The Company Directors (http://www.biologists.com/about-us/), all research-active biologists, together made the decision to launch BiO in 2011. They identified the need for a journal that strives to support the members and researchers of the biological sciences community by publishing sound research without a requirement for novelty or impact . Organisers may use a grant from The Company in a variety of ways, for example, to meet the expenses of a plenary or keynote speaker, assist with travel for early career scientists, or to reduce (or waive) registration fees.As a charity, The Company of Biologists uses the surplus it generates for the benefit of biology and the biological community. The Company has made substantial contributions to the community, using funds to organise and facilitate scientific meetings, build and develop communities of biologists, assist the activities of specialist societies and give financial support to young researchers. This investment is overseen by the Board of Directors, who give their time to The Company without payment. They are experienced senior scientists from a range of life science and clinical research backgrounds, who believe in the importance of what The Company does and who are dedicated to furthering its influence. Visit our web pages to find out how to apply for support for workshops and conferences .Authors rightly have expectations of a journal. And, for an Open Access journal, whose authors are the principal customer (as opposed to subscribers), perhaps they should have even higher expectations. The payment of an Open Access fee has led to the proliferation of so-called predatory publishers with apparently exploitative business models. Some may charge fees to authors without providing effective peer review, for example, or the long-term archiving attendant to publication in valid academic journals. Over 8000 journals have now been identified as potentially predatory (http://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing-2/). The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is an online directory that lists high-quality, Open Access, peer-reviewed journals. The prevalence of predatory journals led the DOAJ to require all its listed journals to reapply for inclusion following assessment using more stringent criteria. BiO's reapplication was successful and the journal continues to be listed in the DOAJ. These respected associations are invaluable in helping authors safely identify those journals that are sound. BiO is a member of COPE (http://publicationethics.org/) and also supports the Think. Check. Submit. Campaign (http://thinkchecksubmit.org/), a simple checklist that researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.The age of the predatory journal has in turn led to the launch of initiatives to help authors determine those Open Access journals that are sound and credible, and would provide a suitable home for their article. In 2008, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) was established. Its stated mission was to “represent the interests of Open Access (OA) journal publishers globally in all scientific, technical and scholarly disciplines”. To qualify for membership, BiO had to demonstrate adherence to OASPA membership criteria, and adopt its principles of transparency and best practice (Perhaps the factor that is most often considered by authors when choosing where to publish is the Impact Factor (IF). Despite much discussion of its limitations and flaws as a measure of the output of an individual researcher , it remahttp://www.ascb.org/dora/) we have undertaken to decrease emphasis on the journal IF as a promotional tool and instead present a range of journal- and article-level metrics to provide a richer view of journal performance . For BiO at least, only one of the top ten most read articles also features in the top ten most cited . As expected for an Open Access journal, full text versions (HTML and PDF) attract high readership levels.Attention has turned recently to alternative article-level metrics or ‘Altmetrics’. Visitors to the BiO web site will see altmetric ‘donuts’ accompanying each article . This coSeveral articles that did not have a high Altmetrics score had high usage (HTML and PDF), although there is a correlation between those that have high scores in both datasets.The top ten Altmetrics list contains a larger proportion of 2014 and 2015 (volumes 3 and 4) articles than other years for social media activity, including Reddit threads, blogs, Twitter, Google+ authors, Facebook walls and Weibo. Tweets are scored such that a tweet from BiO, say, counts for less than a tweet from someone unconnected with the paper. If a Nobel Prize winner finds the time to tweet about a paper, this would contribute more to the score. The top three papers had the most news outlet activity. The total number of ‘shares’ (via Mendeley and CiteULike) continues to accumulate, benefitting the older articles . There ihttp://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/08/04/if-we-dont-know-what-citations-mean-what-does-it-mean-when-we-count-them/), but we hope that this article illustrates some of the contradictions and limitations of the different metrics in use today. These metrics together give an idea of some of the achievements of BiO to date; however, the statistic we are perhaps most proud of is that 100% of authors who responded to our author feedback survey would submit to BiO again. This and the testimonies we receive from authors confirm our belief that BiO is helping to make publishing good science both less painful and less time consuming for us all.A journal is more than its Impact Factor and a researcher is more than the journals in which they publish. Other articles have explained this more eloquently (


Open source software is a fundamental mechanism for storing and disseminating knowledge. This role is critical to science and is arguably equally, if not more, important than traditional publication venues in terms of practical and long-term impact. Well-constructed software libraries are repositories of both practical and theoretical content that not only serve data analysis but also help educate current and future scientists which substantially augments traditional publication. Highly software-engineered resources such as BLAS, Armadillo, Eigen, SciPy, R and its packages, Theano and many more are critical to the science of the Large Hadron Collider, Human Genome Project, the Human Connectome Project, and to smaller projects conducted at Universities throughout the world.Fri Mar 22 15:48:30 EDT 2013 in an email sent to the ITK discussion list. Initially, we anticipated approximately 10 submissions. By the close of submission (after one extension period), we received 17 excellent submissions that represent a large range of ITK functionality and application. The overall quality is a reflection of ITK's broad impact as well as the commitment of the community to reproducibility, openness, and high standards. Furthermore, thanks to cooperation from both authors and reviewers, we were able to receive, review, and publish these articles within a year.The Insight ToolKit (ITK) is a computational library and repository of knowledge with a specific focus toward medical image processing. The primary goal of this article collection is to summarize the recent and varied contributions of the ITK community to neuroinformatics and related fields. Following several discussions during weekly teleconferences and at developer meetings, we made the call for contributions to this research topic on http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ITK+%22Insight+ToolKit+%22), although we expect there are many more that use but do not reference ITK.ITK is intended to be an international, open resource that accelerates image-based science and enables advanced scientific computing across major platforms. ITK began in 1999 as a collaboration between academia and industry to enable robust processing of Visible Human data using open science tools and is supported by the National Library of Medicine under funding directed, historically, by Terry Yoo. Since that time, ITK has served as a core library supporting several well-known packages such as Elastix, ITK-SNAP, Advanced Normalization Tools, DTIStudio, BrainsSuite, Osirix, Slicer, and others. ITK is widely used in industry (oftentimes without acknowledgment) and has led to other large software projects unrelated to the medical imaging field such as the Orfeo Toolbox initiative sponsored by the French space agency (CNES). ITK's prevalence in academia is evidenced by the more than 1500 papers in Google Scholar that explicitly reference the ITK . That is, one need only implement an algorithm once and it is functional in two to N-dimensions. This advantage is achieved via the underlying templated C++ code base. While this code may present a challenge to some, we have found that the abundance of examples within ITK form a set of natural stepping stones that, if followed, eventually allow one to become proficient in the use of ITK with the eventual possibility of becoming an ITK contributor. For instance, one might study the pipeline that adds two images and build knowledge from there. It is likely that nearly every paper contributed to this topic has at least one author that learned ITK coding in this way.R or Matlab.This research topic captures ITK's design benefits, its concomitant scope as well as its impact through derived applications. McCormick et al provide a good introduction to the philosophy, design and maintenance of ITK and its role in reproducible science  that is continually explored and extended by the community.To our knowledge, this is the first collection of articles that focuses on the science and engineering of the ITK. Organizing and reviewing the articles submitted to this collection encouraged our belief that the software itself is instrumental to the scientific process and changes, fundamentally, the way work is performed—http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841687/] and instrumentation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766821/] biases. To improve uptake among scientists, we must establish that these open science practices save time, in the long run, by encouraging organization and discipline as well as by improving communication.While ITK is intended to encourage best practices for research and reproducible science endeavors, our feeling is that much more work must be done to educate the scientific community about practices that will augment reproducibility by minimizing bugs, reducing software maintenance burden and increase the impact of a domain expert's software development efforts. To make this happen, we must translate not only the philosophy of open science but also its instantiations into the hands of students, post-docs, and even professors. It is an interesting irony that the software industry may currently be better, in many ways, at verification and openness than are many scientists. The current publishing practice where researchers self-report the performance of their proposed algorithm with possible juxtaposition with other relevant algorithms is inadequate as it is often fraught with problems. Much of the research literature contains little to no pseudo-code much