FAIRDOMHub: a repository and collaboration environment for sharing systems biology research.

PubMed

Wolstencroft, Katherine; Krebs, Olga; Snoep, Jacky L; Stanford, Natalie J; Bacall, Finn; Golebiewski, Martin; Kuzyakiv, Rostyk; Nguyen, Quyen; Owen, Stuart; Soiland-Reyes, Stian; Straszewski, Jakub; van Niekerk, David D; Williams, Alan R; Malmström, Lars; Rinn, Bernd; Müller, Wolfgang; Goble, Carole

2017-01-04

The FAIRDOMHub is a repository for publishing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) Data, Operating procedures and Models (https://fairdomhub.org/) for the Systems Biology community. It is a web-accessible repository for storing and sharing systems biology research assets. It enables researchers to organize, share and publish data, models and protocols, interlink them in the context of the systems biology investigations that produced them, and to interrogate them via API interfaces. By using the FAIRDOMHub, researchers can achieve more effective exchange with geographically distributed collaborators during projects, ensure results are sustained and preserved and generate reproducible publications that adhere to the FAIR guiding principles of data stewardship. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Fundamental Biological Research on the International Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Souza, K. A.; Yost, Bruce; Fletcher, L.; Dalton, Bonnie P. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The fundamental Biology Program of NASA's Life Sciences Division is chartered with enabling and sponsoring research on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to understand the effects of the space flight environment, particularly microgravity, on living systems. To accomplish this goal, NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) has been tasked with managing the development of a number of biological habitats, along with their support systems infrastructure. This integrated suite of habitats and support systems is being designed to support research requirements identified by the scientific community. As such, it will support investigations using cells and tissues, avian eggs, insects, plants, aquatic organisms and rodents. Studies following organisms through complete life cycles and over multiple generations will eventually be possible. As an adjunct to the development of these basic habitats, specific analytical and monitoring technologies are being targeted for maturation to complete the research cycle by transferring existing or emerging analytical techniques, sensors, and processes from the laboratory bench to the ISS research platform.

How to integrate biological research into society and exclude errors in biomedical publications? Progress in theoretical and systems biology releases pressure on experimental research.

PubMed

Volkov, Vadim

2014-01-01

This brief opinion proposes measures to increase efficiency and exclude errors in biomedical research under the existing dynamic situation. Rapid changes in biology began with the description of the three dimensional structure of DNA 60 years ago; today biology has progressed by interacting with computer science and nanoscience together with the introduction of robotic stations for the acquisition of large-scale arrays of data. These changes have had an increasing influence on the entire research and scientific community. Future advance demands short-term measures to ensure error-proof and efficient development. They can include the fast publishing of negative results, publishing detailed methodical papers and excluding a strict connection between career progression and publication activity, especially for younger researchers. Further development of theoretical and systems biology together with the use of multiple experimental methods for biological experiments could also be helpful in the context of years and decades. With regards to the links between science and society, it is reasonable to compare both these systems, to find and describe specific features for biology and to integrate it into the existing stream of social life and financial fluxes. It will increase the level of scientific research and have mutual positive effects for both biology and society. Several examples are given for further discussion.

Biological soil crusts: Diminutive communities of potential global importance

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ferrenberg, Scott; Tucker, Colin; Reed, Sasha C.

2017-01-01

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are widespread, diverse communities of cyanobacteria, fungi, lichens, and mosses living on soil surfaces, primarily in drylands. Biocrusts can locally govern primary production, soil fertility, hydrology, and surface energy balance, with considerable variation in these functions across alternate community states. Further, these communities have been implicated in Earth system functioning via potential influences on global biogeochemistry and climate. Biocrusts are easily destroyed by disturbances and appear to be exceptionally vulnerable to warming temperatures and altered precipitation inputs, signaling possible losses of dryland functions with global change. Despite these concerns, we lack sufficient spatiotemporal data on biocrust function, cover, and community structure to confidently assess their ecological roles across the extensive dryland biome. Here, we present the case for cross-scale research and restoration efforts coupled with remote-sensing and modeling approaches that improve our collective understanding of biocrust responses to global change and the ecological roles of these diminutive communities at global scales.

Space biology research development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bonting, Sjoerd L.

1993-01-01

The purpose of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute is to conduct and promote research related activities regarding the search for extraterrestrial life, particularly intelligent life. Such research encompasses the broad discipline of 'Life in the Universe', including all scientific and technological aspects of astronomy and the planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life, biological evolution, and cultural evolution. The primary purpose was to provide funding for the Principal Investigator to collaborate with the personnel of the SETI Institute and the NASA-Ames Research center in order to plan and develop space biology research on and in connection with Space Station Freedom; to promote cooperation with the international partners in the space station; to conduct a study on the use of biosensors in space biology research and life support system operation; and to promote space biology research through the initiation of an annual publication 'Advances in Space Biology and Medicine'.

Developing the community empowered research training program: building research capacity for community-initiated and community-driven research.

PubMed

Kwon, Simona; Rideout, Catlin; Tseng, Winston; Islam, Nadia; Cook, Won Kim; Ro, Marguerite; Trinh-Shevrin, Chau

2012-01-01

Health promotion practice research conducted by or in partnership with community-based organizations (CBOs) serving Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AA and NHPI) can address health disparities. Few CBOs have the tools to integrate or initiate research into their programmatic agenda. The New York University (NYU) Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) and the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) created a partnership with the goal to support CBO research infrastructure development by creating the Community Empowered Research Training (CERT) program. A survey was conducted and discussions held with CBO leaders representing AA and NHPI communities to inform the development of the CERT program. The majority of participants are engaged in service-related research and reported interest in building their research capacity. CBOs may require help reframing how data can be collected and used to better inform programmatic activities and to address health disparities facing AA and NHPI communities. CBOs possess both an interest in and access to local knowledge that can inform health priorities. Findings have been applied to the CERT program to build capacity to support community-initiated/driven research to address health disparities affecting AAs and NHPIs.

Supporting the role of community members employed as research staff: Perspectives of community researchers working in addiction research.

PubMed

True, Gala; Alexander, Leslie B; Fisher, Celia B

2017-08-01

Community researchers are laypersons who conduct research activities in their own communities. In addiction and HIV research, community researchers are valued for their insider status and knowledge. At the same time, their presence on the research team raises concerns about coercion and confidentiality when community researchers and participants know each other personally, and the work of navigating between the worlds of research and community leads to moral distress and burnout for some community researchers. In this paper, we draw upon the concept of 'moral experience' to explore the local moral worlds of community researchers in the context of addiction research. In February and March 2010, we conducted focus groups with 36 community researchers employed on community-based addiction studies in the United States to elicit perspectives on ethical and moral challenges they face in their work and insights on best practices to support their role in research. Community researchers described how their values were realized or thwarted in the context of research, and their strategies for coping with shifting identities and competing priorities. They delineated how their knowledge could be used to inform development of research protocols and help principal investigators build and maintain trust with the community researchers on their teams. Our findings contribute to current understandings of the moral experiences of community members employed in research, and inform policies and practices for the growing field of community-engaged research. Funders, research organizations, and research ethics boards should develop guidelines and standards to ensure studies have key resources in place to support community researchers and ensure quality and integrity of community-engaged work. Investigators who work with community researchers should ensure channels for frontline staff to provide input on research protocols and to create an atmosphere where challenges and concerns can be

Interdisciplinary research and education at the biology-engineering-computer science interface: a perspective.

PubMed

Tadmor, Brigitta; Tidor, Bruce

2005-09-01

Progress in the life sciences, including genome sequencing and high-throughput experimentation, offers an opportunity for understanding biology and medicine from a systems perspective. This 'new view', which complements the more traditional component-based approach, involves the integration of biological research with approaches from engineering disciplines and computer science. The result is more than a new set of technologies. Rather, it promises a fundamental reconceptualization of the life sciences based on the development of quantitative and predictive models to describe crucial processes. To achieve this change, learning communities are being formed at the interface of the life sciences, engineering and computer science. Through these communities, research and education will be integrated across disciplines and the challenges associated with multidisciplinary team-based science will be addressed.

The Increasing Urgency for Standards in Basic Biological Research

PubMed Central

Freedman, Leonard P.; Inglese, James

2016-01-01

Research advances build upon the validity and reproducibility of previously published data and findings. Yet irreproducibility in basic biological and preclinical research is pervasive in both academic and commercial settings. Lack of reproducibility has led to invalidated research breakthroughs, retracted papers, and aborted clinical trials. Concerns and requirements for transparent, reproducible, and translatable research are accelerated by the rapid growth of “post-publication peer review,” open access publishing, and data sharing that facilitate the identification of irreproducible data/studies; they are magnified by the explosion of high-throughput technologies, genomics, and other data-intensive disciplines. Collectively, these changes and challenges are decreasing the effectiveness of traditional research quality mechanisms and are contributing to unacceptable—and unsustainable—levels of irreproducibility. The global oncology and basic biological research communities can no longer tolerate or afford widespread irreproducible research. This article discusses (1) how irreproducibility in preclinical research can ultimately be traced to an absence of a unifying life science standards framework, and (2) makes an urgent case for the expanded development and use of consensus-based standards to both enhance reproducibility and drive innovations in cancer research. PMID:25035389

Current dichotomy between traditional molecular biological and omic research in cancer biology and pharmacology.

PubMed

Reinhold, William C

2015-12-10

There is currently a split within the cancer research community between traditional molecular biological hypothesis-driven and the more recent "omic" forms or research. While the molecular biological approach employs the tried and true single alteration-single response formulations of experimentation, the omic employs broad-based assay or sample collection approaches that generate large volumes of data. How to integrate the benefits of these two approaches in an efficient and productive fashion remains an outstanding issue. Ideally, one would merge the understandability, exactness, simplicity, and testability of the molecular biological approach, with the larger amounts of data, simultaneous consideration of multiple alterations, consideration of genes both of known interest along with the novel, cross-sample comparisons among cell lines and patient samples, and consideration of directed questions while simultaneously gaining exposure to the novel provided by the omic approach. While at the current time integration of the two disciplines remains problematic, attempts to do so are ongoing, and will be necessary for the understanding of the large cell line screens including the Developmental Therapeutics Program's NCI-60, the Broad Institute's Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Cancer Genome Project, as well as the the Cancer Genome Atlas clinical samples project. Going forward there is significant benefit to be had from the integration of the molecular biological and the omic forms or research, with the desired goal being improved translational understanding and application.

Including a Service Learning Educational Research Project in a Biology Course-I: Assessing Community Awareness of Childhood Lead Poisoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Shakra, Amal; Saliim, Eric

2012-01-01

A university course project was developed and implemented in a biology course, focusing on environmental problems, to assess community awareness of childhood lead poisoning. A set of 385 questionnaires was generated and distributed in an urban community in North Carolina, USA. The completed questionnaires were sorted first into yes and no sets…

Genome Annotation in a Community College Cell Biology Lab

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beagley, C. Timothy

2013-01-01

The Biology Department at Salt Lake Community College has used the IMG-ACT toolbox to introduce a genome mapping and annotation exercise into the laboratory portion of its Cell Biology course. This project provides students with an authentic inquiry-based learning experience while introducing them to computational biology and contemporary learning…

Linking School Biology and Community in Developing Countries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knamiller, Gary W.

1984-01-01

Explores the role of biological education in placing the school in its own local community and the real social-economic environment that surrounds it. Particular reference is made to issue-based biological education in schools as an attempt to bridge the gap between purely academic schooling and education for relevance. (Author)

Research challenges and lessons learned from conducting community-based research with the Hmong community.

PubMed

Kue, Jennifer; Thorburn, Sheryl; Keon, Karen Levy

2015-05-01

Conducting research with underserved communities with little exposure to research presents a number of challenges and opportunities. Our study used a community-based approach to better understand factors that influence breast and cervical cancer screening among Hmong women. This article shares lessons learned during the process of developing and conducting qualitative research with a Hmong community with limited experience with research. We conducted 17 key informant and 84 in-depth interviews with Hmong women and men. Research team discussions, insights from Hmong research team members, input from our Community Advisory Committee, and project documents were sources of information about the process of conducting research in this community. Lessons learned concern including a cultural insider as an investigator; building community partnerships and support; establishing and working with a community advisory committee; hiring and training bilingual, bicultural staff; and using culturally appropriate materials and methods in a small, kinship-based community. We used multiple strategies to ensure that this study was conducted in a culturally appropriate manner. The lessons learned from our experiences can provide guidance to researchers on methodological and practical issues in conducting research with the Hmong and can inform future research with the Hmong and other similar underserved populations. © 2014 Society for Public Health Education.

Community Researchers Meet Community Residents: Interpretation of Findings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New, Peter Kong-Ming; Hessler, Richard M.

1973-01-01

Three community studies were catalysts for researchers and residents to generate discussions on: (1) strategies and ethics of community research; (2) problems of ethics, including considerations for a code and comments on community involvement; and (3) recommendations for establishing a technical research consultation service'' in the Society for…

Research in thermal biology: Burning questions for coldwater stream fishes

USGS Publications Warehouse

McCullough, D.A.; Bartholow, J.M.; Jager, H.I.; Beschta, R.L.; Cheslak, E.F.; Deas, M.L.; Ebersole, J.L.; Foott, J.S.; Johnson, S.L.; Marine, K.R.; Mesa, M.G.; Petersen, J.H.; Souchon, Y.; Tiffan, K.F.; Wurtsbaugh, W.A.

2009-01-01

With the increasing appreciation of global warming impacts on ecological systems, in addition to the myriad of land management effects on water quality, the number of literature citations dealing with the effects of water temperature on freshwater fish has escalated in the past decade. Given the many biological scales at which water temperature effects have been studied, and the growing need to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines of thermal biology to fully protect beneficial uses, we held that a survey of the most promising recent developments and an expression of some of the remaining unanswered questions with significant management implications would best be approached collectively by a diverse research community. We have identified five specific topic areas of renewed research where new techniques and critical thought could benefit coldwater stream fishes (particularly salmonids): molecular, organism, population/species, community and ecosystem, and policy issues in water quality. Our hope is that information gained through examination of recent research fronts linking knowledge at various scales will prove useful in managing water quality at a basin level to protect fish populations and whole ecosystems. Standards of the past were based largely on incipient lethal and optimum growth rate temperatures for fish species, while future standards should consider all integrated thermal impacts to the organism and ecosystem. ?? Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Research in thermal biology: Burning questions for coldwater stream fishes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCullough, Dr. Dale; Bartholow, Dr. John; Jager, Yetta

2009-01-01

With the increasing appreciation of global warming impacts on ecological systems in addition to the myriad of land management effects on water quality, the number of literature citations dealing with the effects of water temperature on freshwater fish has escalated in the past decade. Given the many biological scales at which water temperature effects have been studied and the growing need to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines of thermal biology to fully protect beneficial uses, we held that a survey of the most promising recent developments and an expression of some of the remaining unanswered questions with significant management implicationsmore » would best be approached collectively by a diverse research community. We have identified five specific topic areas of renewed research where new techniques and critical thought could benefit coldwater stream fishes (particularly salmonids): molecular, organism, population/species, community and ecosystem, and policy issues in water quality. Our hope is that information gained through examination of recent research fronts linking knowledge at various scales will prove useful in managing water quality at a basin level to protect fish populations and whole ecosystems. Standards of the past were based largely on incipient lethal and optimum growth rate temperatures for fish species, while future standards should consider all integrated thermal impacts to the organism and ecosystem.« less

Protecting Traditional Knowledge Related to Biological Resources: Is Scientific Research Going to Become More Bureaucratized?

PubMed Central

Reddy, Prashant; Lakshmikumaran, Malathi

2015-01-01

For the past several decades, there has been a world debate on the need for protecting traditional knowledge. A global treaty appears to be a distant reality. Of more immediate concern are the steps taken by the global community to protect access to biological resources in the name of protecting traditional knowledge. The Indian experience with implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity has created substantial legal uncertainty in collaborative scientific research between Indians and foreigners apart from bureaucratizing the entire process of scientific research, especially with regard to filing of applications for intellectual property rights. The issue therefore is whether the world needs to better balance the needs of the scientific community with the rights of those who have access to traditional knowledge. PMID:26101205

Community Engagement in Epidemiological Research

PubMed Central

Sapienza, Jessica N.; Corbie-Smith, Giselle; Keim, Sarah; Fleischman, Alan R.

2007-01-01

Objectives Engaging communities has become a critical aspect of planning and implementing health research. The role community engagement should play in epidemiological and observational research remains unclear since much of this research is not directly generated by community concerns and is not interventional in nature. The National Children's Study (NCS), an observational longitudinal study of 100,000 children and their families, provides a model to help guide the development of community engagement strategies in epidemiologic research. Methodology This manuscript describes community engagement activities of the NCS during the planning phases of the study. Results There are many challenges of community engagement in epidemiologic research particularly before the actual research sites are determined. After communities of interest are designated many further issues must be resolved, including: defining the specific community, determining which residents or institutions represent the identified community, and developing trust and rapport through respectful engagement. Conclusions Community engagement is critical to the long-term success of any longitudinal epidemiologic study. A partnership with the community should be formed to ensure mutual respect and the establishment of an enduring relationship. Genuine community engagement offers the hope of enhancing recruitment, retention, and participant satisfaction. PMID:17512886

BioMart Central Portal: an open database network for the biological community.

PubMed

Guberman, Jonathan M; Ai, J; Arnaiz, O; Baran, Joachim; Blake, Andrew; Baldock, Richard; Chelala, Claude; Croft, David; Cros, Anthony; Cutts, Rosalind J; Di Génova, A; Forbes, Simon; Fujisawa, T; Gadaleta, E; Goodstein, D M; Gundem, Gunes; Haggarty, Bernard; Haider, Syed; Hall, Matthew; Harris, Todd; Haw, Robin; Hu, S; Hubbard, Simon; Hsu, Jack; Iyer, Vivek; Jones, Philip; Katayama, Toshiaki; Kinsella, R; Kong, Lei; Lawson, Daniel; Liang, Yong; Lopez-Bigas, Nuria; Luo, J; Lush, Michael; Mason, Jeremy; Moreews, Francois; Ndegwa, Nelson; Oakley, Darren; Perez-Llamas, Christian; Primig, Michael; Rivkin, Elena; Rosanoff, S; Shepherd, Rebecca; Simon, Reinhard; Skarnes, B; Smedley, Damian; Sperling, Linda; Spooner, William; Stevenson, Peter; Stone, Kevin; Teague, J; Wang, Jun; Wang, Jianxin; Whitty, Brett; Wong, D T; Wong-Erasmus, Marie; Yao, L; Youens-Clark, Ken; Yung, Christina; Zhang, Junjun; Kasprzyk, Arek

2011-01-01

BioMart Central Portal is a first of its kind, community-driven effort to provide unified access to dozens of biological databases spanning genomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, ontology information and more. Anybody can contribute an independently maintained resource to the Central Portal, allowing it to be exposed to and shared with the research community, and linking it with the other resources in the portal. Users can take advantage of the common interface to quickly utilize different sources without learning a new system for each. The system also simplifies cross-database searches that might otherwise require several complicated steps. Several integrated tools streamline common tasks, such as converting between ID formats and retrieving sequences. The combination of a wide variety of databases, an easy-to-use interface, robust programmatic access and the array of tools make Central Portal a one-stop shop for biological data querying. Here, we describe the structure of Central Portal and show example queries to demonstrate its capabilities.

C-DEBI Community College Research Internship for Scientific Engagement: Effective Practices in Running a Non-Residential Research Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schroeder, S.

2016-02-01

The Center For Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI), an NSF Science and Technology Center, is located in the heart of Los Angeles, surrounded by nineteen community colleges. C-DEBI recognizes the community college student as an untapped STEM resource and piloted the Community College Research Internship for Scientific Engagement (CC-RISE) in 2013. A non-residential, research-focused summer internship, the successful program expanded to UC-Santa Cruz and the Marine Biological Laboratory in 2014 and 2015, respectively. A non-residential research program gives students who are often first generation or non-traditional a stepping stone to experience the research environment while reducing transfer shock. Formal evaluation of CC-RISE indicates that in addition to providing an immersive research experience for community college students, the key components to running a successful non-residential program include weekly informal meetings to allow the students to create a cohort, as well as program aspects dedicated to professional development topics such as the transfer process and using resources at 4-year institutions to maximize success.

Community Research Mythology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Waldern, Barbara

2006-01-01

This article is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of the theme community and the implications the multiple meanings of community hold for the field of qualitative research. This theme surfaced from Walderns 2003 study entitled Resistance to Research in Vancouvers Downtown Eastside, which dealt with participant resistance to joining research…

Common data manipulations with R in biological researches

PubMed Central

Liu, Qin

2017-01-01

R is a computer language and has been widely used in science community due to the powerful capability in data analysis and visualization; and these functions are mainly provided by the developed packages. Because every package has strict format definitions on the inputted data, it is always required to appropriately manipulate the original data in advance. Unfortunately, users, especially for the beginners, are always confused by the extreme flexibility with R in data manipulation. In the present paper, we roughly categorize the common manipulations with R for biological data into four classes, including overview of data, transformation, summarization, and reshaping. Subsequently, these manipulations are exemplified in a sample data of clinical records of diabetic patients. Our main purpose is to provide a better landscape on the data manipulation with R and hence facilitate the practical applications in biological researches. PMID:28840022

Building research infrastructure in community health centers: a Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) report.

PubMed

Likumahuwa, Sonja; Song, Hui; Singal, Robbie; Weir, Rosy Chang; Crane, Heidi; Muench, John; Sim, Shao-Chee; DeVoe, Jennifer E

2013-01-01

This article introduces the Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN), a practice-based research network of community health centers (CHCs). Established by the Health Resources and Services Administration in 2010, CHARN is a network of 4 community research nodes, each with multiple affiliated CHCs and an academic center. The four nodes (18 individual CHCs and 4 academic partners in 9 states) are supported by a data coordinating center. Here we provide case studies detailing how CHARN is building research infrastructure and capacity in CHCs, with a particular focus on how community practice-academic partnerships were facilitated by the CHARN structure. The examples provided by the CHARN nodes include many of the building blocks of research capacity: communication capacity and "matchmaking" between providers and researchers; technology transfer; research methods tailored to community practice settings; and community institutional review board infrastructure to enable community oversight. We draw lessons learned from these case studies that we hope will serve as examples for other networks, with special relevance for community-based networks seeking to build research infrastructure in primary care settings.

Building Research Infrastructure in Community Health Centers: A Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) Report

PubMed Central

Likumahuwa, Sonja; Song, Hui; Singal, Robbie; Weir, Rosy Chang; Crane, Heidi; Muench, John; Sim, Shao-Chee; DeVoe, Jennifer E.

2015-01-01

This article introduces the Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN), a practice-based research network of community health centers (CHCs). Established by the Health Resources and Services Administration in 2010, CHARN is a network of 4 community research nodes, each with multiple affiliated CHCs and an academic center. The four nodes (18 individual CHCs and 4 academic partners in 9 states) are supported by a data coordinating center. Here we provide case studies detailing how CHARN is building research infrastructure and capacity in CHCs, with a particular focus on how community practice-academic partnerships were facilitated by the CHARN structure. The examples provided by the CHARN nodes include many of the building blocks of research capacity: communication capacity and “matchmaking” between providers and researchers; technology transfer; research methods tailored to community practice settings; and community institutional review board infrastructure to enable community oversight. We draw lessons learned from these case studies that we hope will serve as examples for other networks, with special relevance for community-based networks seeking to build research infrastructure in primary care settings. PMID:24004710

Reforming the community research program: from Community Clinical Oncology Program to the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program.

PubMed

Zon, Robin T

2014-01-01

Community research has been an integral and influential component of the National Research Program since the late 1970s. Institutionalization of community research in the Community Clinical Oncology Program (CCOP) has resulted in successful collaborations, meaningful accrual, achievement of quality standards, and translation of research into clinical practice. Although the national clinical trial system is undergoing modernization and improvement, the success of the CCOP and minority-based CCOP in cancer treatment, prevention, and control research is being extended to include cancer care delivery research in the newly created National Cancer Institute (NCI) Community Oncology Research Program. This article briefly presents a historic perspective of community involvement in federally sponsored clinical trials and introduces the continued involvement in the newly created NCI program.

Community-driven computational biology with Debian Linux.

PubMed

Möller, Steffen; Krabbenhöft, Hajo Nils; Tille, Andreas; Paleino, David; Williams, Alan; Wolstencroft, Katy; Goble, Carole; Holland, Richard; Belhachemi, Dominique; Plessy, Charles

2010-12-21

The Open Source movement and its technologies are popular in the bioinformatics community because they provide freely available tools and resources for research. In order to feed the steady demand for updates on software and associated data, a service infrastructure is required for sharing and providing these tools to heterogeneous computing environments. The Debian Med initiative provides ready and coherent software packages for medical informatics and bioinformatics. These packages can be used together in Taverna workflows via the UseCase plugin to manage execution on local or remote machines. If such packages are available in cloud computing environments, the underlying hardware and the analysis pipelines can be shared along with the software. Debian Med closes the gap between developers and users. It provides a simple method for offering new releases of software and data resources, thus provisioning a local infrastructure for computational biology. For geographically distributed teams it can ensure they are working on the same versions of tools, in the same conditions. This contributes to the world-wide networking of researchers.

Community-driven computational biology with Debian Linux

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The Open Source movement and its technologies are popular in the bioinformatics community because they provide freely available tools and resources for research. In order to feed the steady demand for updates on software and associated data, a service infrastructure is required for sharing and providing these tools to heterogeneous computing environments. Results The Debian Med initiative provides ready and coherent software packages for medical informatics and bioinformatics. These packages can be used together in Taverna workflows via the UseCase plugin to manage execution on local or remote machines. If such packages are available in cloud computing environments, the underlying hardware and the analysis pipelines can be shared along with the software. Conclusions Debian Med closes the gap between developers and users. It provides a simple method for offering new releases of software and data resources, thus provisioning a local infrastructure for computational biology. For geographically distributed teams it can ensure they are working on the same versions of tools, in the same conditions. This contributes to the world-wide networking of researchers. PMID:21210984

Community Interactive Research Workshop Series: Community Members Engaged as Team Teachers to Conduct Research.

PubMed

Nguyen-Truong, Connie Kim; Tang, Joannie; Hsiao, Chiao-Yun

2017-01-01

Vietnamese women are diagnosed with cervical cancer at twice the rate of non-Hispanic White women and the highest compared to Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Japanese women. ἀ e Vietnamese Women's Health Project, a community-based participatory research partnership, was developed to address this concern. In earlier studies, community members received research training. To describe how we developed an innovative curricular research training framework. Community members developed their own learning goals and activities, taught alongside a nurse scientist, and participated in a community interactive research workshop series. Popular education principles were used to guide team teaching. Topics, learning goals, lesson plans, and an evaluation w ere de veloped t ogether. ἀ ree, 4 -5.5 h our workshops were hosted. Topics included qualitative research, art of hearing data, reflexivity, analysis, validity, and dissemination. Community members and a nurse scientist co-constructed knowledge through participatory methods. ἀe workshops ran concurrent to the study timeline to inform community members' research activities and vice versa. A range from 8 to 20 participants attended the workshops, of which six community members were team teachers and three facilitated at each workshop. In an evaluation, team teachers reported workshop strengths: an empathetic and trusting learn ing environment, a sense of ownership in learning, a greater under standing of roles in research partnerships, and a feel ing of safety to conduct research with academic investigators. Academic investigators need to be aware that co-constructing knowledge is foundational to long-term sustainability of community-based participatory research partnership (CBPR) partnerships, but requires building team capacity to conduct research collaboratively.

Protecting Traditional Knowledge Related to Biological Resources: Is Scientific Research Going to Become More Bureaucratized?

PubMed

Reddy, Prashant; Lakshmikumaran, Malathi

2015-06-22

For the past several decades, there has been a world debate on the need for protecting traditional knowledge. A global treaty appears to be a distant reality. Of more immediate concern are the steps taken by the global community to protect access to biological resources in the name of protecting traditional knowledge. The Indian experience with implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity has created substantial legal uncertainty in collaborative scientific research between Indians and foreigners apart from bureaucratizing the entire process of scientific research, especially with regard to filing of applications for intellectual property rights. The issue therefore is whether the world needs to better balance the needs of the scientific community with the rights of those who have access to traditional knowledge. Copyright © 2015 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved.

Using community-based participatory research and organizational diagnosis to characterize relationships between community leaders and academic researchers.

PubMed

Wang, Karen H; Ray, Natasha J; Berg, David N; Greene, Ann T; Lucas, Georgina; Harris, Kenn; Carroll-Scott, Amy; Tinney, Barbara; Rosenthal, Marjorie S

2017-09-01

Sustaining collaborations between community-based organization leaders and academic researchers in community-engaged research (CEnR) in the service of decreasing health inequities necessitates understanding the collaborations from an inter-organizational perspective. We assessed the perspectives of community leaders and university-based researchers conducting community-engaged research in a medium-sized city with a history of community-university tension. Our research team, included experts in CEnR and organizational theory, used qualitative methods and purposeful, snowball sampling to recruit local participants and performed key informant interviews from July 2011-May 2012. A community-based researcher interviewed 11 community leaders, a university-based researcher interviewed 12 university-based researchers. We interviewed participants until we reached thematic saturation and performed analyses using the constant comparative method. Unifying themes characterizing community leaders and university-based researchers' relationships on the inter-organizational level include: 1) Both groups described that community-engaged university-based researchers are exceptions to typical university culture; 2) Both groups described that the interpersonal skills university-based researchers need for CEnR require a change in organizational culture and training; 3) Both groups described skepticism about the sustainability of a meaningful institutional commitment to community-engaged research 4) Both groups described the historical impact on research relationships of race, power, and privilege, but only community leaders described its persistent role and relevance in research relationships. Challenges to community-academic research partnerships include researcher interpersonal skills and different perceptions of the importance of organizational history. Solutions to improve research partnerships may include transforming university culture and community-university discussions on race

Global Biology Research Program: Program plan

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1983-01-01

Biological processes which play a dominant role in these cycles which transform and transfer much of this material throughout the biosphere are examined. A greater understanding of planetary biological processes as revealed by the interaction of the biota and the environment. The rationale, scope, research strategy, and research priorities of the global biology is presented.

Entering research: A course that creates community and structure for beginning undergraduate researchers in the STEM disciplines.

PubMed

Balster, Nicholas; Pfund, Christine; Rediske, Raelyn; Branchaw, Janet

2010-01-01

Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to enhance the educational experience and retention of college students, especially those from underrepresented populations. However, many challenges still exist relative to building community among students navigating large institutions. We developed a novel course called Entering Research that creates a learning community to support beginning undergraduate researchers and is designed to parallel the Entering Mentoring course for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty serving as mentors of undergraduate researchers. The course serves as a model that can be easily adapted for use across the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines using a readily available facilitator's manual. Course evaluations and rigorous assessment show that the Entering Research course helps students in many ways, including finding a mentor, understanding their place in a research community, and connecting their research to their course work in the biological and physical sciences. Students in the course reported statistically significant gains in their skills, knowledge, and confidence as researchers compared with a control group of students, who also were engaged in undergraduate research but not enrolled in this course. In addition, the faculty and staff members who served as facilitators of the Entering Research course described their experience as rewarding and one they would recommend to their colleagues.

BioMart Central Portal: an open database network for the biological community

PubMed Central

Guberman, Jonathan M.; Ai, J.; Arnaiz, O.; Baran, Joachim; Blake, Andrew; Baldock, Richard; Chelala, Claude; Croft, David; Cros, Anthony; Cutts, Rosalind J.; Di Génova, A.; Forbes, Simon; Fujisawa, T.; Gadaleta, E.; Goodstein, D. M.; Gundem, Gunes; Haggarty, Bernard; Haider, Syed; Hall, Matthew; Harris, Todd; Haw, Robin; Hu, S.; Hubbard, Simon; Hsu, Jack; Iyer, Vivek; Jones, Philip; Katayama, Toshiaki; Kinsella, R.; Kong, Lei; Lawson, Daniel; Liang, Yong; Lopez-Bigas, Nuria; Luo, J.; Lush, Michael; Mason, Jeremy; Moreews, Francois; Ndegwa, Nelson; Oakley, Darren; Perez-Llamas, Christian; Primig, Michael; Rivkin, Elena; Rosanoff, S.; Shepherd, Rebecca; Simon, Reinhard; Skarnes, B.; Smedley, Damian; Sperling, Linda; Spooner, William; Stevenson, Peter; Stone, Kevin; Teague, J.; Wang, Jun; Wang, Jianxin; Whitty, Brett; Wong, D. T.; Wong-Erasmus, Marie; Yao, L.; Youens-Clark, Ken; Yung, Christina; Zhang, Junjun; Kasprzyk, Arek

2011-01-01

BioMart Central Portal is a first of its kind, community-driven effort to provide unified access to dozens of biological databases spanning genomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, ontology information and more. Anybody can contribute an independently maintained resource to the Central Portal, allowing it to be exposed to and shared with the research community, and linking it with the other resources in the portal. Users can take advantage of the common interface to quickly utilize different sources without learning a new system for each. The system also simplifies cross-database searches that might otherwise require several complicated steps. Several integrated tools streamline common tasks, such as converting between ID formats and retrieving sequences. The combination of a wide variety of databases, an easy-to-use interface, robust programmatic access and the array of tools make Central Portal a one-stop shop for biological data querying. Here, we describe the structure of Central Portal and show example queries to demonstrate its capabilities. Database URL: http://central.biomart.org. PMID:21930507

Community-based Participatory Research

PubMed Central

Holkup, Patricia A.; Tripp-Reimer, Toni; Salois, Emily Matt; Weinert, Clarann

2009-01-01

Community-based participatory research (CBPR), with its emphasis on joining with the community as full and equal partners in all phases of the research process, makes it an appealing model for research with vulnerable populations. However, the CBPR approach is not without special challenges relating to ethical, cultural, and scientific issues. In this article, we describe how we managed the challenges we encountered while conducting a CBPR project with a Native American community. We also suggest criteria that will enable evaluation of the project. PMID:15455579

On measuring community participation in research.

PubMed

Khodyakov, Dmitry; Stockdale, Susan; Jones, Andrea; Mango, Joseph; Jones, Felica; Lizaola, Elizabeth

2013-06-01

Active participation of community partners in research aspects of community-academic partnered projects is often assumed to have a positive impact on the outcomes of such projects. The value of community engagement in research, however, cannot be empirically determined without good measures of the level of community participation in research activities. Based on our recent evaluation of community-academic partnered projects centered around behavioral health issues, this article uses semistructured interview and survey data to outline two complementary approaches to measuring the level of community participation in research-a "three-model" approach that differentiates between the levels of community participation and a Community Engagement in Research Index (CERI) that offers a multidimensional view of community engagement in the research process. The primary goal of this article is to present and compare these approaches, discuss their strengths and limitations, summarize the lessons learned, and offer directions for future research. We find that whereas the three-model approach is a simple measure of the perception of community participation in research activities, CERI allows for a more nuanced understanding by capturing multiple aspects of such participation. Although additional research is needed to validate these measures, our study makes a significant contribution by illustrating the complexity of measuring community participation in research and the lack of reliability in simple scores offered by the three-model approach.

Building community research capacity: process evaluation of community training and education in a community-based participatory research program serving a predominantly Puerto Rican community.

PubMed

Tumiel-Berhalter, Laurene M; McLaughlin-Diaz, Victoria; Vena, John; Crespo, Carlos J

2007-01-01

Education and training build community research capacity and have impact on improvements of health outcomes. This manuscript describes the training and educational approaches to building research capacity that were utilized in a community-based participatory research program serving a Puerto Rican population and identifies barriers and strategies for overcoming them. A process evaluation identified a multitiered approach to training and education that was critical to reaching the broad community. This approach included four major categories providing a continuum of education and training opportunities: networking, methods training, on-the-job experience, and community education. Participation in these opportunities supported the development of a registry, the implementation of a survey, and two published manuscripts. Barriers included the lack of a formal evaluation of the education and training components, language challenges that limited involvement of ethnic groups other than Puerto Ricans, and potential biases associated with the familiarity of the data collector and the participant. The CBPR process facilitated relationship development between the university and the community and incorporated the richness of the community experience into research design. Strategies for improvement include incorporating evaluation into every training and educational opportunity and developing measures to quantify research capacity at the individual and community levels. Evaluating training and education in the community allows researchers to quantify the impact of CBPR on building community research capacity.

Encouraging Student Biological Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frame, Kathy, Ed.; Hays, Rachel, Ed.; Mack, Alison, Ed.

This publication encourages student involvement in biological research through student research with the cooperation of teachers and scientists. The contents of the book are divided into two sections. The first section introduces students to research investigations and includes: (1) "How the Investigations Are Set Up and the Rationale Behind…

Rural Oregon community perspectives: introducing community-based participatory research into a community health coalition.

PubMed

Young-Lorion, Julia; Davis, Melinda M; Kirks, Nancy; Hsu, Anna; Slater, Jana Kay; Rollins, Nancy; Aromaa, Susan; McGinnis, Paul

2013-01-01

The Community Health Improvement Partnership (CHIP) model has supported community health development in more than 100 communities nationally. In 2011, four rural Oregon CHIPs collaborated with investigators from the Oregon Rural Practice-based Research Network (ORPRN), a component of the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (OCTRI), to obtain training on research methods, develop and implement pilot research studies on childhood obesity, and explore matches with academic partners. This article summarizes the experiences of the Lincoln County CHIP, established in 2003, as it transitioned from CHIP to Community Health Improvement and Research Partnership (CHIRP). Our story and lessons learned may inform rural community-based health coalitions and academicians who are engaged in or considering Community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. Utilizing existing infrastructure and relationships in community and academic settings provides an ideal starting point for rural, bidirectional research partnerships.

