Nutrition and Food Sciences - Houston

Next, try the world's biggest health sciences database, called PubMed. Do an Advanced (click it) search; input obesity, click ADD input viruses, click ADD & click Search. Refine the results on the left of the Results page by year (last 5 years) full text, language, ages, controlled clinical trials or whatever you prefer to find a few good articles.

Click Send to and send to your RefWorks account to help design a beautiful References list to attach to your great paper.

Don't forget RefWorks 3.0 to help you manage your research!

In your Houston library (room 4132; previously known as the Academic Resource Center (or ARC)), you have some textbooks, items on reserve for this semester's classes, and many internet-accessible full text resources available through purchased library data sources. These sources and databases (like PubMed, CINAHL, Academic Source) have electronic copies of books and articles plus a search engine to allow you to find and retrieve the information you need.  These materials are available from any internet-accessible device 24/7 and allow you to download, save, print, email and export information to your printer, flash drive, an email address, a bibliographic manager like RefWorks and more.  Your Houston librarians and staff help you learn how to find materials during campus Orientations so that you can locate materials on your own during the semester. If you need additional help, please email for an appointment to help you learn how to locate the information that your professors want you to find for your classes.

As a Houston TWU faculty, staff, or student, you have electronic and physical access to TWU library resources and more that support your TWU Houston studies, so come (physically or electronically)  let us help you find the resources you need to succeed! Remember your Texas Medical Center and TexShare free registration available, too.

For students, your Houston faculty have provided their personal Departmental libraries for your checkout in the Houston Center Library.  Audiovisual items are also available, and items on reserve for the semester can be used with your TWU ID badge for checkout. Faculty departmental books and videos in Business, Health Care Administration, Nursing, Nutrition and Food Science, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and the College of Business are available to loan at the periods your faculty want them loaned to you. 

Your library (room 4132) provides library support with use of  study carrels, a nap pod, Chromebooks, phone chargers,  headphones, pencil sharpeners, a paper cutter, heavy duty staplers, and electric three hole punchers available.

To find genealogical information, Cyndi's List, contains census and family history information. The AAS Historical Periodicals Collection, the The Gateway to Women's History, and various newspapers like the New York Times Archive provide much historical data, as do the Handbook of Texas and Texas Digital Sanborn Maps. 

Locate great places to publish at Ulrich's Periodicals Database. You can input a subject like functional foods and find a list of authoritative, peer-reviewed journals and information about how you can get published with them.

At http://libguides.twu.edu/c.php?g=270205&p=1803134 you can find information on open access publishing, including the Repository @ TWU. You can learn more about open access at the Directory of Open Access Journals (see https://doaj.org/about)  PLOS at Creative Commons (at https://creativecommons.org/about/) and at resources like SPARCalid.

A 12 minute video guiding librarians on how to partner with others in order to get published may be of help to you here.

Please be careful. It can be difficult to identify valid, peer-reviewed, authoritative journals in the mass of a business model that has publication offers popping up constantly in your email. Many appeals to the potential author appear, on the surface, to be scholarly, valid research organs of communication, but careful research reveals that the appeals are actually something else. Please ask your librarian for help or do the research yourself.

To determine if an offer to be published is the kind of high quality journal you seek, library scientists have produced some helpful resources. Take the title and any other information you have about the title and start your search. Trust, but verify.

Use the EBP Worksheet above to define your research question using PICO(T).

Identify:
Problem
Intervention
Comparison Groups
Outcomes

A systematic review is a detailed research process often taking a year of the creator's (your) time. Many wonderful resources describe this product, including the Cochrane Handbook (at https://training.cochrane.org/handbook), and at the Library for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (at https://www.cdc.gov/library/researchguides/systematicreviews.html).  Much has been written about this process using PRISMA (see http://prisma-statement.org/).

Scoping reviews (see https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M18-0850?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org) also can use PRISMA, which is a kind of checklist of items needed to consider for inclusion within either research process. Scoping reviews are described at Cochrane training (see https://training.cochrane.org/resource/scoping-reviews-what-they-are-and-how-you-can-do-them). Cochrane has much helpful information on doing in depth research well.

Either a systematic or a scoping review involves a detailed process where an exhaustive search of the literature is made and then the data is managed. This means that you will select which databases are the best for your searching (see A-Z Databases.)  In the health sciences, some great databases to which TWU subscribes are  PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, and Science Direct.The data downloaded will need to be carefully curated or managed. This management of data can be facilitated with the RefWorks bibliographic manager (see https://libguides.twu.edu/refworks). Other information management tools may include the no-cost Rayyan (see https://www.rayyan.ai/) and other products. Your TWU librarians can be of help you you in your journey through these processes.

Don't forget RefWorks 3.0 to help you manage your research! Here is a exhaustive 30 minute video explaining RefWorks.

EBM Pyramid
Filtered / UnFiltered

Cochrane Library Evidence Pyramid:

Look for local county or parishes to find statical data on information, sometimes down to the block level.  You can find data similar to 'the number of white women aged 18-30 who gave birth in X year" this way.  Look for local charity organizations (United Way, America's Charities, etc.) to find more data.

PRACTICE Tools

STAT!Ref : MedCalc 3000

A unique computerized medical reference and tool set for clincians, medical educators, nurses, and healthcare students.

Contains easy to use, interactive tools for the reduction / elimination of medical errors and for application of evidence-based medicine.

To access these tools, login to the STAT!Ref database:

STAT!Ref database > Resources tab > 
        MedCalc 3000 > choose a link
                              (math calculator, etc.)

Tools include the following and MORE:

Unit & Dosage Converters
     - Flow Unit Conversion
     - Benzodiazepine Dosage Conversion
     - Opioid Medication Dose Conversion, etc.

Math Calculator
     - uses either Common or Reverse Polish Notation (similar to HP calculators.) The X register holds your answer when the calculation is complete. To add 1 + 2 in RPN style, click "1" then hit "ENTER", then "2", then "+"

Medical Equations
     - Absolute Neutrophil Count
     - Adult Burn Injury Fluid Resuscitation
     - Body Surface Area (DuBois Method)
     - Kt/V Dialysis Dose Formulae, etc.

Clinical Criteria
     - Acetamenophen Toxicity Assessment
     - Apgar Score
     - Cesarean Section Delivery Probablity, etc.

Decision Trees
     - Diabetes Screening TreeCalc
     - Stage III Pressure Ulcer TreeCalc,
     - Obesity Management Guidelines TreeCalc etc.

Specialty Pages
     - Harris-Benedict Estimation of Basal Energy Expenditure, EDD Pregnancy Calculator, etc.

MedCalc Connect
     - Integratie MedCalc 3000 Results into EMRs through Text or XML
     - Analyzing Lab Results with MedCalc 3000 Equations
     - The MedCalc Connect! Equation Parameter Catalog