Astonishing revolution in information technology, developments in electronic publishing and availability of manuscript management software’s has provided lot of facilities to authors, reviewers as well as editors but it has also given birth to lot of e-problems. This communication highlights some of these e-problems besides discussing the manuscript management system practiced by Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences through modified Open Journal System. It also cautions the editors of small journals faced with financial and human resource constraints to keep themselves abreast of all these developments, go for automation in e publishing gradually as all the stake holders i.e. authors, reviewers and office management staff learns these and become used to it. Ahmad Badar has highlighted some of these problems i.e. lack of emotions in this system, switch over from “pen and paper editors” to “electronic editors” and tremendous increase in workload of the Editors.6 The electronic publishing offers lot of comfort not only to the editors who can work twenty four hours a day, seven days a week sitting anywhere but also to the authors who do not take days to write or respond to reviewers comments but respond immediately and reviewers who review the manuscripts and return manuscripts with track changes in word document within few days. This increased workload on the editors is likely to affect the quality of the manuscripts accepted for publication and eventually standard of the journal which are faced with financial constraints and limitaions of human resources. Publishing and editing a good quality peer reviewed medical journal is quite frustrating and stressful job in developing Third world countries faced with financial as well as human resources constraints which has now been very well documented. Some of the complaints which the authors have against editors include no acknowledgement of receipt of manuscripts and no communication as to the further processing of their manuscripts. While the new software’s which is now being increasingly used by many journals (not 100% as yet) has overcome some of these problems as the authors get automatic acknowledgement and they can check the state of their manuscript themselves directly visiting the journal website with the password which they get, they remain impatient and would like to see their papers in print without realizing and being aware of the whole process. We modified the Open Journal System to suite our requirements so that one can manage everything with the few staff members which we have about five years ago and have been gradually going for automation in every step of publishing. This has not been an easy task. The objective of this communication is to share some of the problems which we have faced and how we have tried to solve them for the benefit of colleagues who may be facing similar problems.e-Journal System:7 The modified Open Journal System8 which we are using offers full automation but we are trying to adopt this gradually as we, our authors and reviewers learn to use this system. To begin with we used to ask for exclusive online submissions but would also accept submissions through e mails and then upload these ourselves. It went on like this for about six months when we asked the authors to go for direct submissions on our website. Some of the authors are still not used to it and they have to be guided which at times is again a frustrating experience since we as Editors cannot teach them how to use computers and these software’s.Editor’s Triage and initial screening: Ever since we have gone online, there has been enormous increase in submissions which is increasing every year.9 We have our own limitations as regards financial and human resources to process these manuscripts. Hence, during initial screening, we do not accept about 70% of the submitted manuscripts for further processing which means they are rejected at these initial stages. The idea is not to keep the authors waiting so that they can submit their manuscripts to some other journal without wasting any further time. As per policy of the journal, we do not accept KAP studies, survey reports, animal studies. We are very selective in accepting Case Reports and Special Communications and Reviews, Meta Analysis which are quite interesting and cover some important topics which we feel will be of interest to our readers are accepted for further processing. Those authors whose manuscripts are not accepted for further processing are politely thanked for taking interest in Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences and they are told that their manuscript will have a very low priority with us and we do not want to keep them waiting, or in case of overseas manuscripts, we feel it is more suitable for local publication, hence we are sorry to disappoint them. We do not comment on the quality of these manuscripts at all.Screening for plagiarism: As a policy we accept upto three thousand (3000) words for original manuscripts, fifteen hundred words for Case Reports and Special Communications and upto three thousand five hundred words (3500 words) for Reviews, sometimes however there are exceptions. We use different software’s to check plagiarism. Some of them are available free on the net though they are not so good. Some of our reviewers particularly those overseas and those who are affiliated with teaching institutions do have the facility of checking for plagiarism and they do inform us. All such manuscripts which have similarity index which is not in acceptable limits are rejected. Our experience shows that any manuscript which is too lengthy or those with over three thousand words does contain some plagiarism. After signing an agreement with CrossRef for DOI numbers, we have also signed an agreement with CrossCheck for use of their software to check plagiarism. We have now started screening the manuscripts for plagiarism before they are sent for external review with this newly acquired software. All this has also added to the cost of production but it does offer the advantage of ensuring that no plagiarized manuscript gets published.Formatting of Manuscripts: We usually check the submissions on the e journal system after every couple of days (not daily) or may be after a week or ten days if the backlog has not yet been cleared. All the manuscripts which are accepted for further processing after initial screening are then formatted and it does take some time. But the authors are very impatient and when they see their manuscripts are still awaiting assignment on the website, they start sending e mails why they are not being processed further. Hence responding to these e mails adds to the workload. After formatting, these manuscripts are then uploaded on the system again and now they are ready to be sent for external review. Even at this stage some of these manuscripts need some editing and corrections but the authors do not know about this additional work which the editorial team has to perform.External Peer Review: We have over two hundred fifty people on our reviewer’s data base within the country and overseas. Some of them, particularly overseas reviewers are quite expert in doing online reviews, hence they are sent the manuscripts through e journal system but others are sent through e mails with attachments along with the reviewers Performa. Among the reviewers in Pakistan about 20% would still like to receive the print copies for review and we have no option but to oblige them as they all do this honorary. It is not uncommon that one has to send repeated reminders to the reviewers as a vast majority of them won’t respond within the given time. Some of them particularly reviewers in Pakistan at times even misplace the manuscripts and they have to be sent manuscripts again to some by e mail and to others printed copy of the manuscripts. Our efforts continue to increase the Reviewers data base and include those reviewers who can do electronic review and hope to switchover to complete electronic reviewing in the next six months. Till then we have to use both these systems. Our experience with young faculty members has been very good, they are keen, enthusiastic and do a good job in time. Some authors who have published a few manuscripts and their manuscripts are rated of good quality are also invited to join the reviewers data base and we have found it a good source of inducting new reviewers from Pakistan as well as overseas. In some cases, we also give the option to the authors to suggest atleast two reviewers and sometimes do utilize their services particularly in those specialties in which we do not have many or a few reviewers.Fast track processing facility: At times the authors are really faced with an emergency situation like the postgraduates who may have to sit in the fellowship examination and needs published paper to be eligible or someone has to appear in an interview for faculty position and needs published manuscripts. In some other cases someone may need additional published papers to become eligible for further faculty promotion. As the peer review takes atleast four months time and despite best efforts we have not yet been able to reduce this processing time, we have offered the facility of fast track processing for those authors who need early publication. They have to pay extra processing fee but it does not guarantee acceptance or early publication which is made clear to them. They are promised to get their manuscripts peer reviewed within eight weeks time and the reviewers comments are conveyed to them within this time. It depends on the quality of their manuscript; it may be accepted, rejected or asked to revise it. In principle, we do not encourage authors to opt for fast track processing unless it is extremely essential. We have also noted that sometimes some authors have a tendency to misuse this facility. Despite the fact that they have no such urgency, just to get their manuscripts processed speedily, they insist on fast track processing. If such requests are accepted it will deprive many other authors who cannot afford to pay extra to get their manuscripts processed and published quickly. It is a very difficult decision at times and one has to be extremely careful as it should not give an impression that the journal is most interested in financial gains only.Reviewing the Reviewers: Editors are not supposed to work as “Post Office” and as stated by Ahmad Badar “An editor is the reviewer-in-chief, chief justice, solution finder, mentor and guide”,6 Hence the editor has to perform these multiple jobs and also try to keep every one, authors, reviewers and readers happy, not an easy job. One of the important task of the Editor related to manuscript management is reviewing the reviewers. Some of the reviewers are excellent, do an exceptionally good job guiding the authors how to improve their manuscripts. Using track changes, some of them even edit, correct and suggest changes which the authors can just accept through the click of a button if they agree. Some of the reviewers fill in the Reviewers Performa which is quite helpful and offers ease in reviewing but there are others who will communicate their comments through e-mails sending their comprehensive reviews through attachments. We do not forward these reviewers’ comments as such to the authors but review their reviews. While their comments are saved as such but those forwarded to the authors are the edited version because at times some of the harsh comments have to be toned down, some of the comments are meant for the editor and not authors. All this takes lot of time. For the authors the manuscript management software’s are quite helpful and in some cases, they make the changes, corrections, additions and return the manuscript within hours and in some cases in the next two three days and then all this gets piled up for the Editorial team to look at it further. However, the authors are again very impatient and wish that the Editor convey them the decision of acceptance as quickly as they have responded which is not possible. In case the reviewers have made track changes