Evaluate the collective function of references cited together in a given text segment.
Classify their combined role into one of the following categories: 'method', 'background', or 'result'.

Text:‚Ä¶identification and analysis of putative promoter sequence was conducted using the ProScan suite of programs (http://thr.cit.nih.gov/molbio/ proscan/) using the default settings [Prestridge, 2000] as per our previous gene characterization protocols [Philibert et al., 1999; Philibert et al., 2000].
Category: