Small Group Research Research Articles

The methodological quality assessment tools for preclinical and clinical studies, systematic review and meta-analysis, and clinical practice guideline: a systematic review.

To systematically review the methodological assessment tools for pre-clinical and clinical studies, systematic review and meta-analysis, and clinical practice guideline. We searched PubMed, the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Reviewers Manual, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP), Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN), and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) up to May 20th, 2014. Two authors selected studies and extracted data; quantitative analysis was performed to summarize the characteristics of included tools. We included a total of 21 assessment tools for analysis. A number of tools were developed by academic organizations, and some were developed by only a small group of researchers. The JBI developed the highest number of methodological assessment tools, with CASP coming second. Tools for assessing the methodological quality of randomized controlled studies were most abundant. The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias is the best available tool for assessing RCTs. For cohort and case-control studies, we recommend the use of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies (MINORS) is an excellent tool for assessing non-randomized interventional studies, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ARHQ) methodology checklist is applicable for cross-sectional studies. For diagnostic accuracy test studies, the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool is recommended; the SYstematic Review Centre for Laboratory animal Experimentation (SYRCLE) risk of bias tool is available for assessing animal studies; Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) is a measurement tool for systematic reviews/meta-analyses; an 18-item tool has been developed for appraising case series studies, and the Appraisal of Guidelines, Research and Evaluation (AGREE)-II instrument is widely used to evaluate clinical practice guidelines. We have successfully identified a variety of methodological assessment tools for different types of study design. However, further efforts in the development of critical appraisal tools are warranted since there is currently a lack of such tools for other fields, e.g. genetic studies, and some existing tools (nested case-control studies and case reports, for example) are in need of updating to be in line with current research practice and rigor. In addition, it is very important that all critical appraisal tools remain subjective and performance bias is effectively avoided.

The construction of scientific knowledge in Food and Nutrition: Analysis of dissertations and theses in the Brazilian post-graduation programs in Nutrition

Objective: To analyze dissertations and theses produced by graduate programs in nutrition in Brazil from 2003 to 2012. We sought to identify: a) The number of studies produced per year b) the scientific approach (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed), and c) the area of knowledge in the scientific field of nutrition. Methods: This is a descriptive study. We investigated seven graduate programs linked to the area of nutrition of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, which had the web pages listing the studies. The analysis procedures included reading the titles, identifying the advisor's lines of research, reading the summaries, and reading the methods section. Results: In the study period 758 dissertations and 204 theses were defended, signifying an increase of 229.0% for the all programs. The hegemony of the quantitative approach shows the influence of the philosophical trends linked to positivism and the biological sciences, attracting interest from 92.5% of researchers. The qualitative and mixed approaches contributed only to 7.3% of the studies, expressing the influence of the social sciences and humanities and of the philosophical trends' dialectics and phenomenology about a small group of researchers. Conclusion: The distribution of dissertations and theses in the six areas of knowledge reaffirms the complexity, breadth, epistemological, and methodological heterogeneity; and the configuration of the field of knowledge production in food and nutrition, requiring the construction of collective political projects, seeking the interdisciplinarity of the different areas that structure the field.