and made some other comments and suggestions on the manuscript, the authors are asked to make all the changes in the same file which is being sent to them and highlight all changes or additions made. Not only that they are also asked to convey through a separate communication how they have responded to these comments point wise. Once the revised manuscripts are received, they are looked at by the editorial team and the Editor himself. If the response is satisfactory, an acceptance e mail is sent to the author immediately in some cases within hours or the next day. Some of these manuscripts have to be revised numerous times before they are finally accepted for publication and it may take from twelve to eighteen months from the time of submission to final publication. There is no straight forward Acceptance or Rejection. If the manuscripts are finally rejected after peer review, they are given reasons for rejection. We practice open peer review system for the last seven years and the reviewers comments are conveyed to the authors along with the name of those who have reviewed it. Since a vast majority of our reviewers are from overseas, we never have had any problem. Only in a few cases, the reviewers from Pakistan wished that their identity should not be disclosed and it was accepted. In some of the disciplines we do find difficulty in finding good reviewers and in such cases, we ask the authors to suggest at least two reviewers and it works. The final authority to accept or reject the manuscript lies with the Editor who is eventually responsible for the quality of contents, hence these reviewers are reviewed carefully before taking any decision. Of course the Editor can take a decision contrary to the advice of the Reviewers as their comments are an advice and suggestion as regards acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. It has happened in a very few selected cases with us. However, it must be added here that a journal is only as good as its Editorial Team and Reviewers who remain an asset for the journal. The Editor also has a role in resolving disputes if any between reviewers and authors. The authors can also appeal to the Journal Ombudsman against the decision of the Editor or redress of their grievances’ if any against the journal.Reward for the Reviewers: We do not have enough resources to offer any honorarium to the reviewers or reward them financially. However, we do offer 50% discount to our reviewers in publication charges if they submit their manuscripts for publication. They are also offered 50% discount in fast track processing or at times the processing fee is waived off. In some cases some of their manuscripts may be published complimentary. In every issue, we do have quite a few such manuscripts wherein the authors have been offered some discount or waivers and decision is taken on case to case basis depending on the financial viability. We try to keep contact with our reviewers, meeting some of them within the country personally thanking them for their patronage, help and assistance in this academic activity and those overseas are sent e mails expressing our thanks. This we feel is extremely important to maintain some emotional touch instead of leaving everything to automation offered by these manuscript management software’s which certainly lack emotions. In some exceptional cases some of the reviewers have also been invited to join the Editorial Board which is a very small token of appreciation and recognition of their work.Improvement of English language and Grammar: About 25-30% of the manuscripts which are accepted for further processing does need improvement of English language and Grammar as well. As we follow an author friendly policy, we do request our reviewers and sometimes our editorial team will do this job. The idea is not to discourage people but encourage the authors as far as possible and if they can be helped, we try to do that. However, in some cases the manuscripts need extensive revision and rewriting for which the editorial team certainly has no time; they are returned to the authors with suggestions. About 75% of the manuscripts accepted for further processing and external review  do get accepted after minor changes and corrections which are done by the Reviewers or by the editorial team but another 15% are accepted after one or more than one revisions. The remaining 10% eventually get rejected after peer review and even revision. This is not liked by authors and it is not uncommon to receive some uncharitable comments and even at times threatening e mails and the poor Editor has to live with all this. Final Editing: Once the revised manuscripts or those recommended for acceptance by the reviewers are received, they go through the final editing process. Even at this stage, one may come across serious flaws and problems. As the quality of reviewers varies some being excellent, some good and some not so good, the overall responsibility for the quality of manuscripts accepted for publication lies with the Editor, hence one has to be extremely careful. During editing, one may come across that the reviewer did not check some of the figures carefully, there is difference in total in tables, and some of the references marked in the text do not tally with the references in the list at the end. Many of the small journals do not have the luxury of having separate copy editors and even this job has to be performed by the editor. Hence one has to be cautious, check the tables, figures, references carefully. On some occasions we did detect serious problems with the references at this stage and the manuscripts are returned to the authors to recheck all the references once again even if there is problem with one or two references. If one reference is marked wrongly, there is a possibility that all the reference numbers may have to be changed. The bibliographer is also asked to re-check all the references in most of the accepted manuscripts to eliminate any chances of mistake.PDF files for Proof Reading: Once a manuscript goes through all those processed, the final edited copy is passed on for composing and page make-up. The pdf file is then sent to the authors with e-journal system to convey the corrections if any. Here again some of the authors do not know how to convey the corrections. Some are not familiar with how to do corrections in the pdf file. Some do that, others send the corrections by e mail but surprisingly a few will send the original manuscript again after making the changes. It is very frustrating and the authors are informed that we cannot go on formatting their manuscript again and again. They have to convey the corrections so that those changes can be made in the database, sometimes one has to struggle with a few authors to make them understand how and what they are supposed to do and there is no end to some of these e-problems which the editor has to face.e-publication ahead of Print: Once about six to eight manuscripts of an issue are finalized after correction, we publish them online on our website ahead of print. This facility has been welcomed by the authors as they can take a print, give reference since only page number is missing while it has the Volume, number and the year is also mentioned apart from DOI number. Giving references of such manuscripts ahead of print is now a well accepted reality. Then as we continue to receive the corrections, every manuscript which is finalized, is published straight away at times within an hour of the receipt of corrections to the delight of the authors. This process goes on and once the number of manuscripts which is decided to be included in a particular issue is complete, then we do pagination, make these additions and corrections and then generate the pdf files once again with page number before they are uploaded on the website. Last minute corrections: The complete issue is uploaded and it offers yet another opportunity to the authors to look at their published manuscript and make sure that all the corrections, changes they had suggested have been made and if not, immediately communicate to the editor so that the left over corrections if any can be made. After about two to three weeks time, the final prints are taken and the issue goes for print. Once the issue has been printed, no corrections are possible in the print issue though some corrections can be made in the online edition on the website at any time. In case of corrections or additions at this stage, the pdf file which is uploaded again carries a note that this was uploaded again on such and such date at the end of the manuscript.While the editorial team is busy making arrangements for printing of the issue after it is finalized and is published on the website, the authors start sending e mails as to when the print copy will be available. These e mails come not only from the correspondence author who is supposed to communicate with the editor but all the co-authors as well. Similarly while conveying the corrections, at times all the author start sending e-mails separately despite the fact that it has been made clear that only the correspondence author should communicate and reply to all these e-mails which further frustrates the over worked editors and editorial teams. Sometimes the authors change their e mail and fail to communicate this change to the editor with the result that reviewer’s comments or pdf files sent for proof reading have to be re-sent on their new e mail address and all this increases the workload manifold.Print copy: One printed copy is sent to the correspondence author soon after printing but sometimes the address given by the authors is incomplete, hence the copy does not reach them. The authors are reminded time and again that they should give complete postal address but even then the journal is blamed for the failure of the authors who ask for additional copy on a new address and sometime one has no other option but to oblige and in the present era of economic constraints, postal charges are quite exorbitant and the journal has to bear all this.XML files for PubMed Central: Once the issue has been published, we send word and pdf files of the issue to an overseas agency to generate XML files for PubMed Central which has approved Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences for coverage. As per our agreement starting from January 2013 issue the journal will be covered in PubMed Central and we have submitted XML files of all the issues published in 2013 which will appear on PubMed shortly. All this involves additional cost but offers much increased readership for the authors and greater visibility of the journal which will ensure increased citations which will help improve our Impact Factor. The above is a brief summary of the manuscript management system which we follow. While the electronic age and the era of e-publishing has brought with it many advantages and facilities, it has definitely increased the workload of the already overworked editors. All the editors may not be performing their duties and responsibilities to the entire satisfaction of the authors and reviewers but one has to look at the whole working set up, environment and in view of the financial as well as human resource constraints, the Editor faced with this plethora of e-problems, do need some sympathy and encouragement and not the uncharitable remarks and comments from the authors.Final word of caution: For Editors of small journals with meager financial and human resources, too much reliance on electronic management system could prove to be a disaster. Try to keep yourself abreast of all the latest developments and advances in technology but do not take hasty steps in adopting them. Adopt them gradually one by one as your resources permit. Hence, it is advisable to follow author friendly, reviewer friendly policy, do not be so strict with deadlines while dealing with reviewers, gradually switch over to automation as everyone involved i.e the authors, reviewers; office management staff gets trained and used to the system. Slow and steady is most often sure to win the race and the same is true in this publication game.


Veterinary Research became an Open Access (OA) journal, published with BioMed Central, on 1st January 2011.As previously announced in mid-2010, OA is defined as free, immediate, permanent and full-text online access for any user to peer reviewed research. Authors retain the copyright for their articles and grant anyone the right to copy, distribute or display the work provided that it is correctly cited. Some of the expected advantages of OA are increased visibility, wider audience and greater impact, accelerated publication, increased citations, and enhanced availability of online search tools.Veterinary Research will continue to be supported by INRA and there is no change in the journal's title, scope of interests, editorial management, or peer-review process. The OA business model is relatively new and the cost of OA publication is a much-discussed question. The economic basis of OA is that authors, or rather their home institutions or research funders, are charged a fee to have their work published, instead of the readers being charged to access articles. The number of universities, funding agencies, and other organisations supporting OA and covering OA publication charges is growing rapidly and worldwide. A prominent example is the Harvard-initiated "Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity"[g Equity", and morg Equity". OA publg Equity" with resVeterinary Research the article processing charge for each accepted manuscript will be 500 euros in 2011. This flat fee, which is supported by INRA and covers additional files (including movies) and data, is a highly competitive charge in the world of OA publishing.For Veterinary Research as an Open Access journal will contribute to maintaining and further developing a high-quality journal in the field of the infectious diseases of animals. We look forward to working with all of you in the near future.We are convinced that publishing Best regards,Michel BrémontEditor-in-ChiefandÉlodie CoulamyEditorial Assistant


Scientific journals have been called the ‘minutes of science’ . Born ouPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in 1665 as a means of vetting contributions to the Royal Society of London and has persisted in various forms ever since [The ‘gold standard’ for this quality control is peer review. Described as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession, it was first introduced by Henry Oldenburg, the founding editor of er since .Peer review is the evaluation of a piece of work by two or more people of similar competence to the authors; but, assuming the reviewing process excludes all those involved in the direct research itself, the persons most qualified to judge the validity of a submitted research paper are precisely those who are the scientist’s closest competitors. This means that the review process can become adversarial, with referees seeming to see it as their responsibility to insist on time-consuming additions and revisions ,4. MoreoJournal of Negative Results in BioMedicine, there is a lack of transparency of the peer-review process and a lack of availability of evaluative information about published articles to the public. Therefore, as of February 2014, the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine will adopt an open peer-review policy.So how did peer review, with these intrinsic issues and biases, become the judicial system of the intellectual world? Simply put, peer review is to science what democracy was to Churchill – ‘the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ It has served science well, with a widely-held view that, while it may not be perfect, it is nonetheless far better than anything else we have been able to devise. Indeed, the fundamental idea of peer-review seems sound; the issues lie more with the execution. Under closed systems, such as that currently enforced by the Articles already published, or those manuscripts currently submitted, will not be affected by this change. However, for all manuscripts submitted during or after February 2014, authors will see the reviewers’ names and, if the article is published, the reading public will also see who reviewed the article and how the authors responded. This will be available as part of the pre-publication history of the published article. The peer review process will therefore be completely open and transparent, with the peer reviews being part of the record.et al. revealed that reviewer reports operating under an open peer-review system were of overall higher quality than those under a closed system, with higher scores on questions relating to feedback on the methods (11% higher), constructiveness of the comments (5% higher), and the amount of evidence provided to substantiate the comments (9% higher) [et al. unpublished observations) [Research into the effect of open peer review suggests numerous benefits, in particular accountability, fairness and crediting reviewers for their efforts -7. Furth higher) . Despitecomments % higher comments % higher  methods % higher,Reviewing an article is no easy task and many of us will have faced the situation where it feels we have put more thought into our review of the article than the authors did in designing the study and writing the manuscript. The move towards an open peer-review policy will give credit where it is due, but moreover will provide valuable information to those reading the article, sharing the referees’ critique of the manuscript and presenting all the necessary information for them to make an objective evaluation for themselves.


Skeletal Muscle was launched to serve scientists who study the mechanistic basis of skeletal muscle development, homeostasis and disease. At the journal’s inception, we pointed out that cellular signaling and molecular genetics had combined to allow for a tremendous increase in the understanding of the fundamental processes that are distinct to skeletal muscle, in addition to ubiquitious signaling pathways which have particular effects or import on this tissue[Three years ago s tissue. This inSkeletal Muscle’s lifetime, papers which were rapidly downloaded thousands of times. That’s one big advantage of this journal - as an Open Access instrument, scientists can see their work disseminated widely, to any scientist, student or layperson who finds the work of interest, without any barrier or firewall. We’ve tried to make sure the journal maintains a very high standard of work, avoiding review of purely descriptive or incompletely characterized findings, and making sure all articles are fully reviewed, statistically sound and from principled authors. Indeed, we feel all prospective authors would be pleased to know that their papers would be reviewed by experts in the field, often members of our Editorial Board.Indeed, it was quite gratifying to see important work published quite early in Skeletal Muscle early as a high-profile setting for your manuscripts.And yet we’re just beginning. We thank the community for its enthusiastic support of the journal, and hope this continues and strengthens. Please let us know how we can do an even better job to present important results in this rapidly-evolving field, and please do consider


Evidence in the medical literature suggests that trial registration may not be preventing selective reporting of results. We wondered about the place of such information in the peer-review process.We asked 1,503 corresponding authors of clinical trials and 1,733 reviewers to complete an online survey soliciting their views on the use of trial registry information during the peer-review process.1,136 authors (n = 713) and reviewers (n = 423) responded (37.5%); 676 (59.5%) had reviewed an article reporting a clinical trial in the past 2 years. Among these, 232 (34.3%) examined information registered on a trial registry. If one or more items  differed between the registry record and the manuscript, 206 (88.8%) mentioned the discrepancy in their review comments, 46 (19.8%) advised editors not to accept the manuscript, and 8 did nothing. The reviewers' reasons for not using the trial registry information included a lack of registration number in the manuscript , lack of time , lack of usefulness of registered information for peer review , lack of awareness about registries , and excessive complexity of the process .This survey revealed that only one-third of the peer reviewers surveyed examined registered trial information and reported any discrepancies to journal editors. Another study found that for 62% of trial publications, at least one primary outcome was changed, introduced, or omitted as compared with the submitted protocol Several authors have shown evidence of selective outcome reporting in published results of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) In 2005, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) initiated a policy requiring investigators to record basic information about their RCT into a clinical trial registry before participant enrollment as a pre-condition for publishing the trial's findings i.e., registered before the study ended with a clearly defined primary outcome). Among articles for adequately registered trials, 31% (46/147) showed discrepancies between the registered and published outcomes. These data suggest that registered information is not sufficiently being consulted to identify unacknowledged changes to primary outcomes during the manuscript review process.Previous studies have shown that selective outcome reporting remains prevalent among registered trials We surveyed the journal reviewers and corresponding authors of recently published reports of RCTs to determine their views on the use of trial registries during the peer-review process.The present research is not considered as biomedical research according to the French legislation We included reviewers of manuscripts of RCTs, including corresponding authors and journal reviewers. To identify the corresponding author of RCT articles recently indexed in PubMed, we used the search term “randomized controlled trial” on 19/12/2011 to identify reports of RCTs published in 2010 and 2011. We also applied the highly sensitive search strategy described by Robinson and Dickersin New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (ARD) from the last journal issues for the years 2010 or 2011, which thank reviewers for their contributions. The e-mail address search was the same as for corresponding authors, namely, first a PubMed search, then a search on the Internet via Google. We included all reviewers of these three journals, whether they reviewed clinical trials or not.We obtained the list of reviewers of If a corresponding author or reviewer appeared more than once in the participant search, only the most recent e-mail address was retrieved. From April to May 2012, the participants were sent e-mails inviting them to complete an online survey  and S3, The survey asked participants about their knowledge, current practices, and opinions regarding trial registration and peer review of manuscripts . The queWe recorded the peer reviewers' research affiliations, along with the number of annual peer reviews they completed