less access to the actual algorithmic implementation and crucial parameters are often glossed over or omitted altogether . Thus, the interested reader is often limited to the corresponding evaluations to assess performance. However, such evaluations are often corrupted by methodological flaws such as selection , many users are unaware of these resources or still lack the necessary technical skills to install and employ source that, while relatively mature for research grade code, remains “work in progress.” Hopefully, this will change in the future.Several important aspects of ITK are not covered in topic articles. These include recent advances in SimpleITK which is under rapid development. There is also a detailed and updated software guide being written under the aegis of the Insight Consortium. An online set of ITK examples is being contributed by Kitware. Both of these are constantly growing in depth and scope. We refer readers to the ITK website and discussion boards for more up to date details on these topics. ITK has also, historically, avoided functional MRI processing and statistical issues and this collection reflects that. While substantial effort has been made in ITK's progeny [e.g., ANTsR (We would like to close this introduction by thanking Terry Yoo and the National Library of Medicine for funding this work and supporting this research topic. The Insight Consortium, with major contributions from its president, Hans J. Johnson, has also been instrumental to extending the vision and quality established by the original ITK developers. The toolkit would not continue to exist without the ITK user community and thus the community deserves perhaps the greatest thanks of all. Finally, we must thank both the authors and reviewers of the submitted articles, and the frontiers organization, for responding in an organized and timely fashion to our editorial demands.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Sharing drafts of scientific manuscripts on preprint hosting services for early exposure and pre-publication feedback is a well-accepted practice in fields such as physics, astronomy, or mathematics. The field of neuroscience, however, has yet to adopt the preprint model. A reason for this reluctance might partly be the lack of central preprint services for the field of neuroscience. To address this issue, we announce the launch of Preprints of the R-fMRI Network (PRN), a community funded preprint hosting service. PRN provides free-submission and free hosting of manuscripts for resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) and neuroscience related studies. Submitted articles are openly discussed and receive feedback from readers and a panel of invited consultants from the R-fMRI Network. All manuscripts and feedback are freely accessible online with citable permanent URL for open-access. The goal of PRN is to supplement the peer reviewed journal publication system – by more rapidly communicating the latest research achievements throughout the world. We hope PRN would help the field to embrace the preprint model and thus further accelerate R-fMRI and neuroscience related studies, eventually enhancing human mental health. Paul Ginsparg for the field of physics. It gradually expanded to include astronomy, mathematics, computer science, nonlinear science, quantitative biology, and statistics as scientists in these fields began to embrace preprints  started by PeerJ, Inc. and bioRxiv (http://biorxiv.org) launched by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, are providing preprint hosting services with online feedback and comment systems. It is expected that early feedback would be helpful for authors in revising and improving their articles for later peer review process of traditional journals. Furthermore, commenters can be acknowledged for their contributions in later publication. However, it is only the dawn of neuroscience preprints -- bioRxiv and PeerJ Preprints have only received 56 and 38 neuroscience papers, respectively  and The R-fMRI Course (http://rfmri.org/Course)). As a method to investigate ongoing brain activity in basic, translational and clinical neuroscience research, R-fMRI has become an increasingly prevalent research area especially in recent years , has emerged as field which is embracing innovations such as open data sharing e.g., and shart years . This fit years . Given tAccordingly, we are announcing a preprint publication model for catalyzing R-fMRI and related neuroscience studies. We have designed PRN as a community funded, open-access, free-submission, open-discussion, preprint service. The goal of PRN is to supplement the peer reviewed journal publication system by supporting more rapid communication of the latest research observations throughout the world.We have implemented the PRN service based on the success of The R-fMRI Network (RFMRI.ORG). The R-fMRI Network (RFMRI.ORG) has been designed as a framework to support R-fMRI studies. The R-fMRI Network comprises R-fMRI researchers (the nodes) who are connected by sharing (the edges) with each other. Through the network, imagers can efficiently share ideas, comments, resources, tools, experiences, data, and increasing knowledge of the brain. Researchers (nodes) with basic neuroscience, methodological, or clinical backgrounds can connect with each other in the network. The R-fMRI Network currently has more than 5000 registered members, aiming to enhance collaborations among researchers, especially to translate our knowledge of basic neuroscience and methodology to clinical applications (bench to bedside).http://drupal.org) and mailman (http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/). The source codes of the website are openly shared through Github (https://github.com/Chaogan-Yan/rfmri.org). As an online forum system, The R-fMRI Network allows researchers to propose research ideas, discuss controversial issues, request help in using software, share experiences, report preliminary results, initiate collaborations and even seek jobs. The R-fMRI Network hosts several instances of R-fMRI software , online learning resources, open data links, and gathers the latest R-fMRI related studies from PubMed. All new posts are sent to all R-fMRI Network registered users via an integrated mailing list, and users can comment on any post by directly replying to the mailing list.The R-fMRI Network (RFMRI.ORG) is designed with a forum system and an integrated mailing list based on drupal , we have organized a table of PRN compatible journals (http://rfmri.org/PRN_20140921001). The authors should pay close attention to the table (http://rfmri.org/PRN_20140921001) before submitting preprint manuscripts to PRN, to avoid jeopardizing their subsequent submission to PRN-incompatible journals. The authors should reveal that the papers have been archived in PRN when submitting to preprint compatible journals. The comments and revisions are encouraged to be included in their submission.A major concern is that traditional formal journals may refuse to publish manuscripts which have been previously made available online on a preprint server. To address this concern, a cross-field discussion on preprints has been initiated with editors-in-chief of journals in neuroscience, physics and mathematics. An editor-in-chief in physics responded that arXiv is invaluable for doing research in physics, and is scanned by most physicists every day. Several editors-in-chief of Neuroscience journals have confirmed that their journals do accept preprint manuscripts. Based on the information of Sherpa-Romeo ?F1000Research requirement).I could not find a link to the code of your platform , and invite a panel of consultants to comment . We are in the process of negotiating with Publons to give credits to the members who give review comments.4. Yes, we had launched an online review and comment system.5. Review comments are public and signed. They are intended to help the authors to improve their manuscript(s) for further submission to formal journals. These early feedback would be helpful for authors in revising and improving their articles for later peer review process of traditional scientific journals.6. We are making efforts to let the preprints to be indexed by Google Scholar. It’s still in progress.7. The codes have been released through Github (https://github.com/Chaogan-Yan/rfmri.org), we have included this link in the revised manuscript. Well done for this initiative! Glad to see this is happening for the community of resting state fMRI.I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. I found it is a great idea to have this kind of service for neuroimaging. One comment that can improve the acceptability of this preprint service is: should the service require authors to notice the normal journals that this manuscript has been archived in PRN? And should PRN share the review comments for the accepted preprints with the standard journals?I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above. Thank you very much for your comments!We request the authors to reveal that the papers have been archived in PRN while submitting to preprint compatible journals.publons.com) to get credits for the commenters/reviewers.We will share the comments with traditional journals, and encourage the authors to to enclose with their submission.  The PRN is trying to work together with publons (Thanks,Chao-Gan and The PRN Team


Metabolites is instituting annual awards to recognize the most outstanding papers in metabolism and metabolomics published in Metabolites.Metabolites Best Paper Awards”. Nominations were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and several Editorial Board members of Metabolites from all original research articles published in 2013 or 2014.We are pleased to announce the recipients of the first “Metabolites Best Paper Awards” for 2015. I congratulate all of the authors and thank them for their significant and important contributions to the field of metabolism and metabolomics. In recognition of their accomplishment, Dr. Larissa Stanberry, Dr. Royston Goodacre and Dr. Anne-Christin Hauschild will receive the privilege of publishing a paper free of charge in open access format in Metabolites, respectively, after the usual peer-review procedure. I also thank the members of the Selection Committee for their efforts.We are pleased to announce that the following three papers were chosen to receive “Article AwardFirst PrizeLarissa Stanberry, George I. Mias, Winston Haynes, Roger Higdon, Michael Snyder and Eugene KolkerIntegrative Analysis of Longitudinal Metabolomics Data from a Personal Multi-Omics ProfileMetabolites2013, 3(3), 741-760; doi:10.3390/metabo3030741http://www.mdpi.com/2218-1989/3/3/741/htmAvailable online: Second PrizePiotr S. Gromski, Yun Xu, Helen L. Kotze, Elon Correa, David I. Ellis, Emily Grace Armitage, Michael L. Turner and Royston GoodacreInfluence of Missing Values Substitutes on Multivariate Analysis of Metabolomics DataMetabolites2014, 4(2), 433-452; doi:10.3390/metabo4020433http://www.mdpi.com/2218-1989/4/2/433/htmAvailable online: Third PrizeAnne-Christin Hauschild, Dominik Kopczynski, Marianna D’Addario, Jörg Ingo Baumbach, Sven Rahmann and Jan BaumbachPeak Detection Method Evaluation for Ion Mobility Spectrometry by Using Machine Learning ApproachesMetabolites2013, 3(2), 277-293; doi:10.3390/metabo3020277http://www.mdpi.com/2218-1989/3/2/277/htmAvailable online: Award Selection CommitteeEditor-in-ChiefDr. Peter MeikleMetabolomics Laboratory, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australiapeter.meikle@bakeridi.edu.auE-Mail: Editorial Board MemberDr. Jan BaumbachComputational Biology Department, Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense C, Denmarkjan.baumbach@imada.sdu.dk E-Mail: Editorial Board MemberDr. Aalim WeljieDepartment of Pharmacology, University of Pennsylvania, 10-113 Translational Research Center, 3400 Civic Center Blvd, Bldg 421, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USAaalim@mail.med.upenn.eduE-Mail: Editorial Board MemberProf. Dr. Pollen K.F. YeungPharmacokinetics and Metabolism Laboratory, 5968 College Street, Burbidge Building, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, CanadaPollen.Yeung@Dal.CaE-Mail: Editorial Board MemberDr. Wolfgang EisenreichTechnische Universität München, Department Chemie, Lichtenbergstraße 4, 85747 Garching, Germanywolfgang.eisenreich@mytum.deE-Mail: Editorial Board MemberProf. Dr. Monica ColittiDepartment of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (DISA) via delle Scienze, 206 - 33100 Udine Italymonica.colitti@uniud.itE-Mail:


Biophysics Reports, a peer-reviewed international journal in cooperation with SpringerOpen, one of the largest open-access publishers in the biological science field.Welcome to Biophysics continues to be a crucial driving force for biological and biomedical research. Our goal is to provide a highly visible forum for the dissemination of innovative theories, methods and protocols, and novel findings based on technological developments. The current publication formats include Methods, Protocols, Research Articles, Puncta, and Reviews/Minireviews.Although the journal focuses on biophysics, we believe there is a growing need for integration across multiple disciplines to respond to biological and biomedical challenges. As such, this journal will address a broad audience of researchers in the life sciences working on technological developments including but not limited to biophysics, cell biology, immunology, membrane biology, redox biology, photobiology, neurobiology, oncology, biochemistry, biomechanics and mechanobiology, structural biology, biomedical imaging, electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, computational biology, bioinformatics, nanomedicine, genetics, model organisms, protein science, developmental biology, stem cells, omics, and biomedical big data. We also encourage authors to submit research articles that include data based on specific methods or techniques. Unlike the ‘methods sections’ of specialized journals, we place a strong emphasis on detailed technical information, rigorous validation, and practical relevance to the journal’s content. It is our aim to encourage interdisciplinary exchange of technical tool boxes.Biophysics Reports. With the journal Nature Methods as a model, we aim to work with scientific and publishing colleagues worldwide to establish Biophysics Reports as a high-quality, high-visibility, and high-impact international journal. We call upon our colleagues around the globe to join us in supporting Biophysics Reports, and making this journal a significant platform that promotes method and technique innovation.We are proud to present our distinguished Editorial Board consisting of worldwide experts from multiple disciplines. Our Editorial Office ensures that we offer rigorous and rapid peer review, free submission/publication, rapid publication upon acceptance, and compliance with all open-access mandates. We would like to acknowledge all those who have worked tirelessly to ensure the successful launch of Tao XuBiophysics ReportsEditor-in-Chief, Director, Institute of Biophysics,Chinese Academy of Sciences


These are initially screened in house for originality, relevance to an international public health audience and scientific rigour. If they pass the initial screening, they are sent to peer reviewers whose opinions are taken into account by the journal’s editorial advisers when they decide whether to accept a manuscript for publication. Accepted papers are subject to editorial revision, which may involve substantive changes, shortening or restructuring the text and deleting superfluous tables and figures. The word limits given for each type of contribution do not include the abstract (where applicable), tables, boxes, figures and references or appendices, if any. The principal types of manuscripts are outlined below.The 1.1.1.Bulletin. All manuscripts destined for the first four of these sections must include two paragraphs indicating what they add to the literature. The paragraphs should briefly explain:We welcome unsolicited submissions to the Research, Systematic reviews, Policy & practice, Lessons from the field and Perspectives sections of the what was already known about the topic concerned;what new knowledge the manuscript contributes.http://www.equator-network.org/about-equator/equator-publications0/equator-network-publications-2010. Intervention trials as defined by WHO  require registration in a public trials registry acceptable to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) before submission, and the registration number must be provided at the end of the abstract. Acceptable registries are listed at: http://www.icmje.org/faq_clinical.html. Web publication constitutes prior publication. This includes institutional web sites that are open to the general public.Research, methodologically rigorous, of relevance to international public health. Formal scientific presentations having not more than 3000 words and 50 references, plus a structured abstract ; peer reviewed. As clear reporting is needed for readers and reviewers when judging the quality of research, studies should comply with the relevant reporting guidelines, available on the EQUATOR Network web site, at: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/preferred-reporting-items-for-systematic-reviews-and-meta-analyses-the-prisma-statement. Exhaustive, critical assessments of published and unpublished studies (grey literature) on research questions concerning interventions, policies or practices in public health, with meta-analysis when feasible. Not more than 3000 words plus a structured abstract ; the number of references in accordance with the scope of the review; peer reviewed. How studies were included and excluded should be illustrated in a flow diagram. Authors should strictly follow the reporting guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) available at: Analytical assessments, debates or hypothesis-generating papers; not more than 3000 words and 50 references, plus a non-structured abstract ; peer reviewed.http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/84/1/3.pdf). Papers that capture experiences and practice gained in solving specific public health problems in developing countries. Convincing evidence of effect should be provided. Not more than 1500 words and 15 references, plus a structured abstract ; not more than one table and one figure; must include one box listing three lessons learnt; peer reviewed  surrounding an issue of public health interest; up to 1500 words, no more than six references; peer reviewed.1.1.2.The categories of articles shown below are normally commissioned by the editors. Authors wishing to submit an unsolicited manuscript for one of these categories should first contact the editorial office .Authoritative reviews, analyses or views of an important topic related to a theme or to one or more papers published in a given issue; not more than 800 words, maximum 12 references.Explanatory or critical analyses of individual articles; not more than 800 words and 12 references.A base paper on a controversial current topic in public health (not more than 2000 words and an abstract) is the core of a debate by several discussants invited to contribute not more than 500 words each.1.2http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf) and with the additional requirements, if any, of the country in which the research was carried out. Any manuscript describing the results of such research must contain a clear statement to this effect and should specify that the free and informed consent of the subjects or their legal guardians was obtained and that the relevant institutional or national ethics review board approved the investigation. The Bulletin is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics . Issues involving publication ethics may be referred to this committee by the editors. WHO Ethics Review Committee clearance is required for papers that report research supported by WHO or that are authored or co-authored by someone who was a WHO staff member while the research was conducted.The World Health Organization (WHO) publishes the results of research involving human subjects only if fully compliant with ethical principles, including the provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki  may be influenced by a secondary interest . We ask all authors to disclose at the time of submission any competing interests that they may have. Examples of competing interests may be found at: 1.4Authors should identify the sources that funded the work undertaken, affirm not having entered into an agreement with the funder that may have limited their ability to complete the research as planned, and indicate that they have had full control of all primary data.1.5Bulletin (see: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/9/645.pdf).Authors of rejected papers can appeal against the decision by following the procedures outlined in an editorial published in the 2.2.1Bulletin via our submissions web site (http://submit.bwho.org), where full instructions are given. Queries about online submissions should be sent to: bulletin.submit.ask@who.int. Authors requiring assistance with online submission can contact the editorial office.Manuscripts should be submitted to the 2.2ICMJE recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals. The complete document, updated in August 2013, is available at: http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the 2.3Bulletin; the abstracts are translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.Manuscripts should be submitted in English and will be published in that language in the 2.4ICMJE recommendations  must be rigorously observed. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work being reported to take public responsibility for the paper’s content and should describe in detail on the online submission system (not within the manuscript itself) his or her particular contribution. The Bulletin encourages submissions from authors in developing countries, and in line with this policy at least one author should have a professional affiliation in the country where the study was conducted.On the manuscript’s title page authors should give their full names and the name, city and country of their institutions. The corresponding author must also provide a full postal address, which will be published with the e-mail address unless otherwise requested. Academic titles and the names of departments and subdepartments are unnecessary and are discouraged for reasons of space. If an author has several affiliations, only the most important one should be provided. The criteria for authorship described in the 2.5http://submit.bwho.org/journals/bullwho/forms/licence.pdf. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce in their articles any material enjoying copyright protection. They should send the letter granting such permission to the editorial office when they submit their papers.If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author(s) will be asked to sign a statement granting exclusive licence for publication (not copyright) to the WHO. A copy of the statement is available at: 2.6These should be used only to enhance the understanding of the text, not to repeat what can be clearly communicated within the text. All tables, figures and boxes should be numbered consecutively .2.7Abstracts should highlight the text’s most important points and should be provided for the following types of papers: Research, Systematic reviews, Policy & practice, base papers for Round tables and Lessons from the field. The abstract should not exceed 250 words. It appears in English at the beginning of the paper and in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish between the end of the text and the reference list. Structured abstracts are required for Research papers and Systematic reviews  and for Lessons from the field papers . 2.8ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/manuscript_a.html). The accuracy of all references is the authors’ responsibility and authors are also responsible for dating access to URLs, providing a record of when they were active.Reference citations should be numbered consecutively as they occur in the text and references should be listed in accordance with the 2.9http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/htmain.htm, http://www.unsalb.org or http://apps.who.int/tools/geoserver and the vectorial EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file must be submitted.Papers should contain no maps unless an important finding cannot be conveyed without them or unless they are needed to make an essential point. Maps that show international borders, partially or in full, must be created from one of the following sources, approved by the United Nations:


Joining PubMed, after such a short history, emphasises the quality of the journal.All articles will be indexed in PubMed and will remain as open access material online in In close collaboration with the journals managing editor Prof Gordon McVie we have endeavored to reach as many people as possible involved in cancer care and research in an effort to enhance cancer education around the globe.These efforts have been made possible by the unwavering support of Prof Umberto Veronesi, who has for many years wished to establish a completely open access cancer journal which is free to doctors and researchers everywhere.ecancer. We will continue our mission of bringing cancer information to a global audience and aim to make ecancer the logical place to disseminate all oncology research and information.Obtaining indexing with PubMed was a tremendous undertaking and the future now looks bright for ecancer brings new responsibilities. The journal must continue to publish high quality papers and I am extremely proud of the excellent standard. They are a principal reason why we gained entry into PubMed. However innovative research from Institutes around the world often still goes unpublished. I encourage you to share even negative results with your colleagues and submit your experiences to ecancer.The next phase in the life of ecancermedicalscience was established and is currently running thanks to the financial support of Umberto Veronesi Foundation, European CanCer Organisation (ECCO), The European Institute of Oncology (IEO) and the IEO Foundation.I must also thank our editorial board members, authors, and peer-reviewers. ecancer is also available in the online databases SCOPUS and EMBase.ecancertv, and continuing to contribute to the progress against cancer,We look forward to publishing more papers, interviewing more researchers for


Technological advances have altered the way in which most life sciences laboratories operate. When I was a postdoc, substantial effort was needed to master basic molecular biology techniques that were complicated at the time but which are now available in kits. Today, one must be conversant in next-generation sequencing, total internal-reflection fluorescence microscopy, and bioinformatics. Research is growing more collaborative and interdisciplinary. ASM leadership recognized this in developing the concept for Our primary goals in designing the operation of the journal were to ensure that we publish high-quality science and that we make the author experience as painless as possible.The quality will come from a robust editorial and peer review mechanism similar to what we have come to expect from an ASM journal.mSphere and you are busy, please turn us down! It is much preferable for you to say no than to agree to review the manuscript and then take a long time to do so. When the reviews come in, the editor will make a decision. If authors are asked to revise their manuscript, we will not ask for extensive additional experimentation and I will expect our editors to make a decision on the revised manuscript without sending it out for rereview. While there will, of course, be exceptions in some situations, the vast majority of decisions will be guided by these principles. Accepted manuscripts will be posted continuously; there will not be regularly spaced issues, except for indexing purposes.We will enhance the author experience by empowering our editors to make rapid decisions. It is our goal to rely on two reviews of each manuscript and to obtain those reviews quickly. Therefore, if you are asked to review a manuscript for mSphere will provide a broader service to the scientific community. We will feature types of articles that will be useful and of interest to working scientists, as well as to other stakeholders in the microbial science research enterprise, including policy makers, ethicists, and even the public at large.In addition to publishing primary research results, mSphere will be your journal of choice for both presenting your own and reading about others’ cutting-edge scientific results. We are also committed to moving forward with a watchful eye on the dynamic environment in which research functions, and we will evolve to continually meet the needs of the community.Those of you who are familiar with the great University of Michigan football head coach Bo Schembechler know that his mantra was, “The team, the team, the team.” We have assembled a team of energetic, insightful, and thoughtful senior editors and editors committed to the goals I have described, and the staff at the ASM Journals Department are equally enthusiastic and dedicated to these goals. We are here to ensure that mSphere and who have helped me and the rest of the team shape the practices described above: Tom Shenk, Chair of the ASM Journals Board, and Barbara Goldman, ASM Director of Journals. I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me to lead this amazing team.I must thank two people in particular whose vision resulted in the creation of The senior editors and I look forward to seeing the great science and ideas that you will publish with us!


The roadmap for ending the AIDS epidemic is clear. Combined with a stronger focus on HIV prevention, reaching the 90–90–90 target – by 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90% of people with diagnosed HIV receive antiretroviral therapy (ART) and 90% of all people on HIV treatment achieve viral suppression – will enable us to lay the groundwork to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 . Scaled-When the 90–90–90 target was first formulated and recommended by the UNAIDS Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, it was met with scepticism in some quarters. However, since the launch of the 90–90–90 target in 2014, programmatic results have confirmed that the target, while ambitious, is achievable. In Malawi, a low-income country, implementation of a test-and-treat approach among pregnant women living with HIV has proven so successful that it is now seen as a stepping-stone towards universal treatment access and achievement of the 90–90–90 target , and a lDespite these promising signs, there is cause for concern, as critical steps needed to achieve 90–90–90 have yet to be taken, and key decision-makers and stakeholders have yet to display the sense of urgency needed to seize this historic opportunity to end the epidemic. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity to end the AIDS epidemic demands that we confront and overcome these obstacles.As of 2 December 2015, only 12 countries and a large province of another country had formally adopted the World Health Organization's recommendation to initiate ART in all people living with HIV, regardless of CD4 count . AlthougReaching the 90–90–90 target will require roughly doubling over the next five years the number of people receiving ART. However, health systems are weak and overstretched in many countries, underscoring the need for innovative approaches to strengthen health systems. Training and empowering community health workers to assume many ART-related tasks and to bring services closer to the people who need them are an urgent necessity. UNAIDS recommends that the share of HIV-related clinical services provided in community settings must rise from 5% currently to 30% to make the achievement of 90–90–90 feasible .One key gap in current treatment scale-up efforts is the failure in too many cases to reach marginalized populations, including men who have sex with men, migrants, people who inject drugs, prisoners, sex workers and transgender people . In addiPotential threats are also emerging regarding the future availability of optimally affordable antiretroviral (ARV) medicines. Four Indian manufacturers account for roughly 70% of the ARV market in low- and middle-income countries . AlthougIn the push to achieve 90–90–90, the availability of essential funding is also a cause for concern. Especially worrisome is the flattening of international HIV assistance , which jOne of the targets in the sustainable development goals (SDGs), endorsed by the United Nations (UN) Member States at the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Summit, is to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. However, the SDGs reflect a substantial broadening of the international development agenda, with ending AIDS representing only one of 169 targets. Maintaining a focus on AIDS in such a complex and crowded development agenda will be challenging. Yet, it is critical that decision-makers recognize the stakes involved in the 90–90–90 target. Following through and ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat will yield profound and long-lasting benefits in the form of improved productivity, averted future treatment costs and enhanced outcomes for children [Our “choice,” in other words, is really no choice at all. We must act now to fully leverage the preventive and therapeutic benefits of ART to lay the groundwork to end AIDS once and for all.