In Celebration of the Journal's 30th Anniversary

 2015 Children, Youth and Environments Children, Youth and Environments 25(1), 2015 In Celebration of the Journal’s 30th Anniversary Willem van Vliet-Louise Chawla Fahriye Sancar Citation: van Vliet--, Willem, Louise Chawla, Fahriye Sancar (2015). “In Celebration of the Journal’s 30th Anniversary.” Children, Youth and Environments 25(1): 1-3. Retrieved [date] from: http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=chilyoutenvi. This issue of Children, Youth and Environments marks the 30th anniversary of the journal’s founding. Although the journal formally began in 1984 as Children’s Environments Quarterly, its roots reach back to the 1970s, a period of ferment in planning and design. Designers and social scientists were finding each other at meetings of the newly formed Environmental Design Research Association and other gatherings. Evidence was accumulating that without engaging directly with communities to understand how places could best meet their needs, the massive spending underway for urban redevelopment and new building risked creating places that were dysfunctional, even dystopian. At the same time, a new wave of the environmental movement expressed popular concern that society could not continue business as usual but needed to learn how to live in harmony with nature. In the midst of this period of crisis and creativity, the newly established Environmental Psychology Program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York launched a newsletter named Childhood City to enable designers and researchers with an interest in environments for children to share their work and ideas. As Roger Hart, a professor in the program, recalled: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June of 1974, a small group of researchers, planners and designers came together during the fifth annual conference of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) to talk about the quality of environments for children. This group discussed the need for a newsletter that could become a forum for their shared interests.... And so the Childhood City Newsletter was born, an expression of the Zeitgeist of its time (Hart, Chawla and Bartlett 2003, i). Recognizing that the field needed a formal peer-reviewed journal, Childhood City was transformed 10 years later into Children’s Environments Quarterly, with Roger Hart as its first Editor. Thematic issues in the 1980s covered diverse settings in children’s lives: the home, neighborhoods, schoolyards, child care centers, museums, and—already—electronic environments. There were also issues on toys, In Celebration of the Journal’s 30th Anniversary 2 children’s relations with animals and plants, and adolescents in their environments. From the beginning, the journal’s goals of providing a respected outlet for multidisciplinary research and informing policy and practice distinguished it from many other academic journals. Along with its primary content of research articles, there were interviews, accounts of model projects, and design principles. Today, this tradition is evident in each issue’s combination of research articles and field reports, which describe lessons learned from practice. The journal continues to draw researchers and practitioners from many disciplines as contributing authors and readers. From 1992-1995, the journal continued under the simpler name of Children’s Environments. In all, during its first 12 volumes between 1984 through 1995, the journal included 42 print issues with 600 articles. After 1995, it temporarily ceased publication, as the editors at that time, Roger Hart, Sheridan Bartlett and Louise Chawla, found it too hard to struggle against “the buyouts, staff turnover, and changes in values” (Hart, Chawla and Bartlett 2003, ii) that made working with commercial publishers increasingly difficult. In 2003, Willem van Vliet-- took advantage of the opportunities offered by online publishing to revive the journal under its current name. An initial grant from the National Science Foundation and staff support from the Environmental Design Program at the University of Colorado Boulder made it possible to offer the journal free of charge at that time, making it possible for people around the world to have open access, leading to more than 12,000 registered readers. Joined now in a productive relationship with JSTOR, we look forward to a robust life for the journal far into the future. From its revival in 2003 through 2014, it has produced 12 volumes and 28 issues that contained 775 articles. Data show that it...

All Together Now: Using Principles of Group Dynamics to Train Better Jurors

We ask juries to make important decisions that have a profound impact on people’s lives. We leave these decisions in the hands of groups of laypeople because we hope that the diverse range of experiences and knowledge in the group will lead to more thoughtful and informed decisionmaking. Studies 1 suggest that diverse groups of jurors have different perspectives on evidence, engage in more thorough debate, and more closely evaluate facts. At the same 2 time, there are a variety of problems associated with group decisionmaking, from the loss of individual motivation in group settings, to the vulnerability of groups, to various cognitive biases and errors. Moreover, jurors are often at a 3 disadvantage because most of them have never served on a jury and many of them have never worked with a group to reach a decision about a complex problem. Compounding these issues, jurors are not typically given instructions 4 or training on working in a group or on effective decisionmaking strategies. Although there is extensive literature examining juries and jury deliberations, this Article is the first to consider all of the major scientific studies that examine training in group decisionmaking and apply them to jury decisionmaking. Many studies have examined group processes and group deliberations in the fields of social psychology, organizational psychology, business administration, advertising, and a variety of related areas. Moreover, countless studies examine 5 group decisionmaking and recommend the use of training to improve group performance. Yet almost none of this interdisciplinary knowledge of group 6 * Associate Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Thank you to Linda Berger, Linda Edwards, Michael Higdon, Elizabeth Pollman, and Kathy Stanchi for their helpful comments and suggestions. Thanks also to the editors of the Indiana Law Review for their valuable editorial suggestions and to Chad Schatzle for his excellent research assistance. 1. David D. Henningsen et al., Role of Social Loafing in Predeliberation Decision Making, 4 GROUP DYNAMICS: THEORY, RES., & PRACTICE 168 (2000). 2. NEIL VIDMAR & VALERIE P. HANS, AMERICAN JURIES 74 (2007). 3. Norbert L. Kerr et al., Bias in Judgment: Comparing Individuals and Groups, 103 PSYCHOL. REV. 687, 713 (1996). 4. Henningsen et al., supra note 1. 5. J. Richard Hackman, Learning More By Crossing Levels: Evidence From Airplanes, Hospitals, and Orchestras, 24 J. ORG. BEHAV. 905 (2003); Steven A. Murphy & Michael L. McIntyre, Board of Director Performance: A Group Dynamics Perspective, 7 CORP. GOVERNANCE 209, 213 (2007); Gwen M. Wittenbaum & Richard L. Moreland, Small-Group Research in Social Psychology: Topics and Trends over Time, 2 SOC. & PERSONALITY PSYCHOL. COMPASS 187, 187 (2008). 6. Herman Aguinis & Kurt Kraiger, Benefits of Training and Development for Individuals 416 INDIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 48:415 dynamics and the efficacy of training on group performance has been applied to one of the most fundamental group decisionmaking bodies—the jury. We can use this literature to create effective juror training procedures and give jurors strategies to more effectively deliberate and reach better group decisions. “Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ‘em to play together is the hard part.” –Casey Stengel