and the number of trials they had joined as investigators. The survey comprised two parts: 1) the reviewer's experiences based on the most recent manuscript reviewed over the previous two years, and 2) whether they compared registered information with manuscript information during the review process, and if so, whether they reported any discrepancies. For participants who responded that the reviewer should verify trial registration or check for discrepancies, we asked them to rate the effectiveness of various methods to facilitate the comparison of registered and reported information during the peer-review process. Ratings of 4 and 5 on a scale from 1 to 5 were considered effective .a priori response rate to be about 30%, assuming that 5% of e-mails would not reach their intended recipient and that some trialists would not have reviewed an article within the previous two years. We sought about 500 survey responses to ensure a sufficient sample size. Data are represented descriptively as proportions. Categorical variables were analyzed by chi-square test. Statistical analysis involved use of R software .Web-based surveys produce variable response rates NEJM (n = 227), JAMA (n = 773), and ARD (n = 777). The flow of participants is in We surveyed 1,503 corresponding authors of recently published RCTs indexed in PubMed, and 1,777 peer reviewers for Of the 1,136 respondents, most  were affiliated with a university hospital . Only 11The percentage of trial investigators and the average number of published articles reviewed per year from 2007 to 2011 were higher in the reviewer group than in the author group .Of the 676 respondents who had peer reviewed an article in the previous two years, 58 responses were missing or not useable for analysis. Overall, 232 respondents (34.3%) had examined the information registered on a trial registry; most were corresponding authors  and 78 were journal reviewers. The most commonly reviewed items in the registration record were the primary outcome (94.4%), eligibility criteria (83.2%), planned sample size (83.2%), secondary outcomes (81%), and posted results (47.8%). When one or more of the above methodological components differed between the registry record and the manuscript, 206 respondents (88.8%) mentioned the discrepancy in their review comments, 46 (19.8%) advised editors not to accept the reported manuscript, and 8 did nothing. Four respondents indicated that their recommendations to journal editors differed depending on the importance of the discrepancies.For 386 respondents who did not look at registry information during the peer review, the most common reasons included a lack of registration number in the manuscript , lack of time , lack of useful registered information , lack of awareness of the availability of registered information , excessive complexity of the process , lack of registration record  and not remembering to check the registry record . Overall, 13 participants reported not having looked at the trial registry because they thought that the journal had done so before sending the manuscript to review.For the 676 participants who had peer reviewed an article in the previous two years, 317 (46.9%) and 182 (26.9%) felt that the managing or academic editor, respectively, was responsible for checking that the trial was registered. Only 50 respondents (7.4%) believed that the peer reviewer should have this responsibility. Other proposed responsible parties were the editor-in-chief (n = 21), investigator (n = 13), research ethics committee (n = 4), and sponsor (n = 3). Ten participants thought that it was not useful to check whether a trial was registered. By contrast, respondents considered a more evenly divided responsibility for checking for consistency between the registered information and the manuscript .The 177 respondents who felt that the peer reviewer should verify that a trial was registered or discrepant with the manuscript were asked to rate the effectiveness of certain options for facilitating the peer reviewer's ability to compare registries and manuscripts. The three most effective options were providing peer reviewers with a direct Web link to the corresponding trial record on the registry website , providing a list of the registered information to accompany the full manuscript , and providing the registration number with the manuscript .We surveyed corresponding authors and peer reviewers of medical journals about the role of registered trial information in the peer-review process. Of the 676 respondents who had peer reviewed a manuscript reporting the results of a clinical trial in the past two years, only one-third examined the registered information for the trial. When discrepancies were identified, most respondents (88.8%) mentioned them in their review comments, and 19.8% advised editors not to accept the manuscript.Despite measures to improve trial transparency and prevent selective outcome reporting, recent studies reveal that these issues remain prevalent but are identifiable using registered trial information Alternatively, as several of our respondents suggested, managing or academic editors could themselves verify that the trial had been registered before patient recruitment and could check that there are no discrepancies between the registered and published items  before sending the manuscript to peer reviewers.One-quarter of respondents who did not examine the registry record when they peer reviewed a manuscript stated that the reason was a perceived lack of usefulness of registered information. Previous studies have found that the completeness and quality of information in registries is variable. Zarin et al. assessed ClinicalTrials.gov data that were publicly available for a sample of 3,284 registered trials. Of the 2,324 posted results entries that had been posted publicly, 14% were linked to a PubMed citation through an indexed ClinicalTrials.gov registration number. Of 2,178 clinical trials with posted results records, 20% had more than two reported primary outcomes measures and 5% more than five. For some studies, posted results include more than 100 primary and secondary outcome measures According to previous studies, using the Internet to conduct surveys is associated with a variable response rate (from 9% to 94%) and a lower rate than with a traditional mailed survey This study has several limitations. Our sample of authors who published trials in PubMed-indexed journals should be broadly generalizable, but we also surveyed a sample of reviewers of medical journals with high impact factors, which could differ systematically from reviewers of other journals. Indeed, these reviewers may have been more aware of the issues of trial registration and discrepancies between the registered protocol and the published results. Our results may thus overestimate the use of trial registration information by peer reviewers. Another limitation might be that we provided the respondents with a list of pre-defined options for improving the peer-review process. However, we added an open-question to solicit any other suggestions.We reveal that only one-third of peer reviewers of articles of RCTs use the information recorded on the trial registry website, and most report any discrepancies to journal editors. The scientific and medical communities could emphasize the value and role of trial registration to facilitate peer review of trial manuscripts and could introduce concrete measures to facilitate the access to and use of trial registry information.Figure S1Flow chart of participants in the study.(TIF)Click here for additional data file.Table S1Respondent characteristics.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Appendix S1Web questionnaire.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Appendix S2Mail for corresponding authors.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Appendix S3Mail for reviewers.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.


Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). First launched in 2004, few suitable papers were submitted and only one was published [Pharmaceuticals and we feel that these manuscripts merit a dedicated forum. Second, the expansion of MDPI, now with Editorial Offices and staff in Basel (Switzerland) and Beijing (China), allows us to provide Pharmaceuticals’ authors with all the services they could desire and deserve: a simple manuscript submission process, rigorous peer review, quick revision turnaround, Open Access publication on a new and attractive platform and coverage by all the major abstracting services. In addition, a new Editorial Board comprised of noted academic and industry scientists has been set up for Pharmaceuticals. Finally, to better focus the subject matter published in Pharmaceuticals on molecular medicines, we have also set up a special section in International Journal of Molecular Sciences  for papers on nutraceuticals or chemopreventives. We look forward to receiving and publishing your papers and as always, we welcome your comments and suggestions.After a five year hiatus, we are pleased to announce the resumption of publication of the MDPI journal als ISSN 424-8247.


Dear Colleagues,biij), an open access multidisciplinary online journal. biij was set up to meet the challenges of biomedical imaging and intervention facing the allied sciences community by providing a new avenue for discussion and exchange of viewpoints.We are proud to announce the birth of Biomedical Imaging and Intervention Journal (biij different from other scientific online journals? biij's objectives are:So how is biij plans to remove unnecessary barriers that inhibit the sharing of scientific knowledge and information to accelerate research, enrich education and share the learning of the rich with the poor and vice-versa. biij lays the foundation to unite humanity in a common intellectual discussion and to fulfil the quest for knowledge in a cost-effective manner.to provide free online access to all our scientific materials in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative. to expand the scope of disseminating scientific information through the Internet by making available a large stock of teaching materials in the form of audio-video files from presentations made at scientific meetings.through shared ownership by the scholarly community and individuals involved in the field to shape the future direction of the journal including ‘radiological’ and allied organizations in the region that do not have their own journals to share their research publications, guidelines, etc. with others.biij by contributing articles for publication. With your support, participation and commitment, we are confident that we can overcome challenges to make biij, an open access multidisciplinary international online journal that will attract the best of publications in the field of biomedical imaging and intervention, a success.It gives us great pleasure to invite you to be a part of Articles for publication can be in the form of:Original researchReview articlesCommentariesTeaching points‘How I do it’Letters, correspondence, etcCase reportsWe welcome your comments. Thank you.


Fraudulent data and plagiarized text may corrupt scientific medical literature and ultimately harm patients. By prescribing erroneous treatment to an individual, only single patient is affected; but by presenting incorrect data or transcripts, the whole scientific medical universe is affected. Although both scenarios are highly undesirable, one can assume the magnitude of the effect of latter. Writers of scientific medical literature have been found to be involved in plagiarism and other publication misconducts from time to time irrespective of social, economic and geographic structure. The reason of such behavior is not usually obvious. Easy availability of personal computers has led to widespread dissemination of medical literature. As a result, young scientists are now publishing their research more frequently and efficiently. At the same time, this has increased the tendency to submit hurriedly prepared, poorly drafted and even illegitimate publications. Use of some amount of copy–paste followed by modifications during preparation of a manuscript seems to be common. Therefore, the researchers, especially postgraduate students, should be educated continuously about ethical medical writing. Although plagiarism is difficult to define in a few sentences, it can be viewed as the stealing of another person’s ideas, methods, results or words without giving proper attribution.Plagiarism usually involves the use of writings belonging to others. The term can be applied to copying of part of own previous published study by a scientist without appropriate citation. Such selUse of sentence/s from published medical literature with minor modification in word structure without attribution is also plagiarism. One must be aware of the fact that using published photos or images without written permission is also considered as plagiarism. Easy availability of private computers has led to increase in tendency to use of copy and paste method of writing by young authors. The needet al., it was found that medical researchers reported misconduct more frequently than respondents in other fields.[Scientific misconduct  is now beginning to be considered similar to other criminal offences and often committed by the same offender. In a metr fields.Most of the time, plagiarism is an unintended behavior. But plagiarism can tarnish the image of an author very badly. Reputed journals consider plagiarism as a highly unethical practice and they strongly depreciate such behaviors. Concern about plagiarism in the international community has led to the development of guidelines by Committee On Publication Ethics (COPE). PlagiariLung India during last year.We are quite fortunate in having low occurrence of plagiarism in the submitted manuscripts. However, a few manuscripts have been found to contain significant plagiarism. Following are examples of plagiarism in some of the submitted articles to The review articles were routinely scanned for plagiarism.In a review article on apoptosis and lung cancer, many sentences were copied from multiple sources, mainly the Wikipedia. Even the tables and images were copied from other websites without written permission or attribution.In another review article, significant amount of the copied text from multiple sources was found.The original articles were screened for plagiarism only when the reviewers or editors suspected plagiarism based on various features like discrepancy in writing style or font, etc.Discussion in an original article was copied from a published article with only minor modifications.An original article was submitted as a part of a study which was already published elsewhere. Published article and manuscript had some overlapping features and mentioned different prevalence of the same disease in the same study population.P values mentioned for different parameters of these 300 patients were exactly the same as that of 100 patients in the published study.Another original article was submitted as part of a study which was already published. Number of patients in the published article was 100. Number of patients in the submitted article was 300. But the percentage of the observed demographic and other parameters was same. Even the One original article was under peer review process. The peer review process is double blind in the sense that both author and reviewer are not aware of the identity of each other. One reviewer from Bangkok had asked for some modifications. The author in reply copy-pasted some of the contents of published article of the same reviewer, which was subsequently caught by the reviewer himself.An author submitted a manuscript which was regrettably copied word to word from a recently published article of the reviewer.One case report was submitted from the USA, which was already published and available on the hospital website.One manuscript had been accepted by two reviewers. But due to uncertainty about quality, it was sent to Section Editor for opinion. The Section Editor found out that the introduction and discussion part of the manuscript were copied word to word from a published article.Recently, a complete case report including the case history contained copied text. It seemed that the author first copy–pasted complete published article in the document. Then, minor modifications were made to fill the important findings.Lung India also contained copy–pasted material.This is a small manuscript and usually not screened for plagiarism. But some of the letters submitted to Fabrication of data or duplication of article is obviously the most serious form of misconduct. Currently, we consider this as an issue of main concern. The COPE has given clear guidelines on matters like this. An editoLung India:Based on COPE guidelines, the following was the consensus opinion of honorable members of Editorial Board of The author should modify the copied text or minor discrepancy in the data.Manuscript will be sent back for modifications with a communication to author regarding position of journal and disapproval of plagiarism. The author should explain with valid reasons for the mistake, send desired data and assure that no further mistake will be made by him or co-authors in the future.Lung India for a period of 2 years.The manuscript will be rejected. An explanation from author will be demanded. In case of unsatisfactory reply or failure to respond, the head of authors’ institute will be informed. The author/co-authors will be barred from publication in It may be true to a certain extent, but almost all manuscripts shown above were submitted by senior authors. It also may be speculated that senior scientists depend largely on their junior counterparts for writing of research papers for publication. It may be lack of availability of time for writing or perhaps the need of publishing many articles in a short time period that leads to plagiarism or falsification.The manuscripts containing plagiarized text and fraudulent data not only distort scientific records but also may harm patients. The editAllot sufficient time for writing even if it is a protocol of a study.Collect hard copies of all the relevant references.Read all the references carefully and highlight important areas.Place sufficient attribution while using ideas of others.Lines with factual details are to be referenced.Reconfirm and decide about appropriateness of inserting references.For figures copied from other sources, take written permission.Write down all the text by yourself in your own language.Never use copy and paste while writing. If you are not good at typing, you can take the help of a typist or a companion.Before submitting an article, make sure that you have prepared all the files, figures and references according to the journal’s instructions.Statement about ethical medical practice – “Good human acts fulfill human needs in a balanced manner, bad acts do not” – applie


Application of virtual slides (VS), the digitalization of complete glass slides, is in its infancy to be implemented in routine diagnostic surgical pathology and to issues that are related to tissue-based diagnosis, such as education and scientific publication.Electronic publication in Pathology offers new features of scientific communication in pathology that cannot be obtained by conventional paper based journals. Most of these features are based upon completely open or partly directed interaction between the reader and the system that distributes the article. One of these interactions can be applied to microscopic images allowing the reader to navigate and magnify the presented images. VS and interactive Virtual Microscopy (VM) are a tool to increase the scientific value of microscopic images.http://www.diagnosticpathology.org has existed for about five years. It is a peer reviewed journal that publishes all types of scientific contributions, including original scientific work, case reports and review articles. In addition to digitized still images the authors of appropriate articles are requested to submit the underlying glass slides to an institution  for digitalization and documentation. The images are stored in a separate image data bank which is adequately linked to the article. The normal review process is not involved. Both processes (peer review and VS acquisition) are performed contemporaneously in order to minimize a potential publication delay. VS are not provided with a DOI index . The first articles that include VS were published in March 2011.The open access journal Diagnostic Pathology Several logistic constraints had to be overcome until the first articles including VS could be published. Step by step an automated acquisition and distribution system had to be implemented to the corresponding article. The acceptance of VS by the reader is high as well as by the authors. Of specific value are the increased confidence to and reputation of authors as well as the presented information to the reader. Additional associated functions such as access to author-owned related image collections, reader-controlled automated image measurements and image transformations are in preparation.http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1232133347629819.The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here:  Tissue based diagnosis or diagnostic surgical pathology is about to significantly change in its clinical importance and technology . The timIn addition, modern communication tools and modules have been implemented in medicine, too ,6-9. TheDigitalization of complete microscopic glass slides is an additional tool that fits into the digitized environment of an institute of pathology. Consecutively, approaches are ongoing to implement virtual microscopy (VM) into the pathologist's routine diagnostics ,6,13-15.Additional tools in this world of diagnosis include items that are mandatory for correct diagnostics, i.e., access to reference books, to experts who are specialized for certain diseases, or measurements of certain image features -19. The In this article we describe a specialized tool that corresponds to VM and has been implemented in a specialized manner of electronic scientific communication, the so - called open access journals. The logistics and necessary implementation tools are described as well as the performance and acceptance of this innovative publication technology in medical sciences. In addition, the promising perspectives are briefly outlined.Open access publication has been developed after successful implementation of scientific electronic publication. In pathology, the Electronic Journal of Pathology and Histology (Elec J Pathol Histol) was the first scientific peer reviewed journal in pathology that has been solely electronically distributed to our knowledge . It has The Elec J Pathol Histol was redesigned in HTLM format and distributed on a CD in 2000. However, several advantages of the DOS environment had to be given up , and the production of the Elec J Pathol Histol was terminated in July 2000. The front page of last edition is depicted in <Figure http://www.diagnosticpathology.org>. The potential benefits of the internet embedding were analyzed, and corresponding mandatory formal changes were undertaken. These included:The Elec J Pathol Histol has been brought back to live in 2006 once the internet had been established and acknowledged as a useful