An appeal for a methodological fusion of conversation analysis and experimental psychology

©, Published with license by Taylor & Francis. © 2017 J. P. de Ruiter and Saul Albert. Human social interaction is studied by researchers in conversation analysis (CA) and psychology, but the dominant methodologies within these two disciplines are very different. Analyzing methodological differences in relation to major developments in the philosophy of science, we suggest that a central difference is that psychologists tend to follow Popper’s falsificationism in dissociating the context of discovery and the context of justification. In CA, following Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, these two contexts are much closer to one another, if not inextricable. While this dissociation allows the psychologist a much larger theoretical freedom, because psychologists “only” need to validate their theories by generating confirmed predictions from experiments, it also carries the risk of generating theories that are less robust and pertinent to everyday interaction than the body of knowledge accumulated by CA. However, as long as key philosophical differences are well understood, it is not an inherently bad idea to generate predictions from theories and use quantitative and experimental methods to test them. It is both desirable and achievable to find a synthesis between methodologies that combines their strengths and avoids their weaknesses. We discuss a number of challenges that would need to be met and some opportunities that may arise from creating such a synthesis

Improving human interaction research through ecological grounding

In psychology, we tend to follow the general logic of falsificationism: we separate the ‘context of discovery’ (how we come up with theories) from the ‘context of justification’ (how we test them). However, when studying human interaction, separating these contexts can lead to theories with low ecological validity that do not generalize well to life outside the lab. We propose borrowing research procedures from well-established inductive methodologies in interaction research during the process of discovering new regularities and analyzing natural data without being led by theory. We introduce research procedures including the use of naturalistic study settings, analytic transcription, collections of cases, and data analysis sessions, and illustrate these with examples from a successful cross-disciplinary study. We argue that if these procedures are used systematically and transparently throughout a research cycle, they will lead to more robust and ecologically valid theories about interaction within psychology and, with some adaptation, can enhance the reproducibility of research across many other areas of psychological science

Repair: The interface between interaction and cognition

Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Topics in Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society. Conversational repair is the process people use to detect and resolve problems of speaking, hearing, and understanding. Through repair, participants in social interaction display how they establish and maintain communication and mutual understanding. We argue that repair provides a crucial theoretical interface for research between diverse approaches to studying human interaction. We provide an overview of conversation analytic findings about repair in order to encourage further cross-disciplinary research involving both detailed inductive inquiry and more theory-driven experimental approaches. We outline CA's main typologies of repair and its methodological rationale, and we provide transcripts and examples that readers can explore for themselves using open data from online corpora. Since participants in interaction use repair to deal with problems as they emerge at the surface level of talk, we conclude that repair can be a point of convergence for studying mis/communication from multiple methodological perspectives

Adding a subjective dimension to an ICF-based disability measure for people with multiple sclerosis: development and use of a measure for perception of disabilities

OBJECTIVE: The subjective dimension of disability, the perception of disability, is a dimension missing from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), and from health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments. However, it is a highly relevant dimension for clinical practice as perceived disability may identify care needs. We therefore developed a measure for this subjective dimension of disability in multiple sclerosis (MS) and examined the contribution of this dimension to QOL. METHOD: A measure named the Multiple Sclerosis Impact Profile-Disability Perception (MSIP-DP) was developed to reflect a person's perception of disabilities reported using the original MSIP-disability (MSIP-D) items. MS patients (n=530) completed both MSIP sections, the medical outcome study short form questionnaire (SF-36), the World Health Organisation Quality Of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) and questions concerning disease severity. The contribution of disability perception (DP) to QOL in MS was estimated using hierarchical multiple regression analyses after controlling for MS severity. RESULTS: Confirmative factor analysis confirmed the hypothesised disability perception domains that correspond with the related disability domains in the MSIP. DP scales yielded sufficient reliability. DP explained a unique and substantial part of the variance in QOL, particularly the perception of impairments in mental functions. DISCUSSION: Results indicated that the subjective dimension of functioning and health operationalised in the MSIP-DP is a relevant concept in explaining QOL in MS. In clinical practice psychological interventions addressing a patient's perception of disability, particularly of impairments in mental functioning, may contribute to QOL