This editorial introduces a series of tutorials by experts, who provide tips and advice for junior reviewers on how to conduct peer review based on specific study designs. The aim of these articles is to provide an easy-to-use, quick reference for those who are seeking more guidance on how to peer review biomedical research papers. Unlike previous tips and guides on peer review, this series is the first to provide advice from experts for those in their specific fields. BMC Medicine receives submissions from a wide variety of biomedical fields, using many different types of study design. We select reviewers on the basis of their reputation and expertise in relevant subject areas and methodologies; but this process makes the assumption that using these criteria results in good peer review skills.As a general medical journal, Although untested, this is a widespread belief and, in the absence of any better way of assessing peer reviewer skills, it seems to work. Reviewer reports ultimately have the potential to influence what gets published. However, with the ever-increasing ‘burden’ of scholarly peer review that is placed upon the research community to meet the needs of journals and authors , these cTo address this burden, it is inevitable that the less experienced will be called upon to peer review more frequently, as the pool of ‘experienced’ peer reviewers runs dry. However, this presents a problem as there is a lack of formal training in peer review. This is often a skill learnt ‘on the job’ and dependent on having supportive mentors who might actually be able to offer advice.The quality of peer review is every bit as important as peer review itself. However, a significant proportion of reviewers feel that guidance and formal training in peer review is needed . Some juThere is a need to provide training, and not just to support the less experienced. There are also advantages to standardizing and specializing peer review to some extent to better define what it is for. One of the more recent proposals includes journal editors offering training and recognition for reviewers, and providing readers with a way to identify individual published articles that have been assessed by ‘trained’ reviewers .BMC Medicine, ‘Peer review: tips for junior reviewers’. The aim of these tutorials is to provide a source of quick reference on how to perform a critical peer review based on different study designs.With these ideals in mind, we have undertaken an initiative to provide training for peer review. Following a series of blogs –9 on theTo write these articles, we invited experts who regularly review for us and other journals. Many are from our editorial board and so are also experienced in guiding editorial decisions on the basis of reviewer reports.Peer reviewers guide editors to identify which papers can be published, and a key role is in identifying flaws in methodology and conclusions that are not backed by data. Reviewers are expected to tease apart ‘fatal flaws’ from potentially addressable flaws. In their tutorial, Del Mar and Hoffman provide examples of what can be considered to be a major flaw in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) . Key areCritical peer review ensures appropriate reporting of research, which in turn facilitates reproducibility. With this in mind, reporting guidelines that exist for many different types of study designs  are justOf course, it may not always be possible for a subject reviewer to assess all the statistical analysis in a given manuscript, especially as study designs and statistical methods undergo developments and updates to fit the needs of researchers. In their tutorial, Greenwood and Freeman provide guidance for non-statistical reviewers explaining why it is also important for subject reviewers to be aware of when they should recommend to the editors that a given manuscript should undergo review by a statistical expert. To aid this, they provide a list of common statistical issues that may act as a prompt for the subject reviewer .We will continue to add contributions from invited experts in various fields with the aim of shaping this article collection to provide a useful resource for reviewers across multiple disciplines. As with all of our journal content, these articles are freely available, and we hope that reviewers will find the advice to be constructive and useful.


The Lancet suggested that open health information for all could be achieved by 2015. Unfortunately, this goal has not yet been accomplished. Despite progress in obtaining quality scientific articles in Latin America, it remains difficult to reliably access new and cutting-edge research. As graduating Peruvian medical students, we have confronted many obstacles in obtaining access to quality and up-to-date information and a constant tension between accessing "what is available" rather than "what we need". As we have learned, these limitations affect not only our own education but also the choices we make in the management of our patients. In the following article, we state our point of view regarding limitations in access to scientific articles in Peru and Latin America.In 2004, an influential report in Although this philosophy remains with the scientific community to this day, for-profit publishers continue to charge for access. However, with the development of the internet, a new hope was born for open access2.Since the earliest days of scientific publishing, the dissemination of research has been intended to maximize impact rather than profitet al. proposed inThe Lancet, that we could achieve health information for all by 20153; nevertheless, eleven years later this goal has not yet been fulfilled. Instead, the open medical repository is just a fraction of all the information out there. For example, during 2011, only 17% of the 1.66 million articles published and indexed in Scopus were available through open access4.In 2004, Godlee6. The alternative scenario results in low literacy for medical professionals, affecting the diagnosis and treatment of patients. The scarcity of open literature contributes to an out-of-date medical practice, where health professionals“[believe] that they can go about their job without new information”7. This type of practice is unacceptable and should be changed for the well-being of our patients.Full access to scholarly articles carries several benefits to researchers, healthcare professionals, policymakers and to society in generalMedical school is a key moment to learn how to read critically the current research and to keep up-to-date with it. If we learn it as students, we will carry this practice throughout our career, but if we do not, it will only become harder later. In this context, after having gone through seven years of medical school, we believe it is important to state our point of view, as medical students, regarding the limitation of access to scientific articles in Peru and Latin America.Literatura Latinoamericana y del Caribe en Ciencias de la Salud (LILACS), theScientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), and The RedALyC project 11. LILACS is a database created by Biblioteca Regional de Medicina (BIREME) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO)11. Since 1982, it had become a crucial resource for the identification of Latin America’s peer-reviewed and "grey" literature on medicine, public health and epidemiology11. SciELO was conceived in 1997 as a pilot program to create a virtual library of Brazilian biomedical journals9. This later became an expanding publishing platform for Latin American journals that currently includes 15 countries from Latin America, Europe and Africa9. RedALyC, established in 2003, was born out as a need to cover the social sciences and humanities  that also widened its original focus to all disciplines8. Free-full-text articles in this region have prevailed because most of the journals are not-for-profit enterprises maintained by public academic institutions or scientific societies. In contrast to the usual ‘article publishing charge’ model of open access, Latin American journals follow a ‘fee-less-free’ model providing immediate free access to the electronic edition of the journals without charging the author’s institution for submission, processing or publication of the article on behalf of medical societies or associations12. This enables greater visibility for thousands of articles from Latin America10.Nowadays, without any doubt, the three most visible Latin American efforts to achieve the dream of open access and to catalyze globalized science are the9. This has been reflected in several initiatives such as the Network of Virtual Libraries of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), the Alliance of Agricultural Information Services (SIDALC), and LATINDEX, all created before the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 200210. Significantly, LATINDEX was one of the first referencing systems for the Ibero-American region, indexing journals related to social and medical sciences9. As Vessuriet al. stated,“[these are clearly great examples] of a region that was already exploring the possibility of building national collections of full-text electronic journals in open access”9. The most recent open access initiative in the region is the Federated Network of Institutional Repositories of Scientific Publications (LA Referencia)10. The aspiration of this regional network is to become the principal gateway through which Latin America expresses its scientific production to the rest of the world13. Since it was established in 2012, this interoperable network of national repository systems  has gathered more than 800,000 full-text documents available for all13.Latin America has long been active in promoting the visibility of its scientific productionuniversal access to essential health-care information”3. In other words, even though information is free in SciELO and RedALyC, most of the journals indexed by these services are outdated. A recent analysis in the field of Dermatology found that 60% of journals in these databases were not recent, had lower impact factors and published fewer issues per year when compared to non-free journals indexed in MEDLINE/Pubmed12.Despite the Latin American contribution towards policies in favor of open access, there is still scarce evidence to guarantee the fulfillment of “Public Library of Science (PLoS),BioMed Central (BMC),PeerJ orF1000Research14 allow scientists to publish their work in a high quality platform that also make their content freely available. Additionally, since 2005, research-funding agencies, such as the Wellcome Trust (UK) and National Institutes of Health (USA), promote a policy that all funded work should be publicly available and provide funds to cover the costs of publishing in open access journals15. These collaborative strategies are increasingly allowing healthcare professionals from developing countries to gain free access to high quality research.Outside of the continent, other international initiatives have also recently been developed. Open science publishing platforms, such as the16, for example, is one of the four programs from Research4Life, a public-private partnership of the World Health Organization, whose main goal is to provide“free or low cost access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content online”17. HINARI has provided access to more than 13,000 journals to developing countries since it was launched in 2002 and has opened the door to a world of relevant and latest medical information17. However, many top-notch journals are not always accessible through HINARI, which in turn creates a major setback for medical students18.Moreover, there are other global alliances that have also aimed to diminish the gap between what exists and what is available. HINARIRevista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Publica (http://bit.do/rpmesp), and theRevista de Gastroenterología del Perú (http://bit.do/revgastrope). All articles from these journals follow a ‘fee-less-free’ model and are deposited in their respective SciELO library, enabling flow of information and greater visibility19.In Peru, the main sources of scientific information available for students and healthcare professionals are journals indexed in the Latin American databases mentioned above. The access to other international journals, such as those indexed in MEDLINE, is limited by the agreements of each institute. Still, there are two Peruvian journals indexed in MEDLINE and both are characterized by