Initiatives in biological research in Indian psychiatry

PubMed Central

Shrivatava, Amresh

2010-01-01

Biological psychiatry is an exploratory science for mental health. These biological changes provide some explicit insight into the complex area of ‘brain-mind and behavior’. One major achievement of research in biological field is the finding to explain how biological factors cause changes in behavior. In India, we have a clear history of initiatives in research from a biological perspective, which goes back to 1958. In the last 61 years, this field has seen significant evolution, precision and effective utilization of contemporary technological advances. It is a matter of great pride to see that in spite of difficult times in terms of challenges of practice and services, administration, resource, funding and manpower the zest for research was very forthcoming. There was neither dedicated time nor any funding for conducting research. It came from the intellectual insight of our fore fathers in the field of mental health to gradually grow to the state of strategic education in research, training in research, international research collaborations and setting up of internationally accredited centers. During difficult economic conditions in the past, the hypothesis tested and conclusions derived have not been so important. It is more important how it was done, how it was made possible and how robust traditions were established. Almost an entire spectrum of biological research has been touched upon by Indian researchers. Some of these are electroconvulsive therapy, biological markers, neurocognition, neuroimaging, neuroendocrine, neurochemistry, electrophysiology and genetics. A lot has been published given the limited space in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry and other medical journals published in India. A large body of biological research conducted on Indian patients has also been published in International literature (which I prefer to call non-Indian journals). Newer research questions in biological psychiatry, keeping with trend of international standards are

Evaluating Community-Based Participatory Research to Improve Community-Partnered Science and Community Health

PubMed Central

Hicks, Sarah; Duran, Bonnie; Wallerstein, Nina; Avila, Magdalena; Belone, Lorenda; Lucero, Julie; Magarati, Maya; Mainer, Elana; Martin, Diane; Muhammad, Michael; Oetzel, John; Pearson, Cynthia; Sahota, Puneet; Simonds, Vanessa; Sussman, Andrew; Tafoya, Greg; Hat, Emily White

2013-01-01

Background Since 2007, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Policy Research Center (PRC) has partnered with the Universities of New Mexico and Washington to study the science of community-based participatory research (CBPR). Our goal is to identify facilitators and barriers to effective community–academic partnerships in American Indian and other communities, which face health disparities. Objectives We have described herein the scientific design of our National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study (2009–2013) and lessons learned by having a strong community partner leading the research efforts. Methods The research team is implementing a mixed-methods study involving a survey of principal investigators (PIs) and partners across the nation and in-depth case studies of CBPR projects. Results We present preliminary findings on methods and measures for community-engaged research and eight lessons learned thus far regarding partnership evaluation, advisory councils, historical trust, research capacity development of community partner, advocacy, honoring each other, messaging, and funding. Conclusions Study methodologies and lessons learned can help community–academic research partnerships translate research in communities. PMID:22982842

Synergy between medicinal chemistry and biological research.

PubMed

Moncada, Salvador; Coaker, Hannah

2014-09-01

Salvador Moncada studied medicine at the University of El Salvador (El Salvador) before coming to the UK in 1971 to work on a PhD with Professor John Vane at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons (UK). After a short period of research at the University of Honduras (Honduras), he joined the Wellcome Research Laboratories (UK) where he became Head of the Department of Prostaglandin Research and later, Director of Research. He returned to academic life in 1996 as founder and director of the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London (UK). Moncada played a role in the discovery of the mechanism of action of aspirin-like drugs and later led the teams which discover prostacyclin and identified nitric oxide as a biological mediator. In his role as a Director of Research of the Wellcome Laboratories, he oversaw the discovery and development of medicines for epilepsy, migraine, malaria and cancer. Currently, he is working on the regulation of cell proliferation as Director of the Institute of Cancer Sciences at the University of Manchester (UK). Moncada has won numerous awards from the international scientific community and in 2010, he received a knighthood from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to science.

Conducting Research With Community Groups.

PubMed

Doornbos, Mary Molewyk; Ayoola, Adejoke; Topp, Robert; Zandee, Gail Landheer

2015-10-01

Nurse scientists are increasingly recognizing the necessity of conducting research with community groups to effectively address complex health problems and successfully translate scientific advancements into the community. Although several barriers to conducting research with community groups exist, community-based participatory research (CBPR) has the potential to mitigate these barriers. CBPR has been employed in programs of research that respond in culturally sensitive ways to identify community needs and thereby address current health disparities. This article presents case studies that demonstrate how CBPR principles guided the development of (a) a healthy body weight program for urban, underserved African American women; (b) a reproductive health educational intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women; and (c) a pilot anxiety/depression intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women. These case studies illustrate the potential of CBPR as an orientation to research that can be employed effectively in non-research-intensive academic environments. © The Author(s) 2015.

Conducting Research with Community Groups

PubMed Central

Doornbos, Mary Molewyk; Ayoola, Adejoke; Topp, Robert; Zandee, Gail Landheer

2016-01-01

Nurse scientists are increasingly recognizing the necessity of conducting research with community groups to effectively address complex health problems and successfully translate scientific advancements into the community. While several barriers to conducting research with community groups exist, community based participatory research (CBPR) has the potential to mitigate these barriers. CBPR has been employed in programs of research that respond in culturally sensitive ways to identify community needs and thereby address current health disparities. This manuscript presents case studies that demonstrate how CBPR principles guided the development of: (a) a healthy body weight program for urban, underserved African-American women, (b) a reproductive health educational intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women, and (c) a pilot anxiety/depression intervention for urban, low-income, underserved, ethnically diverse women. These case studies illustrate the potential of CBPR as an orientation to research that can be employed effectively in non-research intensive academic environments. PMID:25724557

Discovering Our Delta: A Learning Guide for Community Research. Teacher Guide [and] Student Community Research Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies.

This teacher guide and student community research guide unit are intended to help students learn to conduct research in their community and to communicate the results of that research to classmates and others. The unit, which can be used in conjunction with a video, helps students learn about community research, oral history, and folklore…

Genome annotation in a community college cell biology lab.

PubMed

Beagley, C Timothy

2013-01-01

The Biology Department at Salt Lake Community College has used the IMG-ACT toolbox to introduce a genome mapping and annotation exercise into the laboratory portion of its Cell Biology course. This project provides students with an authentic inquiry-based learning experience while introducing them to computational biology and contemporary learning skills. Additionally, the project strengthens student understanding of the scientific method and contributes to student learning gains in curricular objectives centered around basic molecular biology, specifically, the Central Dogma. Importantly, inclusion of this project in the laboratory course provides students with a positive learning environment and allows for the use of cooperative learning strategies to increase overall student success. Copyright © 2012 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

Effectiveness of Blended Cooperative Learning Environment in Biology Teaching: Classroom Community Sense, Academic Achievement and Satisfaction

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yapici, I. Ümit

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of Blended Cooperative Learning Environment (BCLE) in biology teaching on students' classroom community sense, their academic achievement and on their levels of satisfaction. In the study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. The study was carried out with 30 students in…

Sharing Control: Developing Research Literacy through Community-Based Action Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Juergensmeyer, Erik

2011-01-01

This article suggests that the methodology of community-based action research provides concrete strategies for fostering effective community problem solving. To argue for a community research pedagogy, the author draws upon past and present scholarship in action research and participatory action research, experiences teaching an undergraduate…

An Introduction to Community-Based Participatory Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hergenrather, Kenneth C.; Geishecker, Steve; McGuire-Kuletz, Maureen; Gitlin, David J.; Rhodes, Scott D.

2010-01-01

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged as an approach designed to promote community health and well-being through the establishment and maintenance of research partnerships between communities and academic researchers. Rather than the academic researcher assuming what is best for a community, CBPR utilizes community partnerships…

Governing through community allegiance: a qualitative examination of peer research in community-based participatory research

PubMed Central

Guta, Adrian; Flicker, Sarah; Roche, Brenda

2013-01-01

The disappointing results of many public health interventions have been attributed in part to the lack of meaningful community engagement in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of these initiatives. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged as an alternative research paradigm that directly involves community members in all aspects of the research process. Their involvement is often said to be an empowering experience that builds capacity. In this paper, we interrogate these assumptions, drawing on interview data from a qualitative study investigating the experiences of 18 peer researchers (PRs) recruited from nine CBPR studies in Toronto, Canada. These individuals brought to their respective projects experience of homelessness, living with HIV, being an immigrant or refugee, identifying as transgender, and of having a mental illness. The reflections of PRs are compared to those of other research team members collected in separate focus groups. Findings from these interviews are discussed with an attention to Foucault's concept of ‘governmentality’, and compared against popular community-based research principles developed by Israel and colleagues. While PRs spoke about participating in CBPR initiatives to share their experience and improve conditions for their communities, these emancipatory goals were often subsumed within corporatist research environments that limited participation. Overall, this study offers a much-needed theoretical engagement with this popular research approach and raises critical questions about the limits of community engagement in collaborative public health research. PMID:24273389

An Introductory "How-to" Guide for Incorporating Microbiome Research into Integrative and Comparative Biology.

PubMed

Kohl, Kevin D

2017-10-01

Research on host-associated microbial communities has grown rapidly. Despite the great body of work, inclusion of microbiota-related questions into integrative and comparative biology is still lagging behind other disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to offer an introduction into the basic tools and techniques of host-microbe research. Specifically, what considerations should be made before embarking on such projects (types of samples, types of controls)? How is microbiome data analyzed and integrated with data measured from the hosts? How can researchers experimentally manipulate the microbiome? With this information, integrative and comparative biologists should be able to include host-microbe studies into their research and push the boundaries of both fields. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

[Role of academic social networks in disseminating the scientific production of researchers in biology/medicine: the example of ResearchGate].

PubMed

Boudry, Christophe; Bouchard, Aline

2017-01-01

Over time, academic social networks are more and more used by researchers, especially thanks to the possibilities of sharing articles they offer. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the proportion, the typology (pre-print, post-print author/publisher) and the legality of the full-text publications deposited by researchers on ResearchGate which is widely used by the medical and biological community, using a sample of 1,500 randomly selected articles in PubMed and published between 2013 and 2015. To compare, the access to the full-text of the 1500 articles via PubMed and PubMed Central has been assessed, putting into evidence the important role ResearchGate plays for providing full-texts of articles in biology/medicine. It also puts academic social networks into perspective in relation to open-access repositories and open access. © 2017 médecine/sciences – Inserm.

Increasing Residency Research Output While Cultivating Community Research Collaborations.

PubMed

Weaver, Sally P

2018-06-01

Having a research curriculum in addition to hosting a resident research day stimulates research activity in residency programs. Research collaborations outside an individual residency program may also promote research in residency. This paper describes a community-wide health research forum that engages faculty and residents in research while bringing together potential research collaborators from the community. A yearly research forum has been held at a large community-based family medicine residency program for the past 10 years. This forum invites both residency faculty and residents to present scholarly works, and also invites researchers from the community to present health-related research. Presenters outside the residency come from hospital systems, the local university, other residency programs, and community private physicians. Peer-reviewed research publications have increased greatly since the advent of the research forum in 2006, with six publications from 1997-2006 and 26 from 2007-2016. Greater increases in numbers of peer reviewed presentations were also seen. Collaborative research has occurred between residency faculty and multiple departments at the local university including the business school, social work, public health, physiology, and statistics. There are now 28 collaborative projects completed or in progress. Development and implementation of a regional health research event has been a success in increasing faculty and resident research productivity. The even greater success however, is the progress made in advancing research collaborations between the local university and the residency program.

Industrial methodology for process verification in research (IMPROVER): toward systems biology verification

PubMed Central

Meyer, Pablo; Hoeng, Julia; Rice, J. Jeremy; Norel, Raquel; Sprengel, Jörg; Stolle, Katrin; Bonk, Thomas; Corthesy, Stephanie; Royyuru, Ajay; Peitsch, Manuel C.; Stolovitzky, Gustavo

2012-01-01

Motivation: Analyses and algorithmic predictions based on high-throughput data are essential for the success of systems biology in academic and industrial settings. Organizations, such as companies and academic consortia, conduct large multi-year scientific studies that entail the collection and analysis of thousands of individual experiments, often over many physical sites and with internal and outsourced components. To extract maximum value, the interested parties need to verify the accuracy and reproducibility of data and methods before the initiation of such large multi-year studies. However, systematic and well-established verification procedures do not exist for automated collection and analysis workflows in systems biology which could lead to inaccurate conclusions. Results: We present here, a review of the current state of systems biology verification and a detailed methodology to address its shortcomings. This methodology named ‘Industrial Methodology for Process Verification in Research’ or IMPROVER, consists on evaluating a research program by dividing a workflow into smaller building blocks that are individually verified. The verification of each building block can be done internally by members of the research program or externally by ‘crowd-sourcing’ to an interested community. www.sbvimprover.com Implementation: This methodology could become the preferred choice to verify systems biology research workflows that are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated in industrial and academic settings. Contact: gustavo@us.ibm.com PMID:22423044

Building community participatory research coalitions from the ground up: the Philadelphia area research community coalition.

PubMed

Johnson, Jerry C; Hayden, U Tara; Thomas, Nicole; Groce-Martin, Jennine; Henry, Thomas; Guerra, Terry; Walker, Alia; West, William; Barnett, Marina; Kumanyika, Shiriki

2009-01-01

A coalition of formal, large organizations and informal, grassroots organizations, recruited through an open process, contrasts with the usual practice of developing a community-based participatory research (CBPR) coalition with a small number of well-developed organizations. This paper describes the process, developmental challenges, and accomplishments of the Philadelphia Area Research Community Coalition (PARCC). The University of Pennsylvania-Cheyney University of Pennsylvania EXPORT Center established the PARCC, an academic-community research partnership of twenty-two diverse organizations of variable size and with variable experience in health research. The EXPORT Center provided the infrastructure and staff support needed to engage in sustained, face-to-face community outreach and to nurture, coordinate, and facilitate the 2.5-year developmental process. The start-up process, governing principles, activities, challenges, and lessons learned are described. Since its inception, PARCC established core work groups, a governance structure, operating principles, research training activities, community health education projects, and several PARCC-affiliated research projects. Organizations across the spectrum of developmental capacity were major contributors to PARCC. The success of PARCC was based on committed and trusted leadership, preexisting relationships, trust among members from the community and academia, research training, extensive time commitment of members to the coalition's work, and rapid development of work group activities. Building a CBPR coalition from the ground up involving organizations of diverse size and at various stages of development presents unique challenges that can be overcome with committed leadership, clear governance principles, and appropriate infrastructure. Engagement in community-based research during the early stages, while still developing trust, structure, and governance procedures can be accomplished as long as training of

Researching in the community: the value and contribution of nurses to community based or primary health care research.

PubMed

Barthow, Christine; Jones, Bernadette; Macdonald, Lindsay; Vernall, Sue; Gallagher, Peter; McKinlay, Eileen

2015-05-01

To describe the role, contribution and value of research nurses in New Zealand community-based or primary health care research. Research nurses are increasingly recognised as having a key role in undertaking successful research in hospitals and clinical trial units however only limited work has been undertaken to examine their role in community-based research. Undertaking health research in the community has unique challenges particularly in relation to research design and recruitment and retention of participants. We describe four community-based research projects involving research nurses, each with particular recruitment, retention and logistical problems. Vignettes are used to illustrate the role, contribution and value of research nurses in a diverse range of community research projects. The knowledge and skills used by research nurses in these projects included familiarity with communities, cultural competence, health care systems and practice philosophies and in particular with vulnerable populations. Their research actions and activities include competence with a broad range of research methodologies, organisational efficiency, family-centred approach, along with advocacy and flexibility. These are underpinned by nursing knowledge and clinical expertise contributing to an ability to work autonomously. These four projects demonstrate that research nurses in community-based research possess specific attributes which facilitate successful study development, implementation and outcome.

openBIS: a flexible framework for managing and analyzing complex data in biology research

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Modern data generation techniques used in distributed systems biology research projects often create datasets of enormous size and diversity. We argue that in order to overcome the challenge of managing those large quantitative datasets and maximise the biological information extracted from them, a sound information system is required. Ease of integration with data analysis pipelines and other computational tools is a key requirement for it. Results We have developed openBIS, an open source software framework for constructing user-friendly, scalable and powerful information systems for data and metadata acquired in biological experiments. openBIS enables users to collect, integrate, share, publish data and to connect to data processing pipelines. This framework can be extended and has been customized for different data types acquired by a range of technologies. Conclusions openBIS is currently being used by several SystemsX.ch and EU projects applying mass spectrometric measurements of metabolites and proteins, High Content Screening, or Next Generation Sequencing technologies. The attributes that make it interesting to a large research community involved in systems biology projects include versatility, simplicity in deployment, scalability to very large data, flexibility to handle any biological data type and extensibility to the needs of any research domain. PMID:22151573

Community University Research Agreement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Settee, Priscilla; Thomas-Prokop, Shelley

2007-01-01

This paper describes the process of engaging the extended Indigenous community within Saskatoon and the surrounding First Nations communities in what would be a first major research project between Indigenous communities and the University of Saskatchewan. A management committee was established comprised of all the major Saskatoon/Saskatchewan…

Synthetic biology: An emerging research field in China

PubMed Central

Pei, Lei; Schmidt, Markus; Wei, Wei

2011-01-01

Synthetic biology is considered as an emerging research field that will bring new opportunities to biotechnology. There is an expectation that synthetic biology will not only enhance knowledge in basic science, but will also have great potential for practical applications. Synthetic biology is still in an early developmental stage in China. We provide here a review of current Chinese research activities in synthetic biology and its different subfields, such as research on genetic circuits, minimal genomes, chemical synthetic biology, protocells and DNA synthesis, using literature reviews and personal communications with Chinese researchers. To meet the increasing demand for a sustainable development, research on genetic circuits to harness biomass is the most pursed research within Chinese researchers. The environmental concerns are driven force of research on the genetic circuits for bioremediation. The research on minimal genomes is carried on identifying the smallest number of genomes needed for engineering minimal cell factories and research on chemical synthetic biology is focused on artificial proteins and expanded genetic code. The research on protocells is more in combination with the research on molecular-scale motors. The research on DNA synthesis and its commercialisation are also reviewed. As for the perspective on potential future Chinese R&D activities, it will be discussed based on the research capacity and governmental policy. PMID:21729747

The State as Community in Community-based Participatory Research

PubMed Central

Goold, Susan Dorr; Rowe, Zachary; Szymecko, Lisa; Coombe, Chris; Danis, Marion; Hammad, Adnan; Calhoun, Karen; Salman, Cengiz

2017-01-01

Background Community-based participatory research (CBPR) typically defines communities by geography, ethnicity, shared health needs, or some combination. Objectives We describe a CBPR project aiming to engage diverse minority and underserved communities throughout Michigan in deliberations about health research priorities. Methods A Steering Committee (SC) with 15 members from minority and underserved communities, and 4 members from research organizations led the project, with the help of regional advisory groups (RAGs) formed at the SC’s request. Evaluation of the SC used questionnaires, focused group discussion, and review of SC meetings to describe engagement, partnership, and communication. Lessons Learned An academic-community partnership with a diverse, dispersed and broadly defined community found value in RAGs, dedicated academic staff, face-to-face meetings, varied communication modalities, capacity building tailored to varying levels of CBPR experience, and ongoing evaluation. Conclusions A geographically and culturally diverse partnership presents challenges and opportunities in representativeness, relationship building, capacity building, and communication. PMID:28569676

pClone: Synthetic Biology Tool Makes Promoter Research Accessible to Beginning Biology Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell, A. Malcolm; Eckdahl, Todd; Cronk, Brian; Andresen, Corinne; Frederick, Paul; Huckuntod, Samantha; Shinneman, Claire; Wacker, Annie; Yuan, Jason

2014-01-01

The "Vision and Change" report recommended genuine research experiences for undergraduate biology students. Authentic research improves science education, increases the number of scientifically literate citizens, and encourages students to pursue research. Synthetic biology is well suited for undergraduate research and is a growing area…

78 FR 6087 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-29

... Biological and Environmental Research News from the Biological Systems Science and Climate and Environmental... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory Committee...

It's more than stamp collecting: how genome sequencing can unify biological research.

PubMed

Richards, Stephen

2015-07-01

The availability of reference genome sequences, especially the human reference, has revolutionized the study of biology. However, while the genomes of some species have been fully sequenced, a wide range of biological problems still cannot be effectively studied for lack of genome sequence information. Here, I identify neglected areas of biology and describe how both targeted species sequencing and more broad taxonomic surveys of the tree of life can address important biological questions. I enumerate the significant benefits that would accrue from sequencing a broader range of taxa, as well as discuss the technical advances in sequencing and assembly methods that would allow for wide-ranging application of whole-genome analysis. Finally, I suggest that in addition to 'big science' survey initiatives to sequence the tree of life, a modified infrastructure-funding paradigm would better support reference genome sequence generation for research communities most in need. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Division of Biological and Medical Research research summary 1984-1985

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barr, S.H.

1985-08-01

The Division of Biological and Medical Research at Argonne National Laboratory conducts multidisciplinary research aimed at defining the biological and medical hazards to man from energy technologies and new energy options. These technically oriented studies have a strong base in fundamental research in a variety of scientific disciplines, including molecular and cellular biology, biophysics, genetics, radiobiology, pharmacology, biochemistry, chemistry, environmental toxicology, and epidemiology. This research summary is organized into six parts. The first five parts reflect the Divisional structure and contain the scientific program chapters, which summarize the activities of the individual groups during the calendar year 1984 and themore » first half of 1985. To provide better continuity and perspective, previous work is sometimes briefly described. Although the summaries are short, efforts have been made to indicate the range of research activities for each group.« less

78 FR 34088 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-06-06

... Report from the Office of Biological and Environmental Research News from the Biological Systems Science... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory Committee...

77 FR 4028 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-01-26

... Report from the Office of Biological and Environmental Research News from the Biological Systems Science... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory...

Community-Based Participatory Research-Speed Dating: An Innovative Model for Fostering Collaborations Between Community Leaders and Academic Researchers.

PubMed

Tucker, Melanie T; Lewis, Dwight W; Payne Foster, Pamela; Lucky, Felecia; Yerby, Lea G; Hites, Lisle; Higginbotham, John C

2016-11-01

Developing meaningful community-based participatory relationships between researchers and the community can be challenging. The overall success of a community-based participatory relationship should be predicated on commitment and respect from empowered stakeholders. Prior to developing the technique discussed in this article, we hypothesized that the process of fostering relationships between researchers and the community was much like a social relationship: It has to develop organically and cannot be forced. To address this challenge, we developed a community-based participatory research-speed dating technique to foster relationships based on common interests, which we call CBPR-SD. This article describes the logistics of implementing CBPR-SD to foster scholarly collaborations. As part of a federally funded community-based research project, the speed dating technique was implemented for 10 researchers and 11 community leaders with a goal of developing scholarly collaborative groups who will submit applications for community-based research grants. In the end, four collaborative groups developed through CBPR-SD, three (75%) successfully submitted grant applications to fund pilot studies addressing obesity-related disparities in rural communities. Our preliminary findings suggest that CBPR-SD is a successful tool for promoting productive scholarly relationships between researchers and community leaders. © 2016 Society for Public Health Education.

76 FR 8357 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

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2011-02-14

... Report from the Office of Biological and Environmental Research News from the Biological Systems Science... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... announces a meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal...

On Measuring Community Participation in Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khodyakov, Dmitry; Stockdale, Susan; Jones, Andrea; Mango, Joseph; Jones, Felica; Lizaola, Elizabeth

2013-01-01

Active participation of community partners in research aspects of community-academic partnered projects is often assumed to have a positive impact on the outcomes of such projects. The value of community engagement in research, however, cannot be empirically determined without good measures of the level of community participation in research…

Finding the key - cell biology and science education.

PubMed

Miller, Kenneth R

2010-12-01

No international research community, cell biology included, can exist without an educational community to renew and replenish it. Unfortunately, cell biology researchers frequently regard their work as independent of the process of education and see little reason to reach out to science teachers. For cell biology to continue to prosper, I argue that researchers must support education in at least three ways. First, we must view education and research as part of a single scientific community. Second, we should take advantage of new technologies to connect the research laboratory to the classroom. Finally, we must take the initiative in defending the integrity of science teaching, particularly when education is under attack for political or religious reasons. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Perspectives of Community Co-Researchers About Group Dynamics and Equitable Partnership Within a Community-Academic Research Team.

PubMed

Vaughn, Lisa M; Jacquez, Farrah; Zhen-Duan, Jenny

2018-04-01

Equitable partnership processes and group dynamics, including individual, relational, and structural factors, have been identified as key ingredients to successful community-based participatory research partnerships. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the key aspects of group dynamics and partnership from the perspectives of community members serving as co-researchers. Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Latino immigrant co-researchers from an intervention project with Latinos Unidos por la Salud (LU-Salud), a community research team composed of Latino immigrant community members and academic investigators working in a health research partnership. A deductive framework approach guided the interview process and qualitative data analysis. The LU-Salud co-researchers described relationships, personal growth, beliefs/identity motivation (individual dynamics), coexistence (relational dynamics), diversity, and power/resource sharing (structural dynamics) as key foundational aspects of the community-academic partnership. Building on existing CBPR and team science frameworks, these findings demonstrate that group dynamics and partnership processes are fundamental drivers of individual-level motivation and meaning making, which ultimately sustain efforts of community partners to engage with the research team and also contribute to the achievement of intended research outcomes.

Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Research

Cancer.gov

Part of NCI's Division of Cancer Biology's research portfolio, research in this area seeks to understand the role of tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment (TME) in driving cancer initiation, progression, maintenance and recurrence.

From Biological to Program Efficacy: Promoting Dialogue among the Research, Policy, and Program Communities12

PubMed Central

Habicht, Jean-Pierre; Pelto, Gretel H.

2014-01-01

The biological efficacy of nutritional supplements to complement usual diets in poor populations is well established. This knowledge rests on decades of methodologic research development and, more recently, on codification of methods to compile and interpret results across studies. The challenge now is to develop implementation (delivery) science knowledge and achieve a similar consensus on efficacy criteria for the delivery of these nutrients by public health and other organizations. This requires analysis of the major policy instruments for delivery and well-designed program delivery studies that examine the flow of a nutrient through a program impact pathway. This article discusses the differences between biological and program efficacy, and why elucidating the fidelity of delivery along the program impact pathways is essential for implementing a program efficacy trial and for assessing its internal and external validity. Research on program efficacy is expanding, but there is a lack of adequate frameworks to facilitate the process of harmonizing concepts and vocabulary, which is essential for communication among scientists, policy planners, and program implementers. There is an urgent need to elaborate these frameworks at national and program levels not only for program efficacy studies but also for the broader research agenda to support and improve the science of delivering adequate nutrition to those who need it most. PMID:24425719

It’s More Than Stamp Collecting: How Genome Sequencing Can Unify Biological Research

PubMed Central

Richards, Stephen

2015-01-01

The availability of reference genome sequences, especially the human reference, has revolutionized the study of biology. However, whilst the genomes of some species have been fully sequenced, a wide range of biological problems still cannot be effectively studied for lack of genome sequence information. Here, I identify neglected areas of biology and describe how both targeted species sequencing and more broad taxonomic surveys of the tree of life can address important biological questions. I enumerate the significant benefits that would accrue from sequencing a broader range of taxa, as well as discuss the technical advances in sequencing and assembly methods that would allow for wide-ranging application of whole-genome analysis. Finally, I suggest that in addition to “Big Science” survey initiatives to sequence the tree of life, a modified infrastructure-funding paradigm would better support reference genome sequence generation for research communities most in need. PMID:26003218

ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY IN HEALTH RESEARCH IN INDIA

PubMed Central

Wells, Kristen J.; Preuss, Charles; Pathak, Yashwant; Kosambiya, J. K.; Kumar, Ambuj

2013-01-01

Community-engaged research approaches involve members of the community in various aspects of a research endeavor to improve the health of populations. Engaging the community in research is important in the development, dissemination, and evaluation of new interventions, technologies, and other medical advancements to improve population health globally. A review of published community-engaged research studies conducted in India was performed. Fifteen published studies were identified and reviewed to evaluate the state of community-engaged research in India. The review indicated that community-engaged research in India is limited. Most published community-engaged research focused on health promotion, especially in the prevention or management of HIV/AIDS and other STIs. Community members were involved in a variety of aspects of the research, but there was not one published article indicating that community members had defined the disease of focus. Community-engaged research often led to valuable insights into the views, experiences, and behaviors of community members and also led to increased community participation in health initiatives. It is anticipated that future community-engaged research will lead to improvements in global health through increased empowerment of communities and a better ability to implement new and innovative medical advances, technologies, and interventions. PMID:24353757

Has Modern Biology Entered the Mouth? The Clinical Impact of Biological Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baum, Bruce J.

1991-01-01

Three areas of biological research that are beginning to have an impact on clinical medicine are examined, including molecular biology, cell biology, and biotechnology. It is concluded that oral biologists and educators must work cooperatively to bring rapid biological and biomedical advances into dental training in a meaningful way. (MSE)

A Three Decade Evolution to Transdisciplinary Research: Community Health Research in California-Mexico Border Communities

PubMed Central

Elder, John P.; Ayala, Guadalupe X.; McKenzie, Thomas L.; Litrownik, Alan J.; Gallo, Linda C.; Arredondo, Elva M.; Talavera, Gregory A.; Kaplan, Robert M.

2013-01-01

Background The Institute for Behavioral and Community Health (IBACH) is a transdisciplinary organization with a team-oriented approach to the translation of research to practice and policy within the context of behavioral medicine. Objectives This paper tracks the growth of IBACH — in the context of evolving multi-university transdisciplinary research efforts — from a behavioral medicine research focus to community approaches to disease prevention and control, ultimately specializing in Latino health research and practice. We describe how this growth was informed by our partnerships with community members and organizations, and training a diverse array of students and young professionals. Methods Since 1982, IBACH’s research has evolved to address a greater breadth of factors associated with health and well-being. This was driven by our strong community focus and emphasis on collaborations, the diversity of our investigative teams, and our emphasis on training. Although behavioral science still forms the core of IBACH’s scientific orientation, research efforts extend beyond those traditionally examined. Conclusions IBACH’s “team science” successes have been fueled by a specific population emphasis making IBACH one of the nation’s leaders in Latino health behavior research. PMID:25435566

Plant biology research and training for the 21st century

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kelly, K.

1992-12-31

The committee was assembled in response to a request from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the US Department of Energy (DoE). The leadership of these agencies asked the National Academy of Sciences through the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the status of plant-science research in the United States in light of the opportunities arising from advances inother areas of biology. NRC was asked to suggest ways of accelerating the application of these new biologic concepts and tools to research in plant science with the aim of enhancing the acquisition of new knowledgemore » about plants. The charge to the committee was to examine the following: Organizations, departments, and institutions conducting plant biology research; human resources involved in plant biology research; graduate training programs in plant biology; federal, state, and private sources of support for plant-biology research; the role of industry in conducting and supporting plant-biology research; the international status of US plant-biology research; and the relationship of plant biology to leading-edge research in biology.« less

Plant biology research and training for the 21st century

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kelly, K.

1992-01-01

The committee was assembled in response to a request from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the US Department of Energy (DoE). The leadership of these agencies asked the National Academy of Sciences through the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the status of plant-science research in the United States in light of the opportunities arising from advances inother areas of biology. NRC was asked to suggest ways of accelerating the application of these new biologic concepts and tools to research in plant science with the aim of enhancing the acquisition of new knowledgemore » about plants. The charge to the committee was to examine the following: Organizations, departments, and institutions conducting plant biology research; human resources involved in plant biology research; graduate training programs in plant biology; federal, state, and private sources of support for plant-biology research; the role of industry in conducting and supporting plant-biology research; the international status of US plant-biology research; and the relationship of plant biology to leading-edge research in biology.« less

Commentary on the Future of Community Psychology: Perspective of a Research Community Psychologist.

PubMed

Milburn, Norweeta G

2016-12-01

Community psychology is commented upon from the perspective of a community psychologist who was trained in the Community Psychology Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her background and training are reviewed. A brief survey of research on homelessness as a frame for community psychology research is presented. Concluding remarks are provided on the future of research in community psychology. © Society for Community Research and Action 2016.

Community engagement research and dual diagnosis anonymous.

PubMed

Roush, Sean; Monica, Corbett; Pavlovich, Danny; Drake, Robert E

2015-01-01

Community engagement research is widely discussed but rarely implemented. This article describes the implementation of a community engagement research project on Dual Diagnosis Anonymous, a rapidly spreading peer support program in Oregon for people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders. After three years of discussions, overcoming barriers, and involving several institutions, this grassroots research project has been implemented and is expanding. Active participants in Dual Diagnosis Anonymous inspired and instructed policy makers, professionals, and students. Community engagement research requires frontline participants, community members, and professional collaborators to overcome multiple barriers with persistence and steadfastness. Building trust, collaboration, and structures for community engagement research takes time and a community effort.

Structural Biology and Molecular Applications Research

Cancer.gov

Part of NCI's Division of Cancer Biology's research portfolio, research and development in this area focuses on enabling technologies, models, and methodologies to support basic and applied cancer research.

Community-based Inquiry Improves Critical Thinking in General Education Biology

PubMed Central

Faiola, Celia L.; Johnson, James E.; Kurtz, Martha J.

2008-01-01

National stakeholders are becoming increasingly concerned about the inability of college graduates to think critically. Research shows that, while both faculty and students deem critical thinking essential, only a small fraction of graduates can demonstrate the thinking skills necessary for academic and professional success. Many faculty are considering nontraditional teaching methods that incorporate undergraduate research because they more closely align with the process of doing investigative science. This study compared a research-focused teaching method called community-based inquiry (CBI) with traditional lecture/laboratory in general education biology to discover which method would elicit greater gains in critical thinking. Results showed significant critical-thinking gains in the CBI group but decreases in a traditional group and a mixed CBI/traditional group. Prior critical-thinking skill, instructor, and ethnicity also significantly influenced critical-thinking gains, with nearly all ethnicities in the CBI group outperforming peers in both the mixed and traditional groups. Females, who showed decreased critical thinking in traditional courses relative to males, outperformed their male counterparts in CBI courses. Through the results of this study, it is hoped that faculty who value both research and critical thinking will consider using the CBI method. PMID:18765755

Biologically Inspired Micro-Flight Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Raney, David L.; Waszak, Martin R.

2003-01-01

Natural fliers demonstrate a diverse array of flight capabilities, many of which are poorly understood. NASA has established a research project to explore and exploit flight technologies inspired by biological systems. One part of this project focuses on dynamic modeling and control of micro aerial vehicles that incorporate flexible wing structures inspired by natural fliers such as insects, hummingbirds and bats. With a vast number of potential civil and military applications, micro aerial vehicles represent an emerging sector of the aerospace market. This paper describes an ongoing research activity in which mechanization and control concepts for biologically inspired micro aerial vehicles are being explored. Research activities focusing on a flexible fixed- wing micro aerial vehicle design and a flapping-based micro aerial vehicle concept are presented.

Collaborative Systems Biology Projects for the Military Medical Community.

PubMed

Zalatoris, Jeffrey J; Scheerer, Julia B; Lebeda, Frank J

2017-09-01

This pilot study was conducted to examine, for the first time, the ongoing systems biology research and development projects within the laboratories and centers of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). The analysis has provided an understanding of the breadth of systems biology activities, resources, and collaborations across all USAMRMC subordinate laboratories. The Systems Biology Collaboration Center at USAMRMC issued a survey regarding systems biology research projects to the eight U.S.-based USAMRMC laboratories and centers in August 2016. This survey included a data call worksheet to gather self-identified project and programmatic information. The general topics focused on the investigators and their projects, on the project's research areas, on omics and other large data types being collected and stored, on the analytical or computational tools being used, and on identifying intramural (i.e., USAMRMC) and extramural collaborations. Among seven of the eight laboratories, 62 unique systems biology studies were funded and active during the final quarter of fiscal year 2016. Of 29 preselected medical Research Task Areas, 20 were associated with these studies, some of which were applicable to two or more Research Task Areas. Overall, studies were categorized among six general types of objectives: biological mechanisms of disease, risk of/susceptibility to injury or disease, innate mechanisms of healing, diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, and host/patient responses to vaccines, and therapeutic strategies including host responses to therapies. We identified eight types of omics studies and four types of study subjects. Studies were categorized on a scale of increasing complexity from single study subject/single omics technology studies (23/62) to studies integrating results across two study subject types and two or more omics technologies (13/62). Investigators at seven USAMRMC laboratories had collaborations with systems biology experts

76 FR 57028 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-09-15

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... announces a meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal... Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington...

77 FR 55201 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

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2012-09-07

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... teleconference of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory... Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown Building...

78 FR 12043 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-02-21

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... teleconference of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory... of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown Building, 1000...

77 FR 28368 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-05-14

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory Committee... Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown Building...

Interfacing mathematics and biology: a discussion on training, research, collaboration, and funding.

