Meta-synthesis seeks to explain and understand phenomena by pulling together findings from qualitative research (Stone and Seaman 2014) into a new integrative interpretation (Finfgeld 2003).
The aim of a meta-synthesis is to produce new and integrative interpretation of findings that is more substantive than those resulting from individual investigations.
Furthermore, more accurate approaches to complete understanding of the mechanism inducing HIV-1 latency would be made if genome-wide epigenetic information such as repressive histone modifications and DNA methylation were collected for integrative interpretation.
Furthermore, for the remaining iTSCs that were not associated with any RefSeq genes, we demonstrate that integrative interpretation of the transcriptome data provides essential information to specify their biological functions in the hypoxic responses of the cells.
Qualitative meta-synthesis aims to both summarize a range of findings across studies while retaining the original meaning and to compare and contrast findings across studies to produce a new integrative interpretation [ 28].
We wished to demonstrate that specific functions of the iTSCs underlying particular biological events could be inferred from the integrative interpretation of hereby described various types of transcriptome data.
Thus, a possible integrative interpretation of our findings is that cumulative genetic risk factors such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or copy number variants (CNVs) in sPD, or LRRK2 mutations in L2PD, alone or in combination with still unknown environmental factors could be underlying the common epigenetic changes detected in both disease forms.
The complexity of multifaceted informational structures in data collected from large observational studies requires a thoughtful analytical plan, careful assessment of potential interactions, effect modifications, and confounding, selection of statistical methods and models appropriate to underlying assumptions, and an integrative interpretation of modeling results.
The "stress-related variables" that were considered equivalent for the purposes of meta-analysis (such as fighting spirit, shift work, death of child, neuroticism, and the MMPI Lie scale) were so highly heterogeneous as to defy any integrative theoretical interpretation of the omnibus effect size produced by a meta-analysis.
While each of these features enables applications that facilitate data integration, data access and analysis, a great potential lies in the possibility of combining these four features to support integrative analysis and interpretation of multimodal data.
