We all know that Alzheimer’s is an enormous problem. Thousands of researchers around the world are tirelessly searching for clues that might lead to a solution – how to slow or prevent Alzheimer’s. Reports of new findings are in the news almost daily. How do we know what is potentially important?

This chapter introduces the legal definition of ‘charitable trust governance’ and outlines the hypothesis, research questions, and research methods of this monograph. This monograph first defines the governance of charitable trusts as a set of mechanisms that ensure the trustee of a charitable trust complies with its duties. Based on this definition, Chapter 1 explains the hypothesis to be demonstrated in the rest of the monograph; that is, the governance framework for Chinese charitable trusts can only be fully understood in light of relevant laws, administrative practices, and private actions undertaken by trust parties. Three research questions are accordingly outlined to direct the study: (a) how has the charity law helped shape the governance structure of charitable trusts?; (b) how have regulators implemented the legal regulatory framework?; and (c) what private actions have trust parties taken when engaging with the law? Based on these questions, the chapter finally explains the methods adopted in the study: (a) textual analysis; (b) translation of Chinese sources; and (c) semi-structured qualitative interviews.

Most biological ideas can be viewed as models of nature we create to explain phenomena and predict outcomes in new situations. We use data to determine these models’ credibility. We translate our biological models into statistical ones, then confront those models with data. A mismatch suggests the biological model needs refinement. A biological idea can also be considered a signal that appears in the data among the background noise. Fitting the model to the data lets us see if such a signal exists and, importantly, measure its strength. This approach only works well if our biological hypotheses are clear, the statistical models match the biology, and we collect the data appropriately. This clarity is the starting point for any biological research program.

This chapter describes how relationship scientists conduct research to answer questions about relationships. It explains all aspects of the research process, including how hypotheses are derived from theory, which study designs (e.g., experiments, cross-sectional studies, experience sampling) best suit specific research questions, how scientists can manipulate variables or measure variables with self-report, implicit, observational, or physiological measures, and what scientists consider when recruiting a sample to participate in their studies. This chapter also discusses how researchers approach questions about boundary conditions (when general trends do not apply) and mechanisms (the processes underlying their findings) and describes best practices for conducting ethical and reproducible research. Finally, this chapter includes a guide for how to read and evaluate empirical research articles.

Among political economists, the prevalence dictatorship and civil conflict captures the central features of societies afflicted with political violence. Accordingly, this chapter adopts this terminology and develop an analytical framework to better understand why many Muslim societies are inflicted with varying and heightened levels of political violence. The chapter identifies patterns in dictatorship and civil war in Muslim societies, relative to non-Muslim societies; and how they vary across oil and non-oil producing countries. These empirical patterns motivate a discussion of how variation in preexisting institutional structures and sources of nontax government revenue (rents) may explain these patterns in political violence. This discussion identifies tensions in existing theoretical accounts, leading the author to develop a formal model. The model shows that increases in rents can entrench dictatorship, while a decline in rents may facilitate peaceful transitions to democracy or lead to the outbreak of civil war. Societies whose preexisting institutional structures encourage “sharing” government resources with the opposition are more likely to transition to democracy. The model’s hypotheses form the basis of book’s subsequent empirical analysis.

This chapter studies several arguments directed against religious faith. It investigates what conception of faith underlies these arguments and what we can learn from them.

Chapter 2 outlines the history of DNA research and the key scientists who made the discoveries that enabled the manipulation of DNA. The scope, nature and ethos of science and the scientific method are described, with models for the scientific method and support for research. The importance of gathering and evaluating data in experimental science is outlined, and some of the key aspects and terminology are discussed.

Since the arguments that Plato provides in the Republic for the thesis that the human soul consists of three parts (reason, spirit, appetite) are notoriously problematic, I propose other reasons for accepting tripartition: reasons that we too could endorse, or at least entertain with some sympathy. To wit, (a) the appetitive part of Plato’s divided soul houses desires and tendencies we have because we are animal bodies programmed to survive (as individuals and as a species) in disequilibrium with a variegated, often varying environment, (b) the spirited middle part houses status concerns that belong to us as social animals, while (c) what makes us rational animals is a faculty of reason, conceived in strikingly non-Humean terms, which determines what is best all things considered. Other psychic tendencies may then be explained in terms of the education and mutual interaction of the three parts we are ‘programmed’ for from birth.