PubMed

Miller, Laura A; Alben, Silas

2012-11-01

This article summarizes the discussion at a workshop on "Working at the Interface of Mathematics and Biology" at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The goal of this workshop was to foster an ongoing discussion by the community on how to effectively train students from the biological, physical, engineering, and mathematical sciences to work at the intersection of these fields. One major point of discussion centered on how to be a successful interdisciplinary researcher in terms of where to publish, how to successfully write grants, and how to navigate evaluations for tenure and promotion. An emphasis was placed on the importance of developing strong multidisciplinary collaborations and clearly defining one's career trajectory to the home discipline. Another focus of the discussion was on the training of students and postdoctoral fellows in interdisciplinary work and helping these junior researchers to launch their careers. The group emphasized the need for the development of publicly available resources for biologists to learn basic tools for mathematical modeling and for mathematicians and engineers to see how their fields may be applied to current topics in the life sciences.

Community-partnered research conference model: the experience of Community Partners in Care study.

PubMed

Khodyakov, Dmitry; Pulido, Esmeralda; Ramos, Ana; Dixon, Elizabeth

2014-01-01

Conducting community-partnered research conferences is a powerful yet underutilized approach to translating research into practice and improving result dissemination and intervention sustainability strategies. Nonetheless, detailed descriptions of conference features and ways to use them in empirical research are rare. We describe how community-partnered conferences may be integrated into research projects by using an example of Community Partners in Care (CPIC), a large, cluster-randomized, controlled, trial (RCT) that uses community-partnered participatory research (CPPR) principles. Our conceptual model illustrates the role community-partnered research conferences may play in three study phases and describes how different conference features may increase community engagement, build two-way capacity, and ensure equal project ownership. As the number of community-partnered studies grows, so too does the need for practical tools to support this work. Community-partnered research conferences may be effectively employed in translational research to increase two-way capacity building and promote long-term intervention success.

Community-Partnered Research Conference Model: The Experience of Community Partners in Care Study

PubMed Central

Khodyakov, Dmitry; Pulido, Esmeralda; Ramos, Ana; Dixon, Elizabeth

2013-01-01

The Problem Conducting community-partnered research conferences is a powerful yet underutilized approach to translating research into practice and improving result dissemination and intervention sustainability strategies. Nonetheless, detailed descriptions of conference features and ways to use them in empirical research are rare. Purpose of Article We describe how community-partnered conferences may be integrated into research projects by using an example of Community Partners in Care, a large cluster-randomized controlled trial that uses Community Partnered Participatory Research principles. Key Points Our conceptual model illustrates the role community-partnered research conferences may play in three study phases and describes how different conference features may increase community engagement, build two-way capacity, and ensure equal project ownership. Conclusion(s) As the number of community-partnered studies grows, so too does the need for practical tools to support this work. Community-partnered research conferences may be effectively employed in translational research to increase two-way capacity-building and promote long-term intervention success. PMID:24859106

Conducting research with communities of color

Treesearch

Leo McAvoy; Patricia L. Winter; Corliss W. Outley; Dan McDonald; Deborah J. Chavez

2000-01-01

This article presents the major challenges facing those who want to address the issues of race and ethnicity through research with communities of color; general methodological recommendations appropriate to many communities of color; and, specific research method recommendations for African American, American Indian, and Hispanic American communities.

The Biology of HIV/AIDS: A Case Study in Community Engagement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caccavo, Frank, Jr.

2008-01-01

This article describes a project for the Biology of HIV/AIDS course for undergraduate biology majors. This project challenged science students to engage the community on two different levels. They first had to interact directly and personally with HIV/AIDS activists. The proposal then encouraged them to think about and describe ways of engaging a…

75 FR 53685 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-09-01

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory.... Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown...

75 FR 6651 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

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2010-02-10

... From the Office of Science Report From the Office of Biological and Environmental Research News From... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department... meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). Federal Advisory...

Data integration in biological research: an overview.

PubMed

Lapatas, Vasileios; Stefanidakis, Michalis; Jimenez, Rafael C; Via, Allegra; Schneider, Maria Victoria

2015-12-01

Data sharing, integration and annotation are essential to ensure the reproducibility of the analysis and interpretation of the experimental findings. Often these activities are perceived as a role that bioinformaticians and computer scientists have to take with no or little input from the experimental biologist. On the contrary, biological researchers, being the producers and often the end users of such data, have a big role in enabling biological data integration. The quality and usefulness of data integration depend on the existence and adoption of standards, shared formats, and mechanisms that are suitable for biological researchers to submit and annotate the data, so it can be easily searchable, conveniently linked and consequently used for further biological analysis and discovery. Here, we provide background on what is data integration from a computational science point of view, how it has been applied to biological research, which key aspects contributed to its success and future directions.

76 FR 31319 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-31

... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... announces a teleconference meeting of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC.... Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, SC-23/Germantown...

Recruiting Research Participants at Community Education Sites

PubMed Central

SADLER, GEORGIA ROBINS; PETERSON, MELANIE; WASSERMAN, LINDA; MILLS, PAUL L.; MALCARNE, VANESSA L.; ROCK, CHERYL; ANCOLI-ISRAEL, SONIA; MOORE, AMANDA; WELDON, RAI-NESHA; GARCIA, TENISHA; KOLODNER, RICHARD D.

2006-01-01

Background Minority groups are underrepresented in research, making it difficult to apply medical advances with confidence. In this study, we explored whether community-based cancer education sites and educators serving the African American community could be used to recruit minority participants to research. Methods We invited Individuals at community education sites to provide buccal scrapings, saliva samples, psychometric data, and personal information anonymously. Results Culturally aligned community sites (100%) collaborated in the research recruitment, as did 83% of the individuals at those sites. Conclusion Community-based education sites offer exceptional promise for teaching about research benefits and recruiting members of minority groups to research studies. PMID:16497136

76 FR 78908 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

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2011-12-20

... hereby given that the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee will be renewed for a two... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of Science, Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of renewal of the Biological and Environmental Research...

Human subjects protections in community-engaged research: a research ethics framework.

PubMed

Ross, Lainie Friedman; Loup, Allan; Nelson, Robert M; Botkin, Jeffrey R; Kost, Rhonda; Smith, George R; Gehlert, Sarah

2010-03-01

In the 30 years since the Belmont Report, the role of the community in research has evolved and has taken on greater moral significance. Today, more and more translational research is being performed with the active engagement of individuals and communities rather than merely upon them. This engagement requires a critical examination of the range of risks that may arise when communities become partners in research. In attempting to provide such an examination, one must distinguish between established communities (groups that have their own organizational structure and leadership and exist regardless of the research) and unstructured groups (groups that may exist because of a shared trait but do not have defined leadership or internal cohesiveness). In order to participate in research as a community, unstructured groups must develop structure either by external means (by partnering with a Community-Based Organization) or by internal means (by empowering the group to organize and establish structure and leadership). When groups participate in research, one must consider risks to well-being due to process and outcomes. These risks may occur to the individual qua individual, but there are also risks that occur to the individual qua member of a group and also risks that occur to the group qua group. There are also risks to agency, both to the individual and the group. A 3-by-3 grid including 3 categories of risks (risks to well-being secondary to process, risks to well-being secondary to outcome and risks to agency) must be evaluated against the 3 distinct agents: individuals as individual participants, individuals as members of a group (both as participants and as nonparticipants) and to communities as a whole. This new framework for exploring the risks in community-engaged research can help academic researchers and community partners ensure the mutual respect that community-engaged research requires.

Dialogical action: moving from community-based to community-driven participatory research.

PubMed

Montoya, Michael J; Kent, Erin E

2011-07-01

Proponents of community-based research advocate for the active involvement and engagement of community members, citing improved construct validity, intervention efficacy, and accountability. However, to create the conditions in which expertise is mutually constructed and in which no one is the object of research, a reconsideration of the fundamental ethos of community involvement and engagement is required. In this article, we seek to accomplish two goals: (a) to briefly assess the definitions of community health, focus groups, and dissemination that are often used in community-based research; and (b) to introduce an application of dialogical action that goes beyond traditional focus group methodology to promote the creation of an evolving and dynamic dialogue among campus and community stakeholders. An urban case study is presented.

Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo) Research in Latin America.

PubMed

Marcellini, Sylvain; González, Favio; Sarrazin, Andres F; Pabón-Mora, Natalia; Benítez, Mariana; Piñeyro-Nelson, Alma; Rezende, Gustavo L; Maldonado, Ernesto; Schneider, Patricia Neiva; Grizante, Mariana B; Da Fonseca, Rodrigo Nunes; Vergara-Silva, Francisco; Suaza-Gaviria, Vanessa; Zumajo-Cardona, Cecilia; Zattara, Eduardo E; Casasa, Sofia; Suárez-Baron, Harold; Brown, Federico D

2017-01-01

Famous for its blind cavefish and Darwin's finches, Latin America is home to some of the richest biodiversity hotspots of our planet. The Latin American fauna and flora inspired and captivated naturalists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including such notable pioneers such as Fritz Müller, Florentino Ameghino, and Léon Croizat who made a significant contribution to the study of embryology and evolutionary thinking. But, what are the historical and present contributions of the Latin American scientific community to Evo-Devo? Here, we provide the first comprehensive overview of the Evo-Devo laboratories based in Latin America and describe current lines of research based on endemic species, focusing on body plans and patterning, systematics, physiology, computational modeling approaches, ecology, and domestication. Literature searches reveal that Evo-Devo in Latin America is still in its early days; while showing encouraging indicators of productivity, it has not stabilized yet, because it relies on few and sparsely distributed laboratories. Coping with the rapid changes in national scientific policies and contributing to solve social and health issues specific to each region are among the main challenges faced by Latin American researchers. The 2015 inaugural meeting of the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology played a pivotal role in bringing together Latin American researchers eager to initiate and consolidate regional and worldwide collaborative networks. Such networks will undoubtedly advance research on the extremely high genetic and phenotypic biodiversity of Latin America, bound to be an almost infinite source of amazement and fascinating findings for the Evo-Devo community. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Misbehaviors of Front-Line Research Personnel and the Integrity of Community-Based Research

PubMed Central

True, Gala; Alexander, Leslie B.; Richman, Kenneth A.

2012-01-01

There has been little empirical research into misconduct and misbehavior among community research workers who recruit and collect data in vulnerable and marginalized health populations and are also members of those same communities. We conducted qualitative interviews with community research workers and traditional research assistants to understand the context and consequences of misbehaviors that pose a threat to research ethics and data integrity. In our sample, more community research workers acknowledged engaging in research wrongdoing than did traditional research assistants. These behaviors were most prevalent among community research workers who were not well-integrated into the research team. We suggest best practices for investigators to promote an environment that supports research integrity in research projects that employ community research workers. PMID:21680972

Space Station Biological Research Project.

PubMed

Johnson, C C; Wade, C E; Givens, J J

1997-06-01

To meet NASA's objective of using the unique aspects of the space environment to expand fundamental knowledge in the biological sciences, the Space Station Biological Research Project at Ames Research Center is developing, or providing oversight, for two major suites of hardware which will be installed on the International Space Station (ISS). The first, the Gravitational Biology Facility, consists of Habitats to support plants, rodents, cells, aquatic specimens, avian and reptilian eggs, and insects and the Habitat Holding Rack in which to house them at microgravity; the second, the Centrifuge Facility, consists of a 2.5 m diameter centrifuge that will provide acceleration levels between 0.01 g and 2.0 g and a Life Sciences Glovebox. These two facilities will support the conduct of experiments to: 1) investigate the effect of microgravity on living systems; 2) what level of gravity is required to maintain normal form and function, and 3) study the use of artificial gravity as a countermeasure to the deleterious effects of microgravity observed in the crew. Upon completion, the ISS will have three complementary laboratory modules provided by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency, NASDA. Use of all facilities in each of the modules will be available to investigators from participating space agencies. With the advent of the ISS, space-based gravitational biology research will transition from 10-16 day short-duration Space Shuttle flights to 90-day-or-longer ISS increments.

Space Station Biological Research Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, C. C.; Wade, C. E.; Givens, J. J.

1997-01-01

To meet NASA's objective of using the unique aspects of the space environment to expand fundamental knowledge in the biological sciences, the Space Station Biological Research Project at Ames Research Center is developing, or providing oversight, for two major suites of hardware which will be installed on the International Space Station (ISS). The first, the Gravitational Biology Facility, consists of Habitats to support plants, rodents, cells, aquatic specimens, avian and reptilian eggs, and insects and the Habitat Holding Rack in which to house them at microgravity; the second, the Centrifuge Facility, consists of a 2.5 m diameter centrifuge that will provide acceleration levels between 0.01 g and 2.0 g and a Life Sciences Glovebox. These two facilities will support the conduct of experiments to: 1) investigate the effect of microgravity on living systems; 2) what level of gravity is required to maintain normal form and function, and 3) study the use of artificial gravity as a countermeasure to the deleterious effects of microgravity observed in the crew. Upon completion, the ISS will have three complementary laboratory modules provided by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency, NASDA. Use of all facilities in each of the modules will be available to investigators from participating space agencies. With the advent of the ISS, space-based gravitational biology research will transition from 10-16 day short-duration Space Shuttle flights to 90-day-or-longer ISS increments.

Including a Service Learning Educational Research Project in a Biology Course-II: Assessing Community Awareness of Legionnaires' Disease?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Shakra, Amal

2012-01-01

For a university service learning educational research project addressing Legionnaires' disease (LD), a Yes/No questionnaire on community awareness of LD was developed and distributed in an urban community in North Carolina, USA. The 456 questionnaires completed by the participants were sorted into yes and no sets based on responses obtained to…

Detecting and evaluating communities in complex human and biological networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrison, Greg; Mahadevan, L.

2012-02-01

We develop a simple method for detecting the community structure in a network can by utilizing a measure of closeness between nodes. This approach readily leads to a method of coarse graining the network, which allows the detection of the natural hierarchy (or hierarchies) of community structure without appealing to an unknown resolution parameter. The closeness measure can also be used to evaluate the robustness of an individual node's assignment to its community (rather than evaluating only the quality of the global structure). Each of these methods in community detection and evaluation are illustrated using a variety of real world networks of either biological or sociological importance and illustrate the power and flexibility of the approach.

Establishing Causality: Opportunities of Synthetic Communities for Plant Microbiome Research.

PubMed

Vorholt, Julia A; Vogel, Christine; Carlström, Charlotte I; Müller, Daniel B

2017-08-09

Plant microbiome research highlights the importance of indigenous microbial communities for host phenotypes such as growth and health. It aims to discover the molecular basis by which host-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions shape and maintain microbial communities and to understand the role of individual microorganisms, as well as their collective ecosystem function. Here, we discuss reductionist approaches to disentangle the inherent complexity of interactions in situ. Experimentally tractable, synthetic communities enable testing of hypotheses by targeted manipulation in gnotobiotic systems. Modifications of microbial, host, and environmental parameters allow for the quantitative assessment of host and microbe characteristics with dynamic and spatial resolution. We summarize first insights from this emerging field and discuss current challenges and limitations. Using multifaceted approaches to detect interactions and functions will provide new insights into the fundamental biology of plant-microbe interactions and help to harness the power of the microbiome. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Structural biology computing: Lessons for the biomedical research sciences.

PubMed

Morin, Andrew; Sliz, Piotr

2013-11-01

The field of structural biology, whose aim is to elucidate the molecular and atomic structures of biological macromolecules, has long been at the forefront of biomedical sciences in adopting and developing computational research methods. Operating at the intersection between biophysics, biochemistry, and molecular biology, structural biology's growth into a foundational framework on which many concepts and findings of molecular biology are interpreted1 has depended largely on parallel advancements in computational tools and techniques. Without these computing advances, modern structural biology would likely have remained an exclusive pursuit practiced by few, and not become the widely practiced, foundational field it is today. As other areas of biomedical research increasingly embrace research computing techniques, the successes, failures and lessons of structural biology computing can serve as a useful guide to progress in other biomedically related research fields. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The applications of computers in biological research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wei, Jennifer

1988-01-01

Research in many fields could not be done without computers. There is often a great deal of technical data, even in the biological fields, that need to be analyzed. These data, unfortunately, previously absorbed much of every researcher's time. Now, due to the steady increase in computer technology, biological researchers are able to make incredible advances in their work without the added worries of tedious and difficult tasks such as the many mathematical calculations involved in today's research and health care.

Research Ethics Education for Community-Engaged Research: A Review and Research Agenda

PubMed Central

Anderson, Emily E.; Solomon, Stephanie; Heitman, Elizabeth; DuBois, James M.; Fisher, Celia B.; Kost, Rhonda G.; Lawless, Mary Ellen; Ramsey, Cornelia; Jones, Bonnie; Ammerman, Alice; Ross, Lainie Friedman

2012-01-01

Community engagement is increasingly becoming an integral part of research. “Community-engaged research” (CEnR) introduces new stakeholders as well as unique challenges to the protection of participants and the integrity of the research process. We—a group of representatives of CTSA-funded institutions and others who share expertise in research ethics and CEnR—have identified gaps in the literature regarding (1) ethical issues unique to CEnR; (2) the particular instructional needs of academic investigators, community research partners, and IRB members; and (3) best practices for teaching research ethics. This paper presents what we know, as well as what we still need to learn, in order to develop quality research ethics educational materials tailored to the full range of stakeholder groups in CEnR. PMID:22565579

Biological Databases for Human Research

PubMed Central

Zou, Dong; Ma, Lina; Yu, Jun; Zhang, Zhang

2015-01-01

The completion of the Human Genome Project lays a foundation for systematically studying the human genome from evolutionary history to precision medicine against diseases. With the explosive growth of biological data, there is an increasing number of biological databases that have been developed in aid of human-related research. Here we present a collection of human-related biological databases and provide a mini-review by classifying them into different categories according to their data types. As human-related databases continue to grow not only in count but also in volume, challenges are ahead in big data storage, processing, exchange and curation. PMID:25712261

Temporal change in biological community structure in the Fountain Creek basin, Colorado, 2001-2008

USGS Publications Warehouse

Zuellig, Robert E.; Bruce, James F.; Stogner, Sr., Robert W.

2010-01-01

In 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Colorado Springs City Engineering, began a study to better understand the relations between environmental characteristics and biological communities in the Fountain Creek basin in order to aide water-resource management and guide future monitoring activities. To accomplish this task, environmental (streamflow, habitat, and water chemistry) and biological (fish and macroinvertebrate) data were collected annually at 24 sites over a 6- or 8-year period (fish, 2003 to 2008; macroinvertebrates, 2001 to 2008). For this report, these data were first analyzed to determine the presence of temporal change in macroinvertebrate and fish community structure among years using nonparametric multivariate statistics. Where temporal change in the biological communities was found, these data were further analyzed using additional nonparametric multivariate techniques to determine which subset of selected streamflow, habitat, or water-chemistry variables best described site-specific changes in community structure relative to a gradient of urbanization. This study identified significant directional patterns of temporal change in macroinvertebrate and fish community structure at 15 of 24 sites in the Fountain Creek basin. At four of these sites, changes in environmental variables were significantly correlated with the concurrent temporal change identified in macroinvertebrate and fish community structure (Monument Creek above Woodmen Road at Colorado Springs, Colo.; Monument Creek at Bijou Street at Colorado Springs, Colo.; Bear Creek near Colorado Springs, Colo.; Fountain Creek at Security, Colo.). Combinations of environmental variables describing directional temporal change in the biota appeared to be site specific as no single variable dominated the results; however, substrate composition variables (percent substrate composition composed of sand, gravel, or cobble) collectively were present in 80 percent of the environmental

From Innovation to Impact at Scale: Lessons Learned from a Cluster of Research-Community Partnerships

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schindler, Holly S.; Fisher, Philip A.; Shonkoff, Jack P.

2017-01-01

This article presents a description of how an interdisciplinary network of academic researchers, community-based programs, parents, and state agencies have joined together to design, test, and scale a suite of innovative intervention strategies rooted in new knowledge about the biology of adversity. Through a process of cocreation, collective…

Community Researchers Conducting Health Disparities Research: Ethical and other insights from fieldwork journaling

PubMed Central

Mosavel, Maghboeba; Ahmed, Rashid; Daniels, Doria; Simon, Christian

2011-01-01

Lay persons who are trained to conduct research in their own communities form an essential part of many research projects. However, the effects of conducting research in their own communities have not been adequately explored. This paper examines the experiences, perceptions, and challenges faced by a group of community researchers during their involvement in a research project that examined if, and how, the relationships between mothers and their adolescent daughters could be harnessed to develop a daughter-initiated cervical cancer intervention. Seven community researchers interviewed 157 mother-daughter pairs in Cape Town, South Africa. We examine the use of journaling as a tool to document the experiences of community researchers, and we consider how journaling may help the community-based researcher grapple with the research process, and, more broadly, what such journal content illustrates with respect to the nature and challenges of community-engaged health research. An analysis of the content of the journals provides a strong indication of how personal and intimate the research process can be for community researchers by virtue of the background that they bring into the process as well as the additional weight of the research process itself. The complexities of navigating dual and somewhat oppositional roles – the role of impartial scientist or researcher and the role of invested community person - has been both underestimated and insufficiently researched. PMID:21680071

Engaging Underrepresented Minorities in Research: Our Vision for a "Research-Friendly Community".

PubMed

Olson, Mary; Cottoms, Naomi; Sullivan, Greer

2015-01-01

This article introduces our "Research-Friendly Community" vision, placing research in the arena of social justice by giving citizens a voice and opportunity to actively determine research agendas in their community. The mission of Tri-County Rural Health Network, a minority-owned, community-based nonprofit serving 16 counties in Arkansas' Mississippi River Delta region, is to increase access to health-related services and opportunities to both participate in and shape research. Tri-County has built trust with the community through the use of Deliberative Democracy Forums, a model devised by the Kettering Foundation and through a community health worker program called Community Connectors. Over time, a partnership was formed with investigators at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Tri-County serves as a boundary spanner to link community members, other community organizations, local politicians, policy maker, and researchers. We describe our experience for other nonprofits or universities who might want to develop a similar program.

Community-university Research Liaisons: Translating the Languages of Research and Culture

PubMed Central

Bends, Ada; Burns, Charlene; Yellowman-Caye, Pearl; Rider, Tammy; Salois, Emily Matt; Sutherland, Annette; Todd, Mike; LaVeaux, Deb; Christopher, Suzanne

2014-01-01

This article describes the experiences of six individuals employed as community-university research liaisons in a grant-funded centre for health disparities research. The liaisons were located in Native American communities and bridged the communities and the university, providing information between these groups, expanding understanding and knowledge of how research can address health disparities, and assisting in the development and ongoing work of partnerships using CBPR approaches. While tribal communities within the state may face similar health disparities, the approach to solving these disparities must be based on an understanding of the context and environment of the specific tribal community. In this paper, the tribal liaisons share their stories of negotiating and navigating their unique positions. Suggestions for utilizing tribal community-university positions to support community and partnership development are offered. PMID:25285102

Hydrogeomorphology explains acidification-driven variation in aquatic biological communities in the Neversink Basin, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Harpold, Adrian A.; Burns, Douglas A.; Walter, M.T.; Steenhuis, Tammo S.

2013-01-01

Describing the distribution of aquatic habitats and the health of biological communities can be costly and time-consuming; therefore, simple, inexpensive methods to scale observations of aquatic biota to watersheds that lack data would be useful. In this study, we explored the potential of a simple “hydrogeomorphic” model to predict the effects of acid deposition on macroinvertebrate, fish, and diatom communities in 28 sub-watersheds of the 176-km2 Neversink River basin in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. The empirical model was originally developed to predict stream-water acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) using the watershed slope and drainage density. Because ANC is known to be strongly related to aquatic biological communities in the Neversink, we speculated that the model might correlate well with biotic indicators of ANC response. The hydrogeomorphic model was strongly correlated to several measures of macroinvertebrate and fish community richness and density, but less strongly correlated to diatom acid tolerance. The model was also strongly correlated to biological communities in 18 sub-watersheds independent of the model development, with the linear correlation capturing the strongly acidic nature of small upland watersheds (2). Overall, we demonstrated the applicability of geospatial data sets and a simple hydrogeomorphic model for estimating aquatic biological communities in areas with stream-water acidification, allowing estimates where no direct field observations are available. Similar modeling approaches have the potential to complement or refine expensive and time-consuming measurements of aquatic biota populations and to aid in regional assessments of aquatic health.

Reflections on a community and university research collaboration.

PubMed

Mayo, Kevin; Tsey, Komla

2009-08-01

This paper reflects on the collaborative research relationship between university and community researchers. It identifies emergent themes expressed in the words of researchers and recommends strategies to assist with other research collaborations. Emergent themes included: Initial reticence by community members followed by positive experiences; the value of empowerment frameworks in research; building trust between community and university researchers; capacity building, management, and workloads; and community politics, misunderstandings and wealth disparity. The paper recommends strategies for successful research collaborations and identifies challenges to research collaborations.

77 FR 55200 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-09-07

... News from the Biological Systems Science and Climate and Environmental Sciences Divisions Discussion of... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC). The Federal Advisory Committee...

Biology Education Research: Lessons and Future Directions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singer, Susan R.; Nielsen, Natalie R.; Schweingruber, Heidi A.

2013-01-01

Biologists have long been concerned about the quality of undergraduate biology education. Over time, however, biology faculty members have begun to study increasingly sophisticated questions about teaching and learning in the discipline. These scholars, often called biology education researchers, are part of a growing field of inquiry called…

Quantitative proteomics in biological research.

PubMed

Wilm, Matthias

2009-10-01

Proteomics has enabled the direct investigation of biological material, at first through the analysis of individual proteins, then of lysates from cell cultures, and finally of extracts from tissues and biopsies from entire organisms. Its latest manifestation - quantitative proteomics - allows deeper insight into biological systems. This article reviews the different methods used to extract quantitative information from mass spectra. It follows the technical developments aimed toward global proteomics, the attempt to characterize every expressed protein in a cell by at least one peptide. When applications of the technology are discussed, the focus is placed on yeast biology. In particular, differential quantitative proteomics, the comparison between an experiment and its control, is very discriminating for proteins involved in the process being studied. When trying to understand biological processes on a molecular level, differential quantitative proteomics tends to give a clearer picture than global transcription analyses. As a result, MS has become an even more indispensable tool for biochemically motivated biological research.

Toward University Modeling Instruction—Biology: Adapting Curricular Frameworks from Physics to Biology

PubMed Central

Manthey, Seth; Brewe, Eric

2013-01-01

University Modeling Instruction (UMI) is an approach to curriculum and pedagogy that focuses instruction on engaging students in building, validating, and deploying scientific models. Modeling Instruction has been successfully implemented in both high school and university physics courses. Studies within the physics education research (PER) community have identified UMI's positive impacts on learning gains, equity, attitudinal shifts, and self-efficacy. While the success of this pedagogical approach has been recognized within the physics community, the use of models and modeling practices is still being developed for biology. Drawing from the existing research on UMI in physics, we describe the theoretical foundations of UMI and how UMI can be adapted to include an emphasis on models and modeling for undergraduate introductory biology courses. In particular, we discuss our ongoing work to develop a framework for the first semester of a two-semester introductory biology course sequence by identifying the essential basic models for an introductory biology course sequence. PMID:23737628

Toward university modeling instruction--biology: adapting curricular frameworks from physics to biology.

PubMed

Manthey, Seth; Brewe, Eric

2013-06-01

University Modeling Instruction (UMI) is an approach to curriculum and pedagogy that focuses instruction on engaging students in building, validating, and deploying scientific models. Modeling Instruction has been successfully implemented in both high school and university physics courses. Studies within the physics education research (PER) community have identified UMI's positive impacts on learning gains, equity, attitudinal shifts, and self-efficacy. While the success of this pedagogical approach has been recognized within the physics community, the use of models and modeling practices is still being developed for biology. Drawing from the existing research on UMI in physics, we describe the theoretical foundations of UMI and how UMI can be adapted to include an emphasis on models and modeling for undergraduate introductory biology courses. In particular, we discuss our ongoing work to develop a framework for the first semester of a two-semester introductory biology course sequence by identifying the essential basic models for an introductory biology course sequence.

Why infectious disease research needs community ecology

PubMed Central

Johnson, Pieter T. J.; de Roode, Jacobus C.; Fenton, Andy

2016-01-01

Infectious diseases often emerge from interactions among multiple species and across nested levels of biological organization. Threats as diverse as Ebola virus, human malaria, and bat white-nose syndrome illustrate the need for a mechanistic understanding of the ecological interactions underlying emerging infections. We describe how recent advances in community ecology can be adopted to address contemporary challenges in disease research. These analytical tools can identify the factors governing complex assemblages of multiple hosts, parasites, and vectors, and reveal how processes link across scales from individual hosts to regions. They can also determine the drivers of heterogeneities among individuals, species, and regions to aid targeting of control strategies. We provide examples where these principles have enhanced disease management and illustrate how they can be further extended. PMID:26339035

Using mixed methods when researching communities.

PubMed

Ochieng, Bertha M N; Meetoo, Danny

2015-09-01

To argue for the use of mixed methods when researching communities. Although research involving minority communities is now advanced, not enough effort has been made to formulate methodological linkages between qualitative and quantitative methods in most studies. For instance, the quantitative approaches used by epidemiologists and others in examining the wellbeing of communities are usually empirical. While the rationale for this is sound, quantitative findings can be expanded with data from in-depth qualitative approaches, such as interviews or observations, which are likely to provide insights into the experiences of people in those communities and their relationships with their wellbeing. Academic databases including The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CINAHL, AMED, INTERNURSE, Science Direct, Web of Knowledge and PubMed. An iterative process of identifying eligible literature was carried out by comprehensively searching electronic databases. Using mixed-methods approaches is likely to address any potential drawbacks of individual methods by exploiting the strengths of each at the various stages of research. Combining methods can provide additional ways of looking at a complex problem and improve the understanding of a community's experiences. However, it is important for researchers to use the different methods interactively during their research. The use of qualitative and quantitative methods is likely to enrich our understanding of the interrelationship between wellbeing and the experiences of communities. This should help researchers to explore socio-cultural factors and experiences of health and healthcare practice more effectively.

Identifying biologically relevant differences between metagenomic communities.

PubMed

Parks, Donovan H; Beiko, Robert G

2010-03-15

Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. Taxonomic and functional differences between metagenomic samples can highlight the influence of ecological factors on patterns of microbial life in a wide range of habitats. Statistical hypothesis tests can help us distinguish ecological influences from sampling artifacts, but knowledge of only the P-value from a statistical hypothesis test is insufficient to make inferences about biological relevance. Current reporting practices for pairwise comparative metagenomics are inadequate, and better tools are needed for comparative metagenomic analysis. We have developed a new software package, STAMP, for comparative metagenomics that supports best practices in analysis and reporting. Examination of a pair of iron mine metagenomes demonstrates that deeper biological insights can be gained using statistical techniques available in our software. An analysis of the functional potential of 'Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis' in two enhanced biological phosphorus removal metagenomes identified several subsystems that differ between the A.phosphatis stains in these related communities, including phosphate metabolism, secretion and metal transport. Python source code and binaries are freely available from our website at http://kiwi.cs.dal.ca/Software/STAMP CONTACT: beiko@cs.dal.ca Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

78 FR 77111 - Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-12-20

..., General Services Administration, notice is hereby given that the Biological and Environmental Research... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Office of... provides advice and recommendations to the Director, Office of Science on the biological and environmental...

Researching health inequalities with Community Researchers: practical, methodological and ethical challenges of an 'inclusive' research approach.

PubMed

Salway, Sarah; Chowbey, Punita; Such, Elizabeth; Ferguson, Beverly

2015-01-01

Public health research sometimes uses members of communities as researchers. These are called Community Researchers. The advantage of using Community Researchers is that it enables people who live in communities to participate in research by designing the research, gathering data and being involved in analysis. This 'participatory' approach also has the potential to reach communities that might otherwise not be included in research. There are few studies that report the experiences of Community Researchers who take part in such research. This study helps fill this gap by exploring the issues and challenges faced by Community Researchers involved in a study of health and poverty in ethnically mixed areas of east London, UK. Through the accounts of 12 researchers, the study reveals that being a community 'insider' had advantages: many felt they had been able to gain the trust of respondents and access people for the research that would have otherwise been missed. The role of Community Researcher was, however, difficult to manage with some researchers feeling burdened by their role and the increased knowledge they had about the lives of those in their community. In addition to the personal challenges for the Community Researchers, the findings raise various ethical and methodological issues that need consideration in participatory research. Background Inclusive research approaches are increasingly employed by public health researchers. Recent methodological development includes the engagement of Community Researchers (CRs), who use their knowledge and networks to facilitate research with the community with which they identify. Few studies have explored the experiences of CRs in the research process, an important element of any comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of such research endeavours. We report here on the experiences of CRs engaged in a study of health inequalities and poverty in ethnically diverse and disadvantaged areas of London, UK. Methods We

Community College a Research Puzzle

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Viadero, Debra

2009-01-01

When President Barack Obama unveiled his plans this summer for a $12 billion federal investment in the nation's community colleges, he said he wanted the initiative to yield an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020. Research suggests that reaching that goal may be a tall order. Community colleges have abysmal graduation rates:…

Biology of an Enzyme: A Research-Like Experience for Introductory Biology Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Towle, David W.

1992-01-01

Presents a series of laboratory exercises designed to introduce students to a realistic experience in biological research that is feasible with large numbers of beginning biology majors. The exercises center on the study of alkaline phosphatase. (DDR)

Building Community Capacity: Sustaining the Effects of Multiple, Two-Year Community-based Participatory Research Projects

PubMed Central

Rosenthal, Marjorie S.; Barash, Jed; Blackstock, Oni; Ellis-West, Shirley; Filice, Clara; Furie, Gregg; Greysen, S. Ryan; Malone, Sherman; Tinney, Barbara; Yun, Katherine; Lucas, Georgina I.

2015-01-01

Background The time-limited nature of health and public health research fellowships poses a challenge to trainees’ and community partners’ efforts to sustain effective, collaborative, community-based participatory research (CBPR) relationships. Objectives This paper presents CBPR case studies of partnerships between health services research trainees and community organization leaders in a medium-sized city to describe how participation in the partnership altered community partners’ understanding and willingness to conduct research and to engage with research-derived data. Methods Trainees and faculty used participatory methods with community leaders to identify research questions, and conduct and disseminate research. Throughout the process, trainees and faculty included research capacity building of community partners as a targeted outcome. Community partners were asked to reflect retrospectively on community research capacity building in the context of CBPR projects. Reflections were discussed and categorized by the authorship team, who grouped observations into topics that may serve as a foundation for development of future prospective analyses. Results Important ideas shared include that trainee participation in CBPR may have an enduring impact on the community by increasing the capacity of community partners and agencies to engage in research beyond that which they are conducting with the current trainee. Conclusion We posit that CBPR with research trainees may have an additive effect on community research capacity when it is conducted in collaboration with community leaders and focuses on a single region. More research is needed to characterize this potential outcome. PMID:25435563

Building community capacity: sustaining the effects of multiple, two-year community-based participatory research projects.

PubMed

Rosenthal, Marjorie S; Barash, Jed; Blackstock, Oni; Ellis-West, Shirley; Filice, Clara; Furie, Gregg; Greysen, S Ryan; Malone, Sherman; Tinney, Barbara; Yun, Katherine; Lucas, Georgina I

2014-01-01

The time-limited nature of health and public health research fellowships poses a challenge to trainees' and community partners' efforts to sustain effective, collaborative, community-based participatory research (CBPR) relationships. This paper presents CBPR case studies of partnerships between health services research trainees and community organization leaders in a medium-sized city to describe how participation in the partnership altered community partners' understanding and willingness to conduct research and to engage with research-derived data. Trainees and faculty used participatory methods with community leaders to identify research questions, and conduct and disseminate research. Throughout the process, trainees and faculty included research capacity building of community partners as a targeted outcome. Community partners were asked to reflect retrospectively on community research capacity building in the context of CBPR projects. Reflections were discussed and categorized by the authorship team, who grouped observations into topics that may serve as a foundation for development of future prospective analyses. Important ideas shared include that trainee participation in CBPR may have an enduring impact on the community by increasing the capacity of community partners and agencies to engage in research beyond that which they are conducting with the current trainee. We posit that CBPR with research trainees may have an additive effect on community research capacity when it is conducted in collaboration with community leaders and focuses on a single region. More research is needed to characterize this potential outcome.

Public-academic partnerships: research in community mental health settings: a practicum experience for researchers.

PubMed

Miller, Alexander L; Lopez, Linda; Gonzalez, Jodi M; Dassori, Albana; Bond, Gary; Velligan, Dawn

2008-11-01

Applying research findings to community mental health practices is slowed by provider concerns that research participants often differ from community populations in duration of illness, comorbid conditions, and illness severity. Selecting participants from community settings makes research results demonstrably relevant, but researchers and community providers can be mistrustful of one another, feeling that the other has little understanding of their needs and work. This mistrust impedes patient referrals for research. This column describes a program to increase researcher knowledge of community clinic procedures through structured interactions with clinic personnel. Follow-up interviews indicate improved attitudes and cooperation of researchers and community providers.

Analysis of the bacterial strains using Biolog plates in the contaminated soil from Riyadh community.

