#researchtechniques

Understand research design, its types, and key aspects in this comprehensive guide. Learn about exploratory, descriptive, experimental, and other research designs to enhance your study's effectiveness. Perfect for students, researchers, and professionals

Primary cell culture stands as a cornerstone in biomedical research, offering scientists a powerful tool to explore the intricacies of cellular behavior and physiology. By isolating cells directly from living organisms and culturing them in vitro, researchers can study fundamental biological processes, investigate disease mechanisms, and develop novel therapeutic interventions. The versatility and relevance of primary cell culture have made it indispensable in advancing our understanding of human health and disease.

At its core, Primary Cell Culture involves the isolation and propagation of cells derived directly from living tissues or organs. Unlike immortalized cell lines, which have undergone genetic modifications to achieve indefinite proliferation, primary cells retain their physiological characteristics and genetic makeup. This makes them a valuable model system for studying normal cellular functions, as well as disease processes, in a more biologically relevant context.

The applications of Primary Cell Culture are vast and varied, spanning multiple fields of biomedical research. In cancer biology, primary cell culture allows researchers to study the behavior of tumor cells derived from patient samples, providing insights into tumor growth, metastasis, and drug response. Similarly, in regenerative medicine, primary cell culture serves as a platform for exploring the potential of stem cells and tissue engineering strategies to repair and regenerate damaged tissues.

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When interviewing Kate Moss, you know you only have one shot. In fact, when interviewing anybody, you only have one shot – what worthwhile person wants to devote their precious time to an interviewer? That’s why, before any quality interview is carried out, it has to be thoroughly planned. How do you go about it? Sit back as I illustrate.

Firstly, you must identify key points. These are as follows;-

Who are you interviewing?

Why are you interviewing them?

What do you want to find out?

No matter what you do, remember this: note each and every part of your research because you don’t know when you might need it.

Now, you can delve into your research. Let’s start with “Who?” Say you were interviewing Kate Moss. Start from scratch. Open a new document and a search engine assuming you know nothing about the model. Read her Wikipedia page, become up to date with her recent get ups, check all her social media accounts. To get a good interview, you must ensure your subject feels comfortable and is willing to share information with you. Find out her experiences in former interviews and the experiences of interviewers with Kate Moss – you must become flexible in a way to receive any information you want. Don’t impose on personal issues if you know you may alienate your subject, rather, offer coffee, food, obtain the personality of a grandmother who has not seen her son’s family in weeks. Researching a personality (or, of course, a topic depending on the subject of your interview) in this way is known as secondary research- finding out information from other sources. You must always asses the reliability of your source as well as credit its original finder.

Onto the types of research you should be doing. There are four main types of research; primary, secondary, market and audience research. Primary relates to going out and finding your own information. This could be a questionnaire to find what people look for in a product or what they want to know about a product. You can send out surveys, entertain a sample group, or allow an option where customers review your product, such as that offered by the AppStore. The aforementioned secondary research, can be done through looking at relevant work, reading books or magazines but today, the most relevant option is the internet. Market research on the other hand, is looking at a market relevant to your product, in order to help deliver to such a market. For example, because Kate Moss is a model, you are targeting the fashion and media markets therefore you must find a way to convey this through your interview i.e. ask related questions, see what magazines like Vogue or Elle are writing about her and try similar styles while of course adding your own twist and unique selling point. Lastly, audience research comprises of who you wish to entice with your information. If, again, you’re writing about Moss you are probably targeting females of ages 16-30 living mostly in the US, France, Italy or UK. If you are interviewing Conor McGregor, your main target audience would be males between the ages of 13-40. If you are promoting a care home, you would be targeting men and women between 60-90. Don’t guess your information. Use common knowledge, intuition and remember the internet is your best friend.

Let’s talk about our second key point, “Why?” Interviews aim to extract information. If you are making a promotional video, you must ask yourself “Why am I promoting this product?” Find out the best and worst features of a product and present them in a positive light. Why is it Kate Moss and not Cara Delevigne, what is special about your subject? The cause could be recent events such as a movie role, a marriage or a good deed like a charity event. Link back to this at the end of the majority of your paragraphs. Why is this interview beneficial to anybody? Focus on your audience and what they want to hear. They are the reason your product will sell. This relates to your market and audience research, as does the last key point, “What?”

“What?” This will be the basis of your interview. “What are the unique selling points?” Let’s say Kate Moss is making a line for Topshop again. What you want to find out is her reasons, colours and inspiration. Base your questions around such topics. What do they already know and what is it that the public and yourself or your boss want to find out about her? Constantly review and evaluate your work while also relating to the main topic of your interview.

Now that you have identified all the areas of your work, plan what you want your interview to look like. Unless you are just writing, you will have a group of people such as cameramen, the interviewer, your star(s), creative directors, maybe even a show host – you name it. To make the interview work, all these people need to be completely aware of every planned step.