Broadening the scope on health problems among the chronically neurologically ill with the International Classification of Functioning (ICF)

Purpose. The aim of this study was to determine ICF items indicating health problems for patients with a chronic neurological disorder such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and neuromuscular disease. Method. A Delphi study using three disease-specific panels composed of patients and proxies, medical and non-medical health professionals (N=98). Panels were asked to select items from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) reflecting relevant disease-specific health problems. Items appraised as relevant by the panel members were compared with items in established measures namely: the Minimal Record of Disability (MRD) and the Disability and Impact Profile (DIP). Results. Sixty-eight ICF items were considered to be the most relevant, and belonged to four ICF domains. No significant differences were found between the appraisal of items by patients/proxies and health professionals. Agreement across the disease panels appeared to be (very) strong. Differences between the three disease-specific panels were found for the 'Body Functions and Structures' domain: consensus was reached by extension of the inclusion criteria. The ICF-item selection covers almost all items of the established measures. The largest contrast was shown in the item selection for the 'participation' and 'environmental factors' domains. Conclusions. Selected items indicate a broader scope in studying health problems compared with widely used health status measures in neurology, especially for the ICF domains 'Participation' and 'Environmental Factors'

Publiek-private samenwerking bij waterberging

In Nederland neemt door klimaatsveranderingen de behoefte voor waterberging sterk toe. Om de problemen structureel aan te pakken acht de Commissie Waterbeheer 21e eeuw het nood-zakelijk dat het watersysteem over ruimte beschikt voor het bergen en vasthouden van water. Deze waterberging hoeft niet alleen door waterschappen te worden gerealiseerd, maar kan ook door grondeigenaren in de vorm van meervoudig ruimtegebruik worden gerealiseerd. Dit kan leiden tot publiek-private samenwerkingsconstructies (pps). In dit rapport is aan de hand van de beleidsarrangemententheorie geanalyseerd welke pps-constructies voor waterberging kansrijk zij

Tomo-seq identifies SOX9 as a key regulator of cardiac fibrosis during ischemic injury

Background: Cardiac ischemic injury induces a pathological remodeling response, which can ultimately lead to heart failure. Detailed mechanistic insights into molecular signaling pathways relevant for different aspects of cardiac remodeling will support the identification of novel therapeutic targets. Methods: While genome-wide transcriptome analysis on diseased tissues has greatly advanced our understanding of the regulatory networks that drive pathological changes in the heart, this approach has been disadvantaged by the fact that the signals are derived from tissue homogenates. Here we used tomo-seq to obtain a genome-wide gene expression signature with high spatial resolution spanning from the infarcted area to the remote to identify new regulators of cardiac remodeling. Cardiac tissue samples from patients suffering from ischemic heart disease were used to validate our findings. Results: Tracing transcriptional differences with a high spatial resolution across the infarcted heart enabled us to identify gene clusters that share a comparable expression profile. The spatial distribution patterns indicated a separation of expressional changes for genes involved in specific aspects of cardiac remodeling, like fibrosis, cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, and calcium-handling (Col1a2, Nppa, and Serca2). Subsequent correlation analysis allowed for the identification of novel factors that share a comparable transcriptional regulation pattern across the infarcted tissue. The strong correlation between the expression levels of these known marker genes and the expression of the co-regulated genes could be confirmed in human ischemic cardiac tissue samples. Follow-up analysis identified SOX9 as common transcriptional regulator of a large portion of the fibrosis-related genes that become activated under conditions of ischemic injury. Lineage-tracing experiments indicated the majority of COL1-positive fibroblasts to stem from a pool of SOX9-expressing cells and in vivo loss of Sox9 blunted the cardiac fibrotic response upon ischemic injury. The co-localization between SOX9 and COL1 could also be confirmed in patients suffering from ischemic heart disease. Conclusions: Based on the exact local expression cues, tomo-seq can serve to reveal novel genes and key transcription factors involved in specific aspects of cardiac remodeling. Using tomo-seq we were able to unveil the unknown relevance of SOX9 as key regulator of cardiac fibrosis, pointing to SOX9 as potential therapeutic target for cardiac fibrosis

Assessing the prognostic value of tumor-infiltrating CD57+ cells in advanced stage head and neck cancer using QuPath digital image analysis