PubMed

Al-Dhabaan, Fahad Abdullah M; Bakhali, Ali Hassan

2017-05-01

Routine manufacture, detonation and disposal of explosives in land and groundwater have resulted in complete pollution. Explosives are xenobiotic compounds, being toxic to biological systems, and their recalcitrance leads to persistence in the environment. The methods currently used for the remediation of explosive contaminated sites are expensive and can result in the formation of toxic products. The present study aimed to investigate the bacterial strains using the Biolog plates in the soil from the Riyadh community. The microbial strains were isolated using the spread plate technique and were identified using the Biolog method. In this study we have analyzed from bacterial families of soil samples, obtained from the different sites in 5 regions at Explosive Institute. Our results conclude that Biolog MicroPlates were developed for the rapid identification of bacterial isolates by sole-carbon source utilization and can be used for the identification of bacteria. Out of five communities, only four families of bacteria indicate that the microbial community lacks significant diversity in region one from the Riyadh community in Saudi Arabia. More studies are needed to be carried out in different regions to validate our results.

Community Engagement in Health-Related Research: A Case Study of a Community-Linked Research Infrastructure, Jefferson County, Arkansas, 2011–2013

PubMed Central

Felix, Holly C.; Olson, Mary; Cottoms, Naomi; Bachelder, Ashley; Smith, Johnny; Ford, Tanesha; Dawson, Leah C.; Greene, Paul G.

2015-01-01

Background Underrepresentation of racial minorities in research contributes to health inequities. Important factors contributing to low levels of research participation include limited access to health care and research opportunities, lack of perceived relevance, power differences, participant burden, and absence of trust. We describe an enhanced model of community engagement in which we developed a community-linked research infrastructure to involve minorities in research both as participants and as partners engaged in issue selection, study design, and implementation. Community Context We implemented this effort in Jefferson County, Arkansas, which has a predominantly black population, bears a disproportionate burden of chronic disease, and has death rates above state and national averages. Methods Building on existing community–academic partnerships, we engaged new partners and adapted a successful community health worker model to connect community residents to services and relevant research. We formed a community advisory board, a research collaborative, a health registry, and a resource directory. Outcome Newly formed community–academic partnerships resulted in many joint grant submissions and new projects. Community health workers contacted 2,665 black and 913 white community residents from December 2011 through April 2013. Eighty-five percent of blacks and 88% of whites were willing to be re-contacted about research of potential interest. Implementation challenges were addressed by balancing the needs of science with community needs and priorities. Interpretation Our experience indicates investments in community-linked research infrastructure can be fruitful and should be considered by academic health centers when assessing institutional research infrastructure needs. PMID:26203813

Impact of biological soil crusts and desert plants on soil microfaunal community composition

USGS Publications Warehouse

Darby, B.J.; Neher, D.A.; Belnap, J.

2010-01-01

Carbon and nitrogen are supplied by a variety of sources in the desert food web; both vascular and non-vascular plants and cyanobacteria supply carbon, and cyanobacteria and plant-associated rhizosphere bacteria are sources of biological nitrogen fixation. The objective of this study was to compare the relative influence of vascular plants and biological soil crusts on desert soil nematode and protozoan abundance and community composition. In the first experiment, biological soil crusts were removed by physical trampling. Treatments with crust removed had fewer nematodes and a greater relative ratio of bacterivores to microphytophages than treatments with intact crust. However, protozoa composition was similar with or without the presence of crusts. In a second experiment, nematode community composition was characterized along a spatial gradient away from stems of grasses or shrubs. Although nematodes generally occurred in increasing abundance nearer to plant stems, some genera (such as the enrichment-type Panagrolaimus) increased disproportionately more than others (such as the stress-tolerant Acromoldavicus). We propose that the impact of biological soil crusts and desert plants on soil microfauna, as reflected in the community composition of microbivorous nematodes, is a combination of carbon input, microclimate amelioration, and altered soil hydrology. ?? Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009.

Community outreach at biomedical research facilities.

PubMed

Goldman, M; Hedetniemi, J N; Herbert, E R; Sassaman, J S; Walker, B C

2000-12-01

For biomedical researchers to fulfill their responsibility for protecting the environment, they must do more than meet the scientific challenge of reducing the number and volume of hazardous materials used in their laboratories and the engineering challenge of reducing pollution and shifting to cleaner energy sources. They must also meet the public relations challenge of informing and involving their neighbors in these efforts. The experience of the Office of Community Liaison of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in meeting the latter challenge offers a model and several valuable lessons for other biomedical research facilities to follow. This paper is based on presentations by an expert panel during the Leadership Conference on Biomedical Research and the Environment held 1--2 November 1999 at NIH, Bethesda, Maryland. The risks perceived by community members are often quite different from those identified by officials at the biomedical research facility. The best antidote for misconceptions is more and better information. If community organizations are to be informed participants in the decision-making process, they need a simple but robust mechanism for identifying and evaluating the environmental hazards in their community. Local government can and should be an active and fully informed partner in planning and emergency preparedness. In some cases this can reduce the regulatory burden on the biomedical research facility. In other cases it might simplify and expedite the permitting process or help the facility disseminate reliable information to the community. When a particular risk, real or perceived, is of special concern to the community, community members should be involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of targeted risk assessment activities. Only by doing so will the community have confidence in the results of those activities. NIH has involved community members in joint efforts to deal with topics as varied as recycling and soil

Promoting Community Health and Eliminating Health Disparities Through Community-Based Participatory Research.

PubMed

Xia, Ruiping; Stone, John R; Hoffman, Julie E; Klappa, Susan G

2016-03-01

In physical therapy, there is increasing focus on the need at the community level to promote health, eliminate disparities in health status, and ameliorate risk factors among underserved minorities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is the most promising paradigm for pursuing these goals. Community-based participatory research stresses equitable partnering of the community and investigators in light of local social, structural, and cultural elements. Throughout the research process, the CBPR model emphasizes coalition and team building that joins partners with diverse skills/expertise, knowledge, and sensitivities. This article presents core concepts and principles of CBPR and the rationale for its application in the management of health issues at the community level. Community-based participatory research is now commonly used to address public health issues. A literature review identified limited reports of its use in physical therapy research and services. A published study is used to illustrate features of CBPR for physical therapy. The purpose of this article is to promote an understanding of how physical therapists could use CBPR as a promising way to advance the profession's goals of community health and elimination of health care disparities, and social responsibility. Funding opportunities for the support of CBPR are noted. © 2016 American Physical Therapy Association.

Engaging the Deaf American sign language community: lessons from a community-based participatory research center.

PubMed

McKee, Michael; Thew, Denise; Starr, Matthew; Kushalnagar, Poorna; Reid, John T; Graybill, Patrick; Velasquez, Julia; Pearson, Thomas

2012-01-01

Numerous publications demonstrate the importance of community-based participatory research (CBPR) in community health research, but few target the Deaf community. The Deaf community is understudied and underrepresented in health research despite suspected health disparities and communication barriers. The goal of this paper is to share the lessons learned from the implementation of CBPR in an understudied community of Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users in the greater Rochester, New York, area. We review the process of CBPR in a Deaf ASL community and identify the lessons learned. Key CBPR lessons include the importance of engaging and educating the community about research, ensuring that research benefits the community, using peer-based recruitment strategies, and sustaining community partnerships. These lessons informed subsequent research activities. This report focuses on the use of CBPR principles in a Deaf ASL population; lessons learned can be applied to research with other challenging-to-reach populations.

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service research on pest biology: weeds.

PubMed

Forcella, Frank

2003-01-01

Over 125 permanent full-time scientists conduct research within the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) on issues related to weeds. The research emphasis of most of these scientists involves ecology and management or biological control of weeds. Many scientists perform research on weed biology as components of their primary projects on weed control and integrated crop and soil management. Describing all ARS projects involved with weed biology is impossible, and consequently only research that falls within the following arbitrarily chosen topics is highlighted in this article: dormancy mechanisms; cell division; diversity of rangeland weeds; soil resources and rangeland weeds; poisonous rangeland plants; horticultural weeds; weed traits limiting chemical control; aquatic and semi-aquatic weeds; weed/transgenic wheat hybrids; seedbanks, seedling emergence and seedling populations; and weed seed production. Within these topics, and others not highlighted, the desire of ARS is that good information on weed biology currently translates or eventually will translate into practical advice for those who must manage weeds.

BRC4Env, a network of Biological Resource Centres for research in environmental and agricultural sciences.

PubMed

Mougin, Christian; Artige, Emmanuelle; Marchand, Frédéric; Mondy, Samuel; Ratié, Céline; Sellier, Nadine; Castagnone-Sereno, Philippe; D'Acier, Armelle Cœur; Esmenjaud, Daniel; Faivre-Primot, Céline; Granjon, Laurent; Hamelet, Valérie; Lange, Frederic; Pagès, Sylvie; Rimet, Frédéric; Ris, Nicolas; Sallé, Guillaume

2018-04-19

The Biological Resource Centre for the Environment BRC4Env is a network of Biological Resource Centres (BRCs) and collections whose leading objectives are to improve the visibility of genetic and biological resources maintained by its BRCs and collections and to facilitate their use by a large research community, from agriculture research to life sciences and environmental sciences. Its added value relies on sharing skills, harmonizing practices, triggering projects in comparative biology, and ultimately proposing a single-entry portal to facilitate access to documented samples, taking into account the partnership policies of research institutions as well as the legal frame which varies with the biological nature of resources. BRC4Env currently includes three BRCs: the Centre for Soil Genetic Resources of the platform GenoSol, in partnership with the European Conservatory of Soil Samples; the Egg Parasitoids Collection (EP-Coll); and the collection of ichthyological samples, Colisa. BRC4Env is also associated to several biological collections: microbial consortia (entomopathogenic bacteria, freshwater microalgae…), terrestrial arthropods, nematodes (plant parasitic, entomopathogenic, animal parasitic...), and small mammals. The BRCs and collections of BRC4Env are involved in partnership with academic scientists, as well as private companies, in the fields of medicinal mining, biocontrol, sustainable agriculture, and additional sectors. Moreover, the staff of the BRCs is involved in many training courses for students from French licence degree to Ph.D, engineers, as well as ongoing training.

Looking at biological community level to improve ecotoxicological assessment of freshwater sediments: report on a first French-Swiss workshop.

PubMed

Pesce, Stéphane; Perceval, Olivier; Bonnineau, Chloé; Casado-Martinez, Carmen; Dabrin, Aymeric; Lyautey, Emilie; Naffrechoux, Emmanuel; Ferrari, Benoit J D

2018-01-01

The first French-Swiss workshop on ecotoxicology of freshwater sediment communities was co-organized by the French Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (Irstea) and the Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology (Ecotox Centre EAWAG-EPFL) in Villié-Morgon (Beaujolais Region, France) on April 27-28, 2017. The workshop brought together scientists working in different fields of expertise (ecotoxicologists, ecologists, environmental chemists…), environmental stakeholder groups and managers, as well as economic players (start-ups and consultancies) to better connect research needs of potential end-users with research outputs. The objectives of this workshop were (i) to establish the state of the art of research in the characterization of sediment contamination and in the evaluation of the effects on sediment-associated biological communities and ecosystem functioning and (ii) to give an overview of the French and Swiss regulations dealing with the assessment of contaminated sediments in freshwater ecosystems. The ultimate goal was to collectively identify research needs and knowledge gaps, as well as to highlight ways to improve the ecotoxicological assessment of sediments in freshwater environments by further considering the structure and functions of associated microbial and invertebrate communities.

Engaging the Deaf American Sign Language Community: Lessons From a Community-Based Participatory Research Center

PubMed Central

McKee, Michael; Thew, Denise; Starr, Matthew; Kushalnagar, Poorna; Reid, John T.; Graybill, Patrick; Velasquez, Julia; Pearson, Thomas

2013-01-01

Background Numerous publications demonstrate the importance of community-based participatory research (CBPR) in community health research, but few target the Deaf community. The Deaf community is understudied and underrepresented in health research despite suspected health disparities and communication barriers. Objectives The goal of this paper is to share the lessons learned from the implementation of CBPR in an understudied community of Deaf American Sign Language (ASL) users in the greater Rochester, New York, area. Methods We review the process of CBPR in a Deaf ASL community and identify the lessons learned. Results Key CBPR lessons include the importance of engaging and educating the community about research, ensuring that research benefits the community, using peer-based recruitment strategies, and sustaining community partnerships. These lessons informed subsequent research activities. Conclusions This report focuses on the use of CBPR principles in a Deaf ASL population; lessons learned can be applied to research with other challenging-to-reach populations. PMID:22982845

A Community of Practice among Educators, Researchers and Scientists for Improving Science Teaching in Southern Mexico

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cisneros-Cohernour, Edith J.; Lopez-Avila, Maria T.; Barrera-Bustillos, Maria E.

2007-01-01

This paper presents findings of a project aimed to improve the quality of science education in Southeast Mexico by the creation of a community of practice among scientists, researchers and teachers, involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of a professional development program for mathematics, chemistry, biology and physics secondary…

Key Issues Concerning Biolog Use for Aerobic and Anaerobic Freshwater Bacterial Community-Level Physiological Profiling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Christian, Bradley W.; Lind, Owen T.

2006-06-01

Bacterial heterotrophy in aquatic ecosystems is important in the overall carbon cycle. Biolog MicroPlates provide information into the metabolic potential of bacteria involved in carbon cycling. Specifically, Biolog EcoPlatesTM were developed with ecologically relevant carbon substrates to allow investigators to measure carbon substrate utilization patterns and develop community-level physiological profiles from natural bacterial assemblages. However, understanding of the functionality of these plates in freshwater research is limited. We explored several issues of EcoPlate use for freshwater bacterial assemblages including inoculum density, incubation temperature, non-bacterial color development, and substrate selectivity. Each of these has various effects on plate interpretation. We offer suggestions and techniques to resolve these interpretation issues. Lastly we propose a technique to allow EcoPlate use in anaerobic freshwater bacterial studies.

The biology/disease-driven human proteome project (B/D-HPP): enabling protein research for the life sciences community.

PubMed

Aebersold, Ruedi; Bader, Gary D; Edwards, Aled M; van Eyk, Jennifer E; Kussmann, Martin; Qin, Jun; Omenn, Gilbert S

2013-01-04

The biology and disease oriented branch of the Human Proteome Project (B/D-HPP) was established by the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) with the main goal of supporting the broad application of state-of the-art measurements of proteins and proteomes by life scientists studying the molecular mechanisms of biological processes and human disease. This will be accomplished through the generation of research and informational resources that will support the routine and definitive measurement of the process or disease relevant proteins. The B/D-HPP is highly complementary to the C-HPP and will provide datasets and biological characterization useful to the C-HPP teams. In this manuscript we describe the goals, the plans, and the current status of the of the B/D-HPP.

Engaging Students in Authentic Microbiology Research in an Introductory Biology Laboratory Course is Correlated with Gains in Student Understanding of the Nature of Authentic Research and Critical Thinking†

PubMed Central

Gasper, Brittany J.; Gardner, Stephanie M.

2013-01-01

Recent recommendations for biology education highlight the role of authentic research experiences early in undergraduate education as a means of increasing the number and quality of biology majors. These experiences will inform students on the nature of science, increase their confidence in doing science, as well as foster critical thinking skills, an area that has been lacking despite it being one of the desired outcomes at undergraduate institutions and with future employers. With these things in mind, we have developed an introductory biology laboratory course where students design and execute an authentic microbiology research project. Students in this course are assimilated into the community of researchers by engaging in scholarly activities such as participating in inquiry, reading scientific literature, and communicating findings in written and oral formats. After three iterations of a semester-long laboratory course, we found that students who took the course showed a significant increase in their understanding of the nature of authentic research and their level of critical thinking skills. PMID:23858351

Participation levels in 25 Community-based participatory research projects

PubMed Central

Spears Johnson, C. R.; Kraemer Diaz, A. E.; Arcury, T. A.

2016-01-01

This analysis describes the nature of community participation in National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects, and explores the scientific and social implications of variation in community participation. We conducted in-depth interviews in 2012 with professional and community researchers from 25 CBPR projects in the Southeast US. Interview topics focused on participants’ experiences with the nature and conduct of their CBPR project. Projects were rated on community participation in 13 components of research. Projects varied substantially in community participation. Some projects had community participation in only two to three components; others had participation in every component. Some professional researchers were deliberate in their inclusion of community participation in all aspects of research, others had community participation in some aspects, and others were mainly concerned that community members had the opportunity to participate in the study. Findings suggest a need for a standardized rubric for community-based research that facilitates delineation of approaches and procedures that are effective and efficient. Little actual community participation may also result in negative social impacts for communities. PMID:27422896

pClone: Synthetic Biology Tool Makes Promoter Research Accessible to Beginning Biology Students.

PubMed

Campbell, A Malcolm; Eckdahl, Todd; Cronk, Brian; Andresen, Corinne; Frederick, Paul; Huckuntod, Samantha; Shinneman, Claire; Wacker, Annie; Yuan, Jason

2014-01-01

The Vision and Change report recommended genuine research experiences for undergraduate biology students. Authentic research improves science education, increases the number of scientifically literate citizens, and encourages students to pursue research. Synthetic biology is well suited for undergraduate research and is a growing area of science. We developed a laboratory module called pClone that empowers students to use advances in molecular cloning methods to discover new promoters for use by synthetic biologists. Our educational goals are consistent with Vision and Change and emphasize core concepts and competencies. pClone is a family of three plasmids that students use to clone a new transcriptional promoter or mutate a canonical promoter and measure promoter activity in Escherichia coli. We also developed the Registry of Functional Promoters, an open-access database of student promoter research results. Using pre- and posttests, we measured significant learning gains among students using pClone in introductory biology and genetics classes. Student posttest scores were significantly better than scores of students who did not use pClone. pClone is an easy and affordable mechanism for large-enrollment labs to meet the high standards of Vision and Change. © 2014 A. M. Campbell et al. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2014 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Research Ethics in Sign Language Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Raychelle; Holmes, Heidi M.; Mertens, Donna M.

2009-01-01

Codes of ethics exist for most professional associations whose members do research on, for, or with sign language communities. However, these ethical codes are silent regarding the need to frame research ethics from a cultural standpoint, an issue of particular salience for sign language communities. Scholars who write from the perspective of…

Challenges With Research Contract Negotiations in Community-Based Cancer Research.

PubMed

Thompson, Michael A; Hurley, Patricia A; Faller, Bryan; Longinette, Jean; Richter, Katie; Stewart, Teresa L; Robert, Nicholas

2016-06-01

Community-based research programs face many barriers to participation in clinical trials. Although the majority of people with cancer are diagnosed and treated in the community setting, only roughly 3% are enrolled onto clinical trials. Research contract and budget negotiations have been consistently identified as time consuming and a barrier to participation in clinical trials. ASCO's Community Research Forum conducted a survey about specific challenges of research contract and budget negotiation processes in community-based research settings. The goal was to ultimately identify potential solutions to these barriers. A survey was distributed to 780 community-based physician investigators and research staff. The survey included questions to provide insight into contract and budget negotiation processes and perceptions about related barriers. A total of 77% of the 150 respondents acknowledged barriers in the process. Respondents most frequently identified budget-related issues (n = 133), inefficiencies in the process (n = 80), or legal review and negotiation issues (n = 70). Of the respondents, 44.1% indicated that contract research organizations made the contract negotiations process harder for their research program, and only 5% believed contract research organizations made the process easier. The contract negotiations process is perceived to be impeded by sponsors through underestimation of costs, lack of flexibility with the contract language, and excessive delays. Improving clinical trial activation processes and reducing inefficiencies would be beneficial to all interested stakeholders, including patients who may ultimately stand to benefit from participation in clinical trials. The following key recommendations were made: standardization of contracts and negotiation processes to promulgate transparency and efficiencies, improve sponsor processes to minimize burden on sites, create and promote use of contract templates and best practices, and provide education

Research Experiences in Community College Science Programs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beauregard, A.

2011-12-01

The benefits of student access to scientific research opportunities and the use of data in curriculum and student inquiry-driven approaches to teaching as effective tools in science instruction are compelling (i.e., Ledley, et al., 2008; Gawel & Greengrove, 2005; Macdonald, et al., 2005; Harnik & Ross. 2003). Unfortunately, these experiences are traditionally limited at community colleges due to heavy faculty teaching loads, a focus on teaching over research, and scarce departmental funds. Without such hands-on learning activities, instructors may find it difficult to stimulate excitement about science in their students, who are typically non-major and nontraditional. I present two different approaches for effectively incorporating research into the community college setting that each rely on partnerships with other institutions. The first of these is a more traditional approach for providing research experiences to undergraduate students, though such experiences are limited at community colleges, and involves student interns working on a research project under the supervision of a faculty member. Specifically, students participate in a water quality assessment study of two local bayous. Students work on different aspects of the project, including water sample collection, bio-assay incubation experiments, water quality sample analysis, and collection and identification of phytoplankton. Over the past four years, nine community college students, as well as two undergraduate students and four graduate students from the local four-year university have participated in this research project. Aligning student and faculty research provides community college students with the unique opportunity to participate in the process of active science and contribute to "real" scientific research. Because students are working in a local watershed, these field experiences provide a valuable "place-based" educational opportunity. The second approach links cutting-edge oceanographic

[Biological research and security institutes].

PubMed

Darsie, G; Falczuk, A J; Bergmann, I E

2006-04-01

The threat of using biological material for ago-bioterrorist ends has risen in recent years, which means that research and diagnostic laboratories, biological agent banks and other institutions authorised to carry out scientific activities have had to implement biosafety and biosecurity measures to counter the threat, while carrying out activities to help prevent and monitor the accidental or intentional introduction of exotic animal diseases. This article briefly sets outthe basic components of biosafety and biosecurity, as well as recommendations on organisational strategies to consider in laboratories that support agro-bioterrorist surveillance and prevention programs.

Diabetes Bingo: Research Prioritization with the Filipino Community

PubMed Central

Oculto, Tessie; Ramones, Emilyn; Caagbay, Cedric R

2010-01-01

This community-based participatory research, conducted in partnership between a European-American academic researcher and a professional group of Filipino nurses, aimed to determine the diabetes research priority for the Filipino community on the island of O‘ahu in Hawai‘i, and to evaluate the multi-voting technique to seek input from the community. The study design was a qualitative, cross-sectional interactive process consisting of an educational presentation followed by data collection from the audience. Ten community presentations about the impact of diabetes on the Filipino community were conducted by a Filipino nurse with participants (N = 265). Following the educational session, the participants selected priorities for research using a multi-vote technique developed as a Diabetes Bingo card. Community voting results identified prevention and a focus on adults as important priorities for research. Based on the results of the multi-voting, the research partners were able to come to consensus on a research priority area of prevention of type 2 diabetes in adults. Multi-voting using a Diabetes Bingo card, preceded by an educational presentation by a Filipino nurse, was a culturally competent community-based participatory research method that gave voice to the participants and direction to the research partners for future projects. The multi-voting technique was readily accepted and enjoyed by participants. PMID:21229487

Participation levels in 25 Community-based participatory research projects.

PubMed

Spears Johnson, C R; Kraemer Diaz, A E; Arcury, T A

2016-10-01

This analysis describes the nature of community participation in National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects, and explores the scientific and social implications of variation in community participation. We conducted in-depth interviews in 2012 with professional and community researchers from 25 CBPR projects in the Southeast US. Interview topics focused on participants' experiences with the nature and conduct of their CBPR project. Projects were rated on community participation in 13 components of research. Projects varied substantially in community participation. Some projects had community participation in only two to three components; others had participation in every component. Some professional researchers were deliberate in their inclusion of community participation in all aspects of research, others had community participation in some aspects, and others were mainly concerned that community members had the opportunity to participate in the study. Findings suggest a need for a standardized rubric for community-based research that facilitates delineation of approaches and procedures that are effective and efficient. Little actual community participation may also result in negative social impacts for communities. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Role of the Community College Institutional Researcher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hecht, Alfred R.

1978-01-01

Outlines four common functions of the institutional researcher at community colleges: conducting and coordinating institutional research, including descriptive, evaluative, operational, and policy research; assisting staff and community with research activities; collecting and disseminating research information; and participating in institutional…

Soil protists: a fertile frontier in soil biology research.

PubMed

Geisen, Stefan; Mitchell, Edward A D; Adl, Sina; Bonkowski, Michael; Dunthorn, Micah; Ekelund, Flemming; Fernández, Leonardo D; Jousset, Alexandre; Krashevska, Valentyna; Singer, David; Spiegel, Frederick W; Walochnik, Julia; Lara, Enrique

2018-05-01

Protists include all eukaryotes except plants, fungi and animals. They are an essential, yet often forgotten, component of the soil microbiome. Method developments have now furthered our understanding of the real taxonomic and functional diversity of soil protists. They occupy key roles in microbial foodwebs as consumers of bacteria, fungi and other small eukaryotes. As parasites of plants, animals and even of larger protists, they regulate populations and shape communities. Pathogenic forms play a major role in public health issues as human parasites, or act as agricultural pests. Predatory soil protists release nutrients enhancing plant growth. Soil protists are of key importance for our understanding of eukaryotic evolution and microbial biogeography. Soil protists are also useful in applied research as bioindicators of soil quality, as models in ecotoxicology and as potential biofertilizers and biocontrol agents. In this review, we provide an overview of the enormous morphological, taxonomical and functional diversity of soil protists, and discuss current challenges and opportunities in soil protistology. Research in soil biology would clearly benefit from incorporating more protistology alongside the study of bacteria, fungi and animals.

Biological Research in Support of Project MILES.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-07-01

E S BEATRICE UNCLASSIFIED LAIR - 9 6 N too INSTITUTE REPORT NO. 96’ 0 BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN SUPPORT OF PROJECT MILES DA Via . LUND, aS BRUCE E...ACCESSION NO. 3’ R ENTS CATALOG NUMBER LAIR Drp-Nr96 _ _ _ _ _ _ S5T, F EnI r~,.. VERED Biological Research in Support of Project MILES )n. Anual .je 7...experiments at other agencies did not confirm the LAIR observation of retinal clouding. The ocular effects were studied of lasers operating at infrared

Creating Meaningful Partnerships Between Communities and Environmental Health Researchers

PubMed Central

De Souza, Rachael; Aguilar, Genevieve C.; de Castro, A. B.

2014-01-01

Community engagement is a necessary, although challenging, element of environmental health research in communities. To facilitate the engagement process, direct action community organizing agencies can be useful in bringing together communities and researchers. This article describes the preliminary activities that one direct action community organizing agency used in partnership with researchers to improve community engagement in the first 6 months of an environmental health study conducted in a major U.S. city. Activities included developing communication strategies, creating opportunities for researcher–community interaction, and sustaining project momentum. To conduct environmental research that is both scientifically rigorous and relevant to communities, collaborating partners had to develop professional skills and strategies outside of their areas of expertise. PMID:23875568

Significant elements of community involvement in participatory action research: evidence from a community project.

PubMed

Lindsey, E; McGuinness, L

1998-11-01

Participatory action research (PAR) has been heralded as an important research methodology to address issues of research relevance, community involvement, democracy, emancipation and liberation. Increasingly, nurse researchers are turning to PAR as a method of choice. Although nursing interest in PAR is expanding little is known about how to successfully involve the community in research. This article attends to this dearth of information by presenting the results of a study investigating the significant elements of community involvement in PAR. Through the use of qualitative research methods, five themes emerged that describe the community participation process: (a) planning for participation, (b) the structural components of community participation, (c) living the philosophy, (d) enhancing the credibility, and (e) the type of leadership required to facilitate community participation. It is hoped that by sharing these results others may consider the knowledge gleaned from this project as they plan and proceed with the challenges and rewards inherent in PAR.

Looking for robust properties in the growth of an academic network: the case of the Uruguayan biological research community.

PubMed

Cabana, Alvaro; Mizraji, Eduardo; Pomi, Andrés; Valle-Lisboa, Juan Carlos

2008-04-01

Graph-theoretical methods have recently been used to analyze certain properties of natural and social networks. In this work, we have investigated the early stages in the growth of a Uruguayan academic network, the Biology Area of the Programme for the Development of Basic Science (PEDECIBA). This transparent social network is a territory for the exploration of the reliability of clustering methods that can potentially be used when we are confronted with opaque natural systems that provide us with a limited spectrum of observables (happens in research on the relations between brain, thought and language). From our social net, we constructed two different graph representations based on the relationships among researchers revealed by their co-participation in Master's thesis committees. We studied these networks at different times and found that they achieve connectedness early in their evolution and exhibit the small-world property (i.e. high clustering with short path lengths). The data seem compatible with power law distributions of connectivity, clustering coefficients and betweenness centrality. Evidence of preferential attachment of new nodes and of new links between old nodes was also found in both representations. These results suggest that there are topological properties observed throughout the growth of the network that do not depend on the representations we have chosen but reflect intrinsic properties of the academic collective under study. Researchers in PEDECIBA are classified according to their specialties. We analysed the community structure detected by a standard algorithm in both representations. We found that much of the pre-specified structure is recovered and part of the mismatches can be attributed to convergent interests between scientists from different sub-disciplines. This result shows the potentiality of some clustering methods for the analysis of partially known natural systems.

The dilemma of dual use biological research: Polish perspective.

PubMed

Czarkowski, Marek

2010-03-01

Biological research with legitimate scientific purpose that may be misused to pose a biological threat to public health and/or national security is termed dual use. In Poland there are adequate conditions for conducting experiments that could be qualified as dual use research, and therefore, a risk of attack on Poland or other countries exists. Optimal solutions for limiting such threats are required, and the national system of biosecurity should enable early, reliable, and complete identification of this type of research. Scientists should have a fundamental role in this process, their duty being to immediately, upon identification, report research with dual use potential. An important entity in the identification system of dual use research should also be the Central Register of Biological and Biomedical Research, which gathers information about all biological and biomedical research being conducted in a given country. Publishers, editors, and review committees of journals and other scientific publications should be involved in evaluating results of clinical trials. The National Council of Biosecurity should be the governmental institution responsible for developing a system of dual use research threat prevention. Its role would be to develop codes of conduct, form counsel of expertise, and monitor the problem at national level, while the Dual Use Research Committee would be responsible for individual cases. In Poland, current actions aiming to provide biological safety were based on developing and passing an act about genetically modified organisms (GMO's) and creating a GMO Committee. Considering experiences of other nations, one should view these actions as fragmentary, and thus insufficient protection against dual use research threats.

The next generation of training for Arabidopsis researchers: bioinformatics and quantitative biology

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

It has been more than 50 years since Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) was first introduced as a model organism to understand basic processes in plant biology. A well-organized scientific community has used this small reference plant species to make numerous fundamental plant biology discoveries (P...

Enhancing stewardship of community-engaged research through governance.

PubMed

Oetzel, John G; Villegas, Malia; Zenone, Heather; White Hat, Emily R; Wallerstein, Nina; Duran, Bonnie

2015-06-01

We explored the relationship of community-engaged research final approval type (tribal government, health board, or public health office (TG/HB); agency staff or advisory board; or individual or no community approval) with governance processes, productivity, and perceived outcomes. We identified 294 federally funded community-engaged research projects in 2009 from the National Institutes of Health's Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Prevention Research Centers, and Native American Research Centers for Health databases. Two hundred (68.0%) investigators completed a survey about governance processes and productivity measures; 312 partners (77.2% of 404 invited) and 138 investigators (69.0% of 200 invited) completed a survey about perceived outcomes. Projects with TG/HB approval had increased likelihood of community control of resources (odds ratios [ORs] ≥ 4.80). Projects with other approvals had decreased likelihood of development or revision of institutional review board policies (ORs ≤ 0.37), having written agreements (ORs ≤ 0.17), and agreements about publishing (ORs ≤ 0.28), data use (ORs ≤ 0.17), and publishing approval (ORs ≤ 0.14). Community-engaged research projects with TG/HB approval had strong stewardship of project resources and agreements. Governance as stewardship protects community interests; thus, is an ethical imperative for communities, especially native communities, to adopt.

Enhancing Stewardship of Community-Engaged Research Through Governance

PubMed Central

Villegas, Malia; Zenone, Heather; White Hat, Emily R.; Wallerstein, Nina; Duran, Bonnie

2015-01-01

Objectives. We explored the relationship of community-engaged research final approval type (tribal government, health board, or public health office (TG/HB); agency staff or advisory board; or individual or no community approval) with governance processes, productivity, and perceived outcomes. Methods. We identified 294 federally funded community-engaged research projects in 2009 from the National Institutes of Health’s Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prevention Research Centers, and Native American Research Centers for Health databases. Two hundred (68.0%) investigators completed a survey about governance processes and productivity measures; 312 partners (77.2% of 404 invited) and 138 investigators (69.0% of 200 invited) completed a survey about perceived outcomes. Results. Projects with TG/HB approval had increased likelihood of community control of resources (odds ratios [ORs] ≥ 4.80). Projects with other approvals had decreased likelihood of development or revision of institutional review board policies (ORs ≤ 0.37), having written agreements (ORs ≤ 0.17), and agreements about publishing (ORs ≤ 0.28), data use (ORs ≤ 0.17), and publishing approval (ORs ≤ 0.14). Conclusions. Community-engaged research projects with TG/HB approval had strong stewardship of project resources and agreements. Governance as stewardship protects community interests; thus, is an ethical imperative for communities, especially native communities, to adopt. PMID:25880952

Community cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis: the CAMERA resource

PubMed Central

Sun, Shulei; Chen, Jing; Li, Weizhong; Altintas, Ilkay; Lin, Abel; Peltier, Steve; Stocks, Karen; Allen, Eric E.; Ellisman, Mark; Grethe, Jeffrey; Wooley, John

2011-01-01

The Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis (CAMERA, http://camera.calit2.net/) is a database and associated computational infrastructure that provides a single system for depositing, locating, analyzing, visualizing and sharing data about microbial biology through an advanced web-based analysis portal. CAMERA collects and links metadata relevant to environmental metagenome data sets with annotation in a semantically-aware environment allowing users to write expressive semantic queries against the database. To meet the needs of the research community, users are able to query metadata categories such as habitat, sample type, time, location and other environmental physicochemical parameters. CAMERA is compliant with the standards promulgated by the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC), and sustains a role within the GSC in extending standards for content and format of the metagenomic data and metadata and its submission to the CAMERA repository. To ensure wide, ready access to data and annotation, CAMERA also provides data submission tools to allow researchers to share and forward data to other metagenomics sites and community data archives such as GenBank. It has multiple interfaces for easy submission of large or complex data sets, and supports pre-registration of samples for sequencing. CAMERA integrates a growing list of tools and viewers for querying, analyzing, annotating and comparing metagenome and genome data. PMID:21045053

Community cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis: the CAMERA resource.

PubMed

Sun, Shulei; Chen, Jing; Li, Weizhong; Altintas, Ilkay; Lin, Abel; Peltier, Steve; Stocks, Karen; Allen, Eric E; Ellisman, Mark; Grethe, Jeffrey; Wooley, John

2011-01-01

The Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis (CAMERA, http://camera.calit2.net/) is a database and associated computational infrastructure that provides a single system for depositing, locating, analyzing, visualizing and sharing data about microbial biology through an advanced web-based analysis portal. CAMERA collects and links metadata relevant to environmental metagenome data sets with annotation in a semantically-aware environment allowing users to write expressive semantic queries against the database. To meet the needs of the research community, users are able to query metadata categories such as habitat, sample type, time, location and other environmental physicochemical parameters. CAMERA is compliant with the standards promulgated by the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC), and sustains a role within the GSC in extending standards for content and format of the metagenomic data and metadata and its submission to the CAMERA repository. To ensure wide, ready access to data and annotation, CAMERA also provides data submission tools to allow researchers to share and forward data to other metagenomics sites and community data archives such as GenBank. It has multiple interfaces for easy submission of large or complex data sets, and supports pre-registration of samples for sequencing. CAMERA integrates a growing list of tools and viewers for querying, analyzing, annotating and comparing metagenome and genome data.

Single-site community consultation for emergency research in a community hospital setting.

PubMed

Galbraith, Kyle L; Keck, Anna-Sigrid; Little, Charletta

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate community member feedback from community consultation and public disclosure activities performed for a clinical investigation involving a device designed to treat traumatic brain injury in prehospital contexts. The clinical investigation of that device was to be performed under the federal regulations providing an exception from prospective informed consent requirements in emergency settings. Secondarily, we sought to assess the community consultation process by measuring the levels of outreach provided by the different communication methods used in these activities, with special attention to the effectiveness of social media for community outreach. The medical device investigation consists of a single-site pilot study based at a 345-bed community hospital in east central Illinois, which also serves as the area's only level I trauma center. Investigators, in collaboration with the local institutional review board, fulfilled community consultation and public disclosure requirements through four public town hall meetings, seven targeted focus groups, targeted mailings to 884 community leaders and researchers, a press conference and press release, internal and external websites, and multiple postings to the hospital's Facebook and Twitter accounts. Community members provided feedback by completing paper or electronic comment cards. A total of 428 community members attended the four town hall meetings and seven focus group sessions. Attendance at each meeting ranged from 4 to 20 attendees for the town hall meetings and 8 to 140 attendees for the focus groups. The investigation's external website received 626 unique visitors and the intranet website received 528 unique visits. Social media postings on Facebook and Twitter received six comments and eight "likes" to indicate that an individual read the posting. In total, attendees completed 175 comment cards to provide their feedback. Community member attitudes regarding the

High definition for systems biology of microbial communities: metagenomics gets genome-centric and strain-resolved.

PubMed

Turaev, Dmitrij; Rattei, Thomas

2016-06-01

The systems biology of microbial communities, organismal communities inhabiting all ecological niches on earth, has in recent years been strongly facilitated by the rapid development of experimental, sequencing and data analysis methods. Novel experimental approaches and binning methods in metagenomics render the semi-automatic reconstructions of near-complete genomes of uncultivable bacteria possible, while advances in high-resolution amplicon analysis allow for efficient and less biased taxonomic community characterization. This will also facilitate predictive modeling approaches, hitherto limited by the low resolution of metagenomic data. In this review, we pinpoint the most promising current developments in metagenomics. They facilitate microbial systems biology towards a systemic understanding of mechanisms in microbial communities with scopes of application in many areas of our daily life. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Implementation of Research-based Learning on Biology Seminar Course in Biology Education Study Program of FKIP UMRAH

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amelia, T.