It is a good idea to begin by creating a moodboard. This can be done using platforms such as Pinterest. You could include colours, setting, music, looks, and relevant interviews. The next level of the planning process of your interview is to make a spider diagram or bullet point ideas. Sort these under umbrellas. For the Kate Moss interview, you could use umbrellas like: introduction, reasons, inspiration, shapes and colours, conclusion. Write down your questions in appropriate wording (reference audience research to gauge the complexity of language you use). Some of your subjects may be more talkative than others. It is always better to have excess questions than to run out of them and cut the interview short. If your subject is known to be talkative focus on the most important questions- you could mark them with an asterisk. Judge the length of answers in while interviewing to decide which questions you will and will not be asking. Always be extremely aware of the time. If an interview is too long it becomes boring and there may not be enough air-space to play it, while if it is too short your audience won’t find out the information they want.

Many interviews are stationary, however projects such as the “73 Questions” series by Vogue involves changing scenes. This could also be true if you are interviewing a variety of people in different places, different countries etc. The setting may be important if you are trying to convey a mood, for example, for an election you may want to interview your candidate in front of a flag or important building. Similarily, you could use music which reflects the mood. It is then that you must clarify such ideas to cameramen, those in charge of microphones and other gadgets. To do this you could use shot lists or storyboards such as the one provided below. It is important to denote any camera angles- research those most commonly used or watch interviews and see what works for you. In storyboard templates, there will often be a space where you can write down the audio you wish to use. Draw out plans for where the cameras should be and how you want the interview space to look. If it is a large space try using a basic map and note movement with arrows. Make sure to add in any props you will be using.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS EVALUATION

My group, Alfa Wolf Squadron, utilised all of the 3 months we were given to do our assignment. I think the lack of success of our presentation was based on a lack of team spirit throughout the creation process. I wish we had sat down together more often and I wish everyone had more of a say on our product. Even though I was the group leader I feel like I took on too much responsibility where it was unnecessary.I assigned and planned out every piece of work the group did for them.It was my idea to use scripts for our presentation, which seemingly brought down the marks for the entire group and led to our presentation running way overtime.

I feel as if we had put in a surplus of work irrelevant to the assignment, for example; myself, John and Kaelan slaved over our video for 2 weeks straight, even though the focus of the assignment was on the presentation. Due to this lack of concentration, the quality of our presentation suffered. We were oblivious to the fact that the 20 minute time limit also included our video. Overall, I was happy with the promotional video however in hindsight I’m unsure whether it ticked off all the boxes of a promotional video. I was very proud of me and Kaelan’s concept for the video, the editing and filming I had done considering it was all self taught. Yes, it has 304 views and 10 likes on Youtube and I can see it having a positive effect on its audience, nevertheless, it was not 2 minutes as advised by our lecturers, we used the old logo, and I have an extreme disregard for the subtitles, especially their location throughout the video.

In regards to the presentation, the fact we used scripts will haunt me in my nightmares for the rest of my life. We learned our lesson the hard way. It completely overshadowed the confidence we had in our work. A positive is that personally I rarely used the script because as team leader I was there for every part of the creation process, but in juxtaposition I spoke for a very short time in an attempt to give team mates a time to shine. I felt as if half the time my team members had no idea what they were talking about, again due to a lack of team spirit and miscommunications which I should have advocated for, as well as having put all the wrong information into our pitch. We barely went into the planning process and I wish we’d used an image of the diary which denoted what we did weekly.

What is the war about?

The 'Syrian' war is as of now an international armed conflict based in Syria, which dates back to the spring of 2011.

The primary cause of the outbreak of the war, were nationwide Spring protests based in the Syrian city of Deraa against the government of Syria's leader, Bashar al-Assad, which resulted in the use of violence by the country's forces against its civillians. The first even of said unrest was Syrian locals taking to the streets, to defend 15 children who were reportedly tortured in prison for spray painting a wall for anti-government grafitti. Though these were peaceful, asking for the children to be released alongside concessions suc as democracy and greater freedom of speech, they escalated when on the 18th of March the Syrian army killed 4 protestors, and consecutively shot at the victims' funeral attendants, leading to the passing of another person. This enraged other parts of the country. The protestors then agreed the president, Bashar al-Assad should resign. With the increase of violence, al-Assad offered minor concessions but did not have the protestors convinced. Despite the large volume of rebel fighters, many Syrians still support the president.

  Who's Involved

The Syrian Government began by using its own defence forces for its' state, however by 2014 these were gradually replaced by the National Defence Force, made up of local volunteers.

The Russian, Iraqi and Iran Governments supplied Syria with technical, financial, military and political support.  Alongside China, these countries set up a joint operation room based in Baghdad in 2015 to conduct and control their input into the war. Russia then engaged in an air campaign at the request of the Syrian Government which gave way to a proxy war (this is a war which is instigated by a major world power i.e. Russia or the US, which does not actually involve said power) between Russia and the US, resulting in a conflict between nearly 12 countries, siding with either of the powers.

The 'Hezbollah' (which translates to "Party of God") is a Lebanon based army of Shia Muslims which backs the Syrian army since 2013.

