A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

Observations of Daily Living: Putting the Personal in Personal Health Records

Keeping individuals aware of their own health is a global challenge in health care. Observations of Daily Living (ODLs), cues to health that are derived from and personally meaningful to an individual, provide a detailed picture of one\u27s experience of health. Project HealthDesign, an 8-year initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is investigating ODLs and devising innovative ways of tracking them through personal health record deployment in diverse communities and health care settings. Nursing informatics knowledge base and skills, applied to the ODL challenge can accelerate their identification, capture, and interpretation, thus empowering individuals toward meaningful action and facilitating more robust information exchange between individuals and their health care providers

Designing Study Nurses’ Training to Enhance Research Integrity: A MacroergonomicApproach

Successful field evaluation of informatics initiatives designed to create technology-enhanced professional practice relies on adequate training of experimental participants. However, such training presents design, implementation and evaluation challenges. A macroergonomic approach, focusing on an organizational view of people, technology, task and environment interactions in work systems, provides a framework for training that allows anticipation and compensation for challenges. In the HeartCare II project, we developed a multi-level training program for nurses and patients enrolled in a field trial of an innovative technology-enhanced professional practice model. Using a macroergonomic approach, we designed three waves of training and assessment centered on a train-the-trainer model. Despite planning, a drop-off occurred between training waves, affecting both recruitment and patient training. Evaluation identified people, task, technology, and organizational concerns. Strategies to increase nurse buy-in and improve technical performance are making a difference. Organizational challenges remain the most intractable