2018-04-01

Biology Seminar is a course in Biology Education Study Program of Faculty of Teacher Training and Education University of Maritim Raja Ali Haji (FKIP UMRAH) that requires students to have the ability to apply scientific attitudes, perform scientific writing and undertake scientific publications on a small scale. One of the learning strategies that can drive the achievement of learning outcomes in this course is Research-Based Learning. Research-Based Learning principles are considered in accordance with learning outcomes in Biology Seminar courses and generally in accordance with the purpose of higher education. On this basis, this article which is derived from a qualitative research aims at describing Research-based Learning on Biology Seminar course. Based on a case study research, it was known that Research-Based Learning on Biology Seminar courses is applied through: designing learning activities around contemporary research issues; teaching research methods, techniques and skills explicitly within program; drawing on personal research in designing and teaching courses; building small-scale research activities into undergraduate assignment; and infusing teaching with the values of researchers.

Fostering community-based wildlife health monitoring and research in the Canadian North.

PubMed

Brook, Ryan K; Kutz, Susan J; Veitch, Alasdair M; Popko, Richard A; Elkin, Brett T; Guthrie, Glen

2009-06-01

Many northern Canadians have continued a subsistence lifestyle of wildlife harvesting and, therefore, value sustainable wildlife populations. At a regional wildlife workshop in the Sahtu Settlement Area, Northwest Territories in 2002, elders and community leaders raised concerns regarding wildlife health, food safety, and the effects of climate change on wildlife. They requested that efforts be put toward training youth in science and increasing involvement of hunters and youth in wildlife research. In response, we initiated a long-term, integrated approach to foster community-based wildlife health monitoring and research. Annual trips were made to all schools in the Sahtu from 2003 to 2009 to provide hands-on learning for 250-460 students on a range of wildlife topics. In addition, interviews were conducted with 31 hunters and elders to document their local ecological knowledge of wildlife health and local hunters were trained as monitors to collect tissue samples and measurements to assess body condition and monitor health of harvested caribou (n = 69) and moose (n = 19). In 2007 the program was extended to include participation in the annual caribou hunt held by one community. Each year since 2005, a graduate student and/or a postdoctoral trainee in the veterinary or biological sciences has participated in the program. The program has evolved during the last 6 years in response to community and school input, results of empirical research, hunter feedback, local knowledge, and logistical constraints. The continuity of the program is attributed to the energetic collaboration among diverse partners and a unified approach that responds to identified needs.

Cancer systems biology: signal processing for cancer research

PubMed Central

Yli-Harja, Olli; Ylipää, Antti; Nykter, Matti; Zhang, Wei

2011-01-01

In this editorial we introduce the research paradigms of signal processing in the era of systems biology. Signal processing is a field of science traditionally focused on modeling electronic and communications systems, but recently it has turned to biological applications with astounding results. The essence of signal processing is to describe the natural world by mathematical models and then, based on these models, develop efficient computational tools for solving engineering problems. Here, we underline, with examples, the endless possibilities which arise when the battle-hardened tools of engineering are applied to solve the problems that have tormented cancer researchers. Based on this approach, a new field has emerged, called cancer systems biology. Despite its short history, cancer systems biology has already produced several success stories tackling previously impracticable problems. Perhaps most importantly, it has been accepted as an integral part of the major endeavors of cancer research, such as analyzing the genomic and epigenomic data produced by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. Finally, we show that signal processing and cancer research, two fields that are seemingly distant from each other, have merged into a field that is indeed more than the sum of its parts. PMID:21439242

pClone: Synthetic Biology Tool Makes Promoter Research Accessible to Beginning Biology Students

PubMed Central

Eckdahl, Todd; Cronk, Brian; Andresen, Corinne; Frederick, Paul; Huckuntod, Samantha; Shinneman, Claire; Wacker, Annie; Yuan, Jason

2014-01-01

The Vision and Change report recommended genuine research experiences for undergraduate biology students. Authentic research improves science education, increases the number of scientifically literate citizens, and encourages students to pursue research. Synthetic biology is well suited for undergraduate research and is a growing area of science. We developed a laboratory module called pClone that empowers students to use advances in molecular cloning methods to discover new promoters for use by synthetic biologists. Our educational goals are consistent with Vision and Change and emphasize core concepts and competencies. pClone is a family of three plasmids that students use to clone a new transcriptional promoter or mutate a canonical promoter and measure promoter activity in Escherichia coli. We also developed the Registry of Functional Promoters, an open-access database of student promoter research results. Using pre- and posttests, we measured significant learning gains among students using pClone in introductory biology and genetics classes. Student posttest scores were significantly better than scores of students who did not use pClone. pClone is an easy and affordable mechanism for large-enrollment labs to meet the high standards of Vision and Change. PMID:26086659

Qualitative research with small connected communities: generating new knowledge while upholding research ethics.

PubMed

Damianakis, Thecla; Woodford, Michael R

2012-05-01

Qualitative researchers have a dual mission: to generate knowledge through rigorous research and to uphold ethical standards and principles. Qualitative researchers often conduct studies with small connected communities in which relationships exist among community members. When engaging such communities, researchers might face ethical issues in upholding confidentiality standards while they work to achieve their dual mandate. Qualitative scholars have paid little attention to the ethical challenges that might arise in this context. Drawing on our experiences conducting studies with such communities, we expand the dialogue concerning qualitative research ethics by making explicit conceptual and practical tensions that emerge at various stages of the research process; articulating our respective reflective processes; and exploring issues associated with strategies for upholding confidentiality. We conclude with lessons learned to guide researchers who might face similar challenges.

Biology Education Research Trends in Turkey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gul, Seyda; Sozbilir, Mustafa

2015-01-01

This paper reports on a content analysis of 633 biology education research [BER] papers published by Turkish science educators in national and international journals. The findings indicate that more research has been undertaken in environment and ecology, the cell and animal form and functions. In addition learning, teaching and attitudes were in…

The perspectives of nonscience-major students on success in community college biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim-Rajab, Oriana Sharon

With more than 36% of nonscience-major community college students unable to successfully complete their general life science courses, graduation and transfer rates to four-year universities are negatively affected. Many students also miss important opportunities to gain some level of science proficiency. In an effort to address the problem of poor science achievement, this research project determined which factors were most significantly related to student success in a community college biology course. It also aimed to understand the student perspectives on which modifications to the course would best help them in the pursuit of success. Drawing heavily on the educational psychology schools of thought on motivation and self-efficacy of science learning, this study surveyed and interviewed students on their perceptions of which factors were related to success in biology and the changes they believed were needed in the course structure to improve success. The data revealed that the primary factors related to student success are the students' study skills and their perceived levels of self-efficacy. The findings also uncovered the critical nature of the professor's role in influencing the success of the students. After assessing the needs of the community college population, meaningful and appropriate curriculum and pedagogical reforms could be created to improve student learning outcomes. This study offered recommendations for reforms that can be used by science practitioners to provide a more nurturing and inspiring environment for all students. These suggestions revolved around the role of the instructor in influencing the self-efficacy and study skills of students. Providing more opportunities for students to interact in class, testing more frequently, establishing peer assistance programs, managing better the course material, and making themselves more available to students were at the forefront of the list. Examples of the potential benefits of increasing

Finding Community: A Guide to Community Research and Action.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, W. Ron; And Others

For those concerned with contemporary social problems, whether as students, members of community groups, or individual citizens, this book attempts not only to describe the issues, but also to offer some starting points for local research and action. As an educational tool, it is based on the belief that a good way to learn about a community is to…

The Community Research Scholars Initiative: A Mid‐Project Assessment

PubMed Central

Pike, Earl; Sehgal, Ashwini R.; Fischer, Robert L.; Collins, Cyleste

2015-01-01

Abstract Community organizations addressing health and human service needs generally have minimal capacity for research and evaluation. As a result, they are often inadequately equipped to independently carry out activities that can be critical for their own success, such as conducting needs assessments, identifying best practices, and evaluating outcomes. Moreover, they are unable to develop equitable partnerships with academic researchers to conduct community‐based research. This paper reports on the progress of the Community Research Scholar Initiative (CRSI), a program that aims to enhance community research and evaluation capacity through training of selected employees from Greater Cleveland community organizations. The intensive 2‐year CRSI program includes didactic instruction, fieldwork, multiple levels of community and academic engagement, leadership training, and a mentored research project. The first cohort of CRSI Scholars, their community organizations, and other community stakeholders have incorporated program lessons into their practices and operations. The CRSI program evaluation indicates: the importance of careful Scholar selection; the need to engage executive leadership from Scholar organizations; the value of a curriculum integrating classwork, fieldwork, and community engagement; and the need for continual scholar skill and knowledge assessment. These findings and lessons learned guide other efforts to enhance community organization research and evaluation capacity. PMID:26073663

Detecting and analyzing research communities in longitudinal scientific networks.

PubMed

Leone Sciabolazza, Valerio; Vacca, Raffaele; Kennelly Okraku, Therese; McCarty, Christopher

2017-01-01

A growing body of evidence shows that collaborative teams and communities tend to produce the highest-impact scientific work. This paper proposes a new method to (1) Identify collaborative communities in longitudinal scientific networks, and (2) Evaluate the impact of specific research institutes, services or policies on the interdisciplinary collaboration between these communities. First, we apply community-detection algorithms to cross-sectional scientific collaboration networks and analyze different types of co-membership in the resulting subgroups over time. This analysis summarizes large amounts of longitudinal network data to extract sets of research communities whose members have consistently collaborated or shared collaborators over time. Second, we construct networks of cross-community interactions and estimate Exponential Random Graph Models to predict the formation of interdisciplinary collaborations between different communities. The method is applied to longitudinal data on publication and grant collaborations at the University of Florida. Results show that similar institutional affiliation, spatial proximity, transitivity effects, and use of the same research services predict higher degree of interdisciplinary collaboration between research communities. Our application also illustrates how the identification of research communities in longitudinal data and the analysis of cross-community network formation can be used to measure the growth of interdisciplinary team science at a research university, and to evaluate its association with research policies, services or institutes.

Detecting and analyzing research communities in longitudinal scientific networks

PubMed Central

Vacca, Raffaele; Kennelly Okraku, Therese; McCarty, Christopher

2017-01-01

A growing body of evidence shows that collaborative teams and communities tend to produce the highest-impact scientific work. This paper proposes a new method to (1) Identify collaborative communities in longitudinal scientific networks, and (2) Evaluate the impact of specific research institutes, services or policies on the interdisciplinary collaboration between these communities. First, we apply community-detection algorithms to cross-sectional scientific collaboration networks and analyze different types of co-membership in the resulting subgroups over time. This analysis summarizes large amounts of longitudinal network data to extract sets of research communities whose members have consistently collaborated or shared collaborators over time. Second, we construct networks of cross-community interactions and estimate Exponential Random Graph Models to predict the formation of interdisciplinary collaborations between different communities. The method is applied to longitudinal data on publication and grant collaborations at the University of Florida. Results show that similar institutional affiliation, spatial proximity, transitivity effects, and use of the same research services predict higher degree of interdisciplinary collaboration between research communities. Our application also illustrates how the identification of research communities in longitudinal data and the analysis of cross-community network formation can be used to measure the growth of interdisciplinary team science at a research university, and to evaluate its association with research policies, services or institutes. PMID:28797047

Community-Based Review of Research Across Diverse Community Contexts: Key Characteristics, Critical Issues, and Future Directions

PubMed Central

Ford, Angela; Wat, Eric; Brayboy, Missy; Isaacs, Mei-Ling; Park, Alice; Strelnick, Hal; Seifer, Sarena D.

2015-01-01

A growing number of community-based organizations and community–academic partnerships are implementing processes to determine whether and how health research is conducted in their communities. These community-based research review processes (CRPs) can provide individual and community-level ethics protections, enhance the cultural relevance of study designs and competence of researchers, build community and academic research capacity, and shape research agendas that benefit diverse communities. To better understand how they are organized and function, representatives of 9 CRPs from across the United States convened in 2012 for a working meeting. In this article, we articulated and analyzed the models presented, offered guidance to communities that seek to establish a CRP, and made recommendations for future research, practice, and policy. PMID:25973834

Is it ethical to prevent secondary use of stored biological samples and data derived from consenting research participants? The case of Malawi.

PubMed

Mungwira, Randy G; Nyangulu, Wongani; Misiri, James; Iphani, Steven; Ng'ong'ola, Ruby; Chirambo, Chawanangwa M; Masiye, Francis; Mfutso-Bengo, Joseph

2015-12-02

and private health facilities that may end up in research centers outside Malawi. We also propose revision of the current research ethics regulations and guidelines in Malawi in order to allow secondary use of biological samples and data collected from primary research projects as a way of maximizing the use of collected samples and data. Finally, we call for consultation of all stakeholders within the Malawi research community when regulatory authorities are developing policies that govern research in Malawi.

Research on Livable Community Evaluation Based on GIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yin, Zhangcai; Wu, Yang; Jin, Zhanghaonan; Zhang, Xu

2018-01-01

Community is the basic unit of the city. Research on livable community could provide a bottom-up research path for the realization of livable city. Livability is the total factor affecting the quality of community life. In this paper, livable community evaluation indexes are evaluated based on GIS and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. Then the sum-index and sub-index of community livability are both calculated. And community livable evaluation index system is constructed based on the platform of GIS. This study provides theoretical support for the construction and management of livable communities, so as to guide the development and optimization of city.

ICBEN review of research on the biological effects of noise 2011-2014

PubMed Central

Basner, Mathias; Brink, Mark; Bristow, Abigail; de Kluizenaar, Yvonne; Finegold, Lawrence; Hong, Jiyoung; Janssen, Sabine A; Klaeboe, Ronny; Leroux, Tony; Liebl, Andreas; Matsui, Toshihito; Schwela, Dieter; Sliwinska-Kowalska, Mariola; Sörqvist, Patrik

2015-01-01

The mandate of the International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN) is to promote a high level of scientific research concerning all aspects of noise-induced effects on human beings and animals. In this review, ICBEN team chairs and co-chairs summarize relevant findings, publications, developments, and policies related to the biological effects of noise, with a focus on the period 2011-2014 and for the following topics: Noise-induced hearing loss; nonauditory effects of noise; effects of noise on performance and behavior; effects of noise on sleep; community response to noise; and interactions with other agents and contextual factors. Occupational settings and transport have been identified as the most prominent sources of noise that affect health. These reviews demonstrate that noise is a prevalent and often underestimated threat for both auditory and nonauditory health and that strategies for the prevention of noise and its associated negative health consequences are needed to promote public health. PMID:25774609

Community Economic Development: Perspectives on Research and Policy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galaway, Burt, Ed.; Hudson, Joe, Ed.

This book contains 27 papers that were originally developed for a research and policy symposium at which Canadian community economic development (CED) was examined in terms of research and policy requirements. The book contains the following papers: "Community Economic Development Practice in Canada" (Brodhead); "Community Economic…

Towards BioDBcore: a community-defined information specification for biological databases

PubMed Central

Gaudet, Pascale; Bairoch, Amos; Field, Dawn; Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Taylor, Chris; Attwood, Teresa K.; Bateman, Alex; Blake, Judith A.; Bult, Carol J.; Cherry, J. Michael; Chisholm, Rex L.; Cochrane, Guy; Cook, Charles E.; Eppig, Janan T.; Galperin, Michael Y.; Gentleman, Robert; Goble, Carole A.; Gojobori, Takashi; Hancock, John M.; Howe, Douglas G.; Imanishi, Tadashi; Kelso, Janet; Landsman, David; Lewis, Suzanna E.; Mizrachi, Ilene Karsch; Orchard, Sandra; Ouellette, B. F. Francis; Ranganathan, Shoba; Richardson, Lorna; Rocca-Serra, Philippe; Schofield, Paul N.; Smedley, Damian; Southan, Christopher; Tan, Tin Wee; Tatusova, Tatiana; Whetzel, Patricia L.; White, Owen; Yamasaki, Chisato

2011-01-01

The present article proposes the adoption of a community-defined, uniform, generic description of the core attributes of biological databases, BioDBCore. The goals of these attributes are to provide a general overview of the database landscape, to encourage consistency and interoperability between resources and to promote the use of semantic and syntactic standards. BioDBCore will make it easier for users to evaluate the scope and relevance of available resources. This new resource will increase the collective impact of the information present in biological databases. PMID:21097465

Towards BioDBcore: a community-defined information specification for biological databases

PubMed Central

Gaudet, Pascale; Bairoch, Amos; Field, Dawn; Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Taylor, Chris; Attwood, Teresa K.; Bateman, Alex; Blake, Judith A.; Bult, Carol J.; Cherry, J. Michael; Chisholm, Rex L.; Cochrane, Guy; Cook, Charles E.; Eppig, Janan T.; Galperin, Michael Y.; Gentleman, Robert; Goble, Carole A.; Gojobori, Takashi; Hancock, John M.; Howe, Douglas G.; Imanishi, Tadashi; Kelso, Janet; Landsman, David; Lewis, Suzanna E.; Karsch Mizrachi, Ilene; Orchard, Sandra; Ouellette, B.F. Francis; Ranganathan, Shoba; Richardson, Lorna; Rocca-Serra, Philippe; Schofield, Paul N.; Smedley, Damian; Southan, Christopher; Tan, Tin W.; Tatusova, Tatiana; Whetzel, Patricia L.; White, Owen; Yamasaki, Chisato

2011-01-01

The present article proposes the adoption of a community-defined, uniform, generic description of the core attributes of biological databases, BioDBCore. The goals of these attributes are to provide a general overview of the database landscape, to encourage consistency and interoperability between resources; and to promote the use of semantic and syntactic standards. BioDBCore will make it easier for users to evaluate the scope and relevance of available resources. This new resource will increase the collective impact of the information present in biological databases. PMID:21205783

BrisSynBio: a BBSRC/EPSRC-funded Synthetic Biology Research Centre.

PubMed

Sedgley, Kathleen R; Race, Paul R; Woolfson, Derek N

2016-06-15

BrisSynBio is the Bristol-based Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)/Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)-funded Synthetic Biology Research Centre. It is one of six such Centres in the U.K. BrisSynBio's emphasis is on rational and predictive bimolecular modelling, design and engineering in the context of synthetic biology. It trains the next generation of synthetic biologists in these approaches, to facilitate translation of fundamental synthetic biology research to industry and the clinic, and to do this within an innovative and responsible research framework. © 2016 The Author(s).

Community action research track: Community-based participatory research and service-learning experiences for medical students.

PubMed

Gimpel, Nora; Kindratt, Tiffany; Dawson, Alvin; Pagels, Patti

2018-04-01

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) and service-learning are unique experiential approaches designed to train medical students how to provide individualized patient care from a population perspective. Medical schools in the US are required to provide support for service-learning and community projects. Despite this requirement, few medical schools offer structured service-learning. We developed the Community Action Research Track (CART) to integrate population medicine, health promotion/disease prevention and the social determinants of health into the medical school curriculum through CBPR and service-learning experiences. This article provides an overview of CART and reports the program impact based on students' participation, preliminary evaluations and accomplishments. CART is an optional 4‑year service-learning experience for medical students interested in community health. The curriculum includes a coordinated longitudinal program of electives, community service-learning and lecture-based instruction. From 2009-2015, 146 CART students participated. Interests in public health (93%), community service (73%), primary care (73%), CBPR (60%) and community medicine (60%) were the top reasons for enrolment. Significant improvements in mean knowledge were found when measuring the principles of CBPR, levels of prevention, determining health literacy and patient communication strategies (all p's < 0.05). Most students (73%) were satisfied with CART. Projects were disseminated by at least 65 posters and four oral presentations at local, national and international professional meetings. Six manuscripts were published in peer-reviewed journals. CART is an innovative curriculum for training future physicians to be community-responsive physicians. CART can be replicated by other medical schools interested in offering a longitudinal CBPR and service-learning track in an urban metropolitan setting.

"You've gotta know the community": minority women make recommendations about community-focused health research.

PubMed

Pinto, Rogério M; McKay, Mary M; Escobar, Celeste

2008-01-01

To determine what ethnic and racial minority women recommend as the best approaches to participatory health research in their communities. To achieve this goal, this study focused on HIV prevention research. In 2003, Seven African American and seven Latina women (ages 33 to 52), all members of an HIV Prevention Collaborative Board, participated in individual interviews, lasting about 90 minutes each. Participants discussed their involvement in participatory research, and made recommendations as to how health researchers might better engage their communities. Data were coded independently by two coders following standard procedure for content analysis. Women's voices and expertise can help guide health-related research. This study shows that: (1) participatory HIV prevention research should be founded on trust and commitment, leading to social support; (2) research partners ought to come from diverse backgrounds and be knowledgeable about the community and willing to work on common objectives; and (3) collaborative partnerships ought to portray an image of strength and cohesion, and a clear articulation of the mission around a research project. To develop meaningful health research, researchers need to establish long-term ongoing relationships with community collaborators, including minority women from diverse backgrounds. Researchers ought to take a holistic approach working with communities, and ought to consider their research interests vis-a-vis the community's needs.

Community-based research in action: tales from the Ktunaxa community learning centres project.

PubMed

Stacy, Elizabeth; Wisener, Katherine; Liman, Yolanda; Beznosova, Olga; Lauscher, Helen Novak; Ho, Kendall; Jarvis-Selinger, Sandra

2014-01-01

Rural communities, particularly Aboriginal communities, often have limited access to health information, a situation that can have significant negative consequences. To address the lack of culturally and geographically relevant health information, a community-university partnership was formed to develop, implement, and evaluate Aboriginal Community Learning Centres (CLCs). The objective of this paper is to evaluate the community-based research process used in the development of the CLCs. It focuses on the process of building relationships among partners and the CLC's value and sustainability. Semistructured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, including principal investigators, community research leads, and supervisors. The interview transcripts were analyzed using an open-coding process to identify themes. Key challenges included enacting shared project governance, negotiating different working styles, and hiring practices based on commitment to project objectives rather than skill set. Technological access provided by the CLCs increased capacity for learning and collective community initiatives, as well as building community leads' skills, knowledge, and self-efficacy. An important lesson was to meet all partners "where they are" in building trusting relationships and adapting research methods to fit the project's context and strengths. Successful results were dependent upon persistence and patience in working through differences, and breaking the project into achievable goals, which collectively contributed to trust and capacity building. The process of building these partnerships resulted in increased capacity of communities to facilitate learning and change initiatives, and the capacity of the university to engage in successful research partnerships with Aboriginal communities in the future.

Puerto Rico Sustainable Communities Research Project

EPA Science Inventory

The goal of EPA’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program (SHCRP) is to inform and empower decision‐makers to equitably weigh and integrate human health, socio‐economic, environmental, and ecological factors to foster community sustainability. Pue...

Case study in designing a research fundamentals curriculum for community health workers: a university-community clinic collaboration.

PubMed

Dumbauld, Jill; Kalichman, Michael; Bell, Yvonne; Dagnino, Cynthia; Taras, Howard L

2014-01-01

Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly incorporated into research teams. Training them in research methodology and ethics, while relating these themes to a community's characteristics, may help to better integrate these health promotion personnel into research teams. An interactive training course on research fundamentals for CHWs was designed and implemented jointly by a community agency serving a primarily Latino, rural population and an academic health center. A focus group of community members and input from community leaders comprised a community-based participatory research model to create three 3-hour interactive training sessions. The resulting curriculum was interactive and successfully stimulated dialogue between trainees and academic researchers. By choosing course activities that elicited community-specific responses into each session's discussion, researchers learned about the community as much as the training course educated CHWs about research. The approach is readily adaptable, making it useful to other communities where CHWs are part of the health system.

Recruitment and retention of women in fishing communities in HIV prevention research.

PubMed

Ssetaala, Ali; Nakiyingi-Miiro, Jessica; Asiimwe, Stephen; Nanvubya, Annet; Mpendo, Juliet; Asiki, Gershim; Nielsen, Leslie; Kiwanuka, Noah; Seeley, Janet; Kamali, Anatoli; Kaleebu, Pontiano

2015-01-01

Women in fishing communities in Uganda are more at risk and have higher rates of HIV infection. Socio-cultural gender norms, limited access to health information and services, economic disempowerment, sexual abuse and their biological susceptibility make women more at risk of infection. There is need to design interventions that cater for women's vulnerability. We explore factors affecting recruitment and retention of women from fishing communities in HIV prevention research. An HIV incidence cohort screened 2074 volunteers (1057 men and 1017 women) aged 13-49 years from 5 fishing communities along Lake Victoria using demographic, medical history, risk behaviour assessment questionnaires.1000 HIV negative high risk volunteers were enrolled and followed every 6 months for 18 months. Factors associated with completion of study visits among women were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression. Women constituted 1,017(49%) of those screened, and 449(45%) of those enrolled with a median (IQR) age of 27 (22-33) years. Main reasons for non-enrolment were HIV infection (33.9%) and reported low risk behaviour (37.5%). A total of 382 (74%) women and 332 (69%) men completed all follow up visits. Older women (>24 yrs) and those unemployed, who had lived in the community for 5 years or more, were more likely to complete all study visits. Women had better retention rates than men at 18 months. Strategies for recruiting and retaining younger women and those who have stayed for less than 5 years need to be developed for improved retention of women in fishing communities in HIV prevention and research Programs.

Translating community-based participatory research principles into practice.

PubMed

Burke, Jessica G; Hess, Sally; Hoffmann, Kamden; Guizzetti, Lisa; Loy, Ellyn; Gielen, Andrea; Bailey, Maryanne; Walnoha, Adrienne; Barbee, Genevieve; Yonas, Michael

2013-01-01

Although academics are trained in research methods, few receive formal training in strategies for implementing equitable community engaged research. Academics and their community partners can benefit from such direction and assistance as they establish and maintain community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. Research partners from the University of Pittsburgh, the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, and the House of Ruth Maryland, one of the nation's leading domestic violence centers serving Baltimore and the surrounding areas, joined together to design, implement, and evaluate a series of activities to increase local CPBR capacity. This article provides an overview of process and findings from two CBPR workshops jointly held for academic and community members and explores specific suggestions from the workshop participants about how to put the CBPR principles into practice to promote community engaged research to address intimate partner violence (IPV). Twenty-four academic and community partners with experience addressing IPV participated in the two workshops. Facilitators led discussions based on the core CPBR principles. Participants were asked to interpret those principles, identify actions that could help to put the principles into practice, and discuss challenges related to CBPR approaches for IPV research. Observational notes and transcripts of the discussions and workshop evaluations are summarized. The CBPR principles were interpreted and revised through consensus into common language that reflected the group discussion of the core CBPR principles. Workshop participants provided a range of actions for putting the principles into practice and identified the need for sensitivity in relation to IPV research. A majority of participants felt that the workshop generated novel ideas about how they could use CPBR in their own work. Translating CBPR principles into common, action-oriented language is a useful first step when

Sustaining health education research programs in Aboriginal communities.

PubMed

Wisener, Katherine; Shapka, Jennifer; Jarvis-Selinger, Sandra

2017-09-01

Despite evidence supporting the ongoing provision of health education interventions in First Nations communities, there is a paucity of research that specifically addresses how these programs should be designed to ensure sustainability and long-term effects. Using a Community-Based Research approach, a collective case study was completed with three Canadian First Nations communities to address the following research question: What factors are related to sustainable health education programs, and how do they contribute to and/or inhibit program success in an Aboriginal context? Semi-structured interviews and a sharing circle were completed with 19 participants, including members of community leadership, external partners, and program staff and users. Seven factors were identified to either promote or inhibit program sustainability, including: 1) community uptake; 2) environmental factors; 3) stakeholder awareness and support; 4) presence of a champion; 5) availability of funding; 6) fit and flexibility; and 7) capacity and capacity building. Each factor is provided with a working definition, influential moderators, and key evaluation questions. This study is grounded in, and builds on existing research, and can be used by First Nations communities and universities to support effective sustainability planning for community-based health education interventions.

NASA Workshop on Biological Adaptation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morey-Holton, Emily (Editor); Tischler, Marc (Editor)

1988-01-01

A workshop was convened to review the current program in Space Biology Biological Adaptation Research and its objectives and to identify future research directions. Two research areas emerged from these deliberations: gravitational effects on structures and biomineralization and gravity affected regulatory mechanisms. The participants also recommended that research concentrate on rapidly growing animals, since gravity effects may be more pronounced during growth and development. Both research areas were defined and future research directions were identified. The recommendations of the workshop will assist the Life Sciences Division of NASA in it assessment and long-range planning of these areas of space biology. Equally important, the workshop was intended to stimulate thought and research among those attending so that they would, in turn, interest, excite, and involve other members of the academic community in research efforts relevant to these programs.

Grete Kellenberger-Gujer: Molecular biology research pioneer.

PubMed

Citi, Sandra; Berg, Douglas E

2016-01-01

Grete Kellenberger-Gujer was a Swiss molecular biologist who pioneered fundamental studies of bacteriophage in the mid-20(th) century at the University of Geneva. Her life and career stories are reviewed here, focusing on her fundamental contributions to our early understanding of phage biology via her insightful analyses of phenomena such as the lysogenic state of a temperate phage (λ), genetic recombination, radiation's in vivo consequences, and DNA restriction-modification; on her creative personality and interactions with peers; and how her academic advancement was affected by gender, societal conditions and cultural attitudes of the time. Her story is important scientifically, putting into perspective features of the scientific community from just before the molecular biology era started through its early years, and also sociologically, in illustrating the numerous "glass ceilings" that, especially then, often hampered the advancement of creative women.

Coastal habitat and biological community response to dam removal on the Elwha River

USGS Publications Warehouse

Foley, Melissa M.; Warrick, Jonathan A.; Ritchie, Andrew C.; Stevens, Andrew; Shafroth, Patrick B.; Duda, Jeff; Beirne, Matthew M.; Paradis, Rebecca; Gelfenbaum, Guy R.; McCoy, Randall; Cubley, Erin S.

2017-01-01

Habitat diversity and heterogeneity play a fundamental role in structuring ecological communities. Dam emplacement and removal can fundamentally alter habitat characteristics, which in turn can affect associated biological communities. Beginning in the early 1900s, the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams in Washington, USA, withheld an estimated 30 million tonnes of sediment from river, coastal, and nearshore habitats. During the staged removal of these dams—the largest dam removal project in history—over 14 million tonnes of sediment were released from the former reservoirs. Our interdisciplinary study in coastal habitats—the first of its kind—shows how the physical changes to the river delta and estuary habitats during dam removal were linked to responses in biological communities. Sediment released during dam removal resulted in over a meter of sedimentation in the estuary and over 400 m of expansion of the river mouth delta landform. These changes increased the amount of supratidal and intertidal habitat, but also reduced the influx of seawater into the pre-removal estuary complex. The effects of these geomorphic and hydrologic changes cascaded to biological systems, reducing the abundance of macroinvertebrates and fish in the estuary and shifting community composition from brackish to freshwater-dominated species. Vegetation did not significantly change on the delta, but pioneer vegetation increased during dam removal, coinciding with the addition of newly available habitat. Understanding how coastal habitats respond to large-scale human stressors—and in some cases the removal of those stressors—is increasingly important as human uses and restoration activities increase in these habitats.

Biological Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: An Examination of an Introductory Level Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knoth, Kenneth Charles

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide authentic research benefits to an entire laboratory course population. CURE experiences are proposed to enhance research skills, critical thinking, productivity, and retention in science. CURE curriculum developers face numerous obstacles, such as the logistics and time commitment involved in bringing a CURE to larger student populations. In addition, an ideal CURE topic requires affordable resources, lab techniques that can be quickly mastered, time for multiple iterations within one semester, and the opportunity to generate new data. This study identifies some of the CURE activities that lead to proposed participant outcomes. Introductory Biology I CURE lab students at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville completed research related to the process of converting storage lipids in microalgae into biodiesel. Data collected from CURE and traditional lab student participants indicate increased CURE student reports of project ownership, scientific self-efficacy, identification as a scientist, and sense of belonging to a science community. Study limitations and unanticipated benefits are discussed.

Developing a Community-Based Participatory Research Curriculum to Support Environmental Health Research Partnerships: An Initiative of the GROWH Community Outreach and Dissemination Core

PubMed Central

Canfield, Caitlin; Angove, Rebekah; Boselovic, Joseph; Brown, Lisanne F.; Gauthe, Sharon; Bui, Tap; Gauthe, David; Bogen, Donald; Denham, Stacey; Nguyen, Tuan; Lichtveld, Maureen Y.

2017-01-01

Background The Transdisciplinary Research Consortium for Gulf Resilience on Women’s Health (GROWH) addresses reproductive health disparities in the Gulf Coast by linking communities and scientists through community-engaged research. Funded by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, GROWH’s Community Outreach and Dissemination Core (CODC) seeks to utilize community-based participatory research (CBPR) and other community-centered outreach strategies to strengthen resilience in vulnerable Gulf Coast populations. The CODC is an academic-community partnership comprised of Tulane University, Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation, Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing, and the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI). Methods Alongside its CODC partners, LPHI collaboratively developed, piloted and evaluated an innovative CBPR curriculum. In addition to helping with curriculum design, the CODC’s community and academic partners participated in the pilot. The curriculum was designed to impart applied, practical knowledge to community-based organizations and academic researchers on the successful formulation, execution and sustaining of CBPR projects and partnerships within the context of environmental health research. Results The curriculum resulted in increased knowledge about CBPR methods among both community and academic partners as well as improved relationships within the GROWH CODC partnership. Conclusion The efforts of the GROWH partnership and curriculum were successful. This curriculum may serve as an anchor for future GROWH efforts including: competency development, translation of the curriculum into education and training products, community development of a CBPR curriculum for academic partners, community practice of CBPR, and future environmental health work. PMID:28890934

Dynamics of biological systems: role of systems biology in medical research.

PubMed

Assmus, Heike E; Herwig, Ralf; Cho, Kwang-Hyun; Wolkenhauer, Olaf

2006-11-01

Cellular systems are networks of interacting components that change with time in response to external and internal events. Studying the dynamic behavior of these networks is the basis for an understanding of cellular functions and disease mechanisms. Quantitative time-series data leading to meaningful models can improve our knowledge of human physiology in health and disease, and aid the search for earlier diagnoses, better therapies and a healthier life. The advent of systems biology is about to take the leap into clinical research and medical applications. This review emphasizes the importance of a dynamic view and understanding of cell function. We discuss the potential for computer-aided mathematical modeling of biological systems in medical research with examples from some of the major therapeutic areas: cancer, cardiovascular, diabetic and neurodegenerative medicine.

Engaging TBR Faculty in Online Research Communities and Emerging Technologies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Renner, Jasmine

2017-01-01

The growing impact of online research communities and emerging technologies is creating a significant paradigm shift and consequently changing the current research landscape of higher education. The rise of online research communities exemplifies a shift from traditional research engagements, to online research communities using "Web…

Results of the Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) National Research Capacity Survey of Community Health Centers.

PubMed

Song, Hui; Li, Vivian; Gillespie, Suzanne; Laws, Reesa; Massimino, Stefan; Nelson, Christine; Singal, Robbie; Wagaw, Fikirte; Jester, Michelle; Weir, Rosy Chang

2015-01-01

The mission of the Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) is to build capacity to carry out Patient-Centered Outcomes Research at community health centers (CHCs), with the ultimate goal to improve health care for vulnerable populations. The CHARN Needs Assessment Staff Survey investigates CHCs' involvement in research, as well as their need for research training and resources. Results will be used to guide future training. The survey was developed and implemented in partnership with CHARN CHCs. Data were collected across CHARN CHCs. Data analysis and reports were conducted by the CHARN data coordinating center (DCC). Survey results highlighted gaps in staff research training, and these gaps varied by staff role. There is considerable variation in research involvement, partnerships, and focus both within and across CHCs. Development of training programs to increase research capacity should be tailored to address the specific needs and roles of staff involved in research.

Global biology - An interdisciplinary scientific research program at NASA, Ames Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawless, J. G.; Colin, L.

1983-01-01

NASA has initiated new effort in Global Biology, the primary focus of which is to understand biogeochemical cycles. As part of this effort, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has formed at Ames Research Center to investigate the cycling of sulfur in the marine coastal zone and to study the cycling of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Both studies will use remotely sensed data, coupled with ground-based research, to identify and measure the transfer of major and minor biologically produced gases between these ecosystems and global reservoirs.

Global Biology: An Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Program at NASA Ames Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawless, James G.; Colin, Lawrence

1984-01-01

NASA has initiated new effort in Global Biology, the primary focus of which is to understand biogeochemical cycles. As part of this effort, an interdisciplinary team of scientists has formed at Ames Research Center to investigate the cycling of sulfur in the marine coastal zone and to study the cycling of nitrogen in terrestrial ecosystems. Both studies will use remotely sensed data, coupled with ground-based research, to identify and measure the transfer of major and minor biologically produced gases between these ecosystems and global reservoirs.

Biological Diversity Research: An Analysis

Treesearch

James W. McMinn

1991-01-01

An appropriate yardstick for a biodiversity program is how it affects the persistence of viable populations. A coordinated program of biodiversity research could be structured under three overlapping subject areas: (1) threatened, endangered, and sensitive species; (2) restoration of missing, underrepresented, or declining communities; and (3) general principles and...

