25,842 research outputs found
Biologists meet statisticians: A workshop for young scientists to foster interdisciplinary team work
Life science and statistics have necessarily become essential partners. The
need to plan complex, structured experiments, involving elaborated designs, and
the need to analyse datasets in the era of systems biology and high throughput
technologies has to build upon professional statistical expertise. On the other
hand, conducting such analyses and also developing improved or new methods,
also for novel kinds of data, has to build upon solid biological understanding
and practise. However, the meeting of scientists of both fields is often
hampered by a variety of communicative hurdles - which are based on
field-specific working languages and cultural differences.
As a step towards a better mutual understanding, we developed a workshop
concept bringing together young experimental biologists and statisticians, to
work as pairs and learn to value each others competences and practise
interdisciplinary communication in a casual atmosphere. The first
implementation of our concept was a cooperation of the German Region of the
International Biometrical Society and the Leibnitz Institute DSMZ-German
Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (short: DSMZ), Braunschweig,
Germany. We collected feedback in form of three questionnaires, oral comments,
and gathered experiences for the improvement of this concept. The long-term
challenge for both disciplines is the establishment of systematic schedules and
strategic partnerships which use the proposed workshop concept to foster mutual
understanding, to seed the necessary interdisciplinary cooperation network, and
to start training the indispensable communication skills at the earliest
possible phase of education
Robot life: simulation and participation in the study of evolution and social behavior.
This paper explores the case of using robots to simulate evolution, in particular the case of Hamilton's Law. The uses of robots raises several questions that this paper seeks to address. The first concerns the role of the robots in biological research: do they simulate something (life, evolution, sociality) or do they participate in something? The second question concerns the physicality of the robots: what difference does embodiment make to the role of the robot in these experiments. Thirdly, how do life, embodiment and social behavior relate in contemporary biology and why is it possible for robots to illuminate this relation? These questions are provoked by a strange similarity that has not been noted before: between the problem of simulation in philosophy of science, and Deleuze's reading of Plato on the relationship of ideas, copies and simulacra
Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design
Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches
Sticks, balls or a ribbon? Results of a formative user study with bioinformaticians
User interfaces in modern bioinformatics tools are designed for experts. They are too complicated for\ud
novice users such as bench biologists. This report presents the full results of a formative user study as part of a\ud
domain and requirements analysis to enhance user interfaces and collaborative environments for\ud
multidisciplinary teamwork. Contextual field observations, questionnaires and interviews with bioinformatics\ud
researchers of different levels of expertise and various backgrounds were performed in order to gain insight into\ud
their needs and working practices. The analysed results are presented as a user profile description and user\ud
requirements for designing user interfaces that support the collaboration of multidisciplinary research teams in\ud
scientific collaborative environments. Although the number of participants limits the generalisability of the\ud
findings, the combination of recurrent observations with other user analysis techniques in real-life settings\ud
makes the contribution of this user study novel
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