and flexible communication medium. The new journal was named Journal of Diagnostic Pathology (Diagn Pathol), <Open access publication. The authors have to pay for the publication of their article. In compensation, they still inhabit the publication rights etc. of their article, and the readers have access to all published articles for free.Authors who are working in developing countries can apply for waivers to publish their scientific results for free or at a remarkably reduced price.The principle formal organization remains related to the conventional style of publication; i.e., Diagn Pathol still possesses its own "front page" and is not just a domain which might be embedded in another front page such as "medicine".Access to and reading of the published articles is documented as well as the country of the reader, and statistically analyzed.Reviewers are chosen from the editorial board and contemporary from authors who have published articles that are related to the content under request. These authors are chosen from articles cited in the National Institute of Health (NIH) library (PubMed).The number of included color images, tables, or drawing etc. is not limited and free of additional charges.All published articles are provided with an ID number (DOI) and indexed for interactive search of readers etc.The introduction and establishment of Diagn Pathol lasted for about six months. The total number of published articles rose from 46 in 2006 to 83 in 2010, and will probably extent the level of 120 in 2011. The rejection rate increased from 30% in 2006 to > 50% in 2011. The journal possesses about 1,200 registered readers in 2011. Most articles are assessed by more than 500 readers within their first year of publication.Diagn Pathol was included in the Citation Index (Reuter's) in 2010. It was calculated an impact factor of 1.39 for the year 2010.Virtual slides (VS) are the digital representation of completely digitized glass slides ,13. VS hVS are comparable with conventional glass slides in image quality that has been demonstrated by several investigations ,6,10. ThIncluding VS in an open access peer reviewed scientific journal includes several advantages for the authors, readers, and the publisher <Figure The authors can demonstrate the morphological findings of whole microscopic image. The ROI can be analyzed independent from the authors' view.The readers are assured for the originality of the findings, and can proof their own strategy for ROI selection.The publisher increases the attraction of the included articles, and opens the journal for additional perspectives such as implementation of a repository or specific case collection, etc.Constraints can be seen in the mandatory logistics:The authors have to submit the original glass slides to a selected institution that scans the glass slides, because an official VS standard does not exist at present. Most of the companies have developed own specific viewers. A conversation of their own image format into a more general and open standard such as jp2000 is difficult if not impossible without knowing the individual image structure -27.VS are large images of usually 2 - 3 GB in size. They usually require a specific viewer and a related image data bank that can handle these images. Thus, VS have to be organized in an electronic system that has to be separated from that of the published articles. In addition, the publication of still images should not be affected by VS.After several trials, we decided to provide each article with dummy links that are kept empty if VS are not included in the article. These links are activated and connected to the corresponding images if VS are included.The chosen solution possesses logistic and content related advantages: The publication procedure of an article is not affected or delayed by VS as it is completely disconnected from the VS production, and VS do not require a DOI number . Furthermore, VS can be included into each article at any time; even years after its publication by replacing the dummy link with an active one, and the reader has access to VS separately from included still images. The logistic frame is depicted in <Figure The preparations of the described procedure lasted for about 6 months. The authors of newly submitted articles were informed via email about the VS technology and asked to submit the corresponding glass slides for digitalization. A summary of the authors' responses, number of included VS, and published articles is shown in <Figure This is the first report on successful VS publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal to our knowledge. The acceptance of this new technology by authors and readers can be judged good to very good. The reviewers are not informed about potential VS publication in the corresponding article. Thus, the reviewing process is completely separated from the newly introduced VS publication.This might be a reason of debate. Reviewers are part of the scientific judgment of an article, and VS contribute to its scientific level too.There are practical and theoretical reasons: One aim in electronic publication is to maintain a short review/production time which could be delayed in combining VS and review. In addition, the selection of published still images depends upon the author. Any errors in selecting additional correct ROI can be judged by the reader if VS are published too.From the theoretical point of view, the diagnostic judgment in tissue based diagnosis can be distinguished in a) selection of the ROI, and b) the diagnostic statement ,28-31. IThe main constraint of the described method still remains in logistic "hardware" problems, especially in submission of requested glass slides. The mailing costs have to be covered by the authors. The glass slides have to be sent to an "image acquisition center" which controls the image quality. It is responsible to accurately document and handle VS. After several different trials to accurately link included still images with VS we decided to separately publish still images and VS. The separation of the "conventional" publication procedure from VS inclusion was favored by the production team. It could maintain the production speed. VS can be included at any time after publication. No intervention is needed. The provided links can be transferred to different servers at any time without involving the publication procedure of text, included images, and references. Thus, the journal diagnostic pathology has been "opened" to a new innovative distribution of image content information that offers new regions for additional applications.Most of published VS are derived from case reports which usually describe rare diseases displaying educational significance. They are arranged in an appropriate data bank which will be transformed in an adequate repository in the next step. Certainly, the authors have to agree if the images will be included in such an electronic image retrieval system. Such a system will offer images of rare and educational significance combined with extensive clinical data such as the patient's history and development of the disease.An additional potential application is related to quantitative object related measurements of VS ,15. TheyIn summary, the publication of VS in an open access peer reviewed scientific journal has been accepted by a broad community of pathologists and colleagues working in related medical and scientific fields shortly after its implementation. It significantly increases the reader's tools that can only be provided in an electronic communication environment such as individual selection of areas of interest, interactive measurements of specific objects, or image content information related selection of case reports for tissue based diagnosis and training.


Review articles by experts in a field are highly sought after by traditional for-profit publishers because they serve to draw readers and subscribers to their journal. Also, investigators covet invitations from prestigious journals to write review articles, because they bring widespread respect and admiration to the individual as one of the “Key Opinion Leaders” (KOL). This cachet has evolved into a mutual interdependence of the KOLs and the prestigious journals. This mutual relationship is codified and measured by the Impact Factor of the journal, in that reviews receive many more citations than do other types of articles, including original research articles, because scientists cite them more often than original research articles. A well-researched review article is invaluable because it is assumed that one can rely on a particular reviewer to be correct in the details of a particular subject.http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/04/10/emergence-of-a-citation-cartelHowever, there is a “dark side” to the system, in that there is a built-in conflict-of-interest in this interdependence of the publisher, journalists in editorial positions, and the reviewer. In particular, once a prestigious investigator has been invited by a prestigious journal to write a review, the editor-journalists have a vested interest in bringing the article to fruition. The invited authors, on the other hand, have a unique forum to press their particular agendas, to tell the story from their particular viewpoint. We are all aware of this situation, and to the “rewriting of history” by some KOLs. Unfortunately for the readers, especially those new to the field, it may be problematic to trust a particular review author’s hidden agenda. Moreover, some editor-journalists do not send invited-reviews out for others to review to ensure verity. Without the proper editorial quality controls in place, the system is subject to corruption. A very good discussion of the collusion between journalist/editors and KOL reviewers can be found at: A case in point is a review of interleukin-2 (IL-2) that I was asked to review recently. After reading the manuscript, before agreeing to undertake the review, I told the editor who contacted me that I felt that there were numerous instances where the authors were selective in their choice of references, favoring their own work over those of others, and that I felt that the review needed major revisions. The journalist-editor assured me that he was extremely interested in my opinion, even so. Moreover, he also wanted the review within 7 days, because the journal wanted to include the review in their next issue, which was going to press very soon.Interleukin-2 (IL-2) was first discovered over 35 years ago as an activity present in supernatants of activated human T cells that mediates T cell growth and proliferation . Instead, this article reports that Lymphocyte Conditioned Media (Ly-CM) can be used to maintain the proliferation of T cells derived from human bone marrow for as long as 13-weeks. By referring to this report as the original description of IL-2, the reviewers ignored more than a decade of reports from numerous investigators of T cell mitogenic activities in leukocyte conditioned media , a macrophage product shown to be mitogenic for T cells, was found to be quite similar to human leukocytic pyrogen (LP), when highly purified LP preparations were tested using antigen-specific proliferation of macrophage-depleted murine lymph node cells  wrote a review for Nat Rev Immunol in which he called out this paper published in 1976 as the precedent.”“The authors and editors chose to ignore my critique and suggestions, and published the article with the original wording and citation. On the day that the article was published, but not before, the editor-journalist wrote:Thus, as I’ve written before, many for-profit professional journalists perhaps with scientific training, but without the necessary expertise, are making editorial decisions that influence our literature and thus our field. In this regard, it should be realized and stressed to our colleagues and trainees that only journals that are run by scientists as editors and peer reviewers and not by professional journalists can be trusted for the verity and scientific integrity of their publications.The “Silver Lining” of this dark cloud is that Frontiers can readily distinguish itself from the for-profit closed-access “semi-scientific magazines” by publishing accurate reviews that are vetted and accepted by our scientific peers on our editorial boards. We now have 1638 members of our editorial board, and I am proud of the quality of their work. If we continue to insist on the best scholarship, especially in the reviews we publish, Frontiers will be the “go-to site” by everyone who wants to rely on the verity of the content. The for-profit journalist-editors are handing us the high road on a sliver platter by their shoddy journalism. In our quest to publish “all the science that is fit to read,” we can and should read all of the original references that we cite in our reviews, and our editorial board should insist on accuracy and verity of the citations. This will ensure that our Impact Factor is high.Pertinent to the point, the recent strategic alliance announced between Frontiers and Nature Publishing Group (NPG), will only serve to underscore the Frontiers commitment to scientific publishing for scientists by scientists. It is to be stressed that Frontiers editors, editorial policies, and management will continue exactly as before the formation of this partnership. Now, this alliance will strengthen and extend the impact of veritable and verifiable publishing by Frontiers. See:http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Nature_Publishing_Group_and_Frontiers_form_alliance_to_further_open_science/226; http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Letter_to_the_Frontiers_editors/228