Preventing biological weapon development through the governance of life science research.

PubMed

Epstein, Gerald L

2012-03-01

The dual-use dilemma in the life sciences-that illicit applications draw on the same science and technology base as legitimate applications-makes it inherently difficult to control one without inhibiting the other. Since before the September 11 attacks, the science and security communities in the United States have struggled to develop governance processes that can simultaneously minimize the risk of misuse of the life sciences, promote their beneficial applications, and protect the public trust. What has become clear over that time is that while procedural steps can be specified for assessing and managing dual-use risks in the review of research proposals, oversight of ongoing research, and communication of research results, the actions or decisions to be taken at each of these steps to mitigate dual-use risk defy codification. Yet the stakes are too high to do nothing, or to be seen as doing nothing. The U.S. government should therefore adopt an oversight framework largely along the lines recommended by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity almost 5 years ago-one that builds on existing processes, can gain buy-in from the scientific community, and can be implemented at modest cost (both direct and opportunity), while providing assurance that a considered and independent examination of dual-use risks is being applied. Without extraordinary visibility into the actions of those who would misuse biology, it may be impossible to know how well such an oversight system will actually succeed at mitigating misuse. But maintaining the public trust will require a system to be established in which reasonably foreseeable dual-use consequences of life science research are anticipated, evaluated, and addressed.

The application of biological motion research: biometrics, sport, and the military.

PubMed

Steel, Kylie; Ellem, Eathan; Baxter, David

2015-02-01

The body of research that examines the perception of biological motion is extensive and explores the factors that are perceived from biological motion and how this information is processed. This research demonstrates that individuals are able to use relative (temporal and spatial) information from a person's movement to recognize factors, including gender, age, deception, emotion, intention, and action. The research also demonstrates that movement presents idiosyncratic properties that allow individual discrimination, thus providing the basis for significant exploration in the domain of biometrics and social signal processing. Medical forensics, safety garments, and victim selection domains also have provided a history of research on the perception of biological motion applications; however, a number of additional domains present opportunities for application that have not been explored in depth. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the current applications of biological motion-based research and to propose a number of areas where biological motion research, specific to recognition, could be applied in the future.

Learning-style preferences of Latino/Hispanic community college students enrolled in an introductory biology course

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarantopoulos, Helen D.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify, according to the Productivity Environment Preference Survey (PEPS) instrument, which learning-style domains (environmental, emotional, sociological, and physiological) were favored among Latino/Hispanic community college students enrolled in introductory biology classes in a large, urban community college. An additional purpose of this study was to determine whether statistically significant differences existed between the learning-style preferences and the demographic variables of age, gender, number of prior science courses, second language learner status, and earlier exposure to scientific information. Methodology. The study design was descriptive and ex post facto. The sample consisted of a total of 332 Latino/Hispanic students enrolled in General Biology 3. Major findings. The study revealed that Latino/Hispanic students enrolled in introductory biology at a large urban community college scored higher for the learning preference element of structure. Students twenty-five years and older scored higher for the learning preference elements of light, design, persistence, responsibility, and morning time (p <= 0.05). Females scored higher in the preference elements of (a) light, (b) temperature (warmth), (c) authority and (d) auditory (p <= 0.05). Significant differences were found for the elements of sound, warmth, motivation, several ways, and intake between the students with no prior science coursework and those who completed more than one (p <= 0.05). No significant learning-style preferences were found between second English language learners and those who learned English as their primary language (p <= 0.05). Students who frequently read science articles scored higher for the elements of motivation, persistence, responsibility, and tactile (p <= 0.05). Conclusions and recommendations. The conclusions were that Latino/Hispanic students need detailed guidance and clearly stated course objectives. The

A Retrospective of Four Decades of Community College Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Floyd, Deborah L.; Felsher, Rivka A.; Ramdin, Gianna

2016-01-01

In the 40th publication year of the "Community College Journal of Research and Practice" ("CCJRP"), the authors present a 39-year retrospective on research on the community college through the lens of the journal. It is not known exactly what the body of community college research wholly consists of. Without access to the…

Mechanisms and Regulation of Extracellular DNA Release and Its Biological Roles in Microbial Communities

PubMed Central

Ibáñez de Aldecoa, Alejandra L.; Zafra, Olga; González-Pastor, José E.

2017-01-01

The capacity to release genetic material into the extracellular medium has been reported in cultures of numerous species of bacteria, archaea, and fungi, and also in the context of multicellular microbial communities such as biofilms. Moreover, extracellular DNA (eDNA) of microbial origin is widespread in natural aquatic and terrestrial environments. Different specific mechanisms are involved in eDNA release, such as autolysis and active secretion, as well as through its association with membrane vesicles. It is noteworthy that in microorganisms, in which DNA release has been studied in detail, the production of eDNA is coordinated by the population when it reaches a certain cell density, and is induced in a subpopulation in response to the accumulation of quorum sensing signals. Interestingly, in several bacteria there is also a relationship between eDNA release and the development of natural competence (the ability to take up DNA from the environment), which is also controlled by quorum sensing. Then, what is the biological function of eDNA? A common biological role has not been proposed, since different functions have been reported depending on the microorganism. However, it seems to be important in biofilm formation, can be used as a nutrient source, and could be involved in DNA damage repair and gene transfer. This review covers several aspects of eDNA research: (i) its occurrence and distribution in natural environments, (ii) the mechanisms and regulation of its release in cultured microorganisms, and (iii) its biological roles. In addition, we propose that eDNA release could be considered a social behavior, based on its quorum sensing-dependent regulation and on the described functions of eDNA in the context of microbial communities. PMID:28798731

Mixed-Methods Design in Biology Education Research: Approach and Uses.

PubMed

Warfa, Abdi-Rizak M

Educational research often requires mixing different research methodologies to strengthen findings, better contextualize or explain results, or minimize the weaknesses of a single method. This article provides practical guidelines on how to conduct such research in biology education, with a focus on mixed-methods research (MMR) that uses both quantitative and qualitative inquiries. Specifically, the paper provides an overview of mixed-methods design typologies most relevant in biology education research. It also discusses common methodological issues that may arise in mixed-methods studies and ways to address them. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to report and write about MMR. © 2016 L. A.-R. M. Warfa. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Re-thinking organisms: The impact of databases on model organism biology.

PubMed

Leonelli, Sabina; Ankeny, Rachel A

2012-03-01

Community databases have become crucial to the collection, ordering and retrieval of data gathered on model organisms, as well as to the ways in which these data are interpreted and used across a range of research contexts. This paper analyses the impact of community databases on research practices in model organism biology by focusing on the history and current use of four community databases: FlyBase, Mouse Genome Informatics, WormBase and The Arabidopsis Information Resource. We discuss the standards used by the curators of these databases for what counts as reliable evidence, acceptable terminology, appropriate experimental set-ups and adequate materials (e.g., specimens). On the one hand, these choices are informed by the collaborative research ethos characterising most model organism communities. On the other hand, the deployment of these standards in databases reinforces this ethos and gives it concrete and precise instantiations by shaping the skills, practices, values and background knowledge required of the database users. We conclude that the increasing reliance on community databases as vehicles to circulate data is having a major impact on how researchers conduct and communicate their research, which affects how they understand the biology of model organisms and its relation to the biology of other species. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Biological and Physical Research Enterprise Strategy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

As the 21st century begins, NASA's new Vision and Mission focuses the Agency's Enterprises toward exploration and discovery.The Biological and Physical Research Enterprise has a unique and enabling role in support of the Agency's Vision and Mission. Our strategic research seeks innovations and solutions to enable the extension of life into deep space safely and productively. Our fundamental research, as well as our research partnerships with industry and other agencies, allow new knowledge and tech- nologies to bring improvements to life on Earth. Our interdisciplinary research in the unique laboratory of microgravity addresses opportunities and challenges on our home planet as well as in space environments. The Enterprise maintains a key role in encouraging and engaging the next generation of explorers from primary school through the grad- uate level via our direct student participation in space research.The Biological and Physical Research Enterprise encompasses three themes. The biological sciences research theme investigates ways to support a safe human presence in space. This theme addresses the definition and control of physiological and psychological risks from the space environment, including radiation,reduced gravity, and isolation. The biological sciences research theme is also responsible for the develop- ment of human support systems technology as well as fundamental biological research spanning topics from genomics to ecologies. The physical sciences research theme supports research that takes advantage of the space environment to expand our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature. This theme also supports applied physical sciences research to improve safety and performance of humans in space. The research partnerships and flight support theme establishes policies and allocates space resources to encourage and develop entrepreneurial partners access to space research.Working together across research disciplines, the Biological and Physical

Meta-Research: Broadening the Scope of PLOS Biology.

PubMed

Kousta, Stavroula; Ferguson, Christine; Ganley, Emma

2016-01-01

In growing recognition of the importance of how scientific research is designed, performed, communicated, and evaluated, PLOS Biology announces a broadening of its scope to cover meta-research articles.

Grete Kellenberger-Gujer: Molecular biology research pioneer

PubMed Central

Citi, Sandra; Berg, Douglas E.

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Grete Kellenberger-Gujer was a Swiss molecular biologist who pioneered fundamental studies of bacteriophage in the mid-20th century at the University of Geneva. Her life and career stories are reviewed here, focusing on her fundamental contributions to our early understanding of phage biology via her insightful analyses of phenomena such as the lysogenic state of a temperate phage (λ), genetic recombination, radiation's in vivo consequences, and DNA restriction-modification; on her creative personality and interactions with peers; and how her academic advancement was affected by gender, societal conditions and cultural attitudes of the time. Her story is important scientifically, putting into perspective features of the scientific community from just before the molecular biology era started through its early years, and also sociologically, in illustrating the numerous “glass ceilings” that, especially then, often hampered the advancement of creative women. PMID:27607140

Ethics of Health Research in Communities: Perspectives From the Southwestern United States

PubMed Central

Williams, Robert L.; Willging, Cathleen E.; Quintero, Gilbert; Kalishman, Summers; Sussman, Andrew L.; Freeman, William L.

2010-01-01

PURPOSE The increasing attention paid to community-based research highlights the question of whether human research protections focused on the individual are adequate to safeguard communities. We conducted a study to explore how community members perceive low-risk health research, the adequacy of human research protection processes, and the ethical conduct of community-based research. METHODS Eighteen focus groups were conducted among rural and urban Hispanic and Native American communities in New Mexico using a semistructured guide. Group transcriptions were analyzed using iterative readings and coding, with review of the analytic summary by group members. RESULTS Although participants recognized the value of health research, many also identified several adverse effects of research in their communities, including social (community and individual labeling, stigmatization, and discrimination) and economic (community job losses, increased insurance rates, and loss of community income). A lack of community beneficence was emphasized by participants who spoke of researchers who fail to communicate results adequately or assist with follow-through. Many group members did not believe current human research and data privacy processes were adequate to protect or assist communities. CONCLUSIONS Ethical review of community-based health research should apply the Belmont principles to communities. Researchers should adopt additional approaches to community-based research by engaging communities as active partners throughout the research process, focusing on community priorities, and taking extra precautions to assure individual and community privacy. Plans for meaningful dissemination of results to communities should be part of the research design. PMID:20843885

Views on Researcher-Community Engagement in Autism Research in the United Kingdom: A Mixed-Methods Study

PubMed Central

Pellicano, Elizabeth; Dinsmore, Adam; Charman, Tony

2014-01-01

There has been a substantial increase in research activity on autism during the past decade. Research into effective ways of responding to the immediate needs of autistic people is, however, less advanced, as are efforts at translating basic science research into service provision. Involving community members in research is one potential way of reducing this gap. This study therefore investigated the views of community involvement in autism research both from the perspectives of autism researchers and of community members, including autistic adults, family members and practitioners. Results from a large-scale questionnaire study (n = 1,516) showed that researchers perceive themselves to be engaged with the autism community but that community members, most notably autistic people and their families, did not share this view. Focus groups/interviews with 72 participants further identified the potential benefits and remaining challenges to involvement in research, especially regarding the distinct perspectives of different stakeholders. Researchers were skeptical about the possibilities of dramatically increasing community engagement, while community members themselves spoke about the challenges to fully understanding and influencing the research process. We suggest that the lack of a shared approach to community engagement in UK autism research represents a key roadblock to translational endeavors. PMID:25303222

Community-Based Participatory Research Conceptual Model: Community Partner Consultation and Face Validity.

PubMed

Belone, Lorenda; Lucero, Julie E; Duran, Bonnie; Tafoya, Greg; Baker, Elizabeth A; Chan, Domin; Chang, Charlotte; Greene-Moton, Ella; Kelley, Michele A; Wallerstein, Nina

2016-01-01

A national community-based participatory research (CBPR) team developed a conceptual model of CBPR partnerships to understand the contribution of partnership processes to improved community capacity and health outcomes. With the model primarily developed through academic literature and expert consensus building, we sought community input to assess face validity and acceptability. Our research team conducted semi-structured focus groups with six partnerships nationwide. Participants validated and expanded on existing model constructs and identified new constructs based on "real-world" praxis, resulting in a revised model. Four cross-cutting constructs were identified: trust development, capacity, mutual learning, and power dynamics. By empirically testing the model, we found community face validity and capacity to adapt the model to diverse contexts. We recommend partnerships use and adapt the CBPR model and its constructs, for collective reflection and evaluation, to enhance their partnering practices and achieve their health and research goals. © The Author(s) 2014.

The 2015 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue and molecular biology database collection.

PubMed

Galperin, Michael Y; Rigden, Daniel J; Fernández-Suárez, Xosé M

2015-01-01

The 2015 Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue contains 172 papers that include descriptions of 56 new molecular biology databases, and updates on 115 databases whose descriptions have been previously published in NAR or other journals. Following the classification that has been introduced last year in order to simplify navigation of the entire issue, these articles are divided into eight subject categories. This year's highlights include RNAcentral, an international community portal to various databases on noncoding RNA; ValidatorDB, a validation database for protein structures and their ligands; SASBDB, a primary repository for small-angle scattering data of various macromolecular complexes; MoonProt, a database of 'moonlighting' proteins, and two new databases of protein-protein and other macromolecular complexes, ComPPI and the Complex Portal. This issue also includes an unusually high number of cancer-related databases and other databases dedicated to genomic basics of disease and potential drugs and drug targets. The size of NAR online Molecular Biology Database Collection, http://www.oxfordjournals.org/nar/database/a/, remained approximately the same, following the addition of 74 new resources and removal of 77 obsolete web sites. The entire Database Issue is freely available online on the Nucleic Acids Research web site (http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research 2014. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) in South Africa: engaging multiple constituents to shape the research question.

PubMed

Mosavel, Maghboeba; Simon, Christian; van Stade, Debbie; Buchbinder, Mara

2005-12-01

Community engagement is an on-going, arduous, and necessary process for developing effective health promotion programs. The challenges are amplified when the particular health issue or research question is not prominent in the consciousness of the targeted community. In this paper, we explore the community-based participatory research (CBPR) model as a means to negotiate a mutual agenda between communities and researchers. The paper is focused on the (perceived) need for cervical cancer screening in an under-resourced community in Cape Town, South Africa. Cervical cancer is a significant health problem in this community and elsewhere in South Africa. Unlike HIV-AIDS, however, many Black South Africans have not been educated about cervical cancer and the importance of obtaining screening. Many may not consider screening a priority in their lives. Our research included extensive consultations and informal interviews with diverse community and regional stakeholders. Following these, we conducted 27 focus groups and 106 demographic surveys with randomly selected youth, parents, local health care personnel, educators and school staff. Focus group data were summarized and analyzed cross-sectionally. Community stakeholders were involved throughout this research. Our consultations, interviews, and focus group data were key in identifying the concerns and priorities of the community. By engaging community stakeholders, we developed a research framework that incorporated the community's concerns and priorities, and stressed the intersecting roles of poverty, violence, and other cultural forces in shaping community members' health and wellbeing. Community members helped to refocus our research from cervical cancer to 'cervical health,' a concept that acknowledged the impact on women's bodies and lives of HIV-AIDS and STDs, sexual violence, poverty, and multiple social problems. We conclude that the research agenda and questions in community-based health research should not be

Community-Engaged Strategies to Promote Relevance of Research Capacity-Building Efforts Targeting Community Organizations.

PubMed

Cunningham, Jennifer; Miller, Stephania T; Joosten, Yvonne; Elzey, Jared D; Israel, Tiffany; King, Christine; Luther, Patrick; Vaughn, Yolanda; Wilkins, Consuelo H

2015-10-01

The study goal is to highlight strategies for promoting relevance of research capacity-building efforts targeting community organizations (CO)s. Two community partners, representing two COs, were invited to participate in CO research development trainings, Community Research Forums (Forum)s. Their contributions were documented via Forum document review. Forum participants, representatives from other COs, completed post-Forum surveys to identify additional training needs and rate Forum impact relative to their training expectations. A content-based analysis and descriptive statistics were used to summarize needs assessment- and impact-related survey responses, respectively. Community partners were involved in eight Forum-related activities including marketing (planning), facilitation (implementation), and manuscript coauthorship (dissemination). Eighty-one individuals, representing 55 COs, attended the Forums. Needs assessment responses revealed a desire for additional assistance with existing Forum topics (e.g., defining research priorities) and a need for new ones (e.g., promoting organizational buy in for research). Ninety-one percent of participants agreed that the Forum demonstrated the value of research to COs and how to create a research agenda. Including community partners in all Forum phases ensured that CO perspectives were integrated throughout. Post-Forum needs and impact assessment results will help in tailoring, where needed, future training topics and strategies, respectively. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Considering sex as a biological variable in preclinical research.

PubMed

Miller, Leah R; Marks, Cheryl; Becker, Jill B; Hurn, Patricia D; Chen, Wei-Jung; Woodruff, Teresa; McCarthy, Margaret M; Sohrabji, Farida; Schiebinger, Londa; Wetherington, Cora Lee; Makris, Susan; Arnold, Arthur P; Einstein, Gillian; Miller, Virginia M; Sandberg, Kathryn; Maier, Susan; Cornelison, Terri L; Clayton, Janine A

2017-01-01

In June 2015, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Guide notice (NOT-OD-15-102) that highlighted the expectation of the NIH that the possible role of sex as a biologic variable be factored into research design, analyses, and reporting of vertebrate animal and human studies. Anticipating these guidelines, the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, in October 2014, convened key stakeholders to discuss methods and techniques for integrating sex as a biologic variable in preclinical research. The workshop focused on practical methods, experimental design, and approaches to statistical analyses in the use of both male and female animals, cells, and tissues in preclinical research. Workshop participants also considered gender as a modifier of biology. This article builds on the workshop and is meant as a guide to preclinical investigators as they consider methods and techniques for inclusion of both sexes in preclinical research and is not intended to prescribe exhaustive/specific approaches for compliance with the new NIH policy.-Miller, L. R., Marks, C., Becker, J. B., Hurn, P. D., Chen, W.-J., Woodruff, T., McCarthy, M. M., Sohrabji, F., Schiebinger, L., Wetherington, C. L., Makris, S., Arnold, A. P., Einstein, G., Miller, V. M., Sandberg, K., Maier, S., Cornelison, T. L., Clayton, J. A. Considering sex as a biological variable in preclinical research. © FASEB.

Community-Based Research: From Practice to Theory and Back Again.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stoecker, Randy

2003-01-01

Explores the theoretical strands being combined in community-based research--charity service learning, social justice service learning, action research, and participatory research. Shows how different models of community-based research, based in different theories of society and different approaches to community work, may combine or conflict. (EV)

Developing a Bidirectional Academic–Community Partnership with an Appalachian-American Community for Environmental Health Research and Risk Communication

PubMed Central

Beidler, Caroline; Wittberg, Richard; Meloncon, Lisa; Parin, Megan; Kopras, Elizabeth J.; Succop, Paul; Dietrich, Kim N.

2011-01-01

Background: Marietta, Ohio, is an Appalachian-American community whose residents have long struggled with understanding their exposure to airborne manganese (Mn). Although community engagement in research is strongly endorsed by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in particular, little has been documented demonstrating how an academic–community partnership that implements the community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles can be created and mobilized for research. Objectives: We created a bidirectional, academic–community partnership with an Appalachian-American community to a) identify the community’s thoughts and perceptions about local air quality, its effect on health, and the perception of risk communication sources and b) jointly develop and conduct environmental health research. Methods: We formed a community advisory board (CAB), jointly conducted pilot research studies, and used the results to develop a community-driven research agenda. Results: Persons in the community were “very concerned” to “concerned” about local air quality (91%) and perceived the air quality to have a direct impact on their health and on their children’s health (93% and 94%, respectively). The CAB identified the primary research question: “Does Mn affect the cognition and behavior of children?” Although the community members perceived research scientists as the most trusted and knowledgeable regarding risks from industrial emissions, they received very little risk information from research scientists. Conclusions: Engaging a community in environmental health research from its onset enhanced the quality and relevance of the research investigation. The CBPR principles were a useful framework in building a strong academic–community partnership. Because of the current disconnect between communities and research scientists, academic researchers should consider working collaboratively with community

Case Study in Designing a Research Fundamentals Curriculum for Community Health Workers: A University - Community Clinic Collaborative

PubMed Central

Dumbauld, Jill; Kalichman, Michael; Bell, Yvonne; Dagnino, Cynthia; Taras, Howard

2014-01-01

Introduction Community health workers are increasingly incorporated into research teams. Training them in research methodology and ethics, while relating these themes to a community’s characteristics, may help to better integrate these health promotion personnel into research teams. Approach and Strategies This pilot project involved the design and implementation of an interactive training course on research fundamentals for community health workers from clinics in a rural, predominately Latino setting. Curriculum development was guided by collaborative activities arising from a university - clinic partnership, a community member focus group, and the advice of community-based researchers. The resulting curriculum was interactive and stimulated dialogue between trainees and academic researchers. Discussion and Conclusions Collaboration between researchers and health agency professionals proved to be a practical method to develop curriculum for clinic staff. An interactive curriculum allowed trainees to incorporate community-specific themes into the discussion. This interaction educated course instructors from academia about the community as much as it educated course participants about research. The bidirectional engagement that occurs during the development and teaching of this course can potentially lead to research partnerships between community agencies and academia, better-informed members of the public, and research protocols that accommodate community characteristics. PMID:24121537

9 CFR 112.9 - Biological products imported for research and evaluation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Biological products imported for research and evaluation. 112.9 Section 112.9 Animals and Animal Products ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION... PACKAGING AND LABELING § 112.9 Biological products imported for research and evaluation. A biological...

9 CFR 112.9 - Biological products imported for research and evaluation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Biological products imported for research and evaluation. 112.9 Section 112.9 Animals and Animal Products ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION... PACKAGING AND LABELING § 112.9 Biological products imported for research and evaluation. A biological...

9 CFR 112.9 - Biological products imported for research and evaluation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Biological products imported for research and evaluation. 112.9 Section 112.9 Animals and Animal Products ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION... PACKAGING AND LABELING § 112.9 Biological products imported for research and evaluation. A biological...

9 CFR 112.9 - Biological products imported for research and evaluation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Biological products imported for research and evaluation. 112.9 Section 112.9 Animals and Animal Products ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION... PACKAGING AND LABELING § 112.9 Biological products imported for research and evaluation. A biological...

9 CFR 112.9 - Biological products imported for research and evaluation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Biological products imported for research and evaluation. 112.9 Section 112.9 Animals and Animal Products ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION... PACKAGING AND LABELING § 112.9 Biological products imported for research and evaluation. A biological...

Ethical genetic research in Indigenous communities: challenges and successful approaches.

PubMed

McWhirter, Rebekah E; Mununggirritj, Djapirri; Marika, Dipililnga; Dickinson, Joanne L; Condon, John R

2012-12-01

Indigenous populations, in common with all populations, stand to benefit from the potential of genetic research to lead to improvements in diagnostic and therapeutic tools for a wide range of complex diseases. However, many Indigenous communities, especially ones that are isolated, are not included in genetic research efforts. This situation is largely a consequence of the challenges of ethically conducting genetic research in Indigenous communities and compounded by Indigenous peoples' negative past experiences with genetic issues. To examine ways of addressing these challenges, we review one investigation of a cancer cluster in remote Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land, Australia. Our experiences demonstrate that genetic research can be both ethically and successfully conducted with Indigenous communities by respecting the authority of the community, involving community members, and including regular community review throughout the research process. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Community-based participatory research in complex settings: clean mind–dirty hands

PubMed Central

Makhoul, Jihad; Nakkash, Rima; Harpham, Trudy; Qutteina, Yara

2014-01-01

Despite the abundance of the literature which discusses factors supporting or inhibiting effective participation of community members in community-based research, there is a paucity of publications analysing challenges to participation in complex settings. This manuscript describes an intervention built on researcher–community partnership amid complex social conditions which challenged participation of community members at different stages of the research process. The research took place in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon and 1 of 12 in Lebanon which suffer from deteriorating social, economic and physical conditions perpetuated by state-imposed restrictions. The research team developed a community coalition which was involved in all stages of planning, designing, implementation and dissemination. In all those stages the aim was to maintain rigorous research, to follow a ‘clean mind’ approach to research, but maintain principles of community participation which necessitate ‘a dirty hand’. Despite commitment to the principles of community-based participatory research, participation of community members (including youth, parents and teachers) was affected to a great extent by the social, physical and structural conditions of the community context. Characteristics of the context where research is conducted and how it affects community members should not be overlooked since multiple factors beyond the researchers' control could interfere with the rigour of scientific research. Researchers need to develop a plan for participation with the community from the beginning with an understanding of the community forces that affect meaningful participation and address possible deterrence. PMID:23872385

Explorations: A Research-Based Program Introducing Undergraduates to Diverse Biology Research Topics Taught by Grad Students and Postdocs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brownell, Sara E.; Khalfan, Waheeda; Bergmann, Dominique; Simoni, Robert

2013-01-01

Undergraduate biology majors are often overwhelmed by and underinformed about the diversity and complexity of biological research that is conducted on research-intensive campuses. We present a program that introduces undergraduates to the diversity and scope of biological research and also provides unique teaching opportunities for graduate…

Capacity for Cancer Care Delivery Research in National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program Community Practices: Availability of Radiology and Primary Care Research Partners.

PubMed

Carlos, Ruth C; Sicks, JoRean D; Chang, George J; Lyss, Alan P; Stewart, Teresa L; Sung, Lillian; Weaver, Kathryn E

2017-12-01

Cancer care spans the spectrum from screening and diagnosis through therapy and into survivorship. Delivering appropriate care requires patient transitions across multiple specialties, such as primary care, radiology, and oncology. From the program's inception, the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) sites were tasked with conducting cancer care delivery research (CCDR) that evaluates structural, organizational, and social factors, including care transitions that determine patient outcomes. The aim of this study is to describe the capacity of the NCORP to conduct multidisciplinary CCDR that includes radiology and primary care practices. The NCORP includes 34 community and 12 minority and underserved community sites. The Landscape Capacity Assessment was conducted in 2015 across these 46 sites, composed of the 401 components and subcomponents designated to conduct CCDR. Each respondent had the opportunity to designate an operational practice group, defined as a group of components and subcomponents with common care practices and resources. The primary outcomes were the proportion of adult oncology practice groups with affiliated radiology and primary care practices. The secondary outcomes were the proportion of those affiliated radiology and primary care groups that participate in research. Eighty-seven percent of components and subcomponents responded to at least some portion of the assessment, representing 230 practice groups. Analyzing the 201 adult oncology practice groups, 85% had affiliated radiologists, 69% of whom participate in research. Seventy-nine percent had affiliated primary care practitioners, 31% of whom participate in research. Institutional size, multidisciplinary group practice, and ownership by large regional or multistate health systems was associated with research participation by affiliated radiology and primary care groups. Research participation by these affiliated specialists was not significantly

Use of community engagement strategies to increase research participation in practice-based research networks (PBRNs).

PubMed

Spears, William; Tsoh, Janice Y; Potter, Michael B; Weller, Nancy; Brown, Anthony E; Campbell-Voytal, Kimberly; Getrich, Christina M; Sussman, Andrew L; Pascoe, John; Neale, Anne Victoria

2014-01-01

Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) are increasingly encouraged to use community engagement approaches. The extent to which PBRNs engage clinic and community partners in strategies to recruit and retain participants from their local communities (specifically racial/ethnic communities) is the focus of this study. The design was a cross-sectional survey of PBRN directors in the United States. Survey respondents indicated whether their research network planned for, implemented, and has capacity for activities that engage clinic and community partners in 7 recommended strategies organized into study phases, called the cycle of trust. The objectives of the national survey were to (1) describe the extent to which PBRNs across the United States routinely implement the strategies recommended for recruiting diverse patient groups and (2) identify factors associated with implementing the recommended strategies. The survey response rate was 63%. Activities that build trust often are used more with clinic partners than with community partners. PBRNs that adopt engagement strategies when working with clinic and community partners have less difficulty in recruiting diverse populations. Multivariate analysis showed that the targeting racial/ethnic communities for study recruitment, Clinical and Translational Science Award affiliation, and planning to use community engagement strategies were independent correlates of PBRN implementation of the recommended strategies. PBRNs that successfully engage racial/ethnic communities as research partners use community engagement strategies. New commitments are needed to support PBRN researchers in developing relationships with the communities in which their patients live. Stable PBRN infrastructure funding that appreciates the value of maintaining community engagement between funded studies is critical to the research enterprise that values translating research findings into generalizable care models for patients in the community. �

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) in South Africa: Engaging multiple constituents to shape the research question

PubMed Central

Mosavel, Maghboeba; Simon, Christian; van Stade, Debbie; Buchbinder, Mara

2011-01-01

Community engagement is an on-going, arduous, and necessary process for developing effective health promotion programs. The challenges are amplified when the particular health issue or research question is not prominent in the consciousness of the targeted community. In this paper, we explore the community-based participatory research (CBPR) model as a means to negotiate a mutual agenda between communities and researchers. The paper is focused on the (perceived) need for cervical cancer screening in an under-resourced community in Cape Town, South Africa. Cervical cancer is a significant health problem in this community and elsewhere in South Africa. Unlike HIV-AIDS, however, many Black South Africans have not been educated about cervical cancer and the importance of obtaining screening. Many may not consider screening a priority in their lives. Our research included extensive consultations and informal interviews with diverse community and regional stakeholders. Following these, we conducted 27 focus groups and 106 demographic surveys with randomly selected youth, parents, local health care personnel, educators and school staff. Focus group data were summarized and analyzed cross-sectionally. Community stakeholders were involved throughout this research. Our consultations, interviews, and focus group data were key in identifying the concerns and priorities of the community. By engaging community stakeholders, we developed a research framework that incorporated the community’s concerns and priorities, and stressed the intersecting roles of poverty, violence, and other cultural forces in shaping community members’ health and wellbeing. Community members helped to refocus our research from cervical cancer to ‘cervical health,’ a concept that acknowledged the impact on women’s bodies and lives of HIV-AIDS and STDs, sexual violence, poverty, and multiple social problems. We conclude that the research agenda and questions in community-based health research

Research- and community-based clinicians' attitudes on treatment manuals.

PubMed

Barry, Declan T; Fulgieri, Melissa D; Lavery, Meaghan E; Chawarski, Marek C; Najavits, Lisa M; Schottenfeld, Richard S; Pantalon, Michael V

2008-01-01

We assessed the attitudes of 18 research- and 22 community-based substance abuse clinicians on treatment manuals. Research and community clinicians exhibited favorable attitudes toward manuals, and the majority (72% and 77%, respectively) reported an interest in learning more about substance use disorder (SUD) treatment manuals. Among community clinicians, greater years of experience was significantly associated with less favorable attitudes toward treatment manuals. Research clinicians endorsed significantly higher ratings for the importance attached to "theoretical rationale/overview" and "main session points to address" than community clinicians. Findings suggest that community SUD clinicians are already familiar with and have positive attitudes toward manuals, but specific subgroups have concerns that should be addressed.

"Who's gonna plant the trees?!?": Creating effective synergies between community and research goals in scientist-community partnerships

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Declet-Barreto, J.; Johnson, C.

2017-12-01

Harnessing science into effective, community-focused action requires ongoing partnerships that increase both understanding and trust between communities and scientists. One hurdle to overcome is that often, research questions and goals do not line up with the most pressing perceived or objective issues that a partner community faces. Another barrier is that community members often do not have a clear idea of how communities could benefit from the research, an issue that can create confusion and undermine community support for a partnership. In this session, we will discuss some of our successes and misses in developing research partnerships and actionable science for the benefit of communities. We will share stories on how we crafted effective actionable research products in partnership with Environmental Justice and other vulnerable communities.

"Communities" in community engagement: lessons learned from autism research in South Korea and South Africa.

PubMed

Grinker, Roy Richard; Chambers, Nola; Njongwe, Nono; Lagman, Adrienne E; Guthrie, Whitney; Stronach, Sheri; Richard, Bonnie O; Kauchali, Shuaib; Killian, Beverley; Chhagan, Meera; Yucel, Fikri; Kudumu, Mwenda; Barker-Cummings, Christie; Grether, Judith; Wetherby, Amy M

2012-06-01

Little research has been conducted on behavioral characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from diverse cultures within the US, or from countries outside of the US or Europe, with little reliable information yet reported from developing countries. We describe the process used to engage diverse communities in ASD research in two community-based research projects-an epidemiologic investigation of 7- to 12-year olds in South Korea and the Early Autism Project, an ASD detection program for 18- to 36-month-old Zulu-speaking children in South Africa. Despite the differences in wealth between these communities, ASD is underdiagnosed in both settings, and generally not reported in clinical or educational records. Moreover, in both countries, there is low availability of services. In both cases, local knowledge helped researchers to address both ethnographic as well as practical problems. Researchers identified the ways in which these communities generate and negotiate the cultural meanings of developmental disorders. Researchers incorporated that knowledge, as they engaged communities in a research protocol, adapted and translated screening and diagnostic tools, and developed methods for screening, evaluating, and diagnosing children with ASD. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Participatory development and implementation of a community research workshop: Experiences from a community based participatory research (CBPR) partnership

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

While community based participatory research (CBPR) principles stress the importance of "equitable partnerships" and an "empowering and power-sharing process that attends to social inequalities", descriptions of actual projects often cite the challenges confronted in academic–-community partnerships...

Community-based participatory research with Native American communities: the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program.

PubMed

Jernigan, Valarie Blue Bird

2010-11-01

Health disparities among Native Americans persist despite efforts to translate evidence-based programs from research to practice. Few evidence-based, theory-driven prevention and management interventions have been successfully translated within Native American communities. The use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) has shown promise in this process. This article provides an overview of the use of CBPR with Native American communities and discusses the translation of the Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management Program, using a CBPR approach, with an urban Native American community. This article highlights not only how the CBPR process facilitates the successful translation of the Stanford program but also how CBPR is used within this community to build community capacity.

NASA Space Biology Research Associate Program for the 21st Century

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sonnenfeld, Gerald

2000-01-01

The Space Biology Research Associate Program for the 21st Century provided a unique opportunity to train individuals to conduct biological research in hypo- and hyper-gravity, and to conduct ground-based research. This grant was developed to maximize the potential for Space Biology as an emerging discipline and to train a cadre of space biologists. The field of gravitational and space biology is rapidly growing at the future of the field is reflected in the quality and education of its personnel. Our chief objective was to train and develop these scientists rapidly and in a cost effective model.

Community Engagement and Data Disclosure in Environmental Health Research

PubMed Central

Haynes, Erin N.; Elam, Sarah; Burns, Roxanne; Spencer, Alonzo; Yancey, Elissa; Kuhnell, Pierce; Alden, Jody; Walton, Mike; Reynolds, Virgil; Newman, Nicholas; Wright, Robert O.; Parsons, Patrick J.; Praamsma, Meredith L.; Palmer, Christopher D.; Dietrich, Kim N.

2016-01-01

Summary: Federal funding agencies increasingly support stakeholder participation in environmental health studies, and yet there is very little published research on engagement of community members in the development of data disclosure (DD) strategies. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency reported airborne manganese (Mn) concentrations in East Liverpool, Ohio, 30 times higher than the reference concentration, which led to an academic–community research partnership to address community concern about Mn exposure, particularly among children. Children and their families were recruited to participate in a pilot study. Samples of blood and hair were collected from the children and analyzed for metals. DD mechanisms were developed using an iterative approach between community and academic partners. Individual DD letters were mailed to each participating family, and a community meeting was held. A post-meeting survey was administered to gauge community perception of the DD strategies. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the effectiveness of engaging community partners in the conduct of environmental health research and in the development of DD strategies for individuals and the community at large. Scientists should include community partners in the development of DD strategies to enhance translation of the research findings and support the right of study participants to know their individual results. PMID:26829152

The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research Training and Community Dissemination

PubMed Central

Vessali, Misha; Pratt, Jacob A.; Watts, Samantha; Pratt, Janey S.; Raghavan, Preeti; DeSilva, Jeremy M.

2015-01-01

Abstract Funding agencies and institutions are creating initiatives to encourage interdisciplinary research that can be more easily translated into community initiatives to enhance health. Therefore, the current research environment calls for interdisciplinary education and skills to create sustained partnerships with community institutions. However, formalized opportunities in both of these areas are limited for students embarking on research careers. The purpose of this paper is to underscore the historical and current importance of providing interdisciplinary training and community dissemination for research students. We also suggest an approach to begin to address the existing gap. Specifically, we suggest embedding a 10‐week summer rotation into existing research curricula with the goals of: (1) providing students with a hands‐on interdisciplinary research experience, (2) facilitating dialogue between research students and community settings to disseminate science to the public, and (3) sparking collaborations among researchers who seek to create a way to sustain summer program rotations with grant funding. PMID:26508528

Promotores as researchers: expanding the promotor role in community-based research.