providing articles online free of cost. These journals are theCyberTesis repository. This project was created to allow all theses to stay available online; however, this project is run independently by each school. This is a problem because its not a centralized archive but instead independent local ones. Researchers like to look for information in centralized databases, or at least use a meta-searcher. Local universities should join initiatives to centralize and share their repositories making it easier for researchers to read and cite them. Universities also possess their own independent journals and offer online repositories for the publications found therein. University-run journals can also upload their publications to SciELO repositories, like theRevista Medica Herediana (http://bit.do/revmedhered) from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Finally, as in other parts of the world20, Open Access Week is celebrated locally by some Universities such as Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú21 and Universidad de Lima22.In addition, Peruvian universities have developed strategies to keep their scientific production visible, available online and free of cost. We will mention three examples of these initiatives. Some universities require students to finish their career with a thesis that is then stored online in the online23. This repository provides access to scientific productions developed in our country  and also grants access to scientific databases such as ScienceDirect, EBSCO and ProQuest through its virtual library (http://proyectos.concytec.gob.pe/access/). However, this initiative is not well known among students and entails several registration requirements that are difficult for students to fulfill.The government of Peru also promotes open access. Under the Peruvian Law N° 30035, there must be a national open-access repository managed by the National Council of Science and Technology and Technological Innovation (CONCYTEC)“up-to-date, easy, fast, reliable, and affordable accesses to scientific information”24.We have completed seven years of medical education in Peru, and as we have passed through each stage of basic science, pre-clinical and clinical work, our need for updated knowledge has increased. This process has a huge impact on our training because medical school is the period during which we are expected to learn to critically read and to keep up-to-date with current clinical research. Our ability to master this skill then reflects on our clinical decision making and ultimately, affects our patients. Therefore, access to information is not only an intellectual exercise, but also an ethical obligation of our profession. If we ever expect to improve the lives of our patients, we needet al. suggested that students in low-income countries have a difficult time maintaining and advancing their knowledge and skills due to the limited access to pay-per-view journals18. This could become a threat to the student’s education since most of these journals require readers to pay a fee at an unattainable cost (USD20–USD45) for the majority of medical students in developing countries18, making access to research a “pay-wall” to overcome20.In 2007, Villafuerte-GálvezRegardless of the efforts aforementioned, we believe that access should have more promotion by local governments and journals. Governments should keep allocating money to help pay open access initiatives and, on the other hand, journals should offer waivers to authors that cannot pay. Some journals already do this, however many do it depending on the country’s income. This becomes a problem when a country changes its classification (eg. from low income country to middle income country), but its researchers are still lacking the resources. This is the case of Peru. Hence, we do not think that waivers should be based solely on the author’s country affiliation, but instead on a case-by-case basis.25 which is much lower than that reported in physicians from USA (81%), Canada (76%) or UK (77%)26. However, we found no data on how many of these queries achieve access to full-text articles. In our experience,“only through removing the barriers to access to global research that health improvements can be accelerated”27. The problem we hope to tackle some day is the one related to the“the ‘last mile’ of the process which actually delivers the document or other source that has been searched for”28.It has been shown that at least one in three (33%) recent Peruvian medical graduates use MEDLINE/PubMed to search for scientific articlesIn order to obtain the best medical knowledge, as medical students from a developing country, we must overcome two main obstacles: access and language. Even if barriers to access can be overcome, the language barrier may remain. English is considered the language of biomedical science. However, not all scientists know it, especially in rural and developing areas. It is a shame when researchers studying the health problems of a rural area only report their findings in English. How will the healthcare personnel from that area learn and apply this knowledge? Some Latin American journals (ie. Medwave) have aimed to lessen this gap by providing the same article, with the same digital object identifier (DOI), in more than one language. This is obviously extra work for both the publisher and the authors, but if the information cannot be understood, then it will not be applied.“Health information for all” should be guided by four principles: access, usability, quality, and cost and sustainability29. First, research should be freely accessible to individuals and organizations all around the globe. As mentioned earlier, the key issue about this criterion is the availability of free full-text, ideally in the native language where the research was done. Second, usability implies being able to access the full range of the latest tools to organize, analyze and manipulate the content relevant to their work. Third, the rigorous peer-review process must be maintained without affecting the previous principles. The openness and transparency of academic publishers (not-for-profit) guarantee the quality and development of publications supported by peer-review. Finally, citing The Finch Report, “the main point of cost and sustainability is that no form of publishing is cost-free, and the key requirement is therefore that publishers, whether commercial or not-for-profit, should be able to generate revenues to meet the cost of services they provide”29.As The Finch Group Report suggests, strategies that aim to achieve the dream ofEleven years have passed and despite some initiatives, the goal of open access has not been achieved. We have not lost hope that universal access to essential health-care information will occur, but maybe it is time to change our individual approach and for governments, universities and academic societies to develop a unified strategy by which open access can be achieved, while still fulfilling the aforementioned four principles.Until then, will we keep dealing with the dilemma of accessing “what is available” rather than “what we need”? I have no further comments to this paper (V2). The authors have fully addressed the comments I made to version one and thoroughly revised the article. It is a very nice paper, that I am sure will create a lot of discussion about access to the best evidence.I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. This is about dreams, and dreams do not always come true, even open access ones.This is an interesting opinion text, and not a researched article. It therefore aims to stimulate discussion about the key issue of open access, particularly in the medical world. It raises the interesting, and often overlooked, issue as to access to research for medical practitioners and not just researchers.There are a number of issues. One is the control of the big publishers who have no intention to release archived texts. Whilst new production may come out as gold open access, there is still a wealth of hidden data. As they say, citing the Finch report, there is a question of cost as publishing one has a cost that the researcher must pay. Another issue is one of language, and that is related to evaluation criteria and indicators. As long as international is seen as a proxy for quality, and as long as the English language will be seen as international, there will be a problem. In years to come, their dream will come increasingly true, but to hasten it a change of mindset on language is vital, especially as Spanish is far from a minority language. The big question will remain archives as the publishers are sitting on a gold mine, and they know it.I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. This is a very interesting article facing a challenge for developing countries, costs of publications. Whilst Open Access is excellent in this setting because allows wide access for everybody, also implies costs for authors in most journals, which is also difficult. Particularly this should be considered more in this discussion. Goverments and institutions should be more responsible covering those costs. But also journals should be responsible and consider extreme cases of inability to pay, then offering waivers, and particularly giving different costs for authors from developing countries, regardless of the classification of the World Bank, which is not fair. For example, the HINARI initiative has fallen short for this reason. Many countries there, included Colombia and Peru, were considered according to the WB as countries with an income not classifiable to have access. Then, this is unfair. Anyway, I would like to see more of this discussion in the paper.I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. et al. present an interesting opinion paper about the availability of health information for health practitioners in Latin America. The title gains in irony after one reads the article, which concludes that health information for all remains a dream and not an accomplishable goal. The abstract clearly contextualizes the article to the opinions of the authors and adequately encapsulates the depth of the subject matter. The arguments presented in the article are clearly stated as opinions based on personal experiences, and thus are not necessarily substantiated by evidence gathered from relevant literature. I recommend the article be approved as an opinion paper – this is not ground breaking new knowledge - but is a topic that needs discussion as in the end, access to information can affect clinical decisions.Proañominor revisions:I recommend the followingp.3, column 1, line 18-20.  “This project was created to allow all theses to stay available online: however, this project is run independently by each school.”Please include a sentence on why this is problematic – is it a meta-data problem, incompleteness, etc. Do the authors have a solution?et al. p.3, column 2, line 1. “In 2007, Villafuerte-GálvezPlease correct the use of the singular to the plural eg p3. Column 2, line 9-12. “It has been shown that at least one in three recent Peruvian medical graduates use Medline/PubMed….”et al. (ref.#24) 34% of the sample regularly used Medline/PubMed. Other studies, using other countries, for example by Davis , report use of PubMed/MEDLINE to be between 70 and 84%.Is this surprisingly different from any other country? In the referenced article by Mejiahttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Davies/publication/49763179_Physicians_and_their_use_of_information_A_survey_comparison_between_the_United_States_Canada_and_the_United_Kingdom/links/004635286b7abf103d000000.pdfp.3, column 2, line 51. “…but maybe is time to change..”Please correct to “…but maybe it is time to change…”p4, column 1, line 2. “ …fulfilling the four principles aforementioned.”Please change to “…fulfilling the aforementioned four principles.”p.4, column 1, line 3-4.  “Will we keep dealing with the dilemma of accessing “what is available” rather than “what we need”?The ending could be stronger. Please consider rewriting this final sentence. Try something like: “Until then, we will keep dealing with the dilemma of accessing “what is available” rather than “what we need”.For my personal interest:p.3, column 2, line 26-28 “Some Latin American journals have aimed to lessen the gap by providing the same article, with the same digital object identifier, in more than one language”This is interesting, I would like to learn more. Is this allowed, ethically? Is this not self-plagiarism? How do you cite such publications and do they count as one or two separate works?I have read this submission. I believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard. Thank you very much for your suggestions and for taking the time to review our paper. We look forward to any comments you have on this in the future.p.3, column 1, line 18-20.  “This project was created to allow all theses to stay available online: however, this project is run independently by each school.”Response: “This is a problem because its not a centralized archive but instead independent local ones. Researchers like to look for information in centralized databases, or at least use a meta-searcher. Local universities should join initiatives to centralize and share their repositories making it easier for researchers to read and cite them.”Please include a sentence on why this is problematic – is it a meta-data problem, incompleteness, etc. Do the authors have a solution?et al. p.3, column 2, line 1. “In 2007, Villafuerte-Gálvez Response: Change madePlease correct the use of the singular to the plural eg p3. Column 2, line 9-12. “It has been shown that at least one in three recent Peruvian medical graduates use Medline/PubMed….”et al. (ref.#24) 34% of the sample regularly used Medline/PubMed. Other studies, using other countries, for example by Davis , report use of PubMed/MEDLINE to be between 70 and 84%.Is this surprisingly different from any other country? In the referenced article by Mejia https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karen_Davies/publication/49763179_Physicians_and_their_use_of_information_A_survey_comparison_between_the_United_States_Canada_and_the_United_Kingdom/links/004635286b7abf103d000000.pdfResponse: We agree with your point of view and think that contrasting Peruvian reality with the one in the UK brings about a good comparison for readers to understand Peru’s reality. Thus, it now reads: “It has been shown that at least one in three (33%) recent Peruvian medical graduates use MEDLINE/PubMed to search for scientific articles 24 which is much lower than that reported in physicians from USA (81%), Canada (76%) or UK (77%) add new citation; however, we found no data on how many of these queries achieve access to full-text articles.”p.3, column 2, line 51. “…but maybe is time to change..”Response: Change madePlease correct to “…but maybe it is time to change…”p4, column 1, line 2. “ …fulfilling the four principles aforementioned.”Response: Change madePlease change to “…fulfilling the aforementioned four principles.”p.4, column 1, line 3-4.  “Will we keep dealing with the dilemma of accessing “what is available” rather than “what we need”?The ending could be stronger. Please consider rewriting this final sentence. Try something like: “Until then, we will keep dealing with the dilemma of accessing “what is available” rather than “what we need”.Response: Change madeFor my personal interest:p.3, column 2, line 26-28 “Some Latin American journals have aimed to lessen the gap by providing the same article, with the same digital object identifier, in more than one language”Response: This is allowed ethically, because it would have the same MEDLINE/PubMed entry. Thus, we do not believe this is self-plagiarism because it does not count as two publications, but just one (same DOI) with two different ways of viewing it. I think this does not pose a big problem, because readers know that it is the same version in different languages. For example, the journal Medwave provides, within the same Pubmed Abstract page two options: English or Spanish such as in this case:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26248156This is interesting, I would like to learn more. Is this allowed, ethically? Is this not self-plagiarism? How do you cite such publications and do they count as one or two separate works?Response to specific comments is as follows:


The excitement of making a new compound, discovering new characterization methods, and applying these systems for practical applications is a feeling that many of us as chemists and scientists markedly enjoy. Yet how can we pass along these experiences to younger generations? One major way involves communication of our results in written forms that others can experience over long periods of time, and use to generate new and exciting ideas.Frontiers, to clarify our thoughts and ideas, certainly should lead to improved writing and communication.The pleasure and process of writing a research article is a complicated one. We need to learn to communicate so that a broad audience can understand what we are thinking, and most of us master this process by trial and error. The ability to have better feedback through, for example, the mechanism afforded by The subject of Chemistry is a very broad and exciting one. Chemistry evolved from alchemy and atomism to the chemical science that we know today, central to so many disciplines. There are clear examples of the current and future prospects of studying Chemistry ranging from studies of the nature and birth of the Universe to infinitesimal detail of how atoms, ions, and molecules come to ether at a very small scale. Chemistry is central to all research endeavors including the very current topics of energy, medicinal, pharmaceutical and biological chemistry, materials, and environmental research.The world is and will be facing a variety of difficult problems that center around energy, resources, education, health, and climate. Chemists have the ability and knowledge to understand these problems, to design and carry out experiments to gain more fundamental insight, and to help design new strategies, materials and devices that will help humans survive and live better, longer, and happier.An important first step in chemists helping our world is writing our results of experiments, writing about ideas to pursue for the future, and enhancing understanding of these complex areas of need. Authors should also not be reticent to publish disconfirming results or studies on the non-reproducibility of previously published work in journals that allow the general growth of knowledge and the exchange of information between research groups around the world.Frontiers that allow dialog between authors, reviewers, and editors while protecting anonymity of referees during the review process provide a unique environment for generation of articles that are more clear and useful due to such open conversation.Writing of research papers can readily lead to confusion if reviewers and editors are not conscientious. It is easy to spew out the everyday acronyms of instruments and methods that we use constantly without defining these. It is easy to mix results (facts) and discussion (opinions). It is easy to incorporate drawings, diagrams, and photos that are not of high quality. It is our duty as editors, reviewers, and authors to not take the easy route but rather to put in the effort to do things the right way. The right way is quite time consuming, but certainly well worth the effort. Open access journals, especially those like Frontiers of open access as well as outstanding feedback is currently unique. In the world of chemists, scientists, and engineers, this is akin to doing experiments. Open access and the novel pre-publication feedback implies open minds of such publishers. At the same time, clear and novel procedures regarding publishing of such articles, which are in their infancy as regards published articles is needed and likely will evolve in time.Publishers of Chemistry articles have very different ideas regarding methods and the structure of publications, and the concept of The role of editors is that of watch keeper of the written record. Our duty of editing is to provide information, suggestions regarding protocols, to define areas of research interest, to enhance quality and visibility of articles and journals, and to do so in a timely manner. Editors need to take time to make sure reviews are fair, that enough and quality reviews are received, and that the papers to be accepted are complete, interesting, and unique.The role of reviewers is also multi-fold. It is ideal that a reviewer is an expert in the field of expertise of the article being reviewed. However, that is not always the case since much of what we do as chemists is truly unique. A key need is a timely review. We all submit papers and we all appreciate receiving reviews in a reasonable time, especially at the current evolving rate of science and research. Reviewers need to provide details of ways to improve articles especially in the area of communication and understanding of what is trying to be written and disseminated by authors. Often what we write and what we intend to say are very different. Suggestions on improvements are quite different than simple criticism and it seems appropriate to start expecting collaboration between scientists even during the review process to publish great articles.Finally and most importantly we come to authors. Without authors and submitted research articles there are no journals nor adequate transfer of information to future generations. Authors need to decide when they have enough clear results to tell a story. They need to spend the time to write as clearly as possible so that as many people from different walks of life can understand what they want to communicate. We are all continuing to learn how to write clearly and effectively. This is a difficult task because most of us have been well trained in skills of doing experiments but not in skills regarding excellent writing.Frontiers in Chemistry. This is a very exciting and opportune time for chemists, scientists, and engineers who will make significant strides to solve the problems of our world. Our Grand Challenge in Frontiers in Chemistry is to promote the publication of exciting, clear, and well-reviewed manuscripts of the highest quality and relevance to the area of chemistry and in particular to help solve current and future fundamental and applied problems that we all face.I look forward to working with all of the publishers, editors, reviewers, and authors of The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Royal Society Open Science provides an exciting new avenue for researchers across all scientific disciplines to publish their research. It offers a range of innovative features backed by one of the world's most respected scientific institutions, so I was delighted to be invited to become the first Editor-in-Chief.Open Science different are:— It covers the whole of science, from Pure Mathematics to Psychology, and it particularly welcomes work that cuts across conventional boundaries. The recent special call for papers on City Analytics is a good example, using the emerging tools of Big Data, complexity science and dynamical systems to bring about new understanding in areas such as crowd behaviour, urban planning and energy usage.— Gold Open Access, currently with a full introductory waiver of the article processing charge: it is free to publish.— The option of open peer review, with reviewers’ comments being published alongside the paper. Currently, approximately 60% of authors take up this option.— Objective peer review, which means that all research deemed scientifically sound and useful to the community will be published. Priority and impact are not considerations.— Open data principles, requiring all supporting data to be made available such that all results presented are fully reproducible. We work with several large data repositories to ensure that it is as easy as possible for authors to comply with this policy.— Compatibility with prior deposit on a pre-print server. We have integrated our submission system with ArXiv so that authors can submit files to us just by entering their ArXiv ID number.— Registered Reports, in which methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and peer-reviewed prior to research being conducted. High-quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. Once the study is completed, the author will finish the article including results and discussion sections. This will be appraised by the reviewers, and provided necessary conditions are met, will be published. We are the first broad scope journal to offer this type of article, broadening availability to disciplines other than psychology, neuroscience and economics. The format is open to attempts of replication as well as novel studies.