The IS are a radical group willing to use force against subjects who disagree with their beliefs, who derive from Iraq. They call for an ethnic cleansing and genocide of Christians, Alawites, Shiite and Druze followers. The group entered into the war by taking over large areas of the aforementioned country, which neighbours with Syria. This allowed them to progress into war ridden Syria and obtain land there also. In response, the US, UK and other major powers joined forces in an attempt to stop the IS in September 2014. Though they are terrorists, not primarily related to the war, the IS is often labelled into the bracket of rebel groups by the media.

The United Nations reported the conflict to be sectarian, and further elaborated it is based around two groups; the first of which i a combination of Alawite (Shiite Muslim group) forces, security forces, and other Shia Muslim groups, and the second, dominantly Sunni rebel groups such as political parties, locals living in exile, which are often extremist in their Islamic beliefs. It is believed there is at least 1000 groups which oppose the government. In western media, Syria, ISIL and relevant forces have been accused of violation of human rights and massacres as well as civilian casualties often caused through bombings. Many protestors, activists and reporters have been imprisoned where torture has been reported.

Major world powers have so far tried to avoid the war. BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner, claims this is because such countries "[...]dont want to upset the Russians." he continued by saying, "The British and American governments are saying 'OK we care about what is happening in Syria, but are we prepared to go to war over it? No.'"

Events

The war has also not been free of Chemical Weapons. Though the powers disagree on who was responsible for their use, chemical warfare was spotted in Damascus in 2013, leading to worldwide talks and a withdrawal from any future use of such ammunition. This event led to international outrage and large amounts of publicity for the Syrian War. Many western inhabitants called for a strong response however this as avoided. Al-Assad spoke out on the topic, blaming the rebel forces for the detonation, saying "There is no country in the world that uses a weapon of ultimate destruction against its own people". As a resolve, Russia who has strong ties with Syria suggested the Syrian government should give up and destroy their chemical weapons to avoid future confrontation. Syria followed up and those involved in the project were awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in October 2013.

Refugee Crisis

12 million Syrians had to leave their homes as war refugees. 4 million of those take up the course of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey or Iraq, and the remaining 8 million, of which 50% are children, were forced to relocate within the country. Some refugees are willing to travel to Europe, crossing the sea on homemade rafts. So far Germany has declared it would accept 500,000 refugees a year, France 24,000, and UK 20,000 by 2020. Meanwhile, Syria is littered with makeshift camps for the refugees.

The reality of the horror of these events was fully encapsulated when at least 12 Syrians drowned in an attempt to escape their home country, while sailing towards Kos, a Greek Island. The body of one of the deceased, a 3 year old boy in a red tshirt and jeans, washed up on the shores of a Turkish holiday resort town, Bodrum. Pictures of a turkish soldier carrying the boy flooded the internet, becoming the top trending picture on twitter. The boy's name was Aylan Kurdi and his family derived from the Syrian town of Kobani where unrest between IS insurgents and Kurdish forces had took place earlier. Though this event caused a 15 fold rise within donations sent from MEDCs, this is a common occurrence with rafts capsizing daily leading to the downfall of under 1000 refugees.

The Greek island upon which the body washed up has become the destination for the majority of refugees. Facing Turkey's Aegan coast, it is the shortest distance to travel for miles, making it home to the landing of 2500 refugees in household vessels such as dinghies. Another 15,000 refugees are on the island of Lesbos await a cruise ship which will take them to Athens. A journey to Macedonia through Serbia, Hungary and Germany is then to follow.

Many civilians protested against countries putting limits on the amount of refugees entering however the situation is critical. None of the European countries were prepared for this and there is currently a lack of shelter and tragic hygiene conditions leading to governments being unable to help. Athens' caretaker government announced they will do their absolute best to facilitate refugees however such governments cannot put their countries at risk. Another factor is European countries being involved in the war once Syrians flow in.

Getting help to Syrians within their own country is extremely hard and dangerous because it may be taken by opposing sides who then use the weaponry and other aid against refugees. Due to this, the US and Britain had to withdraw all non-lethal supplies (medicine, vehicles and communication equipment). Other countries continue to provide aid in the form of food and emergency supplies.

JPEG

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is a form of lossy compression which allows you to compress a file to as low as 5% of its original size! Despite this, normally you can choose a quality when saving a JPEG. Alongside GIF and PNG, it is one of the few formats supported by the World Wide Web.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/J/JPEG.html

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/JPEG

TIFF

TIFF stands for Tag Image File Format, and can be saved with a .tif or .tiff extentions. It is used to transfer images i.e. for scanners. It was developed in 1986 with the help of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. This type of file is universally used for desktop publishing, faxing, 3-D applications, and medical imaging applications

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/TIFF-Tag-Image-File-Format

PNG

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It is a very common extension used within the World Wide Web to save images, which is very likely to soon replace the GIF extension. The GIF extension was developed by Unisys (meaning it cannot be edited due to copyright of a company), whereas PNG was developed by an Internet Committee and provides significant improvements to the standard GIF, i.e. the ability to save images with a transparent background.