PubMed

Nelson, Atiba; Lewy, Robin; Dovydaitis, Tiffany; Ricardo, Francine; Kugel, Candace

2011-09-01

The community health worker, known as promotor in the Hispanic community, is an accepted member of the public health team whose core role is that of bridging target communities with health services. However, the promotor's role in research has not been considered a core function of their work. This article will present the promotor in the additional role of researcher, as conceived by the Migrant Clinicians Network for the Hombres Unidos Contra La Violencia Familiar (Men United Against Family Violence) sexual violence/intimate partner violence project. The Hombres Unidos project used promotores as survey facilitators, gathering male Hispanic farmworkers' perspectives on the sensitive topic of sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This article demonstrates that when trained, the promotores' linguistic and cultural competence make them a valuable addition to the research team, especially when collecting sensitive information.

Promotores as Researchers: Expanding the Promotor Role in Community-Based Research

PubMed Central

Nelson, Atiba; Lewy, Robin; Dovydaitis, Tiffany; Ricardo, Francine; Kugel, Candace

2011-01-01

The community health worker, known as promotor in the Hispanic community, is an accepted member of the public health team whose core role is that of bridging target communities with health services. However, the promotor’s role in research has not been considered a core function of their work. This article will present the promotor in the additional role of researcher, as conceived by the Migrant Clinicians Network for the Hombres Unidos Contra La Violencia Familiar (Men United Against Family Violence) sexual violence/intimate partner violence project. The Hombres Unidos project used promotores as survey facilitators, gathering male Hispanic farmworkers’ perspectives on the sensitive topic of sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This article demonstrates that when trained, the promotores’ linguistic and cultural competence make them a valuable addition to the research team, especially when collecting sensitive information. PMID:21427265

Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series for Biological Rhythms Research.

PubMed

Leise, Tanya L

2017-06-01

This article is part of a Journal of Biological Rhythms series exploring analysis and statistics topics relevant to researchers in biological rhythms and sleep research. The goal is to provide an overview of the most common issues that arise in the analysis and interpretation of data in these fields. In this article on time series analysis for biological rhythms, we describe some methods for assessing the rhythmic properties of time series, including tests of whether a time series is indeed rhythmic. Because biological rhythms can exhibit significant fluctuations in their period, phase, and amplitude, their analysis may require methods appropriate for nonstationary time series, such as wavelet transforms, which can measure how these rhythmic parameters change over time. We illustrate these methods using simulated and real time series.

Sources of Inequities in Rural America: Implications for Rural Community Development and Research. Community Development Research Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fujimoto, Isao; Zone, Martin

As part of a series prepared to acquaint small community officials with information on the latest community related research findings at the University of California at Davis, this monograph explicates the way in which tax structure, rural development assumptions, and even rural development policies and subsidies contribute to the inequities found…

Introduction to Small Telescope Research Communities of Practice

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Genet, Russell M.

2016-06-01

Communities of practice are natural, usually informal groups of people who work together. Experienced members teach new members the “ropes.” Social learning theorist Etienne Wenger’s book, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, defined the field. There are, in astronomy, many communities of practice. One set of communities uses relatively small telescopes to observe brighter objects such as eclipsing binaries, intrinsically variable stars, transiting exoplanets, tumbling asteroids, and the occultation of background stars by asteroids and the Moon. Advances in low cost but increasingly powerful instrumentation and automation have greatly increased the research capabilities of smaller telescopes. These often professional-amateur (pro-am) communities engage in research projects that require a large number of observers as exemplified by the American Association of Variable Star Observers. For high school and community college students with an interest in science, joining a student-centered, small telescope community of practice can be both educational and inspirational. An example is the now decade-long Astronomy Research Seminar offered by Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California. Each student team is required to plan a project, obtain observations (either locally or via a remote robotic telescope), analyze their data, write a paper, and submit it for external review and publication. Well over 100 students, composed primarily of high school juniors and seniors, have been coauthors of several dozen published papers. Being published researchers has boosted these students’ educational careers with admissions to choice schools, often with scholarships. This seminar was recently expanded to serve multiple high schools with a volunteer assistant instructor at each school. The students meet regularly with their assistant instructor and also meet online with other teams and the seminar’s overall community college instructor. The seminar

Research Foundations and Problems Regarding Counseling in the Community.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campbell, Robert E.

Research foundations and problems for counseling in the community are discussed. Research implications are outlined around Sarason's three challenges to community health; (1) extending therapeutic outreach, (2) studying those situations, settings, or forces in the community that set the stage for problems; and (3) efforts toward prevention.…

Community centrality and social science research.

PubMed

Allman, Dan

2015-12-01

Community centrality is a growing requirement of social science. The field's research practices are increasingly expected to conform to prescribed relationships with the people studied. Expectations about community centrality influence scholarly activities. These expectations can pressure social scientists to adhere to models of community involvement that are immediate and that include community-based co-investigators, advisory boards, and liaisons. In this context, disregarding community centrality can be interpreted as failure. This paper considers evolving norms about the centrality of community in social science. It problematises community inclusion and discusses concerns about the impact of community centrality on incremental theory development, academic integrity, freedom of speech, and the value of liberal versus communitarian knowledge. Through the application of a constructivist approach, this paper argues that social science in which community is omitted or on the periphery is not failed science, because not all social science requires a community base to make a genuine and valuable contribution. The utility of community centrality is not necessarily universal across all social science pursuits. The practices of knowing within social science disciplines may be difficult to transfer to a community. These practices of knowing require degrees of specialisation and interest that not all communities may want or have.

Community centrality and social science research

PubMed Central

Allman, Dan

2015-01-01

Community centrality is a growing requirement of social science. The field's research practices are increasingly expected to conform to prescribed relationships with the people studied. Expectations about community centrality influence scholarly activities. These expectations can pressure social scientists to adhere to models of community involvement that are immediate and that include community-based co-investigators, advisory boards, and liaisons. In this context, disregarding community centrality can be interpreted as failure. This paper considers evolving norms about the centrality of community in social science. It problematises community inclusion and discusses concerns about the impact of community centrality on incremental theory development, academic integrity, freedom of speech, and the value of liberal versus communitarian knowledge. Through the application of a constructivist approach, this paper argues that social science in which community is omitted or on the periphery is not failed science, because not all social science requires a community base to make a genuine and valuable contribution. The utility of community centrality is not necessarily universal across all social science pursuits. The practices of knowing within social science disciplines may be difficult to transfer to a community. These practices of knowing require degrees of specialisation and interest that not all communities may want or have. PMID:26440071

Science Identity's Influence on Community College Students' Engagement, Persistence, and Performance in Biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riccitelli, Melinda

In the United States (U.S.), student engagement, persistence, and academic performance levels in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs have been unsatisfactory over the last decade. Low student engagement, persistence, and academic performance in STEM disciplines have been identified as major obstacles to U.S. economic goals and U.S. science education objectives. The central and salient science identity a college student claims can influence his engagement, persistence, and academic achievement in college science. While science identity studies have been conducted on four-year college populations there is a gap in the literature concerning community college students' science identity and science performance. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between community college students claimed science identities and engagement, persistence, and academic performance. A census sample of 264 community college students enrolled in biology during the summer of 2015 was used to study this relationship. Science identity and engagement levels were calculated using the Science Identity Centrality Scale and the Biology Motivation Questionnaire II, respectively. Persistence and final grade data were collected from institutional and instructor records. Engagement significantly correlated to, r =.534, p = .01, and varied by science identity, p < .001. Percent final grade also varied by science identity (p < .005), but this relationship was weaker (r = .208, p = .01). Results for science identity and engagement and final grade were consistent with the identity literature. Persistence did not vary by science identity in this student sample (chi2 =2.815, p = .421). This result was inconsistent with the literature on science identity and persistence. Quantitative results from this study present a mixed picture of science identity status at the community college level. It is suggested, based on the findings

Community-based adaptation research in the Canadian Arctic.

PubMed

Ford, James D; Stephenson, Ellie; Cunsolo Willox, Ashlee; Edge, Victoria; Farahbakhsh, Khosrow; Furgal, Christopher; Harper, Sherilee; Chatwood, Susan; Mauro, Ian; Pearce, Tristan; Austin, Stephanie; Bunce, Anna; Bussalleu, Alejandra; Diaz, Jahir; Finner, Kaitlyn; Gordon, Allan; Huet, Catherine; Kitching, Knut; Lardeau, Marie-Pierre; McDowell, Graham; McDonald, Ellen; Nakoneczny, Lesya; Sherman, Mya

2016-01-01

Community-based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as an approach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few have critically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding to this gap, this article critically examines the use of CBA approaches with Inuit communities in Canada. We suggest that CBA holds significant promise to make adaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing a basis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenous and Western knowledge. Yet, we argue that CBA is not a panacea, and its common portrayal as such obscures its limitations, nuances, and challenges. Indeed, if uncritically adopted, CBA can potentially lead to maladaptation, may be inappropriate in some instances, can legitimize outside intervention and control, and may further marginalize communities. We identify responsibilities for researchers engaging in CBA work to manage these challenges, emphasizing the centrality of how knowledge is generated, the need for project flexibility and openness to change, and the importance of ensuring partnerships between researchers and communities are transparent. Researchers also need to be realistic about what CBA can achieve, and should not assume that research has a positive role to play in community adaptation just because it utilizes participatory approaches. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:175-191. doi: 10.1002/wcc.376 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Developing Online Communities for Librarian Researchers: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luo, Lili; Kennedy, Marie; Brancolini, Kristine; Stephens, Michael

2017-01-01

This study examines the role of online communities in connecting and supporting librarian researchers, through the analysis of member activities in the online community for academic librarians that attended the 2014 Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). The 2014 IRDL cohort members participated in the online community via Twitter…

The Learning Processes of Two High-School Biology Students when Reading Primary Literature. Research Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brill, Gilat; Falk, Hedda; Yarden, Anat

2004-01-01

Biology education, like education in any other discipline, strives to make students familiar with the knowledge, activities, and ways of thinking of the community of biologists. We produced a curriculum in developmental biology based on learning through primary literature, in an attempt to develop biological literacy among highschool students.…

Sex as a Biological Variable in Emergency Medicine Research and Clinical Practice: A Brief Narrative Review

PubMed Central

McGregor, Alyson J.; Beauchamp, Gillian A.; Wira, Charles R.; Perman, Sarah M.; Safdar, Basmah

2017-01-01

The National Institutes of Health recently highlighted the significant role of sex as a biological variable (SABV) in research design, outcome and reproducibility, mandating that this variable be accounted for in all its funded research studies. This move has resulted in a rapidly increasing body of literature on SABV with important implications for changing the clinical practice of emergency medicine (EM). Translation of this new knowledge to the bedside requires an understanding of how sex-based research will ultimately impact patient care. We use three case-based scenarios in acute myocardial infarction, acute ischemic stroke and important considerations in pharmacologic therapy administration to highlight available data on SABV in evidence-based research to provide the EM community with an important foundation for future integration of patient sex in the delivery of emergency care as gaps in research are filled. PMID:29085541

The Oregon migrant farmworker community: an evolving model for participatory research.

PubMed Central

McCauley, L A; Beltran, M; Phillips, J; Lasarev, M; Sticker, D

2001-01-01

Migrant farmworker communities present distinct challenges that require new approaches for community participation in research. In the State of Oregon an agency that advocates for the migrant farmworker community has collaborated successfully with university researchers to implement a research program directed to reducing pesticide exposures among the children of migrant farmworkers. The research process has included both qualitative research methods with members of the community and quantitative approaches to measure pesticide dust residues in homes, biomarkers of pesticide exposure, and effects on health. A committee of university and community stakeholders advises the research. Evaluative processes have been initiated to assess the effectiveness of the participatory model used in this project. The components of the preliminary process evaluation and results are presented. Evaluative data show that researchers and community members differ on perceptions of community involvement and the extent to which communication problems have been resolved between the two groups. Suggestions for improved community involvement and communication are given. PMID:11427395

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Plant Biology.

PubMed

Goff, Stephen A; Vaughn, Matthew; McKay, Sheldon; Lyons, Eric; Stapleton, Ann E; Gessler, Damian; Matasci, Naim; Wang, Liya; Hanlon, Matthew; Lenards, Andrew; Muir, Andy; Merchant, Nirav; Lowry, Sonya; Mock, Stephen; Helmke, Matthew; Kubach, Adam; Narro, Martha; Hopkins, Nicole; Micklos, David; Hilgert, Uwe; Gonzales, Michael; Jordan, Chris; Skidmore, Edwin; Dooley, Rion; Cazes, John; McLay, Robert; Lu, Zhenyuan; Pasternak, Shiran; Koesterke, Lars; Piel, William H; Grene, Ruth; Noutsos, Christos; Gendler, Karla; Feng, Xin; Tang, Chunlao; Lent, Monica; Kim, Seung-Jin; Kvilekval, Kristian; Manjunath, B S; Tannen, Val; Stamatakis, Alexandros; Sanderson, Michael; Welch, Stephen M; Cranston, Karen A; Soltis, Pamela; Soltis, Doug; O'Meara, Brian; Ane, Cecile; Brutnell, Tom; Kleibenstein, Daniel J; White, Jeffery W; Leebens-Mack, James; Donoghue, Michael J; Spalding, Edgar P; Vision, Todd J; Myers, Christopher R; Lowenthal, David; Enquist, Brian J; Boyle, Brad; Akoglu, Ali; Andrews, Greg; Ram, Sudha; Ware, Doreen; Stein, Lincoln; Stanzione, Dan

2011-01-01

The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) is a United States National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that aims to create an innovative, comprehensive, and foundational cyberinfrastructure in support of plant biology research (PSCIC, 2006). iPlant is developing cyberinfrastructure that uniquely enables scientists throughout the diverse fields that comprise plant biology to address Grand Challenges in new ways, to stimulate and facilitate cross-disciplinary research, to promote biology and computer science research interactions, and to train the next generation of scientists on the use of cyberinfrastructure in research and education. Meeting humanity's projected demands for agricultural and forest products and the expectation that natural ecosystems be managed sustainably will require synergies from the application of information technologies. The iPlant cyberinfrastructure design is based on an unprecedented period of research community input, and leverages developments in high-performance computing, data storage, and cyberinfrastructure for the physical sciences. iPlant is an open-source project with application programming interfaces that allow the community to extend the infrastructure to meet its needs. iPlant is sponsoring community-driven workshops addressing specific scientific questions via analysis tool integration and hypothesis testing. These workshops teach researchers how to add bioinformatics tools and/or datasets into the iPlant cyberinfrastructure enabling plant scientists to perform complex analyses on large datasets without the need to master the command-line or high-performance computational services.

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Plant Biology

PubMed Central

Goff, Stephen A.; Vaughn, Matthew; McKay, Sheldon; Lyons, Eric; Stapleton, Ann E.; Gessler, Damian; Matasci, Naim; Wang, Liya; Hanlon, Matthew; Lenards, Andrew; Muir, Andy; Merchant, Nirav; Lowry, Sonya; Mock, Stephen; Helmke, Matthew; Kubach, Adam; Narro, Martha; Hopkins, Nicole; Micklos, David; Hilgert, Uwe; Gonzales, Michael; Jordan, Chris; Skidmore, Edwin; Dooley, Rion; Cazes, John; McLay, Robert; Lu, Zhenyuan; Pasternak, Shiran; Koesterke, Lars; Piel, William H.; Grene, Ruth; Noutsos, Christos; Gendler, Karla; Feng, Xin; Tang, Chunlao; Lent, Monica; Kim, Seung-Jin; Kvilekval, Kristian; Manjunath, B. S.; Tannen, Val; Stamatakis, Alexandros; Sanderson, Michael; Welch, Stephen M.; Cranston, Karen A.; Soltis, Pamela; Soltis, Doug; O'Meara, Brian; Ane, Cecile; Brutnell, Tom; Kleibenstein, Daniel J.; White, Jeffery W.; Leebens-Mack, James; Donoghue, Michael J.; Spalding, Edgar P.; Vision, Todd J.; Myers, Christopher R.; Lowenthal, David; Enquist, Brian J.; Boyle, Brad; Akoglu, Ali; Andrews, Greg; Ram, Sudha; Ware, Doreen; Stein, Lincoln; Stanzione, Dan

2011-01-01

The iPlant Collaborative (iPlant) is a United States National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that aims to create an innovative, comprehensive, and foundational cyberinfrastructure in support of plant biology research (PSCIC, 2006). iPlant is developing cyberinfrastructure that uniquely enables scientists throughout the diverse fields that comprise plant biology to address Grand Challenges in new ways, to stimulate and facilitate cross-disciplinary research, to promote biology and computer science research interactions, and to train the next generation of scientists on the use of cyberinfrastructure in research and education. Meeting humanity's projected demands for agricultural and forest products and the expectation that natural ecosystems be managed sustainably will require synergies from the application of information technologies. The iPlant cyberinfrastructure design is based on an unprecedented period of research community input, and leverages developments in high-performance computing, data storage, and cyberinfrastructure for the physical sciences. iPlant is an open-source project with application programming interfaces that allow the community to extend the infrastructure to meet its needs. iPlant is sponsoring community-driven workshops addressing specific scientific questions via analysis tool integration and hypothesis testing. These workshops teach researchers how to add bioinformatics tools and/or datasets into the iPlant cyberinfrastructure enabling plant scientists to perform complex analyses on large datasets without the need to master the command-line or high-performance computational services. PMID:22645531

Capacity building for health through community-based participatory nutrition intervention Research in rural communities

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Building community capacity for health promotion in small rural communities is essential if health promotion research is to yield sustainable outcomes. Since its inception, capacity-building has been a stated goal of the Delta Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative, a tri-state collaboration in ...

Proposed Grand Challenges in Geoscience Education Research: Articulating a Community Research Agenda

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Semken, S. C.; St John, K. K.; Teasdale, R.; Ryker, K.; Riggs, E. M.; Pyle, E. J.; Petcovic, H. L.; McNeal, K.; McDaris, J. R.; Macdonald, H.; Kastens, K.; Cervato, C.

2017-12-01

Fourteen ago the Wingspread Project helped establish geoscience education research (GER) as an important research field and highlighted major research questions for GER at the time. More recently, the growth and interest in GER is evident from the increase in geoscience education research articles, the establishment of the NAGT GER Division, the creation of the GER Toolbox, an increase in GER graduate programs, and the growth of tenure-eligible GER faculty positions. As an emerging STEM education research field, the GER community is examining the current state of their research and considering the best course forward so that it can have the greatest collective impact on advancing teaching and learning in the geosciences. As part of an NSF-funded effort to meet this need, 45 researchers drafted priority research questions, or "Grand Challenges", that span 10 geoscience education research themes. These include research on: students' conceptual understanding of the solid and the fluid Earth, K-12 teacher preparation, teaching about Earth in the context of societal problems, access and success of underrepresented groups in the geosciences, spatial and temporal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and use of models, instructional strategies to improve geoscience learning, students' self-regulated learning, and faculty professional development and institutional change. For each theme, several Grand Challenges have been proposed; these have undergone one round of peer-review and are now ready for the AGU community to critically examine the proposed Grand Challenges and make suggestions on strategies for addressing them: http://nagt.org/nagt/geoedresearch/grand_challenges/feedback.html. We seek perspectives from geoscience education researchers, scholars, and reflective educators. It is our vision that the final outcomes of this community-grounded process will be a published guiding framework to (1) focus future GER on questions of high interest to the geoscience education

Understanding community-based processes for research ethics review: a national study.

PubMed

Shore, Nancy; Brazauskas, Ruta; Drew, Elaine; Wong, Kristine A; Moy, Lisa; Baden, Andrea Corage; Cyr, Kirsten; Ulevicus, Jocelyn; Seifer, Sarena D

2011-12-01

Institutional review boards (IRBs), designed to protect individual study participants, do not routinely assess community consent, risks, and benefits. Community groups are establishing ethics review processes to determine whether and how research is conducted in their communities. To strengthen the ethics review of community-engaged research, we sought to identify and describe these processes. In 2008 we conducted an online survey of US-based community groups and community-institutional partnerships involved in human-participants research. We identified 109 respondents who met participation criteria and had ethics review processes in place. The respondents' processes mainly functioned through community-institutional partnerships, community-based organizations, community health centers, and tribal organizations. These processes had been created primarily to ensure that the involved communities were engaged in and directly benefited from research and were protected from research harms. The primary process benefits included giving communities a voice in determining which studies were conducted and ensuring that studies were relevant and feasible, and that they built community capacity. The primary process challenges were the time and resources needed to support the process. Community-based processes for ethics review consider community-level ethical issues that institution-based IRBs often do not.

2009 MICROBIAL POPULATION BIOLOGY GORDON RESEARCH CONFERENCES JULY 19-24,2009

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

ANTHONY DEAN

2009-07-24

The 2009 Gordon Conference on Microbial Population Biology will cover a diverse range of cutting edge issues in the microbial sciences and beyond. Firmly founded in evolutionary biology and with a strongly integrative approach, past Conferences have covered a range of topics from the dynamics and genetics of adaptation to the evolution of mutation rate, community ecology, evolutionary genomics, altruism, and epidemiology. The 2009 Conference is no exception, and will include sessions on the evolution of infectious diseases, social evolution, the evolution of symbioses, experimental evolution, adaptive landscapes, community dynamics, and the evolution of protein structure and function. While genomicmore » approaches continue to make inroads, broadening our knowledge and encompassing new questions, the conference will also emphasize the use of experimental approaches to test hypotheses decisively. As in the past, this Conference provides young scientists and graduate students opportunities to present their work in poster format and exchange ideas with leading investigators from a broad spectrum of disciplines. This meeting is never dull: some of the most significant and contentious issues in biology have been thrashed out here. The 2009 meeting will be no exception.« less

Synthetic biology and occupational risk.

PubMed

Howard, John; Murashov, Vladimir; Schulte, Paul

2017-03-01

Synthetic biology is an emerging interdisciplinary field of biotechnology that involves applying the principles of engineering and chemical design to biological systems. Biosafety professionals have done an excellent job in addressing research laboratory safety as synthetic biology and gene editing have emerged from the larger field of biotechnology. Despite these efforts, risks posed by synthetic biology are of increasing concern as research procedures scale up to industrial processes in the larger bioeconomy. A greater number and variety of workers will be exposed to commercial synthetic biology risks in the future, including risks to a variety of workers from the use of lentiviral vectors as gene transfer devices. There is a need to review and enhance current protection measures in the field of synthetic biology, whether in experimental laboratories where new advances are being researched, in health care settings where treatments using viral vectors as gene delivery systems are increasingly being used, or in the industrial bioeconomy. Enhanced worker protection measures should include increased injury and illness surveillance of the synthetic biology workforce; proactive risk assessment and management of synthetic biology products; research on the relative effectiveness of extrinsic and intrinsic biocontainment methods; specific safety guidance for synthetic biology industrial processes; determination of appropriate medical mitigation measures for lentiviral vector exposure incidents; and greater awareness and involvement in synthetic biology safety by the general occupational safety and health community as well as by government occupational safety and health research and regulatory agencies.

Towards Building a Bridge between Community Engagement in Research (CEnR) and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER).

PubMed

Ahmed, Syed M; Nelson, David; Kissack, Anne; Franco, Zeno; Whittle, Jeff; Kotchen, Theodore; Meurer, John R; Morzinski, Jeffrey; Brandenburg, Terry

2015-04-01

A major national priority is establishing an effective infrastructure for translation of scientific discoveries into the community. Knowledge and practice continue to accelerate in health research yet healthcare recommendation adoption remains slow for practitioners, patients, and communities. Two areas of research placed in the later stages of the translational research spectrum, Community Engagement in Research and Comparative Effectiveness Research, are ideal for approaching this challenge collaboratively. The Clinical and Translational Science Institute of Southeastern Wisconsin convened academics and community-based organizations familiar with these fields of research in a 1-day workshop to establish an initial dialogue on similarities and differences with a goal of exploring ways to operationalize a collective effort. Participants represented four academic institutions and twelve other healthcare and community-based service organizations. Primary fields of study included community engaged research, comparative effectiveness research, psychology, clinical research, administration, nursing, public health, education, and other professionals. This initial report outlines the results of this diverse discussion and provides insights into the priorities, diverging issues, and areas for future examination and practice. Key discoveries reveal clear crosscutting issues, value in philosophical and provocative discussions among investigators, a need for practice and lessons learned, and bidirectional exchange with community representation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Feminist and community psychology ethics in research with homeless women.

PubMed

Paradis, E K

2000-12-01

This paper presents a feminist and community psychology analysis of ethical concerns that can arise throughout the process of doing research with women who are homeless. The unique contexts of the lives of women who are homeless demand that researchers redefine traditional ethical constructs such as consent, privacy, harm, and bias. Research that fails to do this may perpetuate the stereotyping, marginalization, stigmatization, and victimization homeless women face. Feminist and community research ethics must go beyond the avoidance of harm to an active investment in the well-being of marginalized individuals and communities. Using feminist and community psychology ethics, this paper addresses some common problems in research with women who are homeless, and argues for the transformation of research from a tool for the advancement of science into a strategy for the empowerment of homeless women and their communities.

Population Change, Community Viability, and Migration Intentions in Selected Utah Communities. Research Report 51.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Yun; And Others

The first phase of a longitudinal research project, "Assessing Rural Communities' Viability and Associated Factors Under Conditions of Population Change," was conducted in 1975 in eight Utah communities (Panguitch, Richfield, Salina, Delta, Moab, Duchesne, Roosevelt, and Vernal) to provide useful information for planners, researchers,…

Phronesis: Beyond the Research Ethics Committee-A Crucial Decision-Making Skill for Health Researchers During Community Research.

PubMed

Greeff, Minrie; Rennie, Stuart

2016-04-01

Health researchers conducting research in the community are often faced with unanticipated ethical issues that arise in the course of their research and that go beyond the scope of ethical approval by the research ethics committee. Eight expert researchers were selected through extreme intensity purposive sampling, because they are representative of unusual manifestations of the phenomenon related to their research in the community. They were selected to take part in a semi-structured focus group discussion on whether practical wisdom (phronesis) is used as a decision-making skill to solve unanticipated ethical issues during research in the community. Although the researchers were not familiar with the concept phronesis, it became obvious that it formed an integral part of their everyday existence and decision making during intervention research. They could balance research ethics with practical considerations. The capacity of practical wisdom as a crucial decision-making skill should be assimilated into a researcher's everyday reality, and also into the process of mentoring young researchers to become phronimos. Researchers should be taught this skill to handle unanticipated ethical issues. © The Author(s) 2016.

Collaborative research: empowering students and connecting to community.

PubMed

Mills-Dick, Kelly; Hull, Jessie Mia

2011-01-01

Public health social work is committed to improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Collaborative partnerships can be a tremendous resource and valuable approach to meeting community needs. This article discusses the essential role of partnership and community learning through the case study of a student-faculty team engaged in collaborative research on homelessness in upstate New York in an effort to inform the development of a community affordable housing plan. The goals of the project were to (1) improve understanding of homelessness at the local level, (2) contribute to community planning efforts to end homelessness, and (3) enrich public health social work skills. This case study describes the various ways in which collaboration is cultivated and infused throughout the life of a project. The authors reflect on benefits and challenges of collaboration, and suggest considerations for designing collaborative research projects. This article discusses the impact faculty-student and college-community collaborative partnerships can have on expanding knowledge and enhancing community well-being.

The Structural Biology Knowledgebase: a portal to protein structures, sequences, functions, and methods.

PubMed

Gabanyi, Margaret J; Adams, Paul D; Arnold, Konstantin; Bordoli, Lorenza; Carter, Lester G; Flippen-Andersen, Judith; Gifford, Lida; Haas, Juergen; Kouranov, Andrei; McLaughlin, William A; Micallef, David I; Minor, Wladek; Shah, Raship; Schwede, Torsten; Tao, Yi-Ping; Westbrook, John D; Zimmerman, Matthew; Berman, Helen M

2011-07-01

The Protein Structure Initiative's Structural Biology Knowledgebase (SBKB, URL: http://sbkb.org ) is an open web resource designed to turn the products of the structural genomics and structural biology efforts into knowledge that can be used by the biological community to understand living systems and disease. Here we will present examples on how to use the SBKB to enable biological research. For example, a protein sequence or Protein Data Bank (PDB) structure ID search will provide a list of related protein structures in the PDB, associated biological descriptions (annotations), homology models, structural genomics protein target status, experimental protocols, and the ability to order available DNA clones from the PSI:Biology-Materials Repository. A text search will find publication and technology reports resulting from the PSI's high-throughput research efforts. Web tools that aid in research, including a system that accepts protein structure requests from the community, will also be described. Created in collaboration with the Nature Publishing Group, the Structural Biology Knowledgebase monthly update also provides a research library, editorials about new research advances, news, and an events calendar to present a broader view of structural genomics and structural biology.

Community action and research as citizenship construction.

PubMed

Montero, Maritza

2009-03-01

Social change, well-being and liberation have been intertwined in community research and action, as much as being used as political common-places. In this paper, it is argued that community research and action can have a political character. The epistemological premises shared by both the community and political spheres are discussed, and concepts are defined. The way community psychological action can produce changes is illustrated by an experience carried out with children from poverty sectors of Caracas, Venezuela, intended to construct citizenship by developing awareness about values, civic rights and duties, while experiencing the advantages of participation, peaceful negotiation and solidarity, during art classes. Topics regarding citizenship values and ethics were painted and discussed in a participatory way. Results about how the children developed consciousness about those topics, relating them to their lives, are presented.

Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Implications for Participatory Research and Community

PubMed Central

Cochran, Patricia A. L.; Marshall, Catherine A.; Garcia-Downing, Carmen; Kendall, Elizabeth; Cook, Doris; McCubbin, Laurie; Gover, Reva Mariah S.

2008-01-01

Researchers have a responsibility to cause no harm, but research has been a source of distress for indigenous people because of inappropriate methods and practices. The way researchers acquire knowledge in indigenous communities may be as critical for eliminating health disparities as the actual knowledge that is gained about a particular health problem. Researchers working with indigenous communities must continue to resolve conflict between the values of the academic setting and those of the community. It is important to consider the ways of knowing that exist in indigenous communities when developing research methods. Challenges to research partnerships include how to distribute the benefits of the research findings when academic or external needs contrast with the need to protect indigenous knowledge. PMID:18048800

Animal models in biological and biomedical research - experimental and ethical concerns.

PubMed

Andersen, Monica L; Winter, Lucile M F

2017-09-04

Animal models have been used in experimental research to increase human knowledge and contribute to finding solutions to biological and biomedical questions. However, increased concern for the welfare of the animals used, and a growing awareness of the concept of animal rights, has brought a greater focus on the related ethical issues. In this review, we intend to give examples on how animals are used in the health research related to some major health problems in Brazil, as well as to stimulate discussion about the application of ethics in the use of animals in research and education, highlighting the role of National Council for the Control of Animal Experimentation (Conselho Nacional de Controle de Experimentação Animal - CONCEA) in these areas. In 2008, Brazil emerged into a new era of animal research regulation, with the promulgation of Law 11794, previously known as the Arouca Law, resulting in an increased focus, and rapid learning experience, on questions related to all aspects of animal experimentation. The law reinforces the idea that animal experiments must be based on ethical considerations and integrity-based assumptions, and provides a regulatory framework to achieve this. This review describes the health research involving animals and the current Brazilian framework for regulating laboratory animal science, and hopes to help to improve the awareness of the scientific community of these ethical and legal rules.

Concept mapping methodology and community-engaged research: A perfect pairing.

PubMed

Vaughn, Lisa M; Jones, Jennifer R; Booth, Emily; Burke, Jessica G

2017-02-01

Concept mapping methodology as refined by Trochim et al. is uniquely suited to engage communities in all aspects of research from project set-up to data collection to interpreting results to dissemination of results, and an increasing number of research studies have utilized the methodology for exploring complex health issues in communities. In the current manuscript, we present the results of a literature search of peer-reviewed articles in health-related research where concept mapping was used in collaboration with the community. A total of 103 articles met the inclusion criteria. We first address how community engagement was defined in the articles and then focus on the articles describing high community engagement and the associated community outcomes/benefits and methodological challenges. A majority (61%; n=63) of the articles were classified as low to moderate community engagement and participation while 38% (n=39) of the articles were classified as high community engagement and participation. The results of this literature review enhance our understanding of how concept mapping can be used in direct collaboration with communities and highlights the many potential benefits for both researchers and communities. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A promising future for integrative biodiversity research: an increased role of scale-dependency and functional biology.

PubMed

Price, S A; Schmitz, L

2016-04-05

Studies into the complex interaction between an organism and changes to its biotic and abiotic environment are fundamental to understanding what regulates biodiversity. These investigations occur at many phylogenetic, temporal and spatial scales and within a variety of biological and geological disciplines but often in relative isolation. This issue focuses on what can be achieved when ecological mechanisms are integrated into analyses of deep-time biodiversity patterns through the union of fossil and extant data and methods. We expand upon this perspective to argue that, given its direct relevance to the current biodiversity crisis, greater integration is needed across biodiversity research. We focus on the need to understand scaling effects, how lower-level ecological and evolutionary processes scale up and vice versa, and the importance of incorporating functional biology. Placing function at the core of biodiversity research is fundamental, as it establishes how an organism interacts with its abiotic and biotic environment and it is functional diversity that ultimately determines important ecosystem processes. To achieve full integration, concerted and ongoing efforts are needed to build a united and interactive community of biodiversity researchers, with education and interdisciplinary training at its heart. © 2016 The Author(s).

A promising future for integrative biodiversity research: an increased role of scale-dependency and functional biology

PubMed Central

Schmitz, L.

2016-01-01

Studies into the complex interaction between an organism and changes to its biotic and abiotic environment are fundamental to understanding what regulates biodiversity. These investigations occur at many phylogenetic, temporal and spatial scales and within a variety of biological and geological disciplines but often in relative isolation. This issue focuses on what can be achieved when ecological mechanisms are integrated into analyses of deep-time biodiversity patterns through the union of fossil and extant data and methods. We expand upon this perspective to argue that, given its direct relevance to the current biodiversity crisis, greater integration is needed across biodiversity research. We focus on the need to understand scaling effects, how lower-level ecological and evolutionary processes scale up and vice versa, and the importance of incorporating functional biology. Placing function at the core of biodiversity research is fundamental, as it establishes how an organism interacts with its abiotic and biotic environment and it is functional diversity that ultimately determines important ecosystem processes. To achieve full integration, concerted and ongoing efforts are needed to build a united and interactive community of biodiversity researchers, with education and interdisciplinary training at its heart. PMID:26977068

Jigsaw Research Communities: Coordinating Research and Service across Multiple Courses to Serve a Single Community Partner

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cross, Anne; Eckberg, Deborah A.

2015-01-01

This article describes a public scholarship project in which two faculty members worked together to integrate service-learning and research into multiple courses to benefit a single community partner. The project linked undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty in a broad-based research endeavor that contributed to the survival and…

Perceived impact of human subjects protection training on community partners in community-based participatory research.

PubMed

Hawley, Nancy C; Wieland, Mark L; Weis, Jennifer A; Sia, Irene G

2014-01-01

Human subjects protection training (HSPT) is a requirement of institutional review boards (IRBs) for individuals who engage in research. The lack of HSPT among community partners may contribute to power imbalance between community and academic members of community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. The Rochester Healthy Community Partnership (RHCP) is an established CBPR partnership in Minnesota that works primarily with immigrant and refugee populations. We sought to describe the implementation and evaluation of HSPT among community members of a CBPR partnership. Seven community partners participated in HSPT through adaptation of an existing institutional program. Evaluation of program acceptability was measured through a 5-item survey (5-point Likert scales). A focus group with all seven participants was conducted to evaluate the impact of training on perceptions of research, characteristics of a successful program, and potential value of training to CBPR partnerships. Coding and inductive analysis were done on the transcript with NVIVO-9 software. The HSPT program was highly acceptable (mean score, 4.5 ± 0.2). Focus groups revealed that training implementation should be done as a cohesive group with the opportunity to discuss concepts as they pertain to partnership projects. Training fostered an encouraging and safe environment, accommodated diverse learning styles, and promoted interaction. Participants reported improved trust in research as a result of the training. Perceived impact of the training on the CBPR partnership included improved transparency and enhanced camaraderie while establishing essential knowledge required for community leaders. HSPT is feasible among community members of a CBPR partnership, and may improve perceptions of research while strengthening capacity of partnerships to impact community health.

Integrated omics for the identification of key functionalities in biological wastewater treatment microbial communities.

PubMed

Narayanasamy, Shaman; Muller, Emilie E L; Sheik, Abdul R; Wilmes, Paul

2015-05-01

Biological wastewater treatment plants harbour diverse and complex microbial communities which prominently serve as models for microbial ecology and mixed culture biotechnological processes. Integrated omic analyses (combined metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics) are currently gaining momentum towards providing enhanced understanding of community structure, function and dynamics in situ as well as offering the potential to discover novel biological functionalities within the framework of Eco-Systems Biology. The integration of information from genome to metabolome allows the establishment of associations between genetic potential and final phenotype, a feature not realizable by only considering single 'omes'. Therefore, in our opinion, integrated omics will become the future standard for large-scale characterization of microbial consortia including those underpinning biological wastewater treatment processes. Systematically obtained time and space-resolved omic datasets will allow deconvolution of structure-function relationships by identifying key members and functions. Such knowledge will form the foundation for discovering novel genes on a much larger scale compared with previous efforts. In general, these insights will allow us to optimize microbial biotechnological processes either through better control of mixed culture processes or by use of more efficient enzymes in bioengineering applications. © 2015 The Authors. Microbial Biotechnology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for Applied Microbiology.