The chapter indicates our reasons for publishing, the framework of a communication, how to introduce the topic and put forward a hypotheses before considering each of the conventional sections of a paper. It also emphasizes that the sequence in how a paper is compiled section by section will not be the order given here.

Authors are instructed that the Abstract is the most important part of their paper and that it needs very careful attention. It must attract the attention of potential readers, be succinct and clear. The structured Abstract is more verbose, which is required by some journals. It should contain in particular the hypothesis and, in the shortest way, the overall conclusion of the findings. Below it the author indicates what are the most appropriate keywords, sets out the abbreviations used.

Chapter 1 is an introduction to language analysis in the linguistic sense. It establishes the specifications of the scientific approach to language, describes uses and characteristics across different areas, and provides an overview of the domains of linguistics. This includes a review of sounds, including phonetics and phonology; structure, including morphology and syntax; and meaning, including semantics and pragmatics. Through the provision of Discover Activities that provide a scaffold for the investigation of these concepts, readers then become familiar with the analytic techniques that will be emphasized throughout the book. These techniques are finally specified and detailed as part of a broader method of investigation and hypothesis testing.

The final chapter takes a closer look at the intersections between each of the previously covered topics, starting with sounds and structure. Readers make connections between phenomena from different linguistic domains coming together to create interesting consequences in the surface-level representations of a variety of languages. More connections are drawn between other domains, and the chapter transitions into a discussion of the scientific rigor approprate for linguistic investigation. Included in this discussion is a review of various devices used for linguistic research. The chapter concludes with an emphasis on the importance of ethical conduct in all investigations, and the ways a rigorous scientific approach can expose injustice.

Identifying a good research question is a vital first step in any behavioural study because the question will focus the rest of the research cycle. Four logically distinct types of question can be asked about any behaviour. These concern its mechanisms, its development (or ontogeny), its function and its evolution (or phylogeny). The mechanisms underlying behaviour can be studied at many different levels, ranging from the social or physical environmental conditions that influence the behaviour down to the neural networks responsible for behavioural output. The nature of the research question will influence decisions about what species to study. Research questions are developed through a combination of approaches, including reading the literature, preliminary observations and exploratory data analysis. A research question leads to a set of hypotheses that need not be mutually exclusive but should all be testable. Each hypothesis should generate one or more specific predictions.

This chapter guides the reader in moving from a general interest in neuroscience to a specific testable hypothesis.

The seventh chapter, “An Era of Optimism,” analyzes the new culture of sanitation practices that helped to define modernity. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, those living in the developed world became accustomed to wearing shoes, using toilet paper, bathing regularly with soap, and utilizing refrigeration systems to extend the life of foods. In the mid-twentieth century, populations in the Global North benefited from population-wide vaccination programs against poliomyelitis, the prevalence of which seemed to have increased as a result of the implementation of better sanitation systems. Based on the "hygiene hypothesis," many specialists believed that poliomyelitis was rare in regions without modern sanitation. This was not the case. Regrettably, polio vaccination did not begin in the developing world until the 1970s. Oral rehydration therapy, a major breakthrough in the treatment of diarrheal disease, saved millions of lives.

The conclusion summarizes the major themes and findings of the book. The first major advance in the control of infectious intestinal disease in the modern era was in the treatment of water supplies. In the first half of the twentieth century, the combined package of underground sewerage and purified water won broad cultural acceptance. Modern sanitation conveyed enormous population-level benefits, even as it produced some unanticipated vulnerabilities and contrary health outcomes. Oral rehydration therapy and childhood immunizations have dramatically improved childhood survival rates, contributing to soaring population growth and deepening environmental challenges.

We concluded the previous chapter by introducing two methods of inference concerning the parameter vector. Since the Bayesian approach was one of them, we focus here on the competing frequentist or classical approach in its attempt to draw conclusions about the value of this vector. We introduce hypothesis testing, test statistics and their critical regions, size, and power. We then introduce desirable properties (lack of bias, uniformly most powerful test, consistency, invariance with respect to some class of transformations, similarity, admissibility) that help us find optimal tests. The Neyman–Pearson lemma and extensions are introduced. Likelihood ratio (LR), Wald (W), score and Lagrange multiplier (LM) tests are introduced for general hypotheses, including inequality hypotheses for the parameter vector. Monotone LR and the Karlin–Rubin theorem are studied, as is Neyman's structure and its role in finding optimal tests. The exponential family features prominently in the applications. Finally, distribution-free (nonparametric) tests are studied and linked to results in earlier chapters.