Moral Disengagement and Aggression: Comments on the Special Issue

This special issue on relationship between moral disengagement and aggression brings together nine sophisticated as well as theoretically, methodologically and analytically stimulating studies. Three of articles are concerned with individual characteristics that moderate (or buffer or aggravate) impact of moral disengagement on aggression or include moral disengagement as a moderator on link between individual characteristics and aggression. Three address trajectories and age-related changes by exploring developmental pathways of moral disengagement and aggression, while remaining three treat moral disengagement in its situational context in school and family and raise questions of socialization. Besides summarizing and discussing nine articles, this commentary raises some critical issues-for example, regarding assessment of moral developmental processes.For past decade, a growing, but still rather small group of international researchers have studied moral disengagement and its relation to prosocial and antisocial/aggressive behaviors in children and adolescents (including both traditional bullying and cyberbullying). Although much has been learned about both concurrent and longitudinal (inter) relationships (e.g., Barchia & Bussey, 2011; Gini, 2006; Hymel, Schonert-Reichl, Bonanno, Vaillancourt, & Rocke Henderson, 2010; Perren & Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012), crucial issues regarding these relationships are still (partly) unresolved-for example, with respect to contextual and situational factors (e.g., see recent review by Gini, Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2014). This special issue on moral disengagement and aggression is result of a recent initiative bringing together many of these researchers in order to critically reflect on both conceptual and methodological foundations of this research and to develop avenues for future research. In this commentary, I discuss articles and their joint contribution towards advancement of theorizing and research in field against background of avenues suggested, namely (1) age-related changes (emergence of moral disengagement; precursors of moral disengagement; changes in moral standards, emotions, and justifications); (2) trajectories (Who is becoming morally disengaged? How and why?); (3) situational processes (situational variations; interplay between moral standards, emotions, justifications, and behavior; cognitive dissonance); (4) contextual effects (family, peers, and school; subcultural norms); and (5) interventions (moral disengagement as a mediator; morality as an intervention goal). Before doing so, core elements of Bandura's social cognitive theory of human agency (e.g., Bandura, 2002; Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996; Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, & Pastorelli, 2001), which lies at heart of this research, are briefly characterized to establish a common reference point with respect to conceptual and methodological issues raised later.The social cognitive theory of human agency offers an inclusive conceptual framework within which moral dimensions of aggressive and antisocial behaviors can be described. According to Bandura (2002), moral agency involves both the power to refrain from behaving inhumanely and proactive power to behave humanely (p. 101). Based on understanding that individuals monitor and regulate their behavior by anticipating consequences for self and others, anticipatory self-pride (for morally good behavior) and self-blame (for morally bad behavior) ensure that behavior is enacted in concordance with personal moral standards (Paciello, Fida, Tramontano, Lupinetti, & Caprara, 2008). Still, individuals can enact behaviors that are not concordant with these (individual as well as social) moral standards while claiming to adhere to them. By disconnecting moral thought and moral action, they avoid feelings of conflict, guilt, or remorse. …

The Cognitive Dynamic Model-based Simulation of Small Research Group Self-Organisation Taking into Account a Human Factor

The Cognitive Dynamic Model-based Simulation of Small Research Group Self-Organisation Taking into Account a Human Factor

Participatory Approach to Education: an Action Learning Approach at the University of South Africa