It is expected that in the year 2010, at least 50% of all new approved drugs will come from the biopharmaceutical sector. The discovery and validation process is mostly carried out by new innovative and medium-sized companies. But, despite advances in technology and greater understanding of biological systems, drug discovery is still a lengthy process. Specialized drug discovery companies need an ideal business climate, that is, political, economic and social conditions, to be able to cope with the entrepreneurial risks of drug development.Global pharmaceutical industry is at the crossroads. On one side, market demand for novel and better medicines is getting redefined and growing due to demographic, economic and epidemiological trends, but at the same time, pharmaceutical companies are finding it difficult to survive since they are unable to innovate and discover new molecules. The pipeline of the new drug molecules is drying fast due to poor R and D productivity, high failure rate and generic competition.Scientific research proceeds with an infinite variety in the availability of data, the maturity of conceptions, and the mix of conviction and uncertainty. Often a major discovery is the culmination of a process with numerous blunders, wrong turns, false hypotheses, missed opportunities, persistent hard work, lucky breaks, rational arguments, insightful conjectures, and accumulating knowledge over decades. But none of failures are being reported or published in the journals and other resources. This part is always ignored because of publishing style of most of the journals in pharmaceutical field.Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results (PNR). We are proud to introduce you to a new home for negative results focused on all aspects of Pharmacy. Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results[Welcome to the e Results represenJournal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results is a peer reviewed journal developed to publish original, innovative and novel research articles with negative results. This peer-reviewed scientific journal publishes theoretical and empirical papers that report negative findings and research failures in pharmaceutical field. Submissions should have a negative focus, which means the output of research yielded in negative results is given more preference. All theoretical and methodological perspectives are welcomed. We also encourage the submission of short papers/communications presenting counter-examples to usually accepted conjectures or to published papers.[d papers.3The main aim of the journal is to publish negative results so that newer generation of researchers should not waste their time and money repeating the same studies and finding the same unpublishable results. Most of the journals have published only the positive results and findings; however, they do not publish negative results. We believe that negative results are also a part of quality research. Thus, the journal focus is not only limited to negative issues but will also address advances in pharmaceutical research leading to failures. This journal will provide multilateral coverage of numerous applied and basic aspects of current pharmaceutical research.Taking into account the growing number of pharmaceutical journals available, one can argue whether we need another one like this. However, any scientist working on theoretical and practical aspects of pharmaceutical field would undoubtedly agree that there are few or no journals covering or boldly accepting negative results, and that there are no journals providing immediate open access. We performed an informal analysis Figures  and 2 thJournal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results aims to become a significant international participant in this field. The purpose of the journal is, therefore, to publish timely and high-quality articles  concerning failures in techniques and negative or unexpected results in all areas of pharmacy. To achieve this, the Editorial Board of PNR journal gathers well-known experts from all over the world.[journal, the Editor-in-Chief or corresponding specialists from the Editorial Board will immediately screen a submission and appropriate manuscripts will be sent for peer review to two independent reviewers. Based on their reports and scoring, a final decision will be made regarding the acceptance of manuscripts. Editors-in-Chief reserve the right to make final decisions concerning each manuscript submitted to the journal. At the first sight, our peer review system does not significantly differ from that proposed by other journals. However, we encourage our Editorial Board members as well as reviewers to be motivated critical advisers for improving a manuscript rather than suggesting rejection, which is unfortunately a common experience for anyone who has ever tried to publish his or her original negative research results.he world. To make Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results is published by the open access publisher, Medknow Publications and Media Pvt. Ltd., India.[., India. When subConsidering all the advantages of this journal, we believe this journal to be of great benefit to the field of pharmacy. We invite you to work together with us to create this new and high-visibility open-access forum for the pharmaceutical sciences.Dr. Vipra Kundoor is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results; Dr. Mueen Ahmed KK is a member of the Editorial board. The authors declare that they have no competing interests.


Today, electronic communication is involved in all parts of our lives, either in a directed active, communicative, or passive manner. Whether to live with electronic communication or to ignore it, is no longer a question. Instead, the question we have to answer is: How shall we live in our communicative environment? What can we expect? What are we forced to develop in order "to survive"?Diagnostic Pathology tries to give some answers from different points of view.This Editorial written at the end of a really successful year of our journal Diagnostic Pathology is in a good shape: in 2011 we will publish more than 100 articles. The citation index has slowly reached 1.39. The percentage of research articles has increased to 60% - 70%, whereas the percentage of case reports has decreased to about 20%. This situation is in favour of a rising citation index despite the negative influence of doubling the published articles.Let us start with the publisher's interest which stands on two feet, the commercial success and the scientific reputation. Both feet are linked: The higher the scientific reputation of the journal, the higher the financial benefit, in terms of profit per article, as more articles are likely to be submitted as the reputation increases. The limitations of the required fee are the absolute numbers of published articles: If the publication procedure has not been outsourced the publication expenses are related to a fixed amount that is mandatory for hardware, software, salaries, etc., and upon a relative amount which can be calculated to the number of published articles (manpower required for each article). Thus, publishing more and more articles per year usually will, however may not always, increase the publisher's financial profit. Publishing a low number of articles with a very high reputation might endanger the journal's existence. At present, our journal Diagnostic Pathology survive. The steep increase of submissions and published articles seems to confirm that our journal Diagnostic Pathology is on a successful way.Naturally, the authors' point of view is somewhat different to the publisher's interest. The publication fee is not small, and can usually only be covered by specific grants. The granting of waivers can only partly solve the "Tom Sawyer's problem" which is searching for outstanding articles and afterwards asking for money to cover their publication. This conflict can only be solved by the journal's attraction to its readers, through its formal work and presented content. Only if these parameters can overcome the constraint of the publication fee, will Diagnostic Pathology started six years ago. It possesses more than 1200 registered readers living in all parts of the world. Its scientific reputation lies in the middle of all Thomson Reuter's registered scientific journals. The number of submissions and publications doubled last year and our rejection rate is currently about 50%. So far this data can be compared to other journals, i.e. the more traditional print based, or other open access journals. What else?The main aim of any Editor-in-Chief is to guide the scientific journal to higher levels of its scientific reputation. Herein both the citation index with all its questionnaires and the geographical distribution of the journal are the main components. The open access journal Diagnostic Pathology is the first and until today the only, electronically scientific journal that offers its authors the unique chance to publish whole VS, and not only specific areas of interest, in the form of still images. This opportunity has been accepted by about 50% of authors with suitable articles. It took some time to solve the difficult logistic problems but the gateway is now open, and additional derived innovative offers will follow. One of these is that VS and their corresponding articles will be collected to form a repository that can be used for education, as a basis for additional secondary publications (interactive publication), and for assistance in routine diagnostic work. It will also serve as quality assurance for newly submitted articles.We have been involved in electronic publication since its beginning in the early 1990s, starting with the solely electronically distributed Electronic Journal of Pathology and Histology. Since that time new ideas and trials in scientific publication were also in our focus. The first trials of interactive publications were undertaken as well as publication of articles that included executable programs. The reader could start and execute these programs by selecting specific parameters or functions without influence from the authors. Our philosophy to continue to develop electronic scientific publication has remained unchanged since then. We are proud to offer our authors the possibility to publish whole digitized glass slides  without any additional costs since January 2011. To our knowledge, An additional approach will be the "opening" of published articles for the inclusion of related data submitted by other authors. We are also undertaking tests on how to include the reader into published articles, and some of the results from these tests so far are really promising. Of course, the original authors have to be informed and have to give their permission for such investigations.Open access journals can provide the framework that is