Importance Of Context Dependency Research Articles

How to Run Behavioural Experiments Online: Best Practice Suggestions for Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience

The combination of a replication crisis, the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and recent technological advances, have accelerated the on-going transition of research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience to the online realm. When participants cannot be tested in-person, data of acceptable quality can still be collected online. While online research offers many advantages, numerous pitfalls may hinder researchers in addressing their questions appropriately, potentially resulting in unusable data and misleading conclusions. Here, we present an overview of the costs and benefits of conducting online studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, coupled with detailed best practice suggestions that span the range from initial study design to the final interpretation of data. These suggestions offer a critical look at issues regarding recruitment of typical and (sub)clinical samples, their comparison, and the importance of context-dependency in each part of a study. We illustrate our suggestions by means of a fictional online study, applicable to traditional paradigms such as research on working memory with a control and treatment group.

Fix‐it Felix: advances in testing plant facilitation as a restoration tool

AbstractIn this issue of Applied Vegetation Science, Rydgren et al. explore net interactions to highlight the contemporary, yet rarely tested, perspectives on using plant facilitation as a restoration tool. An empirical test of restoration highlights the novel developments and supports fundamental ecology on the importance of context dependency, balanced assessments of interactions and the value of theory for applied research.

Context-dependent symbioses and their potential roles in wildlife diseases.

It is well known in ecology, evolution and medicine that both the nature (commensal, parasitic and mutualistic) and outcome (symbiont fitness, survival) of symbiotic interactions are often context-dependent. Less is known about the importance of context-dependence in symbioses involved in wildlife disease. We review variable symbioses, and use the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis to demonstrate how understanding context-dependence can improve the understanding and management of wildlife diseases. In chytridiomycosis, the host-pathogen interaction is context-dependent; it is strongly affected by environmental temperature. Skin bacteria can also modify the interaction; some bacteria reduce amphibians' susceptibility to chytridiomycosis. Augmentation of protective microbes is being considered as a possible management tool, but informed application of bioaugmentation requires understanding of how the interactions between host, beneficial bacteria and pathogen depend upon environmental context. The community-level response of the amphibian skin microbiota to environmental conditions may explain the relatively narrow range of environmental conditions in which past declines have occurred. Environmental context affects virulence and the protection provided by mutualists in other host-pathogen systems, including threatened bats and corals. Increased focus on context-dependence in interactions between wildlife and their symbionts is likely to be crucial to the future investigation and management of emerging diseases of wildlife.

Evolution of maternal effects: past and present.

It has been said that many original ideas reflect a convergence of related thought that coalesces into a unified representation of what many have been thinking. This is certainly true for the subfield of maternal effects evolution. The study of maternal effects has a long history. The first two

Regulation of the mouse alfaB-crystallin and MKBP/HspB2 promoter activities by shared and gene specific intergenic elements: the importance of context dependency

The closely linked (863 bp), divergently arranged mouse myotonic dystrophy kinase binding protein (Mkbp)/HspB2 and small heat shock protein (shsp)/alphaB-crystallin genes have different patterns of tissue-specific expression. We showed previously that an intergenic enhancing region (-436/-257 relative to alphaB-crystallin transcription start site) selectively activates the alphaB-crystallin promoter in an orientation-dependent manner (Swamynathan, S.K. and J. Piatigorsky 2002. J. Biol. Chem. 277:49700-6). Here we show that cis-elements alphaBE1 (-420/-396) and alphaBE3 (-320/-300) functionally interact with glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and Sp1, respectively, both in vitro and in vivo. alphaBE1:GR regulates both the HspB2 and alphaB-crystallin promoters, while alphaBE3:Sp1 selectively regulates the alphaB-crystallin promoter, as judged by mutagenesis and co-transfection tests. Enhancer blocking assays indicate that the -836/-622 fragment can act as a negative regulator in transfection tests, raising the possibility that it contributes to the differential expression of the proximal HspB2 promoter and distal alphaB-crystallin promoter. Finally, experiments utilizing transiently transfected cells and transgenic mice show that two conserved E-box elements (-726/-721 and -702/-697) bind nuclear proteins and differentially regulate the HspB2 and alphaB-crystallin promoters in a tissue-specific manner. Taken together, our results indicate that the linked, differentially expressed HspB2 and alphaB-crystallin genes have evolved shared and promoter-preferred cis-control elements within the intergenic sequence. The context-dependency of cis-elements provides multiple opportunities for evolutionary novelty by small sequence changes.