Accepted: 09.11.2014 The paper discusses a critical systemic thinking and practice approach to building capacity, enhancing development and addressing public policy and governance concerns through holding in mind many variables and considering the areas of concern of the facilitator and the participants. Inspiration for the approach to learning drew on a range of sources including Bateson on ‘the ecology of mind’ (1972), Paulo Freire (1982, 2007) on action learning and Checkland and Scholes (1990) for soft systems mapping to address an area of concern with a small group of researchers who are dedicated to working outside the boundaries of a contained discipline or organization in the service of a broad learning community. The participants raised the following as research concerns: unemployment, recognition of prior learning and the need to enhance pathways for adults and young people in learning organisations and learning communities that are responsive to the complex needs of South Africans and those within the wider region. An open approach to education and respecting diverse ways of knowing is a starting point for people’s education and community development. The struggle in South Africa for transformation was typified by student protests during Apartheid for the right to a free and equal education system. At UNISA we are reminded of the need to use education as a means to empower and this means beginning with the lived experiences of people.

Social and natural sciences differ in their research strategies, adapted to work for different knowledge landscapes.

Do different fields of knowledge require different research strategies? A numerical model exploring different virtual knowledge landscapes, revealed two diverging optimal search strategies. Trend following is maximized when the popularity of new discoveries determine the number of individuals researching it. This strategy works best when many researchers explore few large areas of knowledge. In contrast, individuals or small groups of researchers are better in discovering small bits of information in dispersed knowledge landscapes. Bibliometric data of scientific publications showed a continuous bipolar distribution of these strategies, ranging from natural sciences, with highly cited publications in journals containing a large number of articles, to the social sciences, with rarely cited publications in many journals containing a small number of articles. The natural sciences seem to adapt their research strategies to landscapes with large concentrated knowledge clusters, whereas social sciences seem to have adapted to search in landscapes with many small isolated knowledge clusters. Similar bipolar distributions were obtained when comparing levels of insularity estimated by indicators of international collaboration and levels of country-self citations: researchers in academic areas with many journals such as social sciences, arts and humanities, were the most isolated, and that was true in different regions of the world. The work shows that quantitative measures estimating differences between academic disciplines improve our understanding of different research strategies, eventually helping interdisciplinary research and may be also help improve science policies worldwide.

Persuasion within Small Deliberative Groups: A Randomized Field Experiment on Fiscal Policy Discussion

We evaluate the dynamics of persuasion within small groups using a large scale randomized deliberative experiment. In particular, we examine whether persuasion in this context is driven by the composition of small groups to which participants were randomly assigned. In these discussions focusing on U.S. fiscal policy, ideological persuasion occurs but does not tend to be polarizing, a result that is consistent with normative deliberative goals of cross-cutting discussion and inconsistent with the 'law' of polarization identified in small group research. In addition, the results demonstrate the presence of persuasion that is outside of ideological constraints, a form of persuasion that participants themselves tend to associate with informed discussion. The results show that small group dynamics depend heavily on the context in which discussion occurs and that deliberative institutions can ameliorate many of the pathologies that are often attributed to small group discussion.

The i5k Workspace@NAL—enabling genomic data access, visualization and curation of arthropod genomes

The 5000 arthropod genomes initiative (i5k) has tasked itself with coordinating the sequencing of 5000 insect or related arthropod genomes. The resulting influx of data, mostly from small research groups or communities with little bioinformatics experience, will require visualization, dissemination and curation, preferably from a centralized platform. The National Agricultural Library (NAL) has implemented the i5k Workspace@NAL (http://i5k.nal.usda.gov/) to help meet the i5k initiative's genome hosting needs. Any i5k member is encouraged to contact the i5k Workspace with their genome project details. Once submitted, new content will be accessible via organism pages, genome browsers and BLAST search engines, which are implemented via the open-source Tripal framework, a web interface for the underlying Chado database schema. We also implement the Web Apollo software for groups that choose to curate gene models. New content will add to the existing body of 35 arthropod species, which include species relevant for many aspects of arthropod genomic research, including agriculture, invasion biology, systematics, ecology and evolution, and developmental research.

