other accounts, which depict local authorities as the bulwark of enlightened authority amid a sea of popular superstition, Parets accuses the local elite of negligence, selfishness, and abuse of authority during the contagion. His journal is notable
both for its non-elite perspective and for its emotional quality--especially in the moving passage wherein the tanner recounts the death of his wife and three of their children. Amelang introduces the journal, illustrating the unique place of the work in the plague literature, and supplies notes and
commentaries that clarify the historical context for the contemporary reader. Also included is a helpful appendix of excerpts from other popular plague texts.

A Beauty Born of Suffering / Journal of a Plague Year

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A Beauty Born of Suffering / Journal of a Plague Year
Malachy Grange
Manufacturer: Fenix Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0966401611

Book Description

An account of one year (1992) on the front lines of the AIDS pandemic. The author is a community health nurse who enters the lives of his clients and witnesses the turmoil, suffering and transformations that occur as they face this fatal illness. Addictions, abuse, suicide, poverty, and the miracles of love and recovery are some of the themes of this powerful and moving work.

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