This study aimed to assess the prognostic value of intratumoral CD57+ cells in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and to examine the reproducibility of these analyses using QuPath. Pretreatment biopsies of 159 patients with HPV-negative, stage III/IV HNSCC treated with chemoradiotherapy were immunohistochemically stained for CD57. The number of CD57+ cells per mm2 tumor epithelium was quantified by two independent observers and by QuPath, software for digital pathology image analysis. Concordance between the observers and QuPath was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). The correlation between CD57 and clinicopathological characteristics was assessed; associations with clinical outcome were estimated using Cox proportional hazard analysis and visualized using Kaplan-Meier curves. The patient cohort had a 3-year OS of 65.8% with a median follow-up of 54 months. The number of CD57+ cells/mm2 tumor tissue did not correlate to OS, DFS, or LRC. N stage predicted prognosis (OS: HR 0.43, p = 0.008; DFS: HR 0.41, p = 0.003; LRC: HR 0.24, p = 0.007), as did WHO performance state (OS: HR 0.48, p = 0.028; LRC: 0.33, p = 0.039). Quantification by QuPath showed moderate to good concordance with two human observers (ICCs 0.836, CI 0.805–0.863, and 0.741, CI 0.692–0.783, respectively). In conclusion, the presence of CD57+ TILs did not correlate to prognosis in advanced stage, HPV-negative HNSCC patients treated with chemoradiotherapy. Substantial concordance between human observers and QuPath was found, confirming a promising future role for digital, algorithm driven image analysis

Soil food web assembly and vegetation development in a glacial chronosequence in Iceland

Worldwide human activities threaten soil quality in terms of the soil's ability to deliver ecosystem services. This ongoing process of land degradation asks for effective strategies of soil protection. In this context, it is important to understand processes that build up and regenerate soil. The present study investigated how the soil ecosystem, including soil organisms, vegetation and soil ecological processes, develops during the process of soil formation in a chronosequence in a glacier forefield in Iceland. We hypothesised that along successional age we see increases in nutrient content, vegetation cover, and plant species richness linked to increases in soil food webs biomass and complexity. In line with our expectations all measured pools of carbon and nitrogen, and vegetation cover increased with age in the glacial forefield, but plant species richness levelled off after 30 years. Soil organisms generally increased in biomass with successional age, although some of the groups of soil organisms peaked at an intermediate successional stage. In contrast to our expectations, some of the calculated food web complexity metrics such as the number of trophic groups and trophic chain length did not increase linearly, but showed an intermediate peak or even decreased with successional age. However, plant cover and pools of carbon and nitrogen still increased after 120 years. From these results we conclude that soil ecosystem development takes more than a century under Icelandic climatic conditions to fully develop in terms of vegetation succession, food web structure and biogeochemical cycling.</p

Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-Derived Factors Promote Tissue Repair in a Small-for-Size Ischemic Liver Model but Do Not Protect against Early Effects of Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury

Loss of liver mass and ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) are major contributors to postresectional liver failure and small-for-size syndrome. Mesenchymal stromal cell-(MSC-) secreted factors are described to stimulate regeneration after partial hepatectomy. This study investigates if liver-derived MSC-secreted factors also promote liver regeneration after resection in the presence of IRI. C57BL/6 mice underwent IRI of 70% of their liver mass, alone or combined with 50% partial hepatectomy (PH). Mice were treated with MSC-conditioned medium (MSC-CM) or unconditioned medium (UM) and sacrificed after 6 or 24 hours (IRI group) or after 48 hours (IRI + PH group). Blood and liver tissue were analyzed for tissue injury, hepatocyte proliferation, and gene expression. In the IRI alone model, serum ALT and AST levels, hepatic tissue damage, and inflammatory cytokine gene expression showed no significant differences between both treatment groups. In the IRI + PH model, significant reduction in hepatic tissue damage as well as a significant increase in hepatocyte proliferation was observed after MSC-CM treatment. Conclusion. Mesenchymal stromal cell-derived factors promote tissue regeneration of small-for-size livers exposed to ischemic conditions but do not protect against early ischemia and reperfusion injury itself. MSC-derived factors therefore represent a promising treatment strategy for small-for-size syndrome and postresectional liver failure