Combined effects of environmental stressor in the aquatic environment

A large variety of traditional contaminants including metals, hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons and pesticides, and emerging compounds (pharmaceuticals, personal care products, plastics, and nanoparticles) are generally found in the marine environment. These compounds are of special concern due to their intensive use and threats they can cause to the aquatic environment and human health. Moreover, climate change can also have an additional impact on the effects of these compounds. Due to the complex nature of these stressors, a great deal of research has been carried out to develop the best analytical technologies for the detection of these compounds in the aquatic environment and for assessing their biological effects. This special issue is a collection of key articles addressing field and analytical aspects of multiple stressors in the aquatic environment presented to the 17th meeting on pollution Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO17) held at the University of Algarve (Portugal) from the fifth to the eighth of April 2013. This International Symposium series, Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO) began in 1981 with a small group of NSF-funded researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and from Plymouth Marine Laboratory who were addressing questions related to Chemical Effects and the Health of the Ocean. The first PRIMO Symposium was held in Plymouth, UK, in 1981 and addressed the mechanistic aspects of the same topic with the goal of stimulating international scientific interactions in this area. The success of the first PRIMO meeting led to biennial meetings held alternately in Europe, the USA, and South America. PRIMO meetings have been held in 13 cities of 8 countries: the UK (Plymouth 1981, 1985, 1989, 2001), the USA (Woods Hole, MA 1983, 1987, 1991; Asilomar Monterey, CA 1995; Williamsburg, VA 1999; Tampa, FL 2003 and Long Beach, CA, 2011), Sweden (Goteborg, 1993), Norway (Bergen, 1997), Italy (Alessandria, 2005), Brazil (Florianopolis, 2007), and France (Bordeaux, 2009). Although the word “marine” was used to produce the memorable acronym, the research presented has never distinguished between marine and freshwater, and always included research results from marine and freshwater organisms. The overall theme of PRIMO17 was dedicated to the impacts of large scale problems such as Ocean and Human Health, global climate change, ocean acidification, effects of multiple stressors from emerging contaminants to nanoscale materials, and mechanistic effects of toxicity from ecosystem scale to the exposome (www.cima.ualg.pt/ primo17). The meeting was characterized by the following major scientific themes: climate change; ocean acidification; emerging compounds (nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PPCPS)); combination effects of multiple stressors; detection and monitoring of deliberately dumped chemicals at sea; endocrine disruption; cellular absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination; tissue levels and immune responses; biomarkers; Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Call for Proposals Small Group Research 2016 Review Issue

Call for Proposals <i>Small Group Research</i> 2016 Review Issue

IBIOMES Lite: summarizing biomolecular simulation data in limited settings.

As the amount of data generated by biomolecular simulations dramatically increases, new tools need to be developed to help manage this data at the individual investigator or small research group level. In this paper, we introduce iBIOMES Lite, a lightweight tool for biomolecular simulation data indexing and summarization. The main goal of iBIOMES Lite is to provide a simple interface to summarize computational experiments in a setting where the user might have limited privileges and limited access to IT resources. A command-line interface allows the user to summarize, publish, and search local simulation data sets. Published data sets are accessible via static hypertext markup language (HTML) pages that summarize the simulation protocols and also display data analysis graphically. The publication process is customized via extensible markup language (XML) descriptors while the HTML summary template is customized through extensible stylesheet language (XSL). iBIOMES Lite was tested on different platforms and at several national computing centers using various data sets generated through classical and quantum molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, and QM/MM. The associated parsers currently support AMBER, GROMACS, Gaussian, and NWChem data set publication. The code is available at https://github.com/jcvthibault/ibiomes.

Introduction to the Special Issue

This article summarizes the contributions given in the five papers of the Small Group Research (SGR) special issue, Leadership and the Group. The five papers were first presented at the 8th Nordic Conference on Group and Social Psychology (GRASP, 2012) held at the Royal Norwegian Navy Academy in Bergen, Norway. Aside for summarizing each contribution, this introduction describes the contributions of each article in a broader context, and points to some implications for further research.

Call for Proposals Small Group Research 2015 Review Issue

Call for Proposals Small Group Research 2015 Review Issue

‘Plug and Play’ assembly of a low-temperature plasma ionization mass spectrometry imaging (LTP-MSI) system