— Advanced analytics, allowing authors and readers to see how the publication has been received in social media and other non-conventional fora as well as citation performance.The key features that make Open Science has received 1050 original submissions and has accepted 332 papers for publication. The most-read articles have included such titles asp-values [— An investigation of the false discovery rate and the misinterpretation of p-values ;Balaenoptera omurai) off northwest Madagascar: ecology, behaviour and conservation needs [— Omura's whales (on needs ;— The deep sea is a major sink for microplastic debris ;— The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010 ; and— The advantage of short paper titles .In the 20 months since opening for submissions, Open access is a way of publishing that has grown more quickly in biology than in many other areas, and the content of the papers published in the journal so far reflects that cultural difference. It has recently been agreed that the chemistry section of the journal will be published in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry and so will benefit from their experience and reputation for managing and editing chemical science journals of the highest quality.New Journal of Chemistry and Chair of the Board of Chemical Society Reviews, so I hope to bring some experience of running journals to this new role too. The journal has already begun to flourish through the terrific contributions of the Subject Editors and the publishing staff. I am greatly looking forward to working with them and of course with authors so that together we can develop Royal Society Open Science into an irresistible place for us all to publish our science.As it happens, I am a chemist. My research interests have spanned across many boundaries, and over the years I have published in journals covering Biochemistry, Pharmacology and Chemical Physics as well as in a broad range of core chemistry journals. In Cambridge, I have been Head of Physical Sciences and then Pro-Vice-Chancellor, roles that I enjoyed because of the broad intellectual sweep of my responsibilities. I have been Associate Editor of


The fundamental mission of science in providing knowledge and guidance for solving current and future challenges seems to be changing at accelerated pace, undoubtedly as a result of other economical, technological, and social deep changes. The trend is easily noticeable from an objective and neutral field toward an open, large, and unmerciful business market with many subjective and biased criteria for funding, hiring, promotion, and unscrupulous conducts in many cases. Due to a rubbish “publish-or-perish” mantra, the absence of ethical rules or the ignorance of their existence in a work environment, some scientists weave a kind of intentional or unintentional “tricks” to their way to do or to report science. Questionable conducts ranging from fabricating research data to inappropriate lab notebook records have been reported. While the incidence of research misconducts is unknown precisely at global level Fanelli, , multiplMany scientists nowadays are narrowly-specialists with meager knowledge outside of their specialty, their PhD or postdoc's research projects, despite a great facility to gather scientific information and knowledge. In the past, and almost as a rule, most scientists were multidisciplinary experts. It was very common to find a scientist as a doctor, physicist, chemist, biologist, and philosopher at the same time. Although one may argue that there is too much information to grasp in today's multidisciplinary patterns, the availability of extraordinary textual and visual means, such as videos, professional illustrations, easy communication tools, internet, etc., makes it relatively simple and straightforward to understand complex scientific information compared to the past. In other words, the multidisciplinary knowledge today is not proportional to the facilities we enjoy compared to scientists long ago. Moreover, specialization has disadvantageous effects on the cost of science and risk for monopoly and monotony , it is mostly the desire to share the “prestige” of a journal that leads authors to jam on a paper. Moreover, multiple authorships may cause disputes that might result in retraction. Long authorship lists may also compromise the authorship credit because the greater the number of authors, the less credit per author Hagen,  whereas authors X and Y contributed equally to this work.” However, how would it be possible to contribute “equally” from a practical viewpoint, particularly in writing or performing different experiments, unless by writing exactly the same number of words or carrying out exactly the same experiments, which is hardly achievable in a scientific work, given that experiments are different and article sections are also of different values and importance? While it should be recognized that “equally-valued” but different types of contributions can be made by two authors, a potential “better” solution might be specifying the contribution of each author “who did what” and let readers judge the importance. Although some journals have already set up such rules, it is still difficult to determine the order of priority of authorship, particularly with the absence of standard about it.Paradoxically, while multiple authorship and cooperative research has become the “norm” since some years ago, particularly in applied sciences, the most prestigious award in science  is often granted to one, two or three people only, despite the collaborative characteristic of science (Casadevall and Fang, “This is the first time that…” or “we describe for the first time that…” or “data not shown”! If data are “not shown,” why to talk about them, then? If they are worthy, they should be shown or provided at least as supplementary material, if not, why to mention it? Moreover, how would it be possible to be sure that it is really the “first time” in a world of ~7 billion people and up, without surveying their thoughts and/or their published books, articles, notes etc., in all languages, all countries, all cities and villages? A more objective prose would be to say “to the best of our/my knowledge, this is the first study of…”Another “trick” is to read terms such as: The culture of numbers is becoming a misleading mark of “reputation and recognition” Bauer, . The numAnother pitfall is the trend toward big business of scientific journals and their publishers. Open access is now an option or compulsory in many journals, but this may favor richer labs and the money paid for this typically comes from the labs and not the institutions whose libraries would otherwise have to pay for subscriptions. Open access journals have added a value to the publication world, but in most cases they are still costly. Open access publishers should reduce their publication cost, since the overall costs have been considerably reduced by saving the costs of paper, printing and shipment.Additionally, with the increasing number of publications, there is an alarming trend toward low quality peer-reviewing and editing which is often done by less experienced academics. At the same time, publishers are highly profitable. To rectify this issue, reviewers and editors should be remunerated for their efforts to provide quality feedback. However, remuneration of editors and reviewers may raise other problems. That is, only rich publishers will be able to remunerate editors and reviewers, and small publishers or individual journals would be convicted to disappear. Rich publishers may also increase their subscription or their open access fees to cover the remuneration of editors and reviewers, creating new pressures on editors, reviewers, and authors with probably some bias and/or conflict of interest in a paid peer-review process.A best “idealistic” solution in my view would be the option of “no-fee all-free,” where open access should be free for readers and authors as well. But in such a case, someone should pay the costs of the maintenance and the sustainability of the open access. Some rich institutions have recently started to follow this option, but they are still very few and it is not sure if they will continue to do so in the future and for how much time. The future will show if this system will be viable or not, since some journals have started free, but their publishers now are among the richest publishers over there, due to expensive fees applied after no-fee successful test periods.To reduce some of the misconducts mentioned above and to make the publication system fairer and transparent, serious efforts are required at different levels. Thesis advisors and research supervisors have great parts of responsibility in making clear to their trainees to behave ethically and to report data as honestly as possible, even if data do not meet the desired expectations Spier, . Each auFinally, it is worthy to note that some of “the issues” discussed above could be the result of simple ignorance or unintentional errors, particularly from junior trainees or inexperienced scientists who may unconsciously commit some involuntary errors because they simply ignore the ethical context of their work. A distinction between deliberate misconducts, and honest errors should thus be made and explained during educational sessions and mentoring process (Resnik and Stewart, The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


To start, and pursue a journal dedicated to a superspecialty with meager monetary and human resources has not been an easy feat. On expected lines, we mainly received case reports in its infancy. Slowly, we attained acceptance globally and the authors from all the continents started contributing. We fulfilled our promise to archive every manuscript on PubMed Central that we have published since the inception of JNS in 2015. It has been a learning opportunity for us as well. We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the authors who trusted the journal and its editorial team. Though we struggle to get original research papers and random controlled trials, we have strived to maintain the standards of the contents and honored the publication dates. Aged four, we are presently full of energy, curious and eager to show what we can do. The stage of waffling between feelings of security and insecurity is gone. We are excited by our accomplishments. We are looking ahead to get indexed with Medline and official Impact Factor.Source of Support: NilConflict of Interest: The author is editor of the journal. This article is not externally peer reviewed.


With the rapidly expanding field of gynecologic oncology, there is an unmet need to enable the rapid sharing of data. The electronic era now allows speedy review and almost immediate publication of cutting edge scientific and clinical material. Additionally, the opportunity to upload videos, photos and datasets would be a huge advancement for our specialty. All of this in an “open access” format that would be free of charge is sorely needed.Gynecologic Oncology Research and Practice[It is with great pleasure that we launch Practice, an openGynecologic Oncology Research and Practice are freely and universally accessible online, so available to readers at no cost with access not limited by their library’s budget. Articles published under this model therefore have the potential to reach a much larger readership than any subscription-based journal [Being open access, all articles published in  journal , with so journal , 4. Publ journal –8.The journal is benefited by our high-profile Editorial Board  who willAs well as publishing up-to-date research, the journal will also feature topical review articles, interesting cases, novel methodologies, and thought-provoking opinions. Combine this with the option to uploaded unlimited photos, videos and datasets, the ability to post online comments, and the capabilities to immediately share articles via social media, the journal has the potential to become a hub for distributing new knowledge and discussing stimulating topics in the field.et al. determine the protein expression profile (PEP) of primary and recurrent ovarian cancer patients in order to predict therapeutic targets for chemotherapy [In journal’s inaugural articles, Micael Lopez-Acevedo, Angeles Secord and colleagues explore the activity of dasatinib in combination with gemcitabine and docetaxel in uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) cell lines in order to determine if dasatinib inhibits the SRC pathway , a revieotherapy .Gynecologic Oncology Research and Practice.It is with these thoughts that we welcome new readers and potential collaborators to