Aspects of Research Methodology: For Today and Tomorrow

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Ralph Spintge ◽  
Joanne V. Loewy

What is it that connects together work of a doctoral student and studies conducted by a high profile lab team lead by a senior professor? Research methodology, is based upon establishing the basic connective tissue while crossing borders across hierarchies and disciplines...

Author(s):  
Helen Hernandez ◽  
◽  
Laurie Dringus ◽  

We reflect on our process of working with an adapted framework as an effective strategy for analyzing and interpreting the results of our qualitative study on the lived experiences of insulin pump trainers. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was applied as the overarching research methodology and was encapsulated into a framework adapted from Bonello and Meehan (2019) and from Chong (2019). We describe this framework as the “embodiment of discovery” to posit the researcher’s tangible experience of discovering the meaning of data that also brought transparency to the researcher’s process for data analysis and interpretation. We present challenges the doctoral student researcher experienced working with the framework through three phases and various steps performed during the analysis. We recommend the framework may assist novice researchers as a tool for wayfinding and scoping the structure of data analysis and interpretation. We conclude that novice researchers should not fear finding their “embodiment of discovery” in adapting creative or alternate methods for qualitative analysis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Elangovan ◽  
Andrew J. Hoffman

What do we pursue as we seek success in academia? For most, the path to academic success focuses narrowly on A-level journal publications, which has caused a stealthy but steady erosion in the very essence of academia. In this essay, we explore that erosion by drawing on the poem by William Butler Yeats titled “What then?” to highlight the questions, doubts, and perils that lie at each of the four stages of academic life: doctoral student, junior professor, senior professor, and professor emeritus. We then offer a new set of questions that academics may ask at each stage to remain true to their sense of scholarly identity and calling. Our hope is to shine a critical spotlight on the modal journey and inspire a confident and courageous few to deviate from that well-trodden path and chart a course that is truer to the essence, purpose, and potential of academia.


Author(s):  
E. J. Kollar

The differentiation and maintenance of many specialized epithelial structures are dependent on the underlying connective tissue stroma and on an intact basal lamina. These requirements are especially stringent in the development and maintenance of the skin and oral mucosa. The keratinization patterns of thin or thick cornified layers as well as the appearance of specialized functional derivatives such as hair and teeth can be correlated with the specific source of stroma which supports these differentiated expressions.


Author(s):  
Z. Hruban ◽  
J. R. Esterly ◽  
G. Dawson ◽  
A. O. Stein

Samples of a surgical liver biopsy from a patient with lactosyl ceramidosis were fixed in paraformaldehyde and postfixed in osmium tetroxide. Hepatocytes (Figs. 1, 2) contained 0.4 to 2.1 μ inclusions (LCI) limited by a single membrane containing lucid matrix and short segments of curved, lamellated and circular membranous material (Fig. 3). Numerous LCI in large connective tissue cells were up to 11 μ in diameter (Fig. 2). Heterogeneous dense bodies (“lysosomes”) were few and irregularly distributed. Rough cisternae were dilated and contained smooth vesicles and surface invaginations. Close contact with mitochondria was rare. Stacks were small and rare. Vesicular rough reticulum and glycogen rosettes were abundant. Smooth vesicular reticulum was moderately abundant. Mitochondria were round with few cristae and rare matrical granules. Golgi complex was seen rarely (Fig. 1). Microbodies with marginal plates were usual. Multivesicular bodies were very rare. Neutral lipid was rare. Nucleoli were small and perichromatin granules were large. Small bile canaliculi had few microvilli (Fig. 1).


Author(s):  
L. V. Leak ◽  
J. F. Burke

The vital role played by the lymphatic capillaries in the transfer of tissue fluids and particulate materials from the connective tissue area can be demonstrated by the rapid removal of injected vital dyes into the tissue areas. In order to ascertain the mechanisms involved in the transfer of substances from the connective tissue area at the ultrastructural level, we have injected colloidal particles of varying sizes which range from 80 A up to 900-mμ. These colloidal particles (colloidal ferritin 80-100A, thorium dioxide 100-200 A, biological carbon 200-300 and latex spheres 900-mμ) are injected directly into the interstitial spaces of the connective tissue with glass micro-needles mounted in a modified Chambers micromanipulator. The progress of the particles from the interstitial space into the lymphatic capillary lumen is followed by observing tissues from animals (skin of the guinea pig ear) that were injected at various time intervals ranging from 5 minutes up to 6 months.


Author(s):  
C. N. Sun ◽  
H. J. White

Previously, we have reported on extracellular cross-striated banded structures in human connective tissues of a variety of organs (1). Since then, more material has been examined and other techniques applied. Recently, we studied a fibrocytic meningioma of the falx. After the specimen was fixed in 4% buffered glutaraldehyde and post-fixed in 1% buffered osmium tetroxide, other routine procedures were followed for embedding in Epon 812. Sections were stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate. There were numerous cross striated banded structures in aggregated bundle forms found in the connecfive tissue of the tumor. The banded material has a periodicity of about 450 Å and where it assumes a filamentous arrangement, appears to be about 800 Å in diameter. In comparison with the vicinal native collagen fibrils, the banded material Is sometimes about twice the diameter of native collagen.


Author(s):  
Douglas R. Keene ◽  
Magaret Fairhurst ◽  
Catherine C. Ridgway ◽  
Lynn Y. Sakai

Matrix microfibrils are present in the connective tissue matrices of all tissues. Following standard TEM processing, they appear in cross section as cylindrical fibrils 8-10 nm in diameter, often associated with amorphous elastin. They are also seen in the absence of amorphous elastin, for example in the shallow papillary layer of skin, and also in cartilage matrix (Figure 1). Negative stain and rotary shadowing studies suggest that microfibrils are composed of laterally associated globular structures connected by fine filamentous strands (“ beaded strings”), and that they are extendable. Immunoelectron microscopy has demonstrated that fibrillin, a 350 Kd glycoprotein, is distributed along all microfibrils with a relaxed periodicity of about 54 nm The gene coding for fibrillin has recently been identified and is defective in the Marfan syndrome.


Author(s):  
J. A. Eades

For well over two decades computers have played an important role in electron microscopy; they now pervade the whole field - as indeed they do in so many other aspects of our lives. The initial use of computers was mainly for large (as it seemed then) off-line calculations for image simulations; for example, of dislocation images.Image simulation has continued to be one of the most notable uses of computers particularly since it is essential to the correct interpretation of high resolution images. In microanalysis, too, the computer has had a rather high profile. In this case because it has been a necessary part of the equipment delivered by manufacturers. By contrast the use of computers for electron diffraction analysis has been slow to prominence. This is not to say that there has been no activity, quite the contrary; however it has not had such a great impact on the field.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document