In the preceding chapters we have covered the core principles and methods of epidemiology and have shown you some of the main areas where epidemiological evidence is crucial for policy and planning. You will also have gained a sense of the breadth and depth of the subject from the examples throughout the book. To finish, we take a broader look at the role of epidemiological practice and logic in improving health. There is a growing desire for public health and medical research to be ‘translational’; that is, directly applicable to a population or patient. The process, whereby research evidence is used to change practice or policy, is known as ‘translation’, and the research outputs from epidemiology are critical at all stages (see Box 16.2); indeed, epidemiology has been described as ‘the epicenter of translational science’ (Hiatt, 2010).

The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book’s focus as a whole and explores its relation to existing historiography, including its engagement with decolonial and postcolonial theory and scholarship in Indigenous Studies and Latin American Studies. In highlighting the book’s unique arguments, contributions, and perspectives, the Introduction explains the concept and double meaning of "troubling encounters" and provides the book’s thematic organization. Noting that some chapters adopt a local perspective, others a national one, and yet others draw attention to transnational and even global domains, the Introduction reflects upon the variety of scales for interpreting and troubling the history of encounters in the human sciences. For the authors, the legacies of those scales are read in the myriad interactions of expedition science, in the relationality implied in fieldwork or the logic of settler colonial custodial institutions, and finally in the resulting theories about human nature and behavior that circulated globally within scientific circles and beyond.

This chapter shows how human obedience is captured in an experimental setup, and how such research methodology can help us understand how people can comply with orders to hurt another person on a neurological level. By reviewing past experimental research, such as the rat decapitation study of Landis, the studies of Stanley Milgram on destructive obedience, and the Utrecht studies on obedience to non-ethical requests, this chapter shows that under certain circumstances, a majority of individuals could be coerced into inflicting physical or psychological harm on others at levels generally deemed unacceptable, even without any tangible social pressures such as military court or job loss. The chapter also describes a novel method where people can administer real painful electric shocks to someone else in exchange for a small monetary reward, and describes how such a method allows neuroscience investigations that would focus on the neural mechanisms associated with obedience.

To support experiential learning, HLVC data are available for research (by permission, and with protections for the participants). This chapter illustrates the integration of research and community-engaged learning, which is critical to the success of the project. It presents activities that support critical and creative thinking, enable theoretical knowledge to be empirically tested, and facilitate and enhance quantitative reasoning, information literacy, and the communication of research. It includes a section on how to best conduct and teach research methods to support the vitality of the languages being examined and one on ethical practices. Sociolinguistics trails other subfields in analyzing data outside the majority language (English). With these supports, students can change this situation. The exercises exemplify tasks that students have undertaken and can help others get started. Exercises provide prompts and show how to gain access to instruments and data. In addition, the course Exploring Heritage Languages, which has modules that can be (adapted and) used, is introduced. The HLVC corpus and these modules provide instructional infrastructure to scaffold undergraduate and graduate class assignments teaching relevant theory and research skills.

Forensic psychiatry, of all the specialties in medicine, needs its own strong academic core. Academic forensic psychiatry is founded in scientific research, with its systematic approach to making and recording observations, formulating hypotheses from them, testing those hypotheses with new observations and accumulating the most comprehensive picture possible in a way that is transparent and replicable. An academic approach supports application of scientific principles as strongly in the individual case as in developing relevant collective knowledge, is able to make links between them and can communicate all this effectively within and outside the specialty. This requires highly developed and defined specialist training. Academic forensic psychiatry in this sense is the business of all forensic psychiatrists. In order for forensic psychiatry to thrive, however, it is vital that some forensic psychiatrists further specialise in academic work in terms of additional training, time and immersion in skills that support accurate scientific questioning and testing and, ultimately, the capacity to innovate and keep this cycle active.

This chapter discusses record keeping, like maintaining a lab notebook. Historically, lab notebooks were analog, pen-and-paper affairs. With so much work being performed on the computer and with most scientific instruments creating digital data directly, most record-keeping efforts are digital. Therefore, we focus on strategies for establishing and maintaining records of computer-based work. Keeping good records of your work is essential. These records inform your future thoughts as you reflect on the work you have already done, acting as reminders and inspiration. They also provide important details for collaborators, and scientists working in large groups often have predefined standards for group members to use when keeping lab notebooks and the like. Computational work differs from traditional bench science, and this chapter describes practices for good record-keeping habits in the more slippery world of computer work.

To reduce the confusion that has often dogged conversations about stress and illness, this chapter discusses the key terms and concepts. It then discusses some of the key dilemmas that have made the study of stress and illness a complex and sometimes troubled scientific journey. This discussion lays the groundwork for understanding what we know and don’t know, toward a clearer view of what challenges lie ahead for the translation of stress neuroscience into meaningful improvements in clinical practice for the benefit of patients with stress-related illnesses.

This chapter addresses the post–World War Two reshaping of models of applied science and technology coexisting in education, research policy, and the management of innovation. The shortage of skilled personnel highlighted the questions of training and secrecy and the boundary between applied science and technology. In the years after World War Two, the United States held a hegemonic scientific and cultural place, which meant that its language and issues came to be influential across the Atlantic. However, British authorities, steeped in domestic experience and tradition, reconstituted as they ingested, and Bush’s Science – The Endless Frontier was read differently in London than in Washington, DC. The case study of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) highlights institutional tensions between those identifying with technology and those identifying with applied science, but also highlights how sharply rising investment in research sustained a variety of models of the knowledge required for industrial development, and temporarily eased their coexistence.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the dominant reference of applied science changed. This chapter addresses the question: How could research be discussed using the old language of applied science previously used principally for pedagogy? Where was the continuity? The term’s meaning was constructed and reconstructed with the new organisations, such as the National Physical Laboratory and the newly incorporated civic universities. Therefore, the hectic emergence of a host of new organisations and awareness of research is of particular interest. In an era of growing foreign competition, Liberal politicians such as R. B. Haldane put their faith in applied science. Three key themes structure the analysis: the challenge of foreign powers, the growth of institutions, and the attraction of applied science to governments committed to maximising national efficiency but minimal interference in the market. The focus is on the years between 1899 and the outbreak of war.