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is of high and growing interest in life science research, but the investment for necessary equipment is often prohibitive for small research groups. Therefore, we developed a basic MSI system from low cost 'Plug and Play' components, which are connected to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) of a standard computer. Our open source software OpenMZxy (http://www.bioprocess.org/openmzxy) enables automatic and manual sampling, as well as the recording of position data. For ionization we used a low-temperature plasma probe (LTP), coupled to a quadrupole mass analyzer. The current set-up has a practical resolution of 1mm, and a sampling area of 100×100mm, resulting in up to 10,000 sampling points. Our prototype is easy and economical to adopt for different types of mass analyzers. We prove the usability of the LTP-MSI system for macroscopic samples by imaging the distribution of metabolites in the longitudinal cross-cut of a chili (Capsicum annuum, 'Jalapeño pepper') fruit. The localization of capsaicin in the placenta could be confirmed. But additionally, yet unknown low molecular weight compounds were detected in defined areas, which underline the potential of LTP-MSI for the imaging of volatile and semi-volatile metabolites and for the discovery of new natural products. Biological significance Knowledge about the spatial distribution of metabolites, proteins, or lipids in a given tissue often leads to novel findings in medicine and biology. Therefore, mass spectrometry based imaging (MSI) is becoming increasingly popular in life science research. However, the investment for necessary equipment is often prohibitive for small research groups. We built a prototype with an ambient ionization source, which is easy and economical to adopt for different types of mass analyzers. Therefore, we hope that our system contributes to a broader use of mass spectrometry imaging for answering biological questions.

Building a 3D Computed Tomography Scanner From Surplus Parts

Computed tomography (CT) scanners are expensive imaging devices, often out of reach for small research groups. Designing and building a CT scanner from modular components is possible, and this article demonstrates that realization of a CT scanner from components is surprisingly easy. However, the high costs of a modular X-ray source and detector limit the overall cost savings. In this article, the possibility of building a CT scanner with available surplus X-ray parts is discussed, and a practical device is described that incurred costs of less than $16,000. The image quality of this device is comparable with commercial devices. The disadvantage is that design constraints imposed by the available components lead to slow scan speeds and a resolution of 0.5 mm. Despite these limitations, a device such as this is attractive for imaging studies in the biological and biomedical sciences, as well as for advancing CT technology itself.

Are Groups 'Less Behavioral'? The Case of Anchoring

Economic small group research points to groups as more rational decision-makers in numerous economic situations. However, no attempts have been made to investigate whether groups are affected similarly by behavioral biases that are pervasive for individuals. If groups were also able to more effectively avoid these biases, the relevance of biases in actual economic contexts dominated by group decision-making might be questioned. We consider the case of anchoring as a prime example of a well-established, robust bias. Individual and group biasedness in three economically relevant domains are compared: factual knowledge, probability estimates and price estimates. In contrast to previous anchoring studies, we find groups to successfully reduce, albeit not eliminate, anchoring in factual knowledge tasks. For the other domains, groups and individuals are equally biased by external anchors. Group cooperation thus reduces biases for predominantly intellective tasks only, while no such reduction is achieved when judgmental aspects are involved.

VAMPS: a website for visualization and analysis of microbial population structures

BackgroundThe advent of next-generation DNA sequencing platforms has revolutionized molecular microbial ecology by making the detailed analysis of complex communities over time and space a tractable research pursuit for small research groups. However, the ability to generate 105–108 reads with relative ease brings with it many downstream complications. Beyond the computational resources and skills needed to process and analyze data, it is difficult to compare datasets in an intuitive and interactive manner that leads to hypothesis generation and testing.ResultsWe developed the free web service VAMPS (Visualization and Analysis of Microbial Population Structures, http://vamps.mbl.edu) to address these challenges and to facilitate research by individuals or collaborating groups working on projects with large-scale sequencing data. Users can upload marker gene sequences and associated metadata; reads are quality filtered and assigned to both taxonomic structures and to taxonomy-independent clusters. A simple point-and-click interface allows users to select for analysis any combination of their own or their collaborators’ private data and data from public projects, filter these by their choice of taxonomic and/or abundance criteria, and then explore these data using a wide range of analytic methods and visualizations. Each result is extensively hyperlinked to other analysis and visualization options, promoting data exploration and leading to a greater understanding of data relationships.ConclusionsVAMPS allows researchers using marker gene sequence data to analyze the diversity of microbial communities and the relationships between communities, to explore these analyses in an intuitive visual context, and to download data, results, and images for publication. VAMPS obviates the need for individual research groups to make the considerable investment in computational infrastructure and bioinformatic support otherwise necessary to process, analyze, and interpret massive amounts of next-generation sequence data. Any web-capable device can be used to upload, process, explore, and extract data and results from VAMPS. VAMPS encourages researchers to share sequence and metadata, and fosters collaboration between researchers of disparate biomes who recognize common patterns in shared data.

Call for Proposals Small Group Research 2015 Review Issue

Call for Proposals <i>Small Group Research</i> 2015 Review Issue