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Showing posts from September, 2010

Environmental Sampling Bias & Conflicts of Interest: The Roll of Third Party Sampling.

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"To know the true reality of yourself, you must be aware not only of your conscious thoughts, but also of your unconscious prejudices, bias and habits."   - Unknown Author   Part of the development of any sampling strategy is the evaluation of the scientific benefit of the collection of each potential sample to be collected.  The scientific benefit of each sample collected should be evaluated against the cost to collect that sample.  A "cost benefit analysis" is performed (or should be) for each sample collected and for every parameter proposed.  Now, this "analysis" doesn't have to be in the form of a formal document prepared for each sample detailed down to the penny the value of the data collected. It can be as simple as a mental exercise using one's best professional judgment as to which samples make the most sense and provide the most useful data without sampling everywhere for everything as if cost was not an issue.  Financial limitations sh