mandatory for such new publication and communication techniques. Additional trials would be to automatically include published articles into specific social forums, for example facebook or linkedin. Certainly, we are also thinking about how to improve the review process, as one of our main aims is to judge all submitted articles without personal biased methods that are only related to scientific issues.Diagnostic Pathology is an alive scientific journal. All active journals require certain changes and exchanges from time to time. Unfortunately, one of our active Section Editors, Professor Torsten Goldmann, PhD will be leaving, and we want to express our gratitude for all of his efforts in helping to develop our journal Diagnostic Pathology. Similarly, some colleagues of our Editorial board will leave in a routine exchange. We would like to thank all of them for being on the board and supporting the journal. We also regret to announce that one of our internationally well known Editorial board members, Professor Dr. Anthony Leong, has passed away. Certainly, we will keep him in good memory.Diagnostic Pathology, focusing on still not, or only poorly investigated, fields of electronic scientific communication. We will also keep an eye on the progress of molecular and genetic pathology, and on new technologies such as in vivo biopsies, alive imaging publication, or nanotechnologies. For all these promising and growing fields of pathology we do need and appreciate the interest, knowledge, information, and assistance of the scientific community, specifically from our readers and authors.We are looking forward to further developing our open access journal For the progress made so far we would like to express our deep gratitude to our authors, readers, reviewers, and our publication team, and we wish them all a Blessed and Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Fruitful New Year.Klaus KayserEditor-in-Chief


In such a complex situation, adaptations are always necessary. They include changing the editorial policy, embracing new ideas, and introducing new members to the Managing Team. Besides selecting the right articles, expert reviewers, and collaborators, the question of the mode of access to the published articles was recognized as one of the most important for the future of the CMJ.The CMJ is an open-access journal with full texts freely available on both the journal’s Web site (www.cmj.hr) and on PubMed Central (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/). Managed by four Medical Schools in Croatia, it is funded through institutional resources and by annual grants from the Croatian Ministry of Science. Furthermore, the CMJ has a contract with the publisher “Medicinska Naklada,” who covers publishing and printing costs, and shares the profit or loss with the Journal . This agreement was officially and legally defined in 2003 , and we are very proud to maintain it as a major feature of the CMJ. Still, in view of the recent economic crisis, with institutional and governmental funding being rigorously reduced, an important question arises – is this business plan idealistic or sustainable?The  in 2003 . When a The initiative for OA appeared in the second half of the 20th century and gained momentum with the appearance of the internet. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the scientific community witnessed the emergence of the first free open access peer-reviewed journals (OAJs) and free scientific online archives . In 1994OA means unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles, books, and other publications, and such publishing has in recent years achieved stronger growth than the conventional subscription-based publishing, as well as reached the same level of quality and impact in some research fields such as medicine and health ,6. HowevGreen OA enables free access to articles by authors communicating their findings through institutional or central repositories like PubMed for example, or by simply depositing peer-reviewed postprints (revised by authors or the publisher`s version) on other OA web pages, a practice known as “self-archiving.” The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) includes over 2000 institutional repositories, while specialized search engine services like Google Scholar and OAIster are dedicated to finding specific manuscripts . Although self-archiving initiative often comes from the authors themselves as a statement of good-will, more and more research funders and institutions mandate that research they support should be publicly available in order to ensure the impact of the invested funds .Since the beginning of the OA initiative, when only two “trends” of OA were defined, a whole range of variations in the development of the OA concept has emerged, leading to a considerable confusion and misuse of different terms. In the need for a more precise terminology indicating different business models for OAJs, the term “platinum” or “diamond” OA has come to indicate an OAJ that does not charge any fees to contributors or readers alike . While sFrom 2000-2009, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of journals that follow the gold OA policy . A studyWhile the data showing upward trends are reassuring, there is an on-going debate whether OA journals are really beneficial for the scientific community. The main argument given by OA advocates is that through the process of promoting transparency and sharing, the researchers as well as the general public benefit from widely available knowledge that would otherwise be restricted to “privileged” individuals and institutions. Furthermore, they present evidence that OA leads to more citations, article quality improvement, and acceleration of research progress, productivity, and knowledge translation -21. The Although the body of evidence supporting OA is strong, critics argue that by itself, the concept does not provide solutions, it simply alters the path of financing . The funCMJ is aware of the impact that the OA has on health care today, and it is dedicated to provide full accessibility of its publications without processing fees, in the hope that everyone will benefit from our efforts to disseminate knowledge.In case of transition from subscription-based system to OA publications, the focus must be kept on increasing availability, questioning exclusivity, and preventing recirculation of funds, knowledge, and quality in the same exclusive community of the most respectable journals and institutions. The Who pays for the published articles? As there is no “free lunch” anywhere, especially not in science publishing, this has been one of the crucial issues to consider for future sustainability of our journal. We still depend on institutional and governmental funding, which helps to maintain and develop our activities. This finally means that neither authors nor readers have to pay, but that the CMJ, a global medical journal, is supported by the Croatian tax-payers. We argue that this indeed is in their interest, because this makes Croatia a place where important knowledge of managing a global scientific journal is independently generated and maintained.Still, as we maintain OA without charging the processing fees to the authors, the question remains – In the hope that this public Croatian support is sustainable, we consider the desire to put quality over profit as feasible and realistic. Through this effort, although small, the Croatian scientific community will continue to benefit from an unbiased, objective, open-access journal with high criteria for both authors and reviewers.


Clinical Epigenetics following its transfer to BioMed Central one year after appearance of the first article in Clinical Epigenetics [We are pleased to announce this first open access volume of genetics .Clinical Epigenetics is a peer-reviewed journal, which publishes original work of exceptional quality and interest, providing a wide-ranging coverage of research, views, and reviews on epigenetic principles and mechanisms, and their effects in relation to human health and disease. Clinical Epigenetics includes epigenetic research in humans and various disease model organisms, is of interest to the basic researcher as well as to the physician and clinician. The journal aims to provide a forum for those interested in practical questions relating to clinical epigenetics, and the implications of epigenetics on human health and disease. Clinical Epigenetics is the official publication of the Clinical Epigenetics Society [Clinical Epigenetics is the first journal dedicated to the connection of epigenetic patterns to human physiology and disease. Society , a non-pClinical Epigenetics to an open access publishing model has been made with the intention to reach out to the continuously increasing audience that expresses an interest in the field [Clinical Epigenetics is disseminated within the widest possible audience [The transition of he field -6. All ahe field . While aaudience .The open access publishing model brings a number of considerable advantages to the journal including better indexing opportunities, immediate publication upon acceptance and high visibility within the field. In addition, we anticipate that the number of online downloads will continuously increase, as well as the number of citations, potentially leading to a high citation impact ,9. AuthoClinical Epigenetics forward with BioMed Central, and look forward to its success as an open access journal, providing an international forum for the latest epigenetics research relating to human health and disease.We are delighted to be taking


UJMS  for the publication of our journal, we had to set a reasonable goal for our achievements. Perhaps, not surprisingly, we looked at the so much debated impact factor institute and found that by reaching the critical 1.0 level—used by our local faculty in their budgetary system—a realistic and meaningful aim had been set. As a physical token of this planning we promised our editorial board members a champagne party the day we had brought about this considerable effort. So, it is our great pleasure to announce that we have succeeded. As published late June by Thomson Reuters (TR) in their annual report, our 2-year impact factor has risen to 1.063, a more than 70% increase as compared with last year’s figure . The incOf course, these increases in different parameters all depend on the fact that we have successfully selected good papers for publication. In that process our editorial board members and reviewers have all done a tremendous job. We take this opportunity to thank them all! The champagne expert has been called upon. In order to make this selection successful a good submission rate is a prerequisite. We have had some 150–200 original papers submitted each year, and we accept about 50 manuscripts for publication. So almost three out of four papers have to be rejected, and that is a cumbersome process.In this context it is interesting to see how one single article can be the difference between failure and success. Amongst the citations for the 2011 impact factor figure there is one paper that stands out. The review by Niklas Nordquist and Lars Oreland on ‘Serotonin, genetic variability, behaviour, and psychiatric disorders’ . For thaApart from the fact that the quality of our published papers undoubtedly has increased, there might be at least one more issue that speaks in favour of our journal when authors look for an attractive publication source. Also the ‘open access’ entrance on the publication arena has become more and more important. Ever since the start of the electronic publication of our journal, all papers—old (since a few years back) as well as brand-new—have been freely accessible at our website. This in combination with the fact that we have not charged our authors any type of publication fees has made our journal quite unique. Most probably, however, we will have to change this somewhat in the sense that we will introduce some sort of handling fee for our published articles. At least for non-faculty members. This then should be interpreted as one more invitation to our researchers at the faculty to submit their reports to our journal. Last year some 40% of our published papers came from Uppsala-based teams. We would very much welcome more of them.