Evidence of community structure in biomedical research grant collaborations.

PubMed

Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan; Kalinka, Alex T; Hogan, William R

2013-02-01

Recent studies have clearly demonstrated a shift towards collaborative research and team science approaches across a spectrum of disciplines. Such collaborative efforts have also been acknowledged and nurtured by popular extramurally funded programs including the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) conferred by the National Institutes of Health. Since its inception, the number of CTSA awardees has steadily increased to 60 institutes across 30 states. One of the objectives of CTSA is to accelerate translation of research from bench to bedside to community and train a new genre of researchers under the translational research umbrella. Feasibility of such a translation implicitly demands multi-disciplinary collaboration and mentoring. Networks have proven to be convenient abstractions for studying research collaborations. The present study is a part of the CTSA baseline study and investigates existence of possible community-structure in Biomedical Research Grant Collaboration (BRGC) networks across data sets retrieved from the internally developed grants management system, the Automated Research Information Administrator (ARIA) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Fastgreedy and link-community community-structure detection algorithms were used to investigate the presence of non-overlapping and overlapping community-structure and their variation across years 2006 and 2009. A surrogate testing approach in conjunction with appropriate discriminant statistics, namely: the modularity index and the maximum partition density is proposed to investigate whether the community-structure of the BRGC networks were different from those generated by certain types of random graphs. Non-overlapping as well as overlapping community-structure detection algorithms indicated the presence of community-structure in the BRGC network. Subsequent, surrogate testing revealed that random graph models considered in the present study may not necessarily be appropriate

Mixed-Methods Design in Biology Education Research: Approach and Uses

PubMed Central

Warfa, Abdi-Rizak M.

2016-01-01

Educational research often requires mixing different research methodologies to strengthen findings, better contextualize or explain results, or minimize the weaknesses of a single method. This article provides practical guidelines on how to conduct such research in biology education, with a focus on mixed-methods research (MMR) that uses both quantitative and qualitative inquiries. Specifically, the paper provides an overview of mixed-methods design typologies most relevant in biology education research. It also discusses common methodological issues that may arise in mixed-methods studies and ways to address them. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to report and write about MMR. PMID:27856556

Stranger to friend enabler: creating a community of caring in African American research using ethnonursing methods.

PubMed

Plowden, K O; Wenger, A F

2001-01-01

African Americans are facing a serious health crisis. They are disproportionately affected by most chronic illnesses. The disparity among ethic groups as it relates to health and illness is related to psychosocial and biological factors within the African American culture. Many African Americans are sometimes reluctant to participate in studies. This article discusses the process of creating a caring community when conducting research within an African American community based on the experience of the authors with two faith communities in a southern metropolitan area in the United States. The process is identified as unknowing, reflection, presence, and knowing. The process is based on Leininger's theory of culture care diversity and universality and her stranger to friend enabler. When the theory and method are used, the investigator moves from a stranger within the community to a trusted friend and begins to collect rich and valuable data for analysis from the informants' point of view.

Using Biological-Control Research in the Classroom to Promote Scientific Inquiry & Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richardson, Matthew L.; Richardson, Scott L.; Hall, David G.

2012-01-01

Scientists researching biological control should engage in education because translating research programs into classroom activities is a pathway to increase scientific literacy among students. Classroom activities focused on biological control target all levels of biological organization and can be cross-disciplinary by drawing from subject areas…

Translational systems biology using an agent-based approach for dynamic knowledge representation: An evolutionary paradigm for biomedical research.

PubMed

An, Gary C

2010-01-01

The greatest challenge facing the biomedical research community is the effective translation of basic mechanistic knowledge into clinically effective therapeutics. This challenge is most evident in attempts to understand and modulate "systems" processes/disorders, such as sepsis, cancer, and wound healing. Formulating an investigatory strategy for these issues requires the recognition that these are dynamic processes. Representation of the dynamic behavior of biological systems can aid in the investigation of complex pathophysiological processes by augmenting existing discovery procedures by integrating disparate information sources and knowledge. This approach is termed Translational Systems Biology. Focusing on the development of computational models capturing the behavior of mechanistic hypotheses provides a tool that bridges gaps in the understanding of a disease process by visualizing "thought experiments" to fill those gaps. Agent-based modeling is a computational method particularly well suited to the translation of mechanistic knowledge into a computational framework. Utilizing agent-based models as a means of dynamic hypothesis representation will be a vital means of describing, communicating, and integrating community-wide knowledge. The transparent representation of hypotheses in this dynamic fashion can form the basis of "knowledge ecologies," where selection between competing hypotheses will apply an evolutionary paradigm to the development of community knowledge.

It's Complicated: Negotiating Between Traditional Research and Community-Based Participatory Research in a Translational Study.

PubMed

Hopkins, Allison L; Moore-Monroy, Martha; Wilkinson-Lee, Ada M; Nuño, Velia Leybas; Armenta, Alexandra; Lopez, Elvia; Vanzzini, Susan; Garcia, Francisco A

2016-01-01

The Interactive Systems Framework (ISF), a guide for translational research, encourages the balancing of traditional research and community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches. This paper focuses on the challenges, solutions, and lessons learned in applying the ISF to our translational research project. A community-campus partnership translated evidence-based screening guidelines on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and depression into culturally relevant educational materials. Community health workers (CHWs) disseminated the information through a cross-over design to Hispanic women in Pima County, Arizona. Challenges, solutions, and lessons learned were identified throughout this process. We identified challenges in the areas of research design, and in the ISF systems of prevention synthesis and translation, prevention support, and prevention delivery. We successfully negotiate solutions between the scientific and local community that resulted in acceptable compromises for both groups. The model presented by the ISF is difficult to achieve, but we offer concrete solutions to community members and scientists to move toward that ideal.

Engaging community volunteers in participatory action research in Tāmaki community of Auckland, New Zealand.

PubMed

Andajani-Sutjahjo, Sari; Liew, Theresa C H; Smith, John F; Esekielu, Iutita; Mason, Gabrielle; Tariu, Imele

2018-04-01

This article discusses the experiences of community volunteers' participation in a community-based participatory research project in Tāmaki, a low socio-economic and ethnically diverse suburban community within greater Auckland City, New Zealand. In the Tāmaki Community Action Research project, community volunteers were recruited and trained to conduct random household surveys (RHS) and asset mapping commissioned by community groups and government agencies in that area. The volunteers were involved in planning, coordination and ongoing governance of the project and ∼70 residents and local university students participated at different stages of the 2-year project. Over 600 RHS were completed and the volunteers' experiences were recorded in field notes, informal group discussions, daily team meetings and individual interviews and form the basis of this article. Only their experiences are discussed here, not the survey results which will be presented elsewhere. The project reflected the inherent asset-rich nature of the community via examples of individual volunteer empowerment and collective social/community capacity building. Volunteers increased their interpersonal and organizational skills, their understanding of the complexity of their community's logistics and cultural diversity, and gained an increased sense of community purpose and commitment. There was very strong endorsement of culturally sensitive research practice to recognize cultural differences and to engage productively within their richly ethnically diverse community. Full community volunteer participation in the project's governance (i.e. through design, training, implementation and ongoing consultation/management phases) was considered key to sustaining the life of project.

The NCI Community Oncology Research Program: what every clinician needs to know.

PubMed

McCaskill-Stevens, Worta; Lyss, Alan P; Good, Marge; Marsland, Thomas; Lilenbaum, Rogerio

2013-01-01

Research in the community setting is essential for the translation of advances in cancer research into practice and improving cancer care for all populations. The National Cancer Institute is proposing a new community-based program, NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), which is the alignment of two existing programs, the Community Clinical Oncology Program, Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program, and their Research Bases, and the National Cancer Institute's Community Cancer Centers Program. NCROP will support cancer control, prevention, treatment, and screening clinical trials and expand its research scope to include cancer care delivery research. Cancer disparities research will be integrated into studies across the continuum of NCORP research. Input from current NCI-funded community investigators provides critical insight into the challenges faced by oncology practices within various organizational structures. Furthermore, these investigators identify the resources, both administrative and clinical, that will be required in the community setting to support cancer care delivery research and to meet the requirements for a new generation of clinical research. The American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has initiated a forum to focus on the conduct of clinical research in the community setting. Resources are being developed to help practices in managing cancer care in community settings.

Data Management Rubric for Video Data in Organismal Biology.

PubMed

Brainerd, Elizabeth L; Blob, Richard W; Hedrick, Tyson L; Creamer, Andrew T; Müller, Ulrike K

2017-07-01

Standards-based data management facilitates data preservation, discoverability, and access for effective data reuse within research groups and across communities of researchers. Data sharing requires community consensus on standards for data management, such as storage and formats for digital data preservation, metadata (i.e., contextual data about the data) that should be recorded and stored, and data access. Video imaging is a valuable tool for measuring time-varying phenotypes in organismal biology, with particular application for research in functional morphology, comparative biomechanics, and animal behavior. The raw data are the videos, but videos alone are not sufficient for scientific analysis. Nearly endless videos of animals can be found on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, but these videos have little value for scientific analysis because essential metadata such as true frame rate, spatial calibration, genus and species, weight, age, etc. of organisms, are generally unknown. We have embarked on a project to build community consensus on video data management and metadata standards for organismal biology research. We collected input from colleagues at early stages, organized an open workshop, "Establishing Standards for Video Data Management," at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in January 2017, and then collected two more rounds of input on revised versions of the standards. The result we present here is a rubric consisting of nine standards for video data management, with three levels within each standard: good, better, and best practices. The nine standards are: (1) data storage; (2) video file formats; (3) metadata linkage; (4) video data and metadata access; (5) contact information and acceptable use; (6) camera settings; (7) organism(s); (8) recording conditions; and (9) subject matter/topic. The first four standards address data preservation and interoperability for sharing, whereas standards 5-9 establish minimum metadata

Parents, Practitioners, and Researchers: Community-Based Participatory Research With Early Head Start

PubMed Central

McAllister, Carol L.; Green, Beth L.; Terry, Martha Ann; Herman, Vivian; Mulvey, Laurie

2003-01-01

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research and evaluation that is receiving increased attention in the field of public health. Our report discusses the application of this approach to research and evaluation with an Early Head Start (EHS) program in Pittsburgh, Pa. Our primary purpose is to illustrate the key elements that contributed to effective collaboration among researchers, EHS practitioners, and parents of EHS children in the conduct of the study. The focus is not on research findings but on research process. Our goal is to make the practices of CBPR visible and explicit so they can be analyzed, further developed, and effectively applied to a range of public health issues in a diversity of community contexts. PMID:14534219

Community dissemination and genetic research: moving beyond results reporting.

PubMed

Trinidad, Susan Brown; Ludman, Evette J; Hopkins, Scarlett; James, Rosalina D; Hoeft, Theresa J; Kinegak, Annie; Lupie, Henry; Kinegak, Ralph; Boyer, Bert B; Burke, Wylie

2015-07-01

The community-based participatory research (CBPR) literature notes that researchers should share study results with communities. In the case of human genetic research, results may be scientifically interesting but lack clinical relevance. The goals of this study were to learn what kinds of information community members want to receive about genetic research and how such information should be conveyed. We conducted eight focus group discussions with Yup'ik Alaska Native people in southwest Alaska (N = 60) and 6 (N = 61) with members of a large health maintenance organization in Seattle, Washington. Participants wanted to receive genetic information they "could do something about" and wanted clinically actionable information to be shared with their healthcare providers; they also wanted researchers to share knowledge about other topics of importance to the community. Although Alaska Native participants were generally less familiar with western scientific terms and less interested in web-based information sources, the main findings were the same in Alaska and Seattle: participants wished for ongoing dialogue, including opportunities for informal, small-group conversations, and receiving information that had local relevance. Effective community dissemination is more than a matter of presenting study results in lay language. Community members should be involved in both defining culturally appropriate communication strategies and in determining which information should be shared. Reframing dissemination as a two-way dialogue, rather than a one-way broadcast, supports the twin aims of advancing scientific knowledge and achieving community benefit. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Community Dissemination and Genetic Research: Moving Beyond Results Reporting

PubMed Central

Trinidad, Susan Brown; Ludman, Evette J.; Hopkins, Scarlett; James, Rosalina D.; Hoeft, Theresa J.; Kinegak, Annie; Lupie, Henry; Kinegak, Ralph; Boyer, Bert B.; Burke, Wylie

2015-01-01

The community-based participatory research (CBPR) literature notes that researchers should share study results with communities. In the case of human genetic research, results may be scientifically interesting but lack clinical relevance. The goals of this study were to learn what kinds of information community members want to receive about genetic research and how such information should be conveyed. We conducted 8 focus group discussions with Yup’ik Alaska Native people in southwest Alaska (N=60) and 6 (N=61) with members of a large health maintenance organization in Seattle, Washington. Participants wanted to receive genetic information they “could do something about” and wanted clinically actionable information to be shared with their healthcare providers; they also wanted researchers to share knowledge about other topics of importance to the community. Although Alaska Native participants were generally less familiar with western scientific terms and less interested in web-based information sources, the main findings were the same in Alaska and Seattle: participants wished for ongoing dialogue, including opportunities for informal, small-group conversations and receiving information that had local relevance. Effective community dissemination is more than a matter of presenting study results in lay language. Community members should be involved in both defining culturally appropriate communication strategies and in determining which information should be shared. Reframing dissemination as a two-way dialogue, rather than a one-way broadcast, supports the twin aims of advancing scientific knowledge and achieving community benefit. PMID:25900516

Bridging Emotion Research: From Biology to Social Structure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rogers, Kimberly B.; Kavanagh, Liam

2010-01-01

Emotion research demonstrates that problems of theoretical interest or practical significance are not divided neatly along disciplinary boundaries. Researchers acknowledge both organic and social underpinnings of emotion, but the intersections between biological and structural processes can be difficult to negotiate. In this article, the authors…

More than words: Using visual graphics for community-based health research.

PubMed

Morton Ninomiya, Melody E

2017-04-20

With increased attention to knowledge translation and community engagement in the applied health research field, many researchers aim to find effective ways of engaging health policy and decision makers and community stakeholders. While visual graphics such as graphs, charts, figures and photographs are common in scientific research dissemination, they are less common as a communication tool in research. In this commentary, I illustrate how and why visual graphics were created and used to facilitate dialogue and communication throughout all phases of a community-based health research study with a rural Indigenous community, advancing community engagement and knowledge utilization of a research study. I suggest that it is essential that researchers consider the use of visual graphics to accurately communicate and translate important health research concepts and content in accessible forms for diverse research stakeholders and target audiences.

The value of closed-circuit rebreathers for biological research

USGS Publications Warehouse

Pyle, Richrad L.; Lobel, Phillip S.; Tomoleoni, Joseph

2016-01-01

Closed-circuit rebreathers have been used for underwater biological research since the late 1960s, but have only started to gain broader application within scientific diving organizations within the past two decades. Rebreathers offer certain specific advantages for such research, especially for research involving behavior and surveys that depend on unobtrusive observers or for a stealthy approach to wildlife for capture and tagging, research that benefits from extended durations underwater, and operations requiring access to relatively deep (>50 m) environments (especially in remote locations). Although many institutions have been slow to adopt rebreather technology within their diving programs, recent developments in rebreather technology that improve safety, standardize training requirements, and reduce costs of equipment and maintenance, will likely result in a trend of increasing utilization of rebreathers for underwater biological research.

Biologically Enhanced Carbon Sequestration: Research Needs and Opportunities

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Oldenburg, Curtis; Oldenburg, Curtis M.; Torn, Margaret S.

2008-03-21

Fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and biomass burning are the dominant contributors to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) concentrations and global warming. Many approaches to mitigating CO{sub 2} emissions are being pursued, and among the most promising are terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration. Recent advances in ecology and microbial biology offer promising new possibilities for enhancing terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration. A workshop was held October 29, 2007, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) on Biologically Enhanced Carbon Sequestration (BECS). The workshop participants (approximately 30 scientists from California, Illinois, Oregon, Montana, and New Mexico) developed a prioritized list of researchmore » needed to make progress in the development of biological enhancements to improve terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration. The workshop participants also identified a number of areas of supporting science that are critical to making progress in the fundamental research areas. The purpose of this position paper is to summarize and elaborate upon the findings of the workshop. The paper considers terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration separately. First, we present a summary in outline form of the research roadmaps for terrestrial and geologic BECS. This outline is elaborated upon in the narrative sections that follow. The narrative sections start with the focused research priorities in each area followed by critical supporting science for biological enhancements as prioritized during the workshop. Finally, Table 1 summarizes the potential significance or 'materiality' of advances in these areas for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions.« less

Pharmacogenetic research in partnership with American Indian and Alaska Native communities

PubMed Central

Woodahl, Erica L; Lesko, Lawrence J; Hopkins, Scarlett; Robinson, Renee F; Thummel, Kenneth E; Burke, Wylie

2014-01-01

Pharmacogenetics is a subset of personalized medicine that applies knowledge about genetic variation in gene–drug pairs to help guide optimal dosing. There is a lack of data, however, about pharmacogenetic variation in underserved populations. One strategy for increasing participation of underserved populations in pharmacogenetic research is to include communities in the research process. We have established academic–community partnerships with American Indian and Alaska Native people living in Alaska and Montana to study pharmacogenetics. Key features of the partnership include community oversight of the project, research objectives that address community health priorities, and bidirectional learning that builds capacity in both the community and the research team. Engaging the community as coresearchers can help build trust to advance pharmacogenetic research objectives. PMID:25141898

Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC) - Light Emitting Diode (LED)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Levine, Howard G.; Caron, Allison

2016-01-01

The Biological Research in Canisters - LED (BRIC-LED) is a biological research system that is being designed to complement the capabilities of the existing BRIC-Petri Dish Fixation Unit (PDFU) for the Space Life and Physical Sciences (SLPS) Program. A diverse range of organisms can be supported, including plant seedlings, callus cultures, Caenorhabditis elegans, microbes, and others. In the event of a launch scrub, the entire assembly can be replaced with an identical back-up unit containing freshly loaded specimens.

Research ethics committees and community values: Devlin, Dworkin, Hart and beyond.

PubMed

Salako, Solomon E

2010-03-01

Two fundamental requirements ought to be met in any selection to research ethics committees: (i) professional scientific competence, and (ii) the understanding of moral values which prevail in any community. The question is: Should the verdicts of research ethics committees be based on community values? This article critically examines theories of community as were propounded by Devlin, Dworkin and Hart in answer to this question. It is argued that community values are complementary rather than conflicting, and that Dworkin's theory of community provides an analytical framework for research ethics on the new genetic technologies. Finally, it is submitted that the verdicts of research ethics committees should be based on community values.

Research Programs Constituting U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academy of Sciences--National Research Council, Washington, DC. Div. of Biology and Agriculture.

The United States contribution to the International Biological Program, which aims to understand more clearly the interrelationships within ecosystems, is centered on multidisciplinary research programs investigating the biological basis of ecological productivity and human welfare. Integrated research programs have been established for the…

Connecting Research to Teaching: Professional Communities: Teachers Supporting Teachers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adajian, Lisa Byrd

1996-01-01

Reviews research on importance of strong professional communities for supporting reform. National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education (NCRMSE) found significant correlation between teachers' professional community and reformed mathematics instruction. Urban Mathematics Collaboratives (UMC), Quantitative Understanding: Amplifying…

Provision of community-wide benefits in public health intervention research: the experience of investigators conducting research in the community setting in South Asia.

PubMed

Taylor, Holly A; Merritt, Maria W

2012-12-01

This article describes the types of community-wide benefits provided by investigators conducting public health research in South Asia as well as their self-reported reasons for providing such benefits. We conducted 52 in-depth interviews to explore how public health investigators in low-resource settings make decisions about the delivery of ancillary care to research subjects. In 39 of the interviews respondents described providing benefits to members of the community in which they conducted their study. We returned to our narrative dataset to find answers to two questions: What types of community-wide benefits do researchers provide when conducting public health intervention studies in the community setting, and what reasons do researchers give when asked why they provided community-wide benefits? The types of community-wide benefits delivered were directed to the health and well-being of the population. The most common types of benefits delivered were the facilitation of access to health care for individuals in acute medical need and emergency response to natural disasters. Respondents' self-reported reasons when asked why they provided such benefits fell into 2 general categories: intrinsic importance and instrumental importance. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Through Microgravity and Towards the Stars: Microgravity and Strategic Research at Marshall's Biological and Physical Space Research Laboratory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Curreri, Peter A.

2003-01-01

The Microgravity and Strategic research at Marshall s Biological and Physical Space Research Laboratory will be reviewed. The environment in orbit provides a unique opportunity to study Materials Science and Biotechnology in the absence of sedimentation and convection. There are a number of peer-selected investigations that have been selected to fly on the Space Station that have been conceived and are led by Marshall s Biological and Physical Research Laboratory s scientists. In addition to Microgravity research the Station will enable research in "Strategic" Research Areas that focus on enabling humans to live, work, and explore the solar system safely. New research in Radiation Protection, Strategic Molecular Biology, and In-Space Fabrication will be introduced.

Calibrated Peer Review for Computer-Assisted Learning of Biological Research Competencies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clase, Kari L.; Gundlach, Ellen; Pelaez, Nancy J.

2010-01-01

Recently, both science and technology faculty have been recognizing biological research competencies that are valued but rarely assessed. Some of these valued learning outcomes include scientific methods and thinking, critical assessment of primary papers, quantitative reasoning, communication, and putting biological research into a historical and…

Entering Research: A course that creates community and structure for beginning undergraduate researchers in the STEM disciplines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balster, N.

2009-12-01

significantly more confident in their ability to identify scientific misconduct (p<0.01), as well as in their ability to make connections between their research experience and their biology or physical sciences coursework (p<0.01). The Entering Research students self-reported greater skill in developing a research project, conducting a research project, and analyzing data (p<0.05). There were similar significant gains in knowledge. Importantly, almost a third of the students enrolled in Entering Research indicate that they would not have pursued independent research without the support of the course. This course was equally rewarding to faculty facilitators who were also assessed as part of this three-year study. The results of this study demonstrate the value in a course that supports beginning undergraduate research. We hypothesize that the implementation of similar courses at other institutions will increase the attraction of science to diverse students, and provide a mechanism for creating community and connections that transcended individual research projects.

A virtue ethics guide to best practices for community-based participatory research.

PubMed

Schaffer, Marjorie A

2009-01-01

Rule ethics, or principled thinking, is important in the analysis of risks and benefits of research and informed consent, but is not completely adequate for guiding ethical responses to communities as research participants and collaborators. Virtue ethics theory can be used to guide actions in relationships, which are foundational to the implementation of community-based participatory research (CBPR). Virtues are strengths of character that contribute to a life of flourishing or well-being for individuals and communities. This article provides an overview of virtue ethics theory, identifies common ethical problems in CBPR, and discusses how professional virtues can be used to guide ethical research practice. The virtues of compassion, courage, honesty, humility, justice, and practical reasoning are defined and applied to ethical practice in the development, implementation, and dissemination of CBPR. Best practices for CBPR that consider the well-being of communities are identified. The virtues of compassion and humility foster inclusiveness and integration of community perspectives in research collaboration. Courage requires researchers to step out of the research safety-net to listen to community member voices and wisdom and share power in research decisions. Honesty requires researchers to communicate realistic expectations for research outcomes, share all findings with the community, and consider community perspectives in research dissemination. Systematic involvement of the community in all steps of the research process represents the virtue of practical reasoning. From a justice perspective, CBPR aims to restore communities rather than take from them.

The Communication Research Team As Learning Community

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Janusik, Laura A.; Wolvin, Andrew D.

2007-01-01

Colleges and universities have come to recognize that creating smaller learning communities is a useful strategy for engaging undergraduate students. Learning communities can provide students with a sense of identity and with connections to faculty, the institution, and knowledge. Despite their popularity, there is little empirical research that…

The Colorado Plateau: cultural, biological, and physical research

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cole, Kenneth L.; van Riper, Charles

2004-01-01

Stretching from the four corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, the Colorado Plateau is a natural laboratory for a wide range of studies. This volume presents 23 original articles drawn from more than 100 research projects presented at the Sixth Biennial Conference of Research on the Colorado Plateau. This scientific gathering revolved around research, inventory, and monitoring of lands in the region. The book's contents cover management techniques for cultural, biological, and physical resources, representing collaborative efforts among federal, university, and private sector scientists and land managers. Chapters on cultural concerns cover benchmarks of modern southwestern anthropological knowledge, models of past human activity and impact of modern visitation at newly established national monuments, challenges in implementing the 1964 Wilderness Act, and opportunities for increased federal research on Native American lands. The section on biological resources comprises sixteen chapters, with coverage that ranges from mammalian biogeography to responses of elk at the urban-wildland interface. Additional biological studies include the effects of fire and grazing on vegetation; research on bald eagles at Grand Canyon and tracking wild turkeys using radio collars; and management of palentological resources. Two final chapters on physical resources consider a proposed rerouting of the Rio de Flag River in urban Flagstaff, Arizona, and an examination of past climate patterns over the Plateau, using stream flow records and tree ring data. In light of similarities in habitat and climate across the Colorado Plateau, techniques useful to particular management units have been found to be applicable in many locations. This volume highlights an abundance of research that will prove useful for all of those working in the region, as well as for others seeking comparative studies that integrate research into land management actions.

Interactive NCORP Map Details Community Research Sites | Division of Cancer Prevention

Cancer.gov

An interactive map of the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) with detailed information on hundreds of community sites that take part in clinical trials is available on the NCORP website. NCORP Map NCORP Community Sites, Minority/Underserved Community Sites, and Research Bases |

Systems biology approach to bioremediation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chakraborty, Romy; Wu, Cindy H.; Hazen, Terry C.

2012-06-01

Bioremediation has historically been approached as a ‘black box’ in terms of our fundamental understanding. Thus it succeeds and fails, seldom without a complete understanding of why. Systems biology is an integrated research approach to study complex biological systems, by investigating interactions and networks at the molecular, cellular, community, and ecosystem level. The knowledge of these interactions within individual components is fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the ecosystem under investigation. Finally, understanding and modeling functional microbial community structure and stress responses in environments at all levels have tremendous implications for our fundamental understanding of hydrobiogeochemical processes and the potentialmore » for making bioremediation breakthroughs and illuminating the ‘black box’.« less

The Community Mentorship Program: Providing Community-Engagement Opportunities for Early-Stage Clinical and Translational Scientists to Facilitate Research Translation

PubMed Central

Patino, Cecilia M.; Kubicek, Katrina; Robles, Marisela; Kiger, Holly; Dzekov, Jeanne

2016-01-01

Problem A goal of the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC-CTSI) at the University of Southern California (USC) and Children's Hospital Los Angeles is to train early-stage clinical translational scientists (CTSs) to conduct research that improves the health of diverse communities. This goal aligns well with the Institute of Medicine's recommendations emphasizing community engagement in biomedical research that facilitates research translation. The Community Mentorship Program (CMP), created to complement community-engaged research (CER) didactics, matches CTSs with community mentors who help CTSs identify and complete community-engaged experiences that inform their research. Approach The CMP was piloted in 2013-2015 by the SC-CTSI Workforce Development and Community-Engagement cores. The CMP team matched three CTSs (assistant professors pursuing mentored career development awards, two with CER experience) with mentors at community-based organizations (CBOs) aligned with their research interests. Each mentor–mentee pair signed a memorandum of understanding. The CMP team checked in regularly, monitoring progress and addressing challenges in CTSs’ completion of their community-engaged experience. Outcomes All pairs completed at least one community-engaged activity informing the CTS's research. In exit interviews, the CTSs and CBO mentors expressed satisfaction with the program and stated they would continue to work together. The CTSs reported the program provided opportunities to develop networks outside academia, build trust within the community, and receive feedback and learn from individuals in communities affected by their research. Next Steps The CMP will be expanded to include all eligible early-career CTSs and promoted for use in similar settings outside the SC-CTSI. PMID:27508342

The Community Mentorship Program: Providing Community-Engagement Opportunities for Early-Stage Clinical and Translational Scientists to Facilitate Research Translation.

PubMed

Patino, Cecilia M; Kubicek, Katrina; Robles, Marisela; Kiger, Holly; Dzekov, Jeanne

2017-02-01

A goal of the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC-CTSI) at the University of Southern California and Children's Hospital Los Angeles is to train early-stage clinical and translational scientists (CTSs) to conduct research that improves the health of diverse communities. This goal aligns well with the Institute of Medicine's recommendations emphasizing community engagement in biomedical research that facilitates research translation. The Community Mentorship Program (CMP), created to complement community-engaged research didactics, matches CTSs with community mentors who help them identify and complete community-engaged experiences that inform their research. The CMP was piloted in 2013-2015 by the SC-CTSI Workforce Development and Community Engagement cores. The CMP team matched three CTSs (assistant professors pursuing mentored career development awards) with mentors at community-based organizations (CBOs) aligned with their research interests. Each mentor-mentee pair signed a memorandum of understanding. The CMP team checked in regularly, monitoring progress and addressing challenges in CTSs' completion of their community-engaged experience. Each pair completed at least one community-engaged activity informing the CTS's research. In exit interviews, the CTSs and CBO mentors expressed satisfaction with the program and stated that they would continue to work together. The CTSs reported that the program provided opportunities to develop networks outside academia, build trust within the community, and receive feedback and learn from individuals in communities affected by their research. The CMP will be expanded to include all eligible early-career CTSs and promoted for use in similar settings outside the SC-CTSI.

A "Brief History" of Developmental Biology in Israel.

PubMed

Sela-Donenfeld, Dalit; Frank, Dale

2017-01-01

While the history of developmental biology in Israel is relatively short, its impact is far-reaching, so we wanted to present a concise perspective on the Israeli developmental biology community, past-present-future. This community has undergone a wonderful, nearly exponential growth over the last three decades. How exactly did this happen? There are approximately fifty research groups that focus on developmental biology questions in Israel today that are members of the Israel Society of Developmental Biology (IsSDB; http://issdb.org/). The community has representative groups in a plethora of model systems, such as Nematostella, C. elegans, Drosophila, sea urchin, ascidians, zebrafish, Xenopus, chick and mouse, as well as plants, representing all the major universities and their branches, which include Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The University of Haifa, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Demonstrating Impact as a Community-Engaged Scholar within a Research University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacquez, Farrah

2014-01-01

Within promotion processes, research universities traditionally place highest value on grant funding and peer reviewed publications. In contrast, community-engaged research tends to value community partnerships and direct community benefit. Community-engaged early career faculty can have difficulty negotiating the demands required for promotion…

Breeding biology of an afrotropical forest understory bird community in northeastern Tanzania

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mkongewa, Victor J.; Newmark, William D.; Stanley, Thomas R.

2013-01-01

Many aspects of the breeding biology of Afrotropical forest birds are poorly known. Here we provide a description based on the monitoring of 1461 active nests over eight breeding seasons about one or more aspects of the breeding biology for 28 coexisting understory bird species on the Amani Plateau in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. Mean nest height and mean distance of nest from forest edge varied widely among species with most species constructing nests across a broad vertical and forest edge to interior gradient. However, there were important exceptions with all sunbird species and several dove and waxbill species constructing nests in close proximity to the forest edge. For 17 common species for which we recorded two or more active nests, mean clutch size across species was 1.9 eggs per clutch, the lowest site-specific mean clutch size yet reported for a tropical forest bird community. For nine bird species, a subset of the 17 common species, length of breeding season, defined as the difference between the earliest and latest recorded incubation onset date, ranged from 88–139 days. Most of these nine species displayed a unimodal distribution in incubation onset dates across a breeding season which extended from the end of August through middle January. In summary, a wide variation exists in most aspects of the breeding biology within an understory forest bird community in the East Usambara Mountains.

Research Coordination Network: Geothermal Biology and Geochemistry in Yellowstone National Park

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Inskeep, W. P.; Young, M. J.; Jay, Z.

2006-12-01

The number and diversity of geothermal features in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) represent a fascinating array of high temperature geochemical environments that host a corresponding number of unique and potentially novel organisms in all of the three recognized domains of life: Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. The geothermal features of YNP have long been the subject of scientific inquiry, especially in the fields of microbiology, geochemistry, geothermal hydrology, microbial ecology, and population biology. However, there are no organized forums for scientists working in YNP geothermal areas to present research results, exchange ideas, discuss research priorities, and enhance synergism among research groups. The primary goal of the YNP Research Coordination Network (GEOTHERM) is to develop a more unified effort among scientists and resource agencies to characterize, describe, understand and inventory the diverse biota associated with geothermal habitats in YNP. The YNP RCN commenced in January 2005 as a collaborative effort among numerous university scientists, governmental agencies and private industry. The YNP RCN hosted a workshop in February 2006 to discuss research results and to form three working groups focused on (i) web-site and digital library content, (ii) metagenomics of thermophilic microbial communities and (iii) development of geochemical methods appropriate for geomicrobiological studies. The working groups represent one strategy for enhancing communication, collaboration and most importantly, productivity among the RCN participants. If you have an interest in the geomicrobiology of geothermal systems, please feel welcome to join and or participate in the YNP RCN.

The Impact of Community Violence on School-Based Research.

PubMed

Velsor-Friedrich, Barbara; Richards, Maryse; Militello, Lisa K; Dean, Kyle C; Scott, Darrick; Gross, Israel M; Romeo, Edna

2015-12-01

Research conducted on youth exposure to violence has generally focused on documenting the prevalence of community violence and its emotional and behavioral implications. However, there is a dearth of information related to the impact of violence on the implementation and evaluation of community and school-based programs. This commentary examines the impact of community violence on a school-based research program. It is also a brief summary of the detrimental effects of exposure to community violence on psychological and academic functioning and health outcomes. An example of the impact of community violence on the implementation of a school-based asthma program will be addressed. Implications for school nurses will be discussed. © The Author(s) 2015.

Bringing Community and Academic Scholars Together to Facilitate and Conduct Authentic Community Based Participatory Research: Project UNITED

PubMed Central

Lewis, Dwight; Yerby, Lea; Tucker, Melanie; Foster, Pamela Payne; Hamilton, Kara C.; Fifolt, Matthew M.; Hites, Lisle; Shreves, Mary Katherine; Page, Susan B.; Bissell, Kimberly L.; Lucky, Felecia L.; Higginbotham, John C.

2015-01-01

Cultural competency, trust, and research literacy can affect the planning and implementation of sustainable community-based participatory research (CBPR). The purpose of this manuscript is to highlight: (1) the development of a CBPR pilot grant request for application; and (2) a comprehensive program supporting CBPR obesity-related grant proposals facilitated by activities designed to promote scholarly collaborations between academic researchers and the community. After a competitive application process, academic researchers and non-academic community leaders were selected to participate in activities where the final culminating project was the submission of a collaborative obesity-related CBPR grant application. Teams were comprised of a mix of academic researchers and non-academic community leaders, and each team submitted an application addressing obesity-disparities among rural predominantly African American communities in the US Deep South. Among four collaborative teams, three (75%) successfully submitted a grant application to fund an intervention addressing rural and minority obesity disparities. Among the three submitted grant applications, one was successfully funded by an internal CBPR grant, and another was funded by an institutional seed funding grant. Preliminary findings suggest that the collaborative activities were successful in developing productive scholarly relationships between researchers and community leaders. Future research will seek to understand the full-context of our findings. PMID:26703675

BIOPACK: the ground controlled late access biological research facility.

PubMed

van Loon, Jack J W A

2004-03-01

Future Space Shuttle flights shall be characterized by activities necessary to further build the International Space Station, ISS. During these missions limited resources are available to conduct biological experiments in space. The Shuttles' Middeck is a very suitable place to conduct science during the ISS assembly missions or dedicated science missions. The BIOPACK, which flew its first mission during the STS-107, provides a versatile Middeck Locker based research tool for gravitational biology studies. The core facility occupies the space of only two Middeck Lockers. Experiment temperatures are controlled for bacteria, plant, invertebrate and mammalian cultures. Gravity levels and profiles can be set ranging from 0 to 2.0 x g on three independent centrifuges. This provides the experimenter with a 1.0 x g on-board reference and intermediate hypogravity and hypergravity data points to investigate e.g. threshold levels in biological responses. Temperature sensitive items can be stored in the facilities' -10 degrees C and +4 degrees C stowage areas. During STS-107 the facility also included a small glovebox (GBX) and passive temperature controlled units (PTCU). The GBX provides the experimenter with two extra levels of containment for safe sample handling. This biological research facility is a late access (L-10 hrs) laboratory, which, when reaching orbit, could automatically be starting up reducing important experiment lag-time and valuable crew time. The system is completely telecommanded when needed. During flight system parameters like temperatures, centrifuge speeds, experiment commanding or sensor readouts can be monitored and changed when needed. Although ISS provides a wide range of research facilities there is still need for an STS-based late access facility such as the BIOPACK providing experimenters with a very versatile research cabinet for biological experiments under microgravity and in-flight control conditions.

A practical workflow for